Uighurs deported

PHNOM PENH: A group of 20 Muslim Uighurs who were seeking refuge in Cambodia after unrest in the Chinese region of Xinjiang were deported back to China late Saturday, an interior ministry spokesman said. "The 20 Uighurs have been sent back to China on a Chinese plane Saturday night," spokesman Khieu Sopheak told AFP. Cambodia had said earlier Saturday it would expel the Uighurs despite protests from the United States and rights activists. The Uighurs' presence in Phnom Penh was made public two weeks ago as they sought UN refugee status in Cambodia, saying they risked torture in China.

Macau anniversary

MACAU: A group of Hong Kong democracy activists were barred from entering Macau on Saturday ahead of the city's 10th anniversary of its return to Chinese rule. The 14 campaigners planned to petition Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is in Macau to attend a series of celebration events, to demand universal suffrage for Hong Kong. "We were taken away to several rooms when we arrived at customs," Leung Kwok-hung, a Hong Kong lawmaker and member of the pro-democracy League of Social Democrats, told AFP. "The immigration officers asked us to sign some documents before sending us to a ferry back to Hong Kong." Leung, better known as "Long Hair", said he met a Hong Kong journalist who was also questioned by the officers in the same room.

US military budget

WASHINGTON: The US Congress on Saturday sent US President Barack Obama a massive annual military spending bill that funds current operations in Afghanistan and pays for the troop withdrawal from Iraq. In a rare weekend vote, the Senate approved the 636.3-billion-dollar package, which cleared the House of Representatives 395-34 on Wednesday, by an 88-10 margin. Obama is expected to send Congress an emergency spending measure of at least 30 billion dollars early next year to pay for his recently announced decision to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan. The bill includes 101.1 billion dollars for operations and maintenance and military personnel requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan and to carry out the planned withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq by August 2010. The package also funds the purchase of 6,600 new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armoured vehicles configured to better resist improvised explosive devices -- roadside bombs used to deadly effect by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pak blast toll 15

PESHAWAR: The death toll from a suicide attack on a Pakistan mosque rose to 15 on Saturday after bodies were plucked from the rubble and people succumbed to their injuries. The bomber rammed a vehicle rigged with explosives into a mosque next to a police headquarters in Lower Dir, a northwest district that Pakistan claims to have cleared of Taliban fighters after a major offensive this year. "The death toll has reached 15 in the suicide blast. Two people died in hospital and two people were taken out from under the rubble," Doctor Wakeel Mohammad Khan, head of main hospital in Lower Dir, told AFP. Muhammad Idrees Khan, deputy inspector general of police in the district, confirmed the same death toll from the attack in Taimergara town. Islamist extremists are stepping up attacks in Pakistan to avenge military operations trying to crush Taliban sanctuaries in parts of the northwest, targeting security forces and increasingly civilians.