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EU lawmakers cancel Iran visit in row

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 27 Oktober 2012 | 22.34

A VISIT to Iran by five Euro MPs has been called off after Tehran refused to let them meet with a jailed activist lawyer and a filmmaker, just a day after the two were awarded a prestigious European human rights prize.

"The five MEPs were about to leave for Tehran when delegation chair (Tarja) Cronberg received a phone call from the Iranian ambassador to the EU, saying they would not be allowed to meet with the two Sakharov Prize winners," jailed lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and filmmaker Jafar Panahi, a European Parliament source said.

Sotoudeh, 47, who is serving an 11-year jail sentence for conspiring against state security, and Panahi, 52, who is under house arrest and has been banned from making films for 20 years, were awarded the 2012 Sakharov Prize on Friday.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran categorically rejected any pre-conditions. Therefore this visit has been cancelled," the Young Journalists Club, an affiliate of the state broadcaster, reported on its website.

The ISNA news agency quoted Hossein Sheikholeslam, international affairs adviser to the speaker of parliament, as saying Iran had "rejected a pre-condition set by the European parliamentary delegation to meet with two prisoners".

"If the delegation agrees to visit Iran under the initially agreed conditions and agenda, then there is no objection to the visit... But we cannot accept the current pre-condition."

Iran has cracked down on both since its disputed June 2009 presidential election.

Sotoudeh is a leading human rights campaigner known for her work as a lawyer representing opposition activists, while Panahi has been acclaimed at international festivals for his gritty, socially critical movies.

The human rights and democracy prize "is a message of solidarity and recognition to a woman and a man who have not been bowed by fear and intimidation and who have decided to put the fate of their country before their own," Parliament President Martin Schulz said on Friday.

Schulz had also warned the visit would be cancelled if the delegation was unable to meet Sotoudeh and Panahi.

The rights award comes on the heels of tough new European Union sanctions against Iran aimed at forcing a breakthrough in talks between global powers and Tehran on its disputed nuclear program.

After a biting oil embargo took effect in July, EU foreign ministers last week tightened the economic noose by targeting dealings with Iran's banks, shipping and gas imports.

The last visit by a European parliamentary delegation to Iran was in 2007.


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Russian opposition leaders detained

RUSSIAN opposition leaders have been detained while protesting what they say is the torture of a fellow activist.

Investigators earlier this week said that Leonid Razvozzhayev had turned himself in and confessed to plotting riots. But days later the activist disavowed his confession and filed a complaint over what he said was his abduction from Ukraine.

Rights activists who visited him in jail say he had been tortured into confessing.

Police detained Alexei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov and Ilya Yashin as they were standing outside the Russian former intelligence and former KGB headquarters, protesting "torture and repression."

The three men were among hundreds of people gathered in central Moscow to protest an increasingly relentless crackdown on the opposition in Russia.


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Iraq Eid attacks kill 16

ATTACKS mostly targeting Shi'ite Muslims during the Eid al-Adha holiday, including bombings of a marketplace and a minibus carrying pilgrims, killed at least 16 people in Iraq on Saturday.

The shootings and explosions, which also left more than 40 people wounded, were the latest in a spate of violence in the past week that has broken a relative calm in Iraq, even though authorities had announced a series of moves to boost security during the four-day Eid break.

UN special envoy Martin Kobler condemned Saturday's violence as "atrocious", adding in a statement: "The targeting of worshippers is an appalling crime."

In the east Baghdad district of Maamal, a bomb exploded in a neighbourhood market as women were shopping for groceries alongside their children at around 9am (4pm AEDT).

At least five people were killed, including three children and a woman, security and medical officials said. They added that 13 others were wounded.

Just north of Baghdad in the town of Taji, a magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to a minibus ferrying Shi'ite pilgrims killed at least five people and wounded 12 others, a security official and medics said.

The doctors warned that the toll could rise.

Officials said some Iranian pilgrims were among the dead and wounded, but it was unclear how many. Differing tolls and details of casualties are common in the chaotic aftermath of attacks in Iraq.

A Shi'ite car salesman in the town of Muqdadiyah was shot dead, and eight people were wounded by a car bomb targeting a Shi'ite religious foundation's offices in the town of Tuz Khurmatu.

Shi'ites in Iraq typically use the Eid al-Adha holiday, which began on Friday, to either visit relatives, the graves of dead family members or shrines of key figures in Shi'ite Islam located across the country.

In the run-up to the holiday, authorities in several provinces, including Baghdad, announced tightened security for the holiday, apparently to no avail.

While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, Sunni militants frequently target Shi'ite pilgrims during Muslim holidays such as Eid or Shi'ite commemoration ceremonies.

In Mosul, 350km north of Baghdad, three attacks targeting the tiny Shabak community killed five people and wounded 10 others, officials said.

In separate shootings, gunmen burst into the homes of Shabak families and killed five people and wounded four others, including young children, while a bombing in the compound of a family home wounded six.

"The security forces are supposed to be responsible for protecting all the citizens of Mosul," said Qusay Abbas, a Shabak member of the provincial council of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital.

"This is a very troubling attack."

The Shabak community numbers about 30,000 people living in 35 villages in Nineveh. They largely follow a faith that is a blend of Shi'ite Islam and local beliefs.

The community was persecuted under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and after the 2003 US-led invasion they were targeted several times by al-Qaeda.

Mosul is widely cited as one of the places where al-Qaeda Iraqi front still holds sway.

At least 49 people have been killed in a week since October 20, more than in the first 15 days of the month combined, according to an AFP tally.

At least 250 people have been killed as a result of unrest in each of the past four months.


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Rebels raid poultry farm

COMMUNIST guerrilla rebels raided a poultry farm in the southern Philippines and torched two buildings after the owner ignored their extortion demands, the military said on Saturday.

Thousands of chickens were killed after rebels from the New People's Army set fire to the buildings in a pre-dawn attack on Friday, military spokesman Captain Alberto Caber told reporters.

The rebels later contacted the farm owner Onyx Go by telephone, threatening to return with gasoline and matchsticks unless he agreed to pay up 60,000 pesos ($1400) a month, according to a military statement.

The raid marked the second such attack on businesses owned by Mr Go since last year, when his chicken shop in a nearby town was ransacked by the rebels, Captain Caber said.

The Maoist NPA has been waging a decades-old guerrilla campaign that has cost tens of thousands of lives.

Earlier this month the Philippine government said it hoped to resume peace talks with the communist rebels, after announcing a peace agreement with Muslim rebels who also operate in the restive south.

Talks with the communist rebels were suspended in November last year due to persistent demands by the rebels to free jailed comrades they claimed were consultants to the negotiations.


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Police fire rubber bullets at miners

SOUTH African police have fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas to disperse striking miners trying to prevent a rally by the country's main labour grouping.

Bullet casings littered the ground and a helicopter circled above, with police sirens howling, as the protesters were chased into the area surrounding a stadium in northwestern Rustenburg.

The protesters were trying to prevent a rally by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the country's main umbrella union organisation.

The strikers say they are unhappy with the way unions have been representing their interests. A wave of wildcat strikes that has shaken the mining sector since August has seen workers spurn the main National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Cosatu's main affiliate.

The clashes broke out after police cleared around 300 people from the stadium where union T-shirts were set alight, and blocked the entrance with armoured vans.

An Agence France-Presse photographer saw a man dressed in Cosatu's red colours bleeding after he had been beaten up and a correspondent saw at least eight protesters bundled into a police truck after the crackdown.

"We are here to demonstrate ... we the striking mineworkers are tired of NUM," Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) worker Reuben Lerebolo told AFP.

The clashes came a day after the NUM announced it had reached a deal with the world's number one platinum producer Amplats to rehire 12,000 workers who were fired for a wildcat strike.

But striking workers said they were not aware of the deal, which would signal a further winding down of a wave of wildcat strikes that have rocked platinum and gold mines since August.

"We know nothing about it. We were not consulted, we only heard about it on the radio," said Lerebolo, carrying a poster stating "NUM we are tired of you".

"We can't go to work until our demands are met," he said.

Cosatu staged the Saturday march and rally in a bid to regain its authority in the area after workers snubbed the NUM in the recent strikes and to demand that fired workers be reinstated.


