World Digest: Iran Releases Reporter for Washington Times

IRAN

Washington Times Reporter Released

Iran said Sunday that it has released a British-Greek journalist detained for two weeks during its post-election crackdown as opposition forces pressing their claims of fraud called for parliament to dismiss President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The freelance reporter for the Washington Times, Iason Athanasiadis, was accused of "illegal activities" during the protests that followed the June 12 presidential election. He was thought to be the only journalist without Iranian citizenship among the hundreds of journalists, bloggers and activists detained.

Greece's Foreign Ministry confirmed his release and said he would leave Iran "within the day."

The government's crackdown has quelled days of deadly street unrest, but authorities are still grappling with how to handle the fallout from an election that has exposed divisions in the streets and in the clerical leadership. The opposition has claimed widespread election fraud and has asserted that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is the true winner, not Ahmadinejad.

-- Associated Press

CHINA

Ethnic Rioting Kills 3 In Restive Region

Three people died in rioting in China's restive far west Xinjiang region, state media reported, in a confrontation that underscored the tense divide there between Han Chinese and the Uighur ethnic minority.

The official New China News Agency said rioters "illegally gathered in several downtown places and engaged in beating, smashing, looting and burning" in the regional capital, Urumqi.

The dead were "three ordinary people of the Han ethnic group," the news agency said. It did not say how they died.

Nor did the official reports specify the ethnicity of those involved in the unrest or the reasons behind it. Calls to the Xinjiang government spokesman's office and Urumqi police were not answered.

But other sources said the clash involved members of the Uighur community, many of whom resent the Chinese presence in the region, and the cultural and religious controls imposed by China's ruling Communist Party.