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JAKARTA, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of protesters and police were injured after a mass demonstration staged by hardliner Muslim groups in the Indonesian capital turned violent on Friday night.

Three police trucks were torched by demonstrators who refused to leave the protest site near the presidential palace after they exceeded the time limit to hold the demonstration. Many demonstrators were seen lying on the streets as the police fired tear gas to disperse them, local TV footage showed.

The demonstrators, who refused to leave the site, were disappointed with results of a meeting between their representatives with Vice President Jusuf Kalla who gave assurance of a transparent and quick legal process against Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama over his blasphemy comments on the Koran.

Coordinating Minister for the Politics, Legal and Security Wiranto and senior presidential palace officials had met with representatives of the demonstrators who handed over their petition.

"Many of those police were young ones, they were provoked by demonstrators. They were involved in brawls with demonstrators that ended up with injuries between them," Wiranto told the local TV One.

"Now the situation has calmed down thanks to religious leaders who call the demonstrators to go back home," he said.

Basuki, the incumbent governor who would run in the upcoming gubernatorial election in February next year, had apologized for his comments.

An investigation into the religious blasphemy case was underway.

Rebel-held zone of Syria's Aleppo braces for renewed bombardment

By Ellen Francis and Angus McDowall | BEIRUT

Syrian rebels and civilians showed no sign of leaving the besieged opposition-held sector of Aleppo on Friday, despite a Russian deadline to resume bombing Syria's largest city at nightfall after a 17-day pause.

The rebels' own shelling of residential parts of government-held western Aleppo has meanwhile killed dozens in the past week as insurgent groups staged a counter-attack from outside the city aimed at breaking the siege on areas they control.

The government sent ambulances and buses to bring people out of the besieged zone as it has done at other times during the pause, but there was still no sign that anybody would leave.

Residents contacted by Reuters seemed resigned to the resumption in bombing, which killed hundreds of people in late September and early October as the government and its Russian allies abandoned a ceasefire to launch their assault on the biggest urban area in opposition hands.

"Nothing can be done. Nobody can stop the planes," said Bebars Mishal, an official with the "white helmets" civil defense volunteer group in eastern Aleppo, which digs victims out of the rubble and runs an ambulance service.

He said there was no way for rescue workers or medical staff to prepare in advance of the expected resumption of attacks: "All we can do is take precautions and be ready 24 hours a day."

Moscow and Damascus say their pause in bombing the city will end at 7 pm (1600 GMT), accusing rebels of having used the pause to reinforce and launch attacks on government-held areas.

The government and its Russian allies say they target only militants, and that fighters are to blame for civilian casualties by operating in civilian areas.

Western countries say the bombing has deliberately targeted hospitals, aid workers and bakeries and Washington has accused Moscow of "war crimes". Rebels say the aim is to drive out civilians, some 275,000 of whom remain in the besieged zone.

"They call it a ceasefire. The regime hasn't let us hear the end of it," said Modar Shekho, a nurse in rebel-held eastern Aleppo. "As usual, when it ends they will let the bombardment loose. We've gotten used to this."

Syria's army, backed by Lebanese, Iranian, and Iraqi Shi'ite militias and Russia's air force, launched a major offensive to retake eastern Aleppo from rebel groups on Sept. 22 after a series of advances allowed them to besiege it this summer.

Aleppo has become the focal point of fighting in Syria's war, now in its sixth year, pitting President Bashar al-Assad and his allies against Sunni rebel groups including some supported by Turkey, Gulf Arab monarchies and the United States.

The city has been divided between the government-held western sector and rebel-held east for years. Winning full control of it would be the biggest victory so far for Assad's government in a war that has killed many hundreds of thousands of people and driven more than half of Syrians from their homes.

"NOBODY WILL LEAVE"

Damascus and Moscow declared a unilateral four-day pause in strikes on Oct. 18, promising rebels and residents safe passage to leave the city and have extended it for most days since, although some attacks have continued.

Russia, which has brought an additional aircraft carrier to Syria's coast, said on Wednesday that all rebels must leave Aleppo by Friday evening, adding its moratorium on air strikes could not be extended because of rebel shelling.