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Vatican cannot revoke Savile's honour

THE Vatican says it cannot rescind the papal knighthood awarded to television star Jimmy Savile, who emerged as an alleged child sex predator after his death.

The Catholic Church of England said it has contacted the Holy See to ask it to posthumously revoke Savile's honour in recognition of the "deep distress" of the victims allegedly abused by Savile, a well-known BBC children's television host who died last year at the age of 84.

But the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told The Associated Press that the names of people who receive the knighthood don't appear in its yearbook and that the honor dies with the individual.

Lombardi said Savile never would have received the honour had the truth about his behavior been known.


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Supermarket roof collapse in kills one

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 26 Oktober 2012 | 22.34

AT least one person was killed and nearly a dozen were missing after a supermarket roof collapsed in southern Argentina, authorities said.

The accident struck shortly before closing Thursday when an adjacent building under construction collapsed, damaging the structure supporting the market's roof.

Emergency workers were clearing debris and searching for survivors of the Thursday evening accident.

"We have confirmation of one death, it is a student named Freyda Yanez," said a source close to the mayor's office in Neuquen, about 1150 kilometres southwest of Buenos Aires.

Another city official, Marcelo Bermudez, had earlier said 18 were injured and 11 missing in the accident.

Neuquen, a city of 300,000, is the capital of the state of the same name, where the economy is based largely on agriculture, tourism and oil exploitation.


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Syrian army 'responding to ceasefire violations'

THE Syrian army said it was responding to attacks by armed rebels that were in violation of a temporary ceasefire agreed for a four-day Muslim holiday.

"Armed terrorist groups attacked military positions, thereby clearly violating the halt to military operations agreed by the army command. Our valiant armed forces are responding to these violations and pursuing these groups," the military said in a statement read on state television.


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US stocks flat in opening trade

US stocks have opened flat under the shadow of earnings disappointments from tech giants Apple and Amazon but shored up by a slightly better-than-expected estimate of GDP growth in the third quarter.

Apple lost 0.4 per cent after reporting a quarterly profit of $US8.2 billion ($A7.97 billion) but missing expectations.

Amazon was stunned with a loss, mainly from a writedown of its stake in LivingSocial and higher operating costs. The online retailer rose 2.7 per cent in early trade.

Five minutes into Friday trade the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.64 points (0.01 per cent) to 13,102.22.

The broad-based S&P 500 lost 0.75 (0.05 per cent) to 1,412.22, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.68 (0.02 per cent) at 2,986.80.


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Package shuts Canada's US embassy

A SUSPICIOUS package was found at the Canadian embassy in Washington Friday and the building was evacuated, police and local media reported.

City police said in a Twitter message that a section of Pennsylvania Avenue, a busy downtown Washington street, in front of the embassy was closed as they investigated a "suspicious package."

Police did not immediately say what the package contained.

Embassy personnel evacuated the building, local media reported. Embassy officials were unavailable for immediate comment.


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Dozens of dead in Damascus blast: NGO

DOZENS of people were killed or wounded in a car bomb attack in southern Damascus on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The explosion of a booby-trapped car outside the Omar bin Khattab mosque in the area known as Shorta in the Daf Shawk district killed and wounded dozens of people," the Britain-based rights watchdog said.

The state news agency SANA earlier reported casualties in the explosion that came on on the first day of a temporary declared ceasefire.

"A terrorist car bomb attack in... the neighbourhood of Daf Shawk has caused casualties and significant material damage," the agency reported.


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Citigroup is fined $2m over Facebook IPO

THE top securities regulator in Massachusetts has fined Citigroup $US2 million ($1.9 million) for failing to supervise analysts who improperly disclosed confidential information about Facebook's initial public offering.

US Secretary of State William Galvin announced that Citi acknowledged a statement of facts in the case and agreed to permanently stop violating state securities laws.

Mr Galvin's office said a junior analyst assigned to work on the IPO emailed two employees at a tech blog that contained confidential information, including a senior analyst's view of investment risks and positives, and revenue estimates for Facebook. The analyst was eventually fired.

Mr Galvin says the senior analyst also gave unpublished information about YouTube revenue estimates to a reporter for a French business magazine.

A message was left for Citi for comment.


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One dead in attack on doctor's home

CONGOLESE officials confirm that gunmen killed one person in an attack on the home of a Congolese doctor who has helped thousands of women recover from violent rapes.

South Kivu Province Governor Marcellin Cishambo told The Associated Press that armed assailants killed the security guard at Dr. Dennis Mukwege's home in Bukavu Thursday night and they stole the medic's car.

Dr Mukwege, who was at home with his family, was not injured.

The governor said that security has been increased at the doctor's home.

Dr Mukwege is a gynecologist devoted to the cause of women victims of rape in Congo. He founded the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, capital of South Kivu province.

Dr Mukwege, 57, and his team have treated more than 30,000 victims of violent rapes during the last 10 years.


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Gillard undermined Rudd: McKew

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 25 Oktober 2012 | 22.34

JULIA Gillard was a disloyal deputy involved in the conspiracy to take down Kevin Rudd as prime minister, says former Labor MP Maxine McKew.

In her new book, Ms McKew says Ms Gillard directly undermined Mr Rudd in the days before she ousted him in a coup, Fairfax reports.

Ms Gillard has always maintained she was loyal to the then prime minister until the day she challenged him.

But Ms McKew writes Ms Gillard showed internal Labor research critical of Mr Rudd to a senior member of the caucus in the days before the challenge.

This unnamed Labor member believed his encounter with Ms Gillard was part of the conspiracy against Mr Rudd, Ms McKew says in the book.

Ms McKew's book, Tales from the Political Trenches, will be published on Monday.


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Forty whales die in mass stranding

ABOUT 40 whales died in a mass stranding on the west coast of India's remote North Andaman island in the Bay of Bengal, wildlife officials said.

"The short-finned pilot whales were found by fishermen who alerted us and investigations show it was a case of mass stranding," said Ajai Saxena, a wildlife official in Port Blair, capital of the islands.

Ms Saxena said no previous mass stranding had been reported in the Andamans, but that it was a natural phenomenon that occurs when whales get disoriented and are unable to swim back into deep water.

Stranding is also thought to occur when a pod follows a sick or an injured whale into the shallows, experts say.

Emergency teams and local volunteers headed to the beach near Elizabeth Bay on the North Andaman island where the whales were stranded, but they were unable to help.

"The mammals are so heavy, it is impossible to move them back to the waters," Ms Saxena said.

A post-mortem has been conducted on one of adults, which weighed two tonnes.

The Andaman and Nicobar islands are Indian territory, though they are at least 1000 kilometres from the mainland and are closer to the coast of Burma.


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US stocks rise on upbeat data, P&G results

US stocks have scored solid opening gains as weekly unemployment claims and durable goods orders came in better than expected and Procter & Gamble earnings beat forecasts.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 62.62 points, or 0.48 per cent, at 13,139.96 in early Thursday trading.

The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 9.27 points, or 0.66 per cent, to 1,418.02.

The Nasdaq Composite added 18.37 points, or 0.62 per cent, at 3,000.07.

The major indices rebounded from modest losses on Wednesday amid weak corporate earnings, "supported by some data from the US equity and economic fronts. Dow member Procter & Gamble Co reported stronger-than-expected earnings despite a decline in revenues," Charles Schwab & Co analysts said.

P&G shares jumped 2.5 per cent.


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300 potential Jimmy Savile victims: police

BRITISH police say officers have identified 300 potential victims of the late Jimmy Savile, the disgraced BBC entertainer now believed to be a predatory pedophile.

Commander Peter Spindler said on Thursday officers had identified 300 potential victims so far - including two men.

He told reporters police had spoken to 130 people.

Spindler said although most of the allegations relate to Savile, some also include other people who may still be living.

He says no potential suspects had yet been arrested or questioned.

The BBC has been rocked by allegations that Savile sexually abused underage teenagers over several decades, sometimes on BBC premises.

Some of the alleged victims have accused other entertainers and BBC staff of participating in the abuse.


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Dutch woman arrested with 2000 joints

DUTCH police say they have arrested a woman in the port city of Rotterdam with 2200 cannabis joints and 12 kilograms of soft drugs.

A statement said police went to the address on Thursday looking for another man and noticed a strong smell of cannabis coming from a locked bedroom.

