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Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew in hospital

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 16 Februari 2013 | 20.47

FORMER Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew is recovering in hospital after suffering from an irregular heartbeat, the government said on Saturday.

Lee, 89, will remain at Singapore General Hospital for a few days, said a statement issued by the office of his son, current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

The elder Lee was confined on Friday "after experiencing a suspected transient ischaemic attack (TIA) associated with a prolonged episode of atrial fibrillation", or an irregular heartbeat, the statement said.

TIA occurs when blood flow to a part of the brain stops briefly, according to the statement, which added that a person who suffers from this "will have stroke-like symptoms which clear in less than 24 hours".

"He has recovered but will remain warded for a few days for the doctors to adjust his medications and for observation," the statement said.

Lee Kuan Yew, who retired from the cabinet in 2011 but remains a member of parliament, is widely credited with transforming Singapore from an economic backwater to one of Asia's fastest-growing economies.

He served as prime minister from 1959, when Singapore gained self-rule from colonial ruler Britain, until he stepped down in 1990 in favour of his deputy Goh Chok Tong, who in turn handed power to Lee's son in 2004.

The People's Action Party co-founded by the elder Lee has been returned to power in every election since 1959 and holds 80 of the 87 seats in parliament.


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Show with Pistorius' girlfriend to go on

A TV show featuring the murdered girlfriend (pic) of Oscar Pistorius will still be broadcast. Source: AAP

BLONDE cover girl Reeva Steenkamp will appear in a pre-recorded celebrity reality TV show in South Africa, two days after she was shot dead by Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius.

The 29-year-old will make a posthumous prime-time debut in Tropika Island of Treasure.

Pistorius, 26, will be spending a third night in jail during the screening on Saturday.

The reality show, shot on location in Jamaica, features Steenkamp, a law graduate, and several other local personalities competing for one million rand ($A110,000) prize money.

Producers decided not to shelve the show, instead casting its broadcast as a tribute to Steenkamp.

Forensics teams are working at Pistorius's home to try and establish what took place before and after Steenkamp was shot in the head and hand.

"She was happy, healthy, beautiful and vibrant and that's the way she should be remembered," said executive producer Samantha Moon.

In an earlier statement Moon said the decision to broadcast the program was taken after "much deliberation".

"This week's episode will be dedicated to Reeva's memory.

"Yesterday her mother agreed that we should go ahead and we are free to go ahead and we are working on how to pay tribute to her," said Kaizer Kganyagon, a spokesman for the national broadcaster.

The audience is expected to be much larger than normal.

"The number that we expect will be obviously more than the normal because now everybody wants to see this person that was killed."

A special tribute will be broadcast ahead of Saturday's show at 6.30pm (0330 AEDT).

Trailers for the series show a beaming and vivacious Steenkamp clad in a bikini and other skimpy clothing.

The show's website carries a picture of a burning candle with a message: "We are deeply saddened and extend our condolences to Reeva's family and friends."

The series is now in its fifth season.

Born in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth, Steenkamp moved to Johannesburg six years ago to pursue her modelling career. She had dated Pistorius for less than year.

After an emotional court appearance on Friday, in which Pistorius broke down repeatedly, a source at Brooklyn police station in Pretoria said the track star had "slept very well".

He was expected to receive visits on Saturday from family and from members of his defence team, who are preparing for a bail hearing that will begin on Tuesday.

The state is expected to strongly oppose any effort to allow him to return to his home.

Prosecutors will argue the murder was premeditated, meaning he could face a life sentence.


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Scientists turn eyes toward Europa

US astronomers looking for life in the solar system believe that Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, is much more promising than desert-covered Mars, which is currently the focus of the US government's attention.

Europa, which has an ocean, is the most "likely place in our solar system beyond Earth to possess ... life", says Robert Pappalardo, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

"And it is the place we should be exploring now that we have a concept mission we think is the right one to get there for an affordable cost," he says.

"Europa is the most promising in terms of habitability because of its relatively thin ice shelf and an ocean. We know there are oxidants on the surface of Europa."

At the request of NASA, a proposed mission to explore Europa was revised to significantly reduce the cost, the scientist told the media on Friday on the sidelines of an annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As a result of this review, the JPL and the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland developed a new exploration project named Clipper with a total coast of $US2 billion ($A1.95 billion) minus the launch.

Following the successful example of Cassini, a probe that explored Titan, a moon of Saturn, a spacecraft would orbit Jupiter and conduct numerous close flybys of Europa.

If the plan is approved, Clipper could be launched by 2021 and take three to six years to reach Europa. By comparison, it takes six months to reach Mars.

But NASA announced at the end of 2012 that there would be no funds for the Clipper mission, he said.

Noting that Mars consumed most attention, Pappalardo said the agency should not ignore planets that have a high scientific priority.

In his view, life could have existed on Mars several billion years ago, but Europa could have life today.

Europa was closely observed for the first time by the twin Voyager probes in 1979 and then, in more detail, by Galileo in the 1990s.