A witness in western Aleppo at Bustan al-Qasr, near a crossing point set up by the government to allow civilians to flee the rebel area, told Reuters on Friday he could see people waiting for relatives to come from the east. Buses and ambulances were waiting for them, but so far there was no sign of an exodus.

A woman at Bustan al-Qasr who was covering her face said she hoped the people in eastern Aleppo would be able to leave safely and peacefully.

Rebels have rejected the demand they withdraw.

"Nobody will leave and the Russians will escalate. The Russians declared this," said Zakaria Malahifji, a Turkey-based official from the politburo of the Fastaqim group, which is present in Aleppo.

The opposition says Damascus and its Russian and Iranian allies aim to win the war by depopulating rebel-held areas, starving the population out or bombing them into flight.

"The Russians are adopting a policy of demographic change with the regime and Iran, and their intentions are no longer hidden," an official from the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel group said.

In recent months other opposition-held areas have surrendered after long army sieges. The government calls the process reconciliation, offering safe passage out for rebel fighters who abandon territory and lay down their arms.

It has proposed a similar program to end the siege of eastern Aleppo, opening what the army calls safe corridors, and sending ambulances for injured civilians and green city buses to transport fighters to Idlib, a rebel-held area.

But so far only a very small number of people have left the rebel-held zone since late October. Damascus has accused rebels of stopping people from leaving, including by shelling the safe corridors, which rebels have denied.

"I wish civilians would exit ... but I expect that won't happen, not under these circumstances," Fadi Ismail, an official based in Aleppo in Syria's reconciliation ministry, told Reuters via telephone.

Ismail said prospects for a deal with rebels looked bleak. "There must be military action, of course," he said, if no one evacuated.

The United Nations has said it does not have security guarantees needed to deliver aid into eastern Aleppo. It opposes evacuations of civilians from besieged areas unless they are voluntary.

After their offensive began in late September, pro-government forces managed to take ground in northern Aleppo including a camp for Palestinian refugees and smaller areas in the south, but made fewer advances into densely populated areas.

Rebels launched a counter-attack a week ago against the western edge of government-held areas from the surrounding countryside. They have made progress in the Dahiyet al-Assad suburb and the 1070 apartment blocks district, using 15 suicide car bomb attacks during the week, a war monitor said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebels had killed 69 civilians including 25 children in shelling during their counter-attack.

(Additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus and Tom Miles in Geneva)

Germany delivers frosty warning to Britain's Johnson on Brexit

By Michelle Martin and Noah Barkin | BERLIN

Germany's foreign minister told his British counterpart Boris Johnson on Friday that Europe would not give Britain an easy ride in Brexit talks, saying his priority was to keep the remaining 27 EU member states united.

Johnson, a leading advocate of Britain leaving the European Union, struck a conciliatory note on his first visit to Berlin as foreign secretary, saying he thought Brexit could be a "win-win" for Britain and the EU.

But his host Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has been outspoken in his criticism of Johnson and other Brexit campaigners in the past, delivered a frosty warning that Britain should not delay the start of exit talks and that London would not be allowed to cherry-pick in the negotiations.

"Dear Boris, you have to understand that our priority is keeping the EU-27 together," Steinmeier told a joint news conference.

"Our view is clear and we've said it before - we can't talk about easing the conditions for access to the single market on the one hand and allowing Britain to reject those elements it sees as unattractive on the other."

Johnson has irked the German government by dismissing as "baloney" the link between the EU's core principle of free movement, which eurosceptics say makes it impossible to control immigration to Britain, and access to its tariff-free single market, which benefits British businesses. EU leaders have said repeatedly that Britain cannot have one without the other.

He started off the news conference in German with a twist on a famous speech by U.S. President John F. Kennedy, declaring "Ich bin nicht ein Berliner" (I am not a Berliner), but noting that his wife was born there.

He said the bilateral relationship was of "absolutely fundamental importance" and a guarantor of peace, stability and economic prosperity in Europe.

Johnson said the British government would stick with its plans to trigger divorce proceedings by the end of March despite a court ruling on Thursday that demands the government consult parliament before invoking Article 50 of the EU treaty to serve notice to its 27 partners.

"I don't think it will interfere with the timetable for that process," Johnson said, noting that the government planned to appeal the ruling and that there was no question of Britain changing course on Brexit.

