China court jails general's son Li Tianyi for rape

 A court in China has convicted the son of a high-profile army general and 

sentenced him to 10 years in jail for rape, state media say.

The court said Li Tianyi, 17, and four others raped the woman at a Beijing hotel in February after having drinks.

He had denied any sexual relations with the woman, whom he alleged was working as a prostitute, previous reports say.

Li Tianyi is the son of army Gen Li Shuangjiang, known for his renditions of patriotic songs on television.

Li Tianyi's mother Meng Ge is also a well-known singer in China's People's Liberation Army.

The case was heard at the Haidian Court in north-west Beijing. The other defendants also received jail terms ranging from three to 12 years.

This was not the first time that Li Tianyi, also known as Li Guanfeng, was involved in an incident that sparked public outcry. In 2011, he was sentenced to detention for a year over a road rage incident.

He was behind the wheel of a BMW car with no licence plates in Beijing when he confronted a middle-aged couple in another vehicle blocking his way.

He assaulted the couple and shouted at shocked bystanders, telling them not to "dare to call the police".

His father apologised to the couple over the incident.

The case of Li Tianyi inflamed public anger at the children of the political elite, who are often seen as spoilt and above the law, correspondents say.

Strong earthquake in Pakistan's Balochistan province kills more than 200 people

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- An earthquake in Pakistan, powerful enough to prompt the appearance of a small island off the coast, has killed more than 200 people, Pakistani officials said.

The 7.7-magnitude quake struck in a remote area of southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, but it had severe consequences.

At least 238 people were killed in Balochistan province, Jan Muhammad Buledi, a spokesman for the provincial government, said Wednesday.

In addition to the fatalities, around 400 people have been injured, he said. And more people are still feared to be trapped in rubble.

Rescue efforts are under way in the heavily hit districts of Awaran and Kech in Balochistan. But severely damaged communications networks are hindering the operation, Buledi said.

Thousands of survivors from the earthquake are facing difficulties in the two districts, he added, saying that authorities have received offers of support from Iran and Turkey.

The quake was strong enough to cause a mass 20 to 30 feet high to emerge from the Arabian Sea like a small mountain island off the coast of Gwadar, local police official Mozzam Jah said. A large number of people gathered to view the newly formed island, he said.

Large quakes can cause significant deformation to the earth's crust, particularly visible along coastlines.

The island is about 100 feet in diameter and about one mile off the coast, GEO TV reported.

Zahid Rafi, principal seismologist for the National Seismic Monitoring Center, confirmed the island had formed. He said it was "not surprising," considering the magnitude of the earthquake.

But John Bellini, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said that generally it would be unlikely for such a large island to emerge from a quake like Tuesday's.

Many things, such as the tide, could come into play regarding the rise of the island, he said.

More than 1,000 troops will be sent to the area to provide aid, including rescue teams and medical teams, Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa said.

With a depth of about nine miles (about 15 kilometers), the quake struck 43 miles (69 kilometers) northeast of Awaran and 71 miles (114 kilometers) northwest of Bela, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Some mud-walled homes fell in Awaran, said Latif Kakar, director of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in Balochistan.

The tremors lasted two minutes. People flocked out onto the streets of Quetta, the provincial capital.

Aftershocks could be felt in Karachi, hundreds of miles to the southeast.

Gunmen still inside besieged Kenyan mall, sources say

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) --It's now day four, and the nightmare still isn't over.

No one knows how many hostages might still be trapped inside Nairobi's Westgate mall, the posh shopping center that has been littered with bullets and blood since Saturday. At least 62 people have already been killed, and that number could rise.

An explosion and gunfire were heard coming from mall on Tuesday, but was not immediately clear if the blast was a controlled explosion or part of an exchange.

Several gunmen -- including snipers -- are still inside the mall, two senior officials said. And the Kenyan Red Cross said more than 60 people are unaccounted for.

But Kenya's Interior Ministry reassured a nervous public late Monday that there was little chance of escape for any surviving Al-Shabaab gunmen. It tweeted that authorities had the upper hand at the scene.

"Taken control of all the floors. We're not here to feed the attackers with pastries but to finish and punish them," Kenyan police Inspector General David Kimaiyo said on Twitter.

