Rebels shoot dead five in Indian election violence

NEW DELHI - Rebels shot dead five people at a polling station in India's northeast on Saturday as voting began in the first of five local elections seen as a popularity test for the national Congress government.

The separatist rebels sprayed the voting booth with bullets, killing three election officials, a paramilitary trooper and a civilian in Thangpi, a village south of Manipur state capital Imphal, police chief Priya Singh said.

"The militants opened random fire," Singh told AFP, adding two other people were hurt in the attack which came despite tens of thousands of security forces deployed in a bid to thwart attacks during the voting for a new assembly.

Senseless violence spreads from London

Riots spread to cities outside London as 16,000 police take to the steets of 

London in a show of strength.

LONDON: Britain’s worst riots for decades spread to new cities as youths ran amok in Manchester and the industrial Midlands, after 16,000 police took to the streets of London in a show of strength.

Violence erupted in Manchester, Britain’s third-largest city, as youths smashed shop windows and looted shops and chased photographers away from the scene, while hooded rioters set fire to buildings in West Bromwich and Wolverhampton in central England.

There were unconfirmed reports a firearm was used by a rioter near Aston, north of the city centre.

Looters also targeted shops in Birmingham for another night.

UK riots: Mindless violence or a cry of rage?

LONDON: The torched skeletons of burnt-out buildings, a red double-decker bus in flames and looters forming orderly queues to pile TV plasma screens into their trollies – the images of the
2011 London riots tell their own story.

With less than a year to go until London plays host to the 2012 Olympics, and the police in turmoil following recent top-level resignations, these were the last pictures anyone in authority would have wished to see.

But while the images are compelling, easy answers about what lies behind the seemingly sudden eruption of angry, and uninhibited, violence in the British capital, are harder to find.