Once inside, they seized the joints and the other drugs, arresting the 37-year-old tenant.

Possession of small quantities of soft drugs is tolerated in the Netherlands.


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Judge OKs release of Romney testimony

A MASSACHUSETTS judge will allow the release of testimony by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the decades-old divorce of Staples founder Tom Stemberg.

Lawyers for The Boston Globe argued that the public has a right to know what's in the testimony.

Attorneys for Messrs Romney, Stemberg and Staples did not object to releasing the documents but had asked for a day to review them, which the judge granted.

The hearing resumed today and the judge said it was OK to release the documents.

Lawyer Gloria Allred, representing Mr Stemberg's ex-wife, also wanted the judge to lift a gag order that prevents Maureen Sullivan Stemberg from discussing the testimony. The judge said the former Mrs. Stemberg needs to file a separate request.

Office supply chain Staples was founded with backing from Mr Romney's firm, Bain Capital.


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Denmark demands EU budget rebate

DANISH Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has warned she will veto the EU's 2014-2020 budget proposal if Denmark does not receive a one billion kroner ($A169 million) rebate.

"Our key message to the other countries and what we are fighting for, is that we have to have a discount, and that we do not wish to pay other rich countries' rebates," she told the Danish parliamentary committee on European affairs on Thursday.

Denmark currently has no rebate or discount on its contribution to the European Union's budget.

Thorning-Schmidt, a social democrat, made her announcement after British Prime Minister David Cameron last week threatened to use his veto if Brussels increased spending at a time when EU member states are adopting tough austerity measures at the national level.

The 27 EU leaders will hold an extraordinary summit on November 22 and 23 for what are expected to be very tough talks on the budget. European Union President Herman Van Rompuy has called for member states to show willingness to compromise on the budget.

In 2011, Denmark was still pushing for all budget contribution rebates to be abolished, and primarily Britain's, which is the largest and dates back to 1984.

But shortly thereafter Denmark's centre-right government then headed by Lars Loekke Rasmussen reversed its opinion after concluding the rebate system was to be a lasting feature.

"The Danish government changed its opinion, saying in effect: 'We are still against rebates, but as long as there are rebates in the EU system, we think it is reasonable that we get rebates because we resemble other countries in the EU receiving rebates'," a political science professor at the University of Copenhagen, Peter Nedergaard, told AFP.

"If (Denmark is) not receiving rebates, but should have received them, and other countries that resemble Denmark are receiving them, then Denmark ends up paying for other countries' rebates," he concluded.

Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria have all negotiated rebates because they felt they were contributing too much to the budget compared with other countries.


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Virgin space project keeps being delayed

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 24 Oktober 2012 | 22.34

BRITISH billionaire Richard Branson says his space tourism project keeps being pushed back and isn't sure of an exact date for the first launch.

He says it will be at least another 12 or 18 months before the Virgin Galactic venture can offer paid space travel to adventurers.

The founder of the Virgin Group met with students on his first visit to Poland on Wednesday, where he came to launch Virgin Academy, which will help young people kick start their own businesses.

Asked about Virgin Galactic, Branson said he has "stopped counting" days to the launch because it gets delayed "to the next year, to the next year."

More than 100 would-be space tourists have signed up for the $US200,000 ($A195,000) two-hour trips that go 100 kilometres above Earth.


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Sudan accuses Israel of bombing

SUDAN has accused Israel of carrying out air strikes against a military factory that killed two people in south Khartoum overnight, and threatened to retaliate.

"We think Israel did the bombing," Culture and Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman told a news conference.

"We reserve the right to react at a place and time we choose."

The foreign ministry of Israel, which has long accused Khartoum of serving as a base for militants from the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, refused to comment.

Osman said four aircraft were involved in the attack, which occurred at about midnight (0800 AEDT Wednesday) at the Yarmouk military manufacturing facility in the south of the Sudanese capital.

Evidence pointing to Israel was found among remnants of the explosives, he said.

Residents of the area earlier told AFP an aircraft or missile flew over the facility shortly before it exploded and burst into flames.

An AFP reporter several kilometres away saw two or three fires flaring across a wide area, with heavy smoke and intermittent flashes of white light bursting above the state-owned Yarmouk factory.

"I heard a sound like a plane in the sky, but I didn't see any light from a plane. Then I heard two explosions, and fire erupted in the compound," said a resident who asked to be identified only as Faize.

A woman living south of the compound also reported two initial blasts.

"I saw a plane coming from east to west and I heard explosions and there was a short length of time between the first one and the second one," she said, asking not to be named.

"Then I saw fire and our neighbour's house was hit by shrapnel, causing minor damage. The windows of my own house rattled after the second explosion."

Khartoum state governor Abdul Rahman Al-Khider told official media some people were hospitalised because of smoke inhalation but he gave no numbers.

AFP could not reach the army's spokesman, Sawarmi Khaled Saad, but he was quoted by the state's SUNA news agency as saying the fire occurred at an ammunition facility in the Yarmouk complex, spreading to a neighbouring area of grass and trees.

In 1998 Human Rights Watch said a coalition of Sudanese opposition groups had alleged that Sudan stored chemical weapons for Iraq at the Yarmouk facility but government officials strenuously denied the charges.

In August of that year United States cruise missiles struck the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in North Khartoum, which the US said was linked to chemical weapons production.

Evidence for that claim later proved questionable.

The sprawling Yarmouk facility is surrounded by barbed wire and set back about two kilometres from the district's main road, meaning signs of damage were not visible later on Wednesday when an AFP reporter visited.

But at least three houses in the neighbourhood had been punctured by shrapnel which left walls and a fence with holes about 20-centimetres in diameter, the reporter said.

There was also slight damage to a Coca-Cola warehouse.

A source familiar with the factory said its main compound and storage area had not been damaged by the explosions or fire.


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Google sets out to map Grand Canyon

GOOGLE and its street-view cameras already have taken users to narrow cobblestone alleys in Spain using a tricycle, inside the Smithsonian with a push cart and to British Columbia's snow-covered slopes by snowmobile.

The search giant now has brought its all-seeing eyes - mounted for the first time on a backpack - down into the Grand Canyon, showcasing the attraction's most popular hiking trails on the South Rim and other walkways.

It's the latest evolution in mapping technology for the Mountain View, California, company, which has used a rosette of cameras to photograph thousands of cities and towns in dozens of countries for its Street View feature.

With a click of the mouse, internet users are transported virtually for a 360-degree view of locales they may have read about only in tourist books and seen in flat, 2-D images.

"Any of these sort of iconic, cultural, historical locations that are not accessible by road is where we want to go," said Ryan Falor, product manager at Google.

Google announced the trekker earlier this year but made its first official collection of data this week at the Grand Canyon.

The backpacks aren't ready for volunteer use, but Google has said it wants to deploy them at national forests, to the narrow streets of Venice, Mount Everest and to ancient ruins and castles.

The move to capture the Grand Canyon comes after Apple chose to drop Google Maps from its mobile operating systems and opted to use its own mapping program that was derided for, among other things, poor directions and missing towns.

Steve Silverman, operations manager for Google didn't directly address the competition in saying: "Just trying to document a trail, it's going to be hard to beat this."

Google launched its Street View feature in 2007 and has expanded from 5 U.S. cities to more than 3000 in 43 countries. Google teams and volunteers have covered more than 5 million miles with the Street View vehicles on a scale that other companies haven't approached, said Mike Dobson, president of Telemapics, a company that monitors mapping efforts.

"You could safely say that it's a standout, well-used application and they don't really have any competition," he said.

As the sun rose Monday, Luc Vincent, Google engineering director, strapped on one of the 18-kilogram backpacks and set down the Bright Angel Trail to the Colorado River - a nearly 16-kilometre hike that goes from 2100-metres in elevation to 731 metres.

He hiked back up from Phantom Ranch  through the South Kaibab Trail and also gathered data on other trails.

The so-called trekker captures images every 2.5 seconds with 15 cameras that are 75 megapixels each, from the rest areas, the steep switchbacks, the change from juniper trees to scrub brush and the traffic that moves aside as a courtesy to mule riders.

The GPS data is limited, so Google must compensate with sensors that record temperature, vibrations and the orientation of the device as it changes, before it stiches the images together and makes them available to users in a few months, Mr Falor said.