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Pope considered resignation in August

POPE Benedict XVI said last August his strength was diminishing and "not much more" could be expected from him as pontiff, according to a German journalist who interviewed him for a 2010 book in which Benedict said popes should in some circumstances consider resigning.

In an article in Saturday's issue of the German weekly Focus, Peter Seewald recalls that he asked Benedict last August what more could be expected of him and his papacy.

Seewald says Benedict replied: "From me? From me, not much more. I am an old man and my strength is running out. And I think what I have done is enough."

Asked whether he was considering resignation, Benedict responded: "That depends to what extent my physical strength will compel me to."

Benedict announced on Monday that he would resign on February 28, making him the first pope to step down in nearly 600 years.

The announcement stunned the world, but the pope had laid the groundwork for a possible resignation when Seewald interviewed him for his 2010 book, Light of the World.

"If a pope clearly realises that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign," the book quoted Benedict as saying.

Resignation was, however, not an option to escape a particular burden, such as the scandal over sexual abuse by clerics.

In Saturday's article, Seewald recalls asking the Pope how badly the scandal over leaks of papal documents, in which the Pope's ex-butler was convicted of aggravated theft, had affected him.

It "is not as though I were somehow falling into a kind of desperation or world-weariness - it is simply incomprehensible to me," Benedict said, according to Seewald.

Benedict said the affair had not thrown him off his stride or made him tired of his office, "because I think this can always happen".


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Bird flu forces ducks to the slaughter

ABOUT 14,000 ducks at a German farm are being slaughtered following a bird flu outbreak.

A federal laboratory confirmed Friday the H5N1 virus was detected at the farm near Seelow, east of Berlin - the first such finding in Germany in more than three years.

On Saturday, officials started slaughtering the farm's ducks. Local council spokesman Tobias Seyfarth said that all poultry within a one-kilometre radius of the facility will be kept under observation for the next 21 days, with owners told to keep their birds where they are and report any symptoms.

The H5N1 virus normally spreads between sick poultry, but it can sometimes spread from poultry to humans. Bird flu has killed 367 people worldwide since surfacing in 2003, the World Health Organisation says.


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G20 must pursue jobs and growth: Swan

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 15 Februari 2013 | 20.47

TREASURER Wayne Swan says Australia will continue to pursue an economic and jobs growth agenda when it takes over the chair of the Group of 20 nations next year.

Mr Swan is attending a G20 Finance Ministers meeting in Russia this weekend where he will also push for the closure of loopholes used by multinational companies to reduce tax.

The treasurer believes the global recovery is now at a critical point, after slumping in the years after the global financial crisis, and is cautiously optimistic about the prospects for 2013.

"It's been a better start to the year than we thought it might be, but it will take the combined efforts of all G20 nations to continue our momentum," Mr Swan will tell his international counterparts in Moscow on Saturday (AEDT time).

The overriding priority must be to support growth and jobs to cement a sustained recovery.

"The fact there are still nearly 200 million people without jobs around the (developed) world is a blight on our global society," he will say.

He welcomed the commitment by this year's G20 chair, Russia, to focus on jobs and growth, and reinforced Australia's commitment to the same agenda in 2014.

But G20 governments also need to pursue responsible medium-term budget frameworks.

"A strong budget is critical to supporting the investments needed to boost growth, along with structural reforms to create a more dynamic and resilient economy," Mr Swan will say.

Ms Swan also notes a renewed global push to tackle climate change among countries, such as the US where President Barack Obama has called on the US congress to pursue a market-based solution.

Mr Swan will also raise the need for the G20 to address the "unscrupulous behaviour" of multinational companies avoiding tax payments.

"This hurts us all," he will say.

"Across the world, a small number of profitable multinational companies are exploiting differences in global taxation regimes to effectively pay no tax."


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Burger King's earnings $US48.6m in Q4

BURGER King's fourth-quarter net income nearly doubled in part because of lower expenses and strengthening results in the US and Canada.

For the three months ended December 31, the hamburger chain earned $US48.6 million ($A47.18 million). That compares with $US25 million a year earlier.

Revenue fell 30 per cent to $US404.5 million from $US580.6 million. Analysts forecast revenue of $US375.3 million.

Burger King Worldwide Inc. has more than 12,900 locations in 86 countries and territories.


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Zygier told reporter: I'm no spy

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 14 Februari 2013 | 20.47

AN Australian journalist who interviewed Ben Zygier shortly before he was detained by Israeli authorities says the Melbourne man "strenuously" denied being a spy.

But reporter Jason Koutsoukis says he suspected that his conversations with Mr Zygier, which began two months before the man's arrest in February 2010, were being monitored by Israeli intelligence.

Mr Zygier was found hanged in a supposedly suicide-proof cell on December 15, 2010.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr has ordered a review of the case, which has rocked the Australian and Israeli governments, after the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade apparently gave him conflicting advice about who knew what.