While the mall remains an active crime scene, authorities have also zeroed in on an airport and border crossings. More than 10 suspects were arrested at an airport for questioning in relation to the attacks, the Interior Ministry tweeted Tuesday.

"Security at all entry and exits across the country has being heightened," the ministry said.

Gunfire echoed from the mall sporadically during the Monday, sending journalists and aid workers scrambling for cover. Thick heavy smoke -- from a fire set by terrorists, according to Kenyan authorities -- billowed into the air much of the afternoon.

At least three terrorists have been killed since Saturday, the Interior Ministry said Monday. And 11 Kenyan soldiers are among the roughly 175 people wounded.

But more than 200 civilians have been rescued, the military said.

Americans involved?

Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed told "PBS NewsHour" that some of the attackers had come from the United States. She said they were originally from Minnesota and Missouri, PBS reported Monday.

"As you know, both the victims and the perpetrators came from Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United States," Mohamed said. "From the information that we have, two or three Americans, and I think so far I've heard of one Brit" as being among the attackers.

"The Americans, from the information we have, are young men, about between maybe 18 and 19, of Somalia origin or Arab origin," she told PBS. She offered no other specifics.

Gen. Julius Karangi, chief of Kenya Defense Forces, also said the attackers came from different countries.

"We have an idea who these people are, and they are clearly a multinational collection from all over the world," he told reporters in Nairobi. "This is not clearly a local event. We are fighting global terrorism here."

U.S. officials don't have any confirmation of Americans having been involved in the attack, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said.

Intelligence analysts are poring over electronic intercepts in an effort to verify the terror group's claims, two law enforcement sources told CNN.

The siege

The terrorist attack began midday Saturday in Nairobi time, with an estimated 10 to 15 gunmen taking over the mall.

Witnesses said the gunmen went from store to store, shooting people, and then took hostages.

Survivor Bendita Malakia, a North Carolina woman who moved to Nairobi in July, told CNN affiliate WAVY that she took refuge behind the closed metal gates of a store with dozens of others.

The Kenyan spirit cannot be broken, says eyewitness resident

"While we were back there, you could hear them methodically going from store to store, talking to people and asking questions," she said. "They were shooting, screaming. Then it would stop for a while and they would go to another store."

Al-Shabaab has claimed that the attackers targeted non-Muslims and vowed they would not negotiate for the hostages' lives. CNN security analyst Peter Bergen said the terrorists apparently took hostages only to prolong the siege and win more media attention.

The dead

Officials said most of the 62 dead are Kenyans. Six British citizens, two French nationals, two Indians and two Canadians, including a diplomat, also died, their governments said.

Those killed include:

-- Dutch national Elif Yavuz, a senior vaccines researcher for the Clinton Health Access Initiative based in Tanzania. Yavuz was pregnant and expecting her first child in October, according to Julio Frenk, dean of faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Elif was brilliant, dedicated, and deeply admired by her colleagues, who will miss her terribly," the Clinton family said in a statement.

-- Yavuz's husband, Australian-British architect Ross Langdon. Langdon moved to Nairobi to build sustainable architecture for Africa, volunteering to build hospitals and clinic free of charge.

-- Kofi Awoonor, a renowned African poet, author and Ghanian statesman. Awoonor earned his Ph.D. from New York's Stony Brook University and was a professor of literature there in the 1970s.

-- A nephew of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, along with the nephew's fiancee.

-- A Peruvian doctor, Juan Jesus Ortiz, who had previously worked for the United Nations Fund for Children and lived in Kenya doing consulting work.

-- Sridhar Natarajan, an Indian national and employee of a local pharmaceutical firm, and 8-year-old Paramshu Jain, the son of a bank branch manager, CNN sister network CNN-IBN reported, citing officials in India.

The terrorists

The Somalia-based Al-Shabaab terror group said on Twitter that it had sent the gunmen to the mall in retaliation for Kenya's role in an African Union military effort against the group -- which is al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia.

Last year, the Kenyan military was part of a peacekeeping force that defeated Al-Shabaab forces to liberate the key Somali port of Kismayo.

The mall attack was the deadliest terror attack in Kenya since al Qaeda blew up the U.S. Embassy there in 1998, killing 213 people.

On Monday, Kenya's foreign minister told CNN it's clear that Al-Shabaab was not acting alone.