Hikers that were on the trail when the data was gathered will have their faces blurred - an attempt by Google to ensure privacy. Street View has run into problems in places like Europe and Australia for scooping up information transmitted over unsecured wireless networks.

A removable hard drive on the trekker stores the data gathered at the Grand Canyon. Tourists looked at the trekker strangely this week, as if it was something from outer space.

Sharon Kerfoot, a first-time visitor from Alberta said being able to view the terrain ahead of time, gauge the difficulty of the hike and know just how wide the path is would benefit those considering a trip to the Grand Canyon. She and a group of friends headed down the same path as Vincent but on mules, not foot.

"I think it's an excellent idea to give people a broader perspective on what they're getting into," she said.

What the images won't tell visitors is how much water they should carry down the trails, how to prepare for temperature changes, what type of food to bring and how much, and how best to protect the natural resources, park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge said.

"Stitched together with other information out there, the technology could be valuable," she said.


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Gunman opens fire in megachurch

POLICE say one person was critically wounded when a gunman opened fire inside the chapel of a Georgia megachurch just south of Atlanta.

Fulton County Police Cpl. Kay Lester says the suspect got away in a vehicle, and was still at large around 11am local time after the shooting at World Changers Church International.

The church is one of the nation's largest. It is led by the Rev. Creflo Dollar, its founder and senior pastor. There was no indication that he was injured.

Mr Lester said she didn't know how many shots were fired.

Church officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment.


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Facebook, Boeing fuel US stock rebound

OPTIMISTIC forecasts by Boeing and Facebook have pushed US stocks higher in opening trade, reversing course after a slew of earnings disappointments sent markets sharply lower on Tuesday.

Facebook shares rocketed 23 per cent after the company told analysts it was making a strong stand in the mobile advertising markets against doubts that it could make money off use of the social network from smartphones.

Five minutes into trade the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 41.01 points (0.31 per cent) at 13,143.54, after Tuesday's 243-point loss.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 6.75 (0.48 per cent) to 1419.86, while the Nasdaq Composite added 21.97 (0.73 per cent) at 3012.43.


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Qld police commissioner bows out

QUEENSLAND'S police commissioner may have never risen to the top if it weren't for the Fitzgerald Inquiry in the late 1980s.

Bob Atkinson had a pivotal role implementing the inquiry's recommendations in the north coast policing region to help end the endemic corruption that toppled a premier and jailed a police commissioner.

After 44 years of service, he is retiring at a time when a shadow has again been cast over the service.

The firestorm over the 2004 death of Mulrunji Doomadgee on the floor of the Palm Island watchhouse continues to divide the community.

Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley was acquitted of manslaughter in 2007, but a coronial inquest in 2010 found there was evidence other police had colluded to protect him and, later that year, the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) also found serious flaws in the way he was investigated.

The then CMC head Martin Moynihan QC accused Mr Atkinson of presiding over a closed, self-protective police culture, and asked police to take disciplinary action against the six officers involved in the investigation.

But in a controversial move, police only recommended "managerial guidance".

Mr Atkinson admitted the service isn't perfect, but challenged the CMC to prove such evidence existed.

While Mr Atkinson has described Mr Doomadgee's death as a tragedy and expressed sorrow, he stands steadfastly behind the service's decision not to take tougher disciplinary action, saying it would have been unlawful.

"What happened there was appropriate," he told AAP.

"Different people have different views. One of the sad things about Palm Island is that many people are polarised in their views and will probably never reconcile and they will always hold the views they hold.

"We can't go back and change it.

"There were coronial inquests, court cases. It's all been exhausted and it's time to move on."

The government found the way police investigate each other was dysfunctional and made 57 recommendations for improvement to restore public confidence.

Mr Atkinson wouldn't be drawn on whether he believed the decision not to further discipline the officers damaged public perception of police accountability.

But he says the service will need to remain vigilant to ensure individual incidents or officers don't detract from its overwhelmingly good work.

He says he has worked to be approachable, creating an atmosphere which hadn't existed pre-Fitzgerald.

"I think what's really, really important is that if people (in the police force) think there is a need to say something, they have the opportunity to do that without being punished," he said.

Mr Atkinson said when he joined the service, aged 20, in Brisbane's bayside, he was drawn to the unpredictability of a job where one person could make a difference.

The majority of his first 20 years was served in small towns, where he lived beside stations and was on call 24/7, preferring the country lifestyle over the anonymity of cities.

People of his vintage know two police departments - pre-Fitzgerald and post-Fitzgerald - and it was the later in which Mr Atkinson thrived.

His major break came in 1990 when he was promoted to inspector and assigned a team of four in the north coast policing region to implement the recommendations of the Fitzgerald inquiry.

In November 2000 he was appointed commissioner, a promotion he said he'd never dreamed of.

In his formative years pre-Fitzgerald, Mr Atkinson said he could have easily plotted exactly where his career would have taken him.

Promotions were handed out on seniority before it changed to a merit system post-Fitzgerald.

"Had that not occurred, I guess I wouldn't be here ... I would have retired years ago ... up on the Sunshine Coast," he said.

"I would have probably made inspector and would have been very unlikely to have gone any further."

When asked about his greatest achievements, he was non-committal.

Any achievement in the police department - whether in providing security for major events, reducing the road toll or finding the perpetrators of murder, sex and kidnapping offences - was down to the work of the people in the organisation, not his leadership, he said.

He said he doesn't have plans for his retirement when he leaves the force on October 31.

"When I retire I'll deal with the future then, and whatever happens I'm very relaxed about the future," Mr Atkinson said.

"I've been fortunate to do this and I've been fortunate to be able to do this for 12 years. I'm very grateful.

"In a job like this there is a time. Hopefully I haven't stayed too long."


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Auschwitz prisoner and photographer dies

THE images are haunting: naked and emaciated children at Auschwitz standing shoulder-to-shoulder, adult prisoners in striped garb posing for police-style mug shots.

One of several photographers to capture such images, Wilhelm Brasse, has died at the age of 95. A Polish photographer who was arrested and sent to Auschwitz early in World War II, he was put to work documenting his fellow prisoners, an emotionally devastating task that tormented him long after his liberation.

Jaroslaw Mensfelt, a spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum, said that Brasse died on Tuesday in Zywiec, a town in southern Poland.

Brasse, who was born in 1917 and was not Jewish, was sent to Auschwitz at 22 as a political prisoner for trying to sneak out of German-occupied Poland in the spring of 1940. Because he had worked before the war in a photography studio in Katowice, in southern Poland, he was put to work in the camp's photography and identification department.

The job helped to save his life, enabling him to get better treatment and food than many others. Because he worked with the SS, the elite Nazi force, he was also kept cleaner "so as not to offend the SS men," he recalled in an Associated Press interview in 2006.

After the war, he had nightmares for years of the Nazi victims he was forced to photograph. Among them were emaciated Jewish girls who were about to undergo cruel medical experiments under the infamous Dr Josef Mengele.

"I didn't return to my profession, because those Jewish kids, and the naked Jewish girls, constantly flashed before my eyes," he said. "Even more so because I knew that later, after taking their pictures, they would just go to the gas."

In the AP interview, Brasse said believed he took about 40,000 to 50,000 of the identity photographs that the Nazis used to register their prisoners - part of the Nazi obsession with documenting their work. These pictures are among some of the notorious images associated with the camp.

Brasse said he never had the right to refuse what Mengele or the other Germans demanded.

"It was an order, and prisoners didn't have the right to disagree. I couldn't say 'I won't do that,"' he recalled in 2006. "I only listened to what I had to do and because I didn't harm anyone by what I was doing, I tried to address them politely."


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Butler's 'accomplice' faces Vatileaks trial

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 23 Oktober 2012 | 22.34

A VATICAN computer technician will go on trial on November 5 on charges of helping the Pope's former butler steal secret papers, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi says.

Claudio Sciarpelletti's trial follows the conviction of ex-butler Paolo Gabriele, who was found guilty of stealing papers which revealed fraud scandals and intrigue at the heart of the Vatican, and sentenced to 18 months in jail.

The 48-year-old technician was arrested on May 25 as the Vatican investigation into the leaks unfolded, but was released the following day.

He was initially due to stand in the dock with Gabriele in early October, but was granted a separate trial. His alleged role in stealing and leaking the memos is considered "rather marginal" by the judiciary, Lombardi said.
His trial is likely to be even shorter than Gabriele's, the spokesman added.