Switching briefly into German again, he cautioned against reading too much into the "Sturm und Drang" (Storm and Stress) of the tumultuous debate in the British parliament.

Steinmeier, who kept a straight face, made clear: "A further delay isn't in anyone's interests".

Steinmeier said the two-year negotiation period set out by Article 50 might seem like a long time at first glance but was actually quite short given the complexity of the issues surrounding Britain's future relations with the EU.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin, Noah Barkin and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Battered U.S. coal industry hopes for Trump, prepares for Clinton

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has won over the U.S. coal industry by promising to revive the downtrodden sector and scrap regulations if elected.

But the industry has a Plan B if the New York businessman loses to his more green-minded Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Tuesday: carbon capture and storage, a technology that captures carbon dioxide from burning coal and injects it underground, where many scientists are optimistic it cannot contribute to global warming.

Coal backers see CCS as a politically feasible solution that could help the next president thread the needle between environmentalists and a once-powerful business that is in desperate need of a lifeline. They have been pushing both major party candidates to embrace it.

Staff at the National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative held separate teleconferences with the Clinton and Trump campaigns in August on the merits of a bill that would extend and raise tax breaks for coal and other fossil fuel companies doing CCS in oilfields, from $10 per ton of carbon stored to $35 a ton. NEORI is made up of diverse groups ranging from environmental ogranizations to some of the country's largest coal companies.

Weeks after the teleconference, Clinton announced her support for the bipartisan CCS bill. Nearly 20 of 100 senators, including Clinton's vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine, also back it and expect it to gain momentum.

Trump has not given a position on the bill, but a senior policy adviser to Trump's campaign, Dan Kowalski, said he "supports all sources of American energy. This includes clean coal and research into new coal technologies."

"My sense is Clinton recognizes that, especially in certain parts of the country, coal-based energy and other fossil fuels provide some of the highest-paying jobs in our economy,” said Brad Crabtree, of the Great Plains Institute, a policy group that pushes for the deployment technologies to reduce fossil fuel emissions, and the parent organization of NEORI.

Oil drillers have used CCS since the 1970s, pumping carbon dioxide into aging reservoirs to force out remaining crude. Coal advocates want to expand CCS to coal-fueled power plants. But the business is expensive and needs incentives.

TRUMP'S PLEDGE, CLINTON'S PRAGMATISM

Trump's anti-regulation stance has made him a clear favorite of the industry, because it suggests lower costs and risks for major producers like Arch Coal Inc, Peabody Energy Corp, Cloud Peak Energy Inc and Alpha Natural Resources Inc.

The sector has given about $223,000 in support of Trump, compared with none for Clinton, according to a Reuters analysis of contributions over $200 made by several of the biggest coal companies and their employees.

Coal faces a potentially starker future under Clinton. She has promised to build on Democratic President Barack Obama's disputed Clean Power Plan to curb carbon output and suffered political damage earlier this year when she said that by doing so "we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."

Those jobs are already quickly evaporating.

The industry now employs only about 65,000 miners across states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Wyoming, down from around 91,000 in 2011, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Energy. The country's top two biggest coal companies, Arch and Peabody Energy, this year filed for bankruptcy.

Neither Trump scrapping federal regulations nor the expanded use of CCS will likely restore the sector, where production last year dropped to the lowest level since 1986, to its previous heights. Coal <NYM/QL> faces a dual headwind of both a global push for cleaner energy such as wind and solar power, and drilling technology that has made its competitor natural gas abundant - and cheap.

Jeff Holmstead, a Republican lobbyist at Bracewell Law, said if Clinton wins, much of coal's fate in coming years could be determined in the first 30 to 60 days. By then it should be known whether she appoints staunch environmentalists at departments including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior.

But he is confident that Clinton would work with industry on CCS and allow "coal to play a role in the future in the U.S. power sector."

Elizabeth Gore, a Democrat who lobbies with Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck for a coal-burning cooperative said coal companies must "find the marginal changes they can make to buy themselves some time, to provide more of a soft landing."

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Additional reporting by Grant Smith, Valerie Volcovici and Emily Stephenson; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Lisa Shumaker

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