"This bares the hallmarks of al Qaeda," Mohamed said. "This is not just Al-Shabaab. In fact, the leaders are not Somali, as you may have heard. This was al Qaeda. It was a very well-coordinated effort."

But the attackers' national origins are irrelevant, she said.

"It doesn't matter where they come from. There are some Americans. There are some Brits. There are some others. It has nothing to do with the nationality of people.

They are all evil and we must deal with them as such."

International adoption: I was stolen from my family

Editor's note: TarikuwaLemma, 19, was "adopted" from Ethiopia seven years ago by a U.S.family along with her two younger sisters after being deceived that they were headed to America on a study trip. She now lives in Maine and has just entered college with the goal of becoming a human rights advocate.

(CNN) -- When I was 13, I was sold.

Friends of my father worked for a corrupt adoption agency operating in my homeland of Ethiopia -- friends my father trusted. In 2006 they coerced him into believing he was sending my younger sisters and me to America for an educational program during which we would come home every summer and on school breaks.

Little did my father know that his "friends" were being paid to recruit children for an American adoption agency. In fact, he didn't even know what "adoption" meant. Instead of an educational program, we found ourselves caught up in an international adoption scandal.

We weren't the only ones lied to. The family who adopted us, who lived in the southwestern United States, were told that they were taking into their family three AIDS orphans, the oldest of whom was nine years old. The truth was that our mother had died from complications during childbirth, and our father was alive and well. Instead of nine, I was 13 years old; my sisters were 11 and six.

Tarikuwa Lemma

Our new "parents" changed our names and told us we could no longer speak to each other in our own languages; we were punished if we disobeyed. Eventually, we forgot how to speak our native languages, Amarigna and Wolaytta.

I was so young and naïve. I actually believed that if I ran away, I could walk back to Ethiopia.


Tarikuwa Lemma

I was so young and naïve. I actually believed that if I ran away, I could walk back to Ethiopia. I wanted to escape from the people I felt had kidnapped us from our homeland, our culture, and our family. I was angry, hurt and grieving.

After eight months, I was "re-homed," without my sisters, to live with my adoptive mother's parents in the Midwest. I have only seen my sisters a handful of times since.

Living in the Midwest was difficult. I had been taken from my family in Ethiopia, and then separated from my sisters. But instead of getting caught up in my depression, I threw myself into finding ways to let the world know the hard truths about corruption in international adoption.

My second adoption placement did not work out either, and at 18, while still in high school, I found myself staying on a friend's floor. A family in Maine, who I met through adoption reform work, offered to take me in. So I moved my few possessions and myself across the country again.

Supporters of international adoption frequently mention the enormous numbers of orphans in the world -- UNICEF estimates there are 151 million orphans. What most people don't realize is that when the United Nations determines the figures for orphans, they include children who have lost just one parent (the U.N. estimates only 18 million have lost both parents).

I assure you that I did not consider myself an orphan. My sisters and I had a father, a brother and older sisters, plus a large extended family that cared for us and loved us. We were middle class by Ethiopian standards, not poor. We, and many other adoptees like us, should never have been placed for adoption.

Had my father's friends not made money from the placement of my sisters and me for adoption, none of this ever would have happened.


Tarikuwa Lemma

All the lies and deception comes down to money. I have discovered since my adoption, the price paid by adoptive parents is exorbitant and feeds the corruption. Had my father's friends not made money from the placement of my sisters and me for adoption, none of this ever would have happened. They were basically paid to create orphans. Depending upon the country, an adoption can cost upwards of $50,000. Imagine what that kind of money could do to help struggling families in developing nations keep their children!

Adding the horror of being sold for profit, I now know that parents pay far more to adopt a white child than an African-American child. A 2010 study by Caltech, the London School of Economics, and New York University showed that parents are willing to pay an average of $38,000 more for a non-African American baby. Let me call that what it is: Racism.

In spite of everything I have suffered, I am determined to make something good out of my life. I just started college and I am writing a book about my experiences. I am fighting to change the way adoption agencies do business. I am fighting to make sure that families and adoptive families know the truth about the possibilities of fraud and human trafficking in adoption.

I am fighting to make sure that no other child will have to endure what I have been through. And I am saving up money so that I can reunite with my family in

Ethiopia, whom I haven't seen for seven years.

And I went to court and got my real name back.