Gabriele spent months under house arrest but his trial in the so-called Vatileaks scandal lasted a week.

An envelope containing stolen documents and addressed to Gabriele was found in Sciarpelletti's desk within the walls of the tiny state. He has claimed ignorance, insisting he had forgotten it was there and never opened it.

The technician has also admitted, however, that two people gave him envelopes containing documents to pass on to the butler.

Lombardi told a briefing following the release of the full judgment on Gabriele that the former butler could serve his 18 months in a Vatican cell - scotching earlier rumours that he would likely be jailed in Italy.

Because the tiny state does not have a jail, experts said he would have to serve time in Italy - but the notion of letting the convicted whistleblower leave the Vatican's walls was apparently worrying top clerics.

Vatican prosecutors still have time to appeal the verdict, but should they not do so in the next few days "the sentence will come into effect and Gabriele will have to serve his time in the Vatican," spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

"Cells have been outfitted in the police barracks," he said.

Gabriele, who is currently under house arrest, was held in a holding cell in the Vatican for 53 days and accused the guards during the trial of mistreating him. He may end up with the very same guards he filed complaints against.

But the butler may still escape serving time should the pontiff decide to pardon him: "It's a possibility, I cannot say anything more than that. No one knows," Lombardi said.

The day the butler was sentenced Lombardi said it was "very likely" Gabriele would be pardoned, but there has only been silence from the Pope himself so far.

Gabriele, who lives in a Vatican apartment with his wife and three children and continues to receive his salary, has been ordered to pay court costs.

The relationship between the butler and the computer technician is unclear.
While Gabriele insists they were friends and has talked about family outings together, Sciarpelletti says they were no more than acquaintances.

The trial could reveal interesting elements regarding five witnesses - or possible accomplices - whose names have been blacked out and replaced with letters of the alphabet in court documents.

The butler had told Italian investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, who published the leaks, that there were "around 20" like-minded people in the Vatican - sparking rumours that the leaks may be orchestrated by cardinals.

Religious watchers will be following the Sciarpelletti trial closely to see whether any fresh names emerge that could shed light on the latest scandal to embarrass the Vatican.
 


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US stocks plunge 1% on poor earnings

US stocks have opened more than one per cent lower after blue chips Dupont, United Technologies and 3M turned in disappointing quarterly earnings and cut their forecasts.

Five minutes into trade the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 166.39 points (1.25 per cent) at 13,179.39.

The broad-based S&P 500 sank 16.97 (1.18 per cent) to 1416.85, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 33.28 points (1.10 per cent) at 2983.68.

Dupont sank 6.7 per cent, United Technologies lost 0.6 per cent and 3M fell 3.3 per cent in the opening minutes.

Fighting the selling pressure, longtime laggard Yahoo jumped 3.8 per cent on its strong earnings rise.


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Missing girl's body found in recycling bin

THE uncle of a missing New Jersey girl is confirming that the 12-year-old's body was found in a home's recycling container.

Paul Spadafora thanked the community for helping to search for Autumn Pasquale.

Officials say the body was found in a recycling bin at a home in Clayton around 10 p.m. Monday local time.

That was about 48 hours after her family reported her missing and two hours after community members gathered blocks away for a candlelight vigil filled with both tears and hope.

No arrests have been announced in the case.


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Police admit botched gunman investigation

FRENCH police have unveiled a damning report that shows up several loopholes in the investigation of al-Qaida inspired gunman Mohamed Merah before his shooting spree in Toulouse.

The 17-page report by the police disciplinary unit IGPN said "several objective failures had come to light," including a "delayed coordinated reaction," as Interior Minister Manuel Valls vowed to "rapidly put into place the necessary adjustments."

Various units of the French police and intelligence bodies were working in a compartmentalised manner, the report said, slamming the French intelligence agency DCRI, which reports directly to the interior ministry, for "identifying the change in Merah's profile very late."

Merah, a self-described al-Qaida sympathiser, shot a rabbi, three Jewish schoolchildren and three French paratroopers in attacks in and around the southern city of Toulouse in March before being shot dead in a police siege.

The report said Merah, who has had at least 15 previous criminal convictions, attacked a neighbour in June 2010 who confronted him for showing her son a video depicting decapitation.

The lack of coordination resulted in the DCRI being unaware of this development, which could have led to increased surveillance on Merah, who turned into an Islamist hardliner in prison in February 2008, it said.

Merah's transformation to a radical only became apparent to the agency two years later.

And Merah's departure to Pakistan in August last year also went unnoticed because he transited through Oman, which is not part of the 31 destinations where outbound travel is monitored by French intelligence.

It called for tighter surveillance and better coordination between the various security agencies, including fiscal policing. Merah had a rented apartment in Toulouse despite having no declared income.

Separate reports from the DCRI show that Merah was under intense surveillance throughout 2011 but that agents decided to reduce monitoring.

They show that Merah, who had been under surveillance since 2006, was identified as a "privileged target" at the beginning of last year after returning from a trip to Afghanistan, where he was detained in November 2010.

Surveillance from March to July indicated he was in regular contact with "the radical Islamist movement in Toulouse", was showing "paranoid behaviour" and was receiving funds from extremists.

Merah travelled to Pakistan between August and October last year and met with DCRI agents upon his return.

French President Francois Hollande has vowed to beef up its anti-terrorism laws following the killings.

Plans presented to cabinet earlier this month would allow authorities to prosecute suspects for terrorism-related crimes committed outside the country, allowing France to target extremists who attend foreign training camps.


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NY court says lap dance isn't art

A SHARPLY divided court in New York says lap dances don't promote culture in a community the way ballet or other artistic endeavors do, and so shouldn't get a tax break.

The state's top court split 4 to 3. Dissenting justices conclude there's no distinction in state law between "highbrow dance and lowbrow dance," so the case raises "significant constitutional problems."

The lawsuit was filed by Nite Moves, an adult club in suburban Albany that was arguing its fees for admission and private dances are exempt from sales taxes.

The court majority says taxes apply to many entertainment venues, such as amusement parks and sporting events. It ruled the club has failed to prove it qualifies for the exemption for "dramatic or musical arts performances" meant to promote culture.


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Something fishy about naval robots

AN EEL undulating through coastal waters, powered by batteries and checking for mines. A jellyfish is actually a surveillance robot, powered by the atoms around it. Fins pick up intelligence while propelling a robot bluegill sunfish.

The US Office of Naval Research is supporting baby steps toward making those visions of the future a reality.

For instance, the jellyfish work in Texas and Virginia is focused on how the creatures move in water, and how to mimic or even surpass their abilities.

The robojellyfish is currently tethered to hydrogen and oxygen tanks, and ONR project manager Robert Brizzolara said he doesn't plan to try making it move autonomously yet.

There's plenty still to learn about basic hydrodynamics.

"We, as engineers, haven't created anything that swims nearly as well as a very basic fish," said Drexel University's James Tangorra, who is working on a robotic bluegill.

Partners at Harvard and the University of Georgia are studying the actual fish; he uses their findings to engineer imitations.

"There are great things we can learn from fish ... The way they propel themselves; the way in which they sense water."

Ultimately, the Navy wants "the next generation of robotics that would operate in that very Navy-unique underwater domain," said Jim Fallin, a spokesman for Space and Naval Warfare Systems Centre Pacific, which is doing separate work in San Diego. One aspect is finding long-lived power sources to let drones loiter a long time to collect information, he said.

Possible uses include spying, mapping, and mine detection and removal.

The Navy is not the only agency paying for such research. In 2007, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency offered small business innovation research money for an underwater robot that could navigate rivers, inlets, harbors and coastal waters to check for general traffic, obstacles, things on and under the bottom, and "specific vessels of interest."

The ONR studies are more basic. The grants aren't aimed as much at creating drones as at understanding how things move forward underwater, Mr Brizzolara said.

The Navy uses torpedo-shaped drones and tethered vehicles to detect mines and map the ocean floor. But propellers and jets can be easily tracked on radar and sonar. Robots modeled after water creatures could be both more efficient and harder to detect, and could move through perilous waters without endangering people, researchers say.

The work isn't all at universities. The Office of Naval Research opened a 50,000-square-foot robotics laboratory this year. A prototype dubbed Razor, developed at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, R.I., uses flippers for stealth.

Like the jellyfish work and the University of Virginia studies on manta rays, the eel research at the University of New Orleans is all about hydrodynamics. The spark is UNO professor emeritus William Vorus' theory that sinuous undulations, though a slow way to swim, should allow forward movement without creating a wake.

Brandon M. Taravella, who studied under Vorus and is now an assistant professor of naval architecture and marine engineering at UNO, sees the robot eel as a possible surveillance tool. But the Office of Naval Research's three-year, $900,000 grant is focused on making an eel and seeing whether it can swim without disturbing the water around it.

Other scientists have checked real eels, Mr Taravella said.

"It's pretty high-efficient ... but still has some wake. That's why we're not dropping eels into the tank."

Computer-generated models indicate just how a robot eel should move to get through the water without any drag. Creating one to do that is far from easy.

Like many of the other projects, this one is still in early stages. Most of the time, the nameless first-year prototype is hooked onto a metal pole called a mast, which is attached to sensors on a platform pulled by metal cables from one end of a 49-metre long towing tank to the other.

At the end of one session half of its batteries were removed and it was set into the water for a free swim toward the platform. When it hit one side or headed under the platform, Mr Taravella and graduate student Baker Potts guided it back by sticking canoe paddles in its way.

"This time it tracked straighter a lot better ... Remember? It was going in circles," said Mr Potts.

Mr Taravella said, "Year 2, we're hoping to have it remote controlled. By Year 3, we hope to have it fully autonomous," They'd also like it to wriggle up and down as well as side to side, letting it rise and dive.

MIT has a pike, a sea turtle and two generations of Charlie the Robotuna. Michigan State is working on a school of fish.

One aim is outdoing nature, at least as far as swimming goes, Mr Brizzolara said.

"We'd like to understand the very good performance that some sea creatures can achieve. But also we'd like to see if we can improve on that," he said.

"We can produce perhaps a better result than a sea creature that's been optimised by nature. We haven't done that yet. But that's one of our long-term goals," Mr Brizzolara said.

The research could have a broad range of uses, said Drexel's Tangorra. Part of understanding how fish move is understanding how their nervous systems pull together a wide assortment of information and impulses. And knowing how their fins work could improve other equipment used to control the flow of liquid, from big pumps and pipes to blood flowing in a body.

And, he said philosophically, "You don't look at a sunfish and say, 'Oh my gosh, this is the most incredible evolved device that ever came through.' But you look at it and see that evolution is a wonderful thing."


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Friend your boss at your peril

THOUSANDS of young Aussies might have to update their Facebook status from 'hired' to 'fired' sooner than they'd like.

Almost one-third of workers aged between 18 and 25 are friends with their boss on social media, a new survey has found.

But more than half them - 58 per cent - admit they've never cleared potentially career-damaging content from their profiles.

According to a worldwide survey by anti-virus company AVG, 13 per cent of working Gen Yers in Australia admit to posting abusive content about their boss or company after a bad day at work.

They're not nearly as angry as young employees in Italy, where 18 per cent express their emotions online.

Nor are they as fearless as the 80 per cent of Spanish young adults who say they've posted inappropriate images online. Only 28 per cent of Australians admit to sharing unsuitable pictures on social networking sites.

The survey also found that one in 12 young Aussies had been asked in a job interview about things they've posted online.

AVG's Australian security adviser Michael McKinnon said the level of comfort with social media was blurring the line between young people's professional and private lives.

"It seems obvious that posting abusive content about a boss or workplace is not very sensible, but it's important to understand that not only could it damage a person's existing career, it could negatively impact on future opportunities too," Mr McKinnon said.

The survey canvassed 4400 people in 11 countries.


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Emergency planning 'lacks funds'

Written By Unknown on Senin, 22 Oktober 2012 | 22.33

AUSTRALIA needs to boost its "shamefully inadequate" emergency services funding and set up a national body to oversee disaster management, former federal emergency services minister Robert McClelland says.

Mr McClelland says more attention should be given to preventing poor planning decisions before they lead to unnecessary damage and the loss of life.

"In short, the consequences of failing to develop a more sophisticated approach to emergency management is inevitably more loss in terms of lives, property and environment but also, potentially, in terms of maintaining a civil society," Mr McClelland said in a chapter of a book, Next Generation Disaster and Security Management, to be released on Wednesday.

Australia should consider having a similar organisation to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Mr McClelland said.

A central body like FEMA would oversee the three Australian agencies that deal with natural and security emergencies - the national security resilience policy division, the national security capability development division and Emergency Management Australia.

Mr McClelland said once a dedicated agency was set up to focus on all aspects of emergency prevention, preparation, response and recovery, it would have to push for enough funds for national emergency management capability.

The commonwealth spends less than $30 million a year on natural disaster mitigation strategies, the former minister said.

"Currently, unfortunately, funding is shamefully inadequate," he said.

Mr McClelland said governments had helped to create a culture of entitlement rather than a culture of prevention.

"This has occurred because the emphasis of government has been on being seen to provide assistance to individuals after they fall victims to a natural disaster rather on developing strategies and working with communities to prevent those communities from falling victim to disaster in the first place," he said.

Mr McClelland said eligibility to Australian government disaster recovery payments (AGDRP) should be tightened for those disadvantaged from natural disasters or terrorism, which would free up funds to prevent injury loss and damage from future events.

An adult affected by a natural disaster or terrorist event is entitled to $1000 while a child can receive $400.

"A 20 per cent saving on the AGDRP commitments in respect to the Queensland floods and cyclones Yasi, for instance, would have released approximately $166 million for future mitigation measures," Mr McClelland said.


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More young people drowning

A SIGNIFICANT rise in the number of young people drowning in Australia has led to a call for compulsory swimming lessons at primary schools.

The Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) says 371 people aged between 15 and 24 drowned between 2002 and 2012 - a 25 per cent increase on previous decades.

RLSS CEO Rob Bradley says many children are no longer taught basic swimming skills, and 20 per cent of youngsters leaving primary school in coming months will be unable to stay afloat for two minutes.

He's launched a petition calling on governments to support and help fund compulsory swimming lessons at primary schools.

The RLSS believes the number of young people drowning could double in the next decade unless action is taken.

"Royal Life Saving believes that the rapid increase in drowning in young adults ... is undeniably linked to a fall in the swimming and water safety skills of children in Australia over the past 10 years," the organisation said.

The RLSS believes many families simply can't afford swimming lessons and having them as part of the curriculum would be one way to ensure all children receive training.

It acknowledged that some schools do offer swimming training but said it was often only a few lessons every year.


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Instant phone translation begins in Japan

JAPAN'S biggest mobile operator says it will launch a translation service that lets people chat over the phone in several different languages.

The application for NTT DoCoMo subscribers will give two-way voice and text readouts of conversations between Japanese speakers and those talking in English, Chinese or Korean with a several-second delay, the firm says.

"Hanashite Honyaku" will be a free application that can be used on smartphones and tablet computers with the Android operating system, DoCoMo says.

Customers will also be able to call landlines using the service, it says.

It plans to next launch voice-to-text readouts in French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai.

"We hope that with this application, our subscribers will be able to widen the range of their communication," a company spokeswoman said.

However, she conceded the service does not offer perfect translations and has trouble deciphering some dialects.

DoCoMo also said it has launched a separate service that lets users translate menus and signage using a smartphone camera.


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Oldest Auschwitz survivor dies at 108

THE oldest known survivor of the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Antoni Dobrowolski, has died at the age of 108, one of the site's official historians has announced.

Adam Cyra, who works at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum, said on Monday that Dobrowolski died in the town of Debno, northwest Poland.

Primary school teacher Dobrowolski ran secret classes during Germany's brutal World War II occupation of Poland, when the local population was barred from receiving an education.

Arrested in 1942 by the Nazis' Gestapo secret police, he was first sent to Auschwitz, in annexed Polish territory, and later transferred to Gross Rosen and Sachsenhausen, both in Germany.

He survived until the latter camp was liberated by Soviet and Polish forces in 1945.

Returning to Poland after the war, he first ran a primary school in Debno and then a secondary school.

Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most enduring symbol of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany's World War II campaign of genocide against Europe's Jews. After the war's end in 1945, it was transformed into a memorial and museum by Poland.

A year after invading Poland in 1939, the Nazis opened what was to become a vast complex on the edge of the southern town of Oswiecim - Auschwitz in German - initially to hold and kill Polish prisoners such as Dobrowolski.

They later expanded it to the nearby village of Brzezinka, or Birkenau, as they took the Holocaust to an industrial scale.

Of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during the war, one million were murdered at the camp, mostly in its notorious gas chambers, along with tens of thousands of others including Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war.


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US stocks slip on Caterpillar outlook

US stocks have opened mostly lower as investors braced for a week of earnings reports, with Caterpillar's lowered outlook hurting sentiment.

Five minutes into trade on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 12.86 points, or 0.10 per cent, at 13,330.65.

The S&P 500-stock index was off 0.12 point, or 0.01 per cent, at 1,433.07.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 4.71 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 3,010.33.

"Some cautious guidance from Caterpillar is helping to keep things in check," said Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com.

Although the world's largest heavy equipment maker posted its best third-quarter, with record profit and sales that beat forecasts, "the bad news is that it provided FY12 and FY13 guidance that is below current consensus estimates", he said.

"Thus far, the earnings reporting period, even with the financials, has left plenty to be desired," he added.

On Friday, stocks fell sharply after a spate of disappointing earnings from major heavyweights.

The Dow dropped 1.52 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 1.66 per cent and the Nasdaq gave up 2.19 per cent.


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Pregnant women going further to give birth

OVERWORKED maternity hospitals in Melbourne are being forced to turn down bookings from pregnant women, forcing them to hospitals further away or into expensive private care.

Fairfax says staff at the recently expanded Werribee Mercy Hospital have told several local women this year that the hospital is too full to book them in for antenatal care.

Victorian Health Services Commissioner Beth Wilson is looking into the matter and said she had also received complaints from women who had been turned away from the Royal Women's Hospital.

Ms Wilson said the government needed to invest in growth corridors, particularly in Melbourne's west.

"The west is one of the fastest growing districts in the world," Ms Wilson said.

"There are new suburbs springing up and there are young people buying houses and moving in, but the health services are not keeping up with that spurt of growth. Unless we do something about this quickly there are going to be big problems," she said.

Doctors told Fairfax the shortage of beds at Werribee and the Royal Women's was impacting on Sunshine Hospital, which was taking the overflow despite a lack of birth suites.

They said it was also causing many women to be discharged home one day after birth, jeopardising postnatal care.


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Budget 12/13 surplus not necessity: Access

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 21 Oktober 2012 | 22.34

THE federal government's promise to bring the budget back to surplus is based more on politics than economic necessity, a leading independent forecaster says.

As Labor prepares to release its mid-year budget review on Monday morning, Deloitte Access Economics director Chris Richardson says while the task of repairing budgets cannot be shirked, it shouldn't be rushed.

"Governments need to pay their way over time, but we still think that a surplus in 2012/13 is partly a political target rather than an economic necessity," he said in the company's business outlook released on Monday.

The government's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) is widely expected to stick to the May budget forecast of a $1.5 billion surplus this financial year, even though it needs to find further savings.

Mr Richardson said federal and state governments were all scrambling to repair "broken" budgets after spending the past decade dishing out the revenue proceeds of the commodity price boom.

"But a shockwave in commodity prices means the tax take will (now) stay soggy," he said.

At the same time, the fact the Australia dollar is still riding high when commodity prices are down is creating headaches across the industrial landscape.

"Some miners are losing money, and mining services ... are now feeling the pressure of cost cutting," he said.

New sectors were joining the "trouble list" of manufacturing, utilities and retail, at the same time as the government was "jumping on the anchors" of spending.

However, Mr Richardson said the engineering construction sector still had an enormous workload ahead because of increased mining investment.


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Growth could slow in 2014 with price falls

AUSTRALIA'S growth could slow in 2014 and deliver headaches for business as commodity price falls put a brake on mining construction projects.

Big mining projects that were approved a few years ago will drive output gains in the next two years, but the next round of project approvals will be a "pale shadow of the last lot", a Deloitte Access Economics report says.

"The strong bit of Australia's 'two speed economy' won't be as strong in a couple of years," the Business Outlook said.

Rising world prices for iron ore and coal had underwritten a lot of the gains in Australian incomes in the past decade, but those prices had fallen through 2012.

"There's a risk of a pothole in growth in 2014-15 as the surge in mining construction finishes before rising gas export volumes hit their straps," the report said.

"That's not the end of the world, but it suggests the difficult business environment of the last couple of years won't disappear any time soon."

A supply surge in commodities coincided with weaker demand from China, leading to faster than expected price falls.

The report also warned of complacency around the consensus view of a relatively rapid rebound in China and in its insatiable demand for commodities.

Still, Deloitte found there was a lot of import spending locked in to feed into massive resource construction spending this financial year and next.

But the same was not true of exports.

The study showed unemployment remained low, despite anaemic job growth, partly because workers have been discouraged by weak job gains.

"More Australians are retiring or otherwise staying out of the job hunt," it said.

"That buffer was only a respite and we see unemployment drifting up as governments and even the mining sector tighten their belts."

Deloitte predicts unemployment will top out in this cycle at 5.5 per cent.

Inflation prospects were less worrying, but a surge of "funny money" from the central banks underlined continuing financial fragility around the globe.

While fears for Europe had faded, concerns about China had intensified.

"Even if the US dodges the big bullet of the 'fiscal cliff', there's still going to be some fiscal headwinds in the US in 2013," the report said.

The global recovery would continue, but it would be dogged by difficulties that would leave global growth below trend in 2012 and 2013.


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UK 'black box' trading crackdown due

A CRACKDOWN on so-called "black box" trading will be proposed by the British government to prevent extreme swings in the share prices of companies, it has been reported.

Business Secretary Vince Cable is expected to call for better management and oversight of high-speed computer trading in response to the publication of a report due on Monday, according to The Sunday Telegraph.

Professor John Beddington's report, called The Future of Computer Trading in Financial Markets, is set to reveal there are regulatory holes surrounding electronic financial trading and will recommend these loopholes are closed to protect markets and investors.

"Black box", or high frequency, trading - developed in recent years due to technological advances - has been blamed for high volatility in equity prices in recent years.

It was said to have wiped more than STG300 billion ($A460 billion) off the value of UK shares over six weeks last summer.

More than one third of UK equity trading is now generated through high frequency trading, while in the US it is closer to three quarters.

Beddington, the government's chief scientific adviser, has been leading the report into the impact of high speed trading on markets, heading a panel including former London Stock Exchange chief executive Clara Furse and Andy Haldane, director of financial stability at the Bank of England.

There are concerns the Bank of England and Financial Services Authority are not able to police such advanced technology.

Beddington's report will look at how computer generated trading - also known as algorithmic trading - might develop in the next 10 years or more and how this will affect financial stability and the integrity of markets.


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Pope names first Native American saint

POPE Benedict XVI has named seven new saints, including the first Native American, praising their "heroic courage" as the Catholic Church seeks to counter a rising tide of secularism in the West.

Kateri Tekakwitha, known as "Lily of the Mohawks", who for centuries has been a symbol of hope for the long-oppressed American Indians, was canonised in a lavish ceremony in St Peter's Square on Sunday following her beatification in 1980 by the late pope John Paul II.

Pope Benedict delivered a homily praising all seven new saints, saying they "lived their lives in total consecration to God and in generous service to their brothers".

About 80,000 faithful from numerous countries, including American Indians, gathered on the square outside St Peter's Basilica, which was decked with portraits of those being canonised.

The other new saints include a French missionary to Madagascar, a young Philippine missionary who died at the age of 17, a German migrant to the United States who took care of lepers and a Spanish nun who campaigned for women's rights.

Vatican watchers said the choice of the saints was linked to the Roman Catholic Church's efforts to highlight the need for a "new evangelisation" as church pews empty in Europe and the United States.

The canonisations were announced during a synod of 262 bishops from around the world.

Tekakwitha, who was born in 1656 to an Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father, was converted by Jesuit missionaries as a child. After being left scarred and partially blind from smallpox and being orphaned, she earned a following for her deep spiritualism before dying at just 24.

Tradition holds that her scars vanished at the time of her death-- considered a miracle that paved the way for her beatification in 1943. Sainthood was assured when the Pope certified a second miracle last year, the recovery of an 11-year-old Native American boy from flesh-eating bacteria after his parents prayed for divine intervention through Tekakwitha in 2006.

"She lived a life radiant with faith and purity," the Pope said, adding that Tekakwitha should be a symbol of a renewal of faith among indigenous peoples.

For a many non-Catholic American Indians, her canonisation is seen as a gesture of reconciliation by the Church for past injustices.

Another figure from North America who became a saint was German-born Franciscan nun Maria Anna Cope, who was born in 1838 and became known as the "Mother Marianne of Molokai" because she looked after lepers on the island of Molokai in the Hawaii archipelago.

In the Philippines, church bells pealed across the country to celebrate the naming of its second saint, young missionary Pedro Calungsod, who was killed at the age of 17 by hostile tribesmen on the island of Guam in 1672 while he was trying to convert locals to the Catholic faith.

He became patron saint for youth after the Vatican recognised a 2003 "miracle" in which a 49-year-old Filipina woman declared dead from a heart attack was revived when a doctor prayed to Calungsod for help.

At home, devotees flocked to a small farming town that claims Calungsod as its own, and thousands gathered at venues in the capital of the Catholic country, where the government had set up giant screens to show the proceedings in Rome.

A French Jesuit, Jacques Berthieu, who was executed in 1896 in Madagascar by rebels from the Menalamba movement, was also canonised.

The missionary refused to renounce his faith and is considered the first saint of Madagascar, where he lived for 21 years.

A German lay woman, Anna Schaeffer, who was from the Pope's German home state of Bavaria, was also rewarded by the Pope.

Schaeffer, who died in 1925, was badly burnt after falling into boiling water and spent the rest of her life bedridden.

She is credited with spreading the word of God in local villages.

An Italian priest, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, who in the late 19th century devoted his life to helping young people during the industrial revolution and founded a religious congregation, was also canonised.

The seventh new saint, Spanish nun Maria del Carmen, also founded a congregation and worked to better the lot of poor women in the 19th century, defending their social rights and helping their children's education.


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Protesters try to storm Lebanese govt HQ

LEBANESE soldiers have fired guns and tear gas to push back hundreds of protesters who broke through a police cordon and tried to storm the government headquarters in Beirut.

The enraged crowd came from the funeral of a top Lebanese intelligence official assassinated in a massive car bombing.

The protesters blame Friday's killing on Syria - and they consider the government in Beirut to be far too close to the regime there. Lebanon for much of the past 30 years has lived under Syrian military and political domination.

Former Lebanese prime minister Fuad Saniora appealed for calm.

"The use of violence is unacceptable and does not represent the image that we want," Saniora said in a televised address. "We appreciate the feelings of the people."

Several hundred protesters made it to within 50 metres of the entrance of Lebanon's government palace, with thousands more behind them. The gunfire appeared to push the crowd back.

Army commandos marched into the streets wielding clubs.

The crowd had marched from Martyrs Square, where thousands of people had turned out for Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan's funeral.

Al-Hassan, 47, was a powerful opponent of Syria in Lebanon.

He headed a recent investigation that led to the arrest of former information minister Michel Samaha, a Lebanese politician who was one of Syria's most loyal allies in Lebanon.

He was among eight people killed in the attack on Friday.

"He was killed while he was defending his country," said Samer al-Hirri, who travelled from northern Lebanon to attend the funeral.

Even before Friday's bombing, the civil war in neighbouring Syria had set off violence in Lebanon and deepened tensions between supporters and opponents of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The attack heightened fears that Lebanon could easily plunge back into cycles of sectarian violence and reprisal that have haunted it for decades.

France's foreign minister said it was likely that Assad's government had a hand in the assassination.

Laurent Fabius told Europe-1 radio that while it was not fully clear who was behind the attack, it was "probable" that Syria played a role.

"Everything suggests that it's an extension of the Syrian tragedy," he said.


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13 dead in Damascus police station bomb

A CAR bomb has exploded outside a police station in a Christian quarter of Damascus, killing 13 people, the official SANA news agency says, with a similar attack striking Syria's second city of Aleppo.

"An explosive device planted under a car in Bab Tuma exploded, killing 13 people and wounding 29," said SANA, blaming an "armed terrorist group", the regime's term for rebels.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 people were killed and 15 others wounded when "a car bomb exploded in Bab Tuma Square in front of the police station" in the capital's Old City.

It did not specify if the casualties were police or civilians.

State television said significant material damage was caused by the blast and it showed mangled cars and debris littered on the ground.

It was the first such attack in Bab Tuma, one of the oldest quarters of the capital, since an anti-regime revolt broke out in March 2011, costing 34,000 lives nationwide, according to the Observatory.

A large part of Syria's Christian community backs President Bashar al-Assad, fearful of the influence of Islamists in the revolt.

One resident told AFP by telephone the car blew up in a car park in front of the police station. "My house a kilometre away shook" from the force of the blast, another said.

SANA also reported that a number of "terrorists" were killed when a bomb they had planted by a mosque in the Assali district of southern Damascus exploded prematurely.

The Observatory reported fierce clashes between the army and rebels in Assali, and that the bodies of two men were found shot dead in the nearby neighbourhood of Qaboon.

In the town of Harasta, northeast of the capital, nine people, including a child and three rebels, were killed in clashes and shelling, said the watchdog, which also reported bombardment of the nearby town of Irbin.

Elsewhere, nine soldiers were killed and wounded in a roadside bombing near Al-Tal, a town just north of Damascus.

In Aleppo, a car bomb exploded in the Sarian district, leaving body parts scattered, and wounding several people, an AFP correspondent said. A security source said the blast was caused by "a suicide car bomber".

Also in the northern city, fierce clashes broke out between rebels and troops around the ancient Citadel, the Observatory said, adding that four rebels were killed in fighting across the city.

According to the AFP correspondent, internet connections in Aleppo and other areas in the largely rebel-held north of the country were down since early Saturday, while mobile connections were unreliable.

The Observatory also said that regime forces stormed the rebel town of Artuz, "burning" homes while heavy bombing also continued over the northwestern town of Zabadani near the border with Lebanon.

Renewed fighting was reported at the southern entrance to Maaret al-Numan, a strategic town on the Aleppo-Damascus highway that fell under rebel control on October 9, blocking off a key army supply route.


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Clean-up begins as Lourdes flooding eases

A MASSIVE clean-up is under way in the French pilgrimage town of Lourdes, famed for its Catholic sanctuaries, after flash floods forced the evacuation of some 450 pilgrims and closed the main shrine.

The waters from days of non-stop rain in the region had begun to recede on Sunday but the main places of worship remained closed to the public as firefighters pumped out water from a grotto and the basements of several hotels.

The cave, where Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, remained flooded, with debris like bits of wood, candles and branches floating on the surface.

An estimated six million pilgrims visit the shrine every year, drawn by its spring waters, which the devout believe can heal and even work miracles.

Thierry Castillo, the custodian of the sanctuaries, told AFP: "There have been floods in the past but this one has caused the most damage in the last 30 years."

It was a fresh blow for the sanctuaries, which had a million-euro hole last year in a 30 million euro ($A38 million) budget due to lower donations as a result of the eurozone debt crisis.

"We have serious damages which will run into hundreds of thousands of euros," Castillo said, adding that he hoped for "a mobilisation of donors".

Pope Benedict XVI evoked the flooding at a special mass on Sunday in the Vatican where he named seven new saints, saying: "Let us turn to the Virgin Mary with a thought for Lourdes, the victim of flash floods, which inundated the grotto where the Madonna had appeared."

Several areas in the town were inundated on Saturday as the river Gave de Pau burst its banks, leading to the closure of the main places of worship.

Buses ferried guests from all the hotels in the lower town to a conference centre and a sports complex on Saturday. Two campsites were also evacuated and several roads closed in Lourdes, home to 22 places of worship.

The water was around one metre deep in front of the grotto and 80 centimetres in the Avenue du Paradis, where most of the hotels for pilgrims are located.

On Sunday, the waters had receded from the streets but in many places left mud and slush up to 10 centimetres deep.

The body supervising the sanctuaries said a hydro-electricity unit providing power to the shrines had been badly damaged as well as two pedestrian walkways on the side of the river.


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