Koutsoukis on Thursday told the ABC he interviewed Mr Zygier three or four times and that their last conversation may have been the same month Mr Zygier was arrested.

Koutsoukis said he had been tipped off in October 2009 by an Australian intelligence source who believed three dual national citizens - including Mr Zygier - had used Australian passports to spy for Israel in countries including Syria, Iran and Lebanon.

Koutsoukis said he interviewed Mr Zygier on a handful of occasions and that Mossad may have been aware the pair were in contact.

"He listened to what I had to say and it was, even to me, an outlandish story, what I was putting to him, and at the end of what I had to say he responded and denied it as strenuously as he could," Koutsoukis told the ABC.

"He was just incredulous."

The former Fairfax Media reporter said at first he found Mr Zygier "very convincing" but continued to interview him.

"It seemed to me that he was doing some kind of intelligence gathering but I couldn't be more certain than that," he said on Thursday.

He added that at the time, he thought it was possible his interactions with Mr Zygier were under Israeli surveillance.

"There were a couple of strange incidences which happened around my home in Jerusalem, which I didn't take seriously at the time, but in hindsight it is possible that they were monitoring our conversations," he said.


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Labor likely to shift to Rudd: Turnbull

THE Labor government will probably switch to former prime minister Kevin Rudd from Julia Gillard before the election, opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull says.

"I think it is likely they will put him back," Mr Turnbull told ABC Television on Thursday.

"The Gillard government goes from one catastrophe to another."

Labor's standing in the electorate fell in the most recent Newspoll, with the coalition having a 12-point buffer in the two-party-preferred vote.

Mr Turnbull, an opposition leader during Mr Rudd's tenure as prime minister, said the government had made a mess of the mining tax.

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has received great criticism in parliament this week for his handling of the minerals resource rent tax (MRRT).

MRRT revenue was $126 million for the six months to December, short of the $2 billion forecast for this financial year.

"The fate of the mining tax is colossal," Mr Turnbull said.

The Labor government switched to Ms Gillard as leader in June 2010, and she subsequently defeated Mr Rudd in a leadership challenge in February 2012.


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Man missing after Sydney speedboat crash

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 12 Februari 2013 | 20.47

POLICE and emergency services continue to search for a man in the Georges River after a speedboat crash southwest Sydney.

Emergency services were called to a boat ramp off River Road at Revesby just before 4pm (AEDT) on Tuesday after two men were thrown into the water when their boat capsized.

A 27-year-old Hurstville man was rescued and taken to St George Hospital for minor injuries and later released.

His friend, a 28-year-old Picnic Point man, has not been found.

Their boat was found, although it is completely submerged.

An extensive search has been launched and involves police officers along with PolAir, Police Rescue and Police Divers.

Volunteers from the State Emergency Service, Roads and Maritime Services and Fire and Rescue NSW personnel have helped with the search.

It was likely the search would be postponed later on Tuesday night, police said.

A police guard will remain at the location overnight and the search will continue at first light on Wednesday.


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Uganda deports British gay play producer

UGANDA has deported a British theatre producer who last year staged a play about homosexuality, which is illegal in Uganda, the British High Commission said.

David Cecil was arrested in September on charges of disobeying orders to cancel the staging of a play whose main character was a gay man. He was briefly jailed before being granted bail.

In January a court dropped the charges for lack of proof.

"We have confirmation of deportation," High Commission spokesman Chris Ward told AFP on Tuesday.

"We are quite concerned that he has not had the opportunity for due process under the Ugandan system."

Cecil's partner Florence Kebirungi, who has two children with him, said he was likely "already back in the UK."

She said he was taken on Monday night from the police station where he was being held to the capital's main airport, where he was put on a flight for Britain.

"He called me from the airport, he didn't sound OK," she said, adding that immigration officials told her that Cecil was being deported because he was an "undesirable" person.

"It is a big surprise as we did not have a chance to make a legal challenge," she told AFP.

The groundbreaking play The River and The Mountain was performed at several venues around Kampala in August despite an injunction by Uganda's government-run media council. It had issued a temporary ban on the play pending review of the script.

The play examines the plight of a man coming out as a homosexual and the motivations of Uganda's vociferous anti-gay lobby.

Written by British playwright Beau Hopkins, it was directed and performed by Ugandans.

Homosexuality is already a crime in Uganda but proposed legislation currently before parliament would see the death penalty introduced for certain homosexual acts.

Although legislators have said the bill could be changed, in its current form, anyone caught engaging in homosexual acts for the second time, or engaging in gay sex where one partner is a minor or has HIV, would be sentenced to death.

Public discussion promoting homosexuality -- including by rights groups -- would be punished by up to seven years in jail.


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Queen tops Britain's female power list

SHE has no formal political role, but Queen Elizabeth II has been named Britain's most powerful woman by a BBC radio program.

The monarch topped the list of 100 female figures announced on Tuesday on Woman's Hour.

Home Secretary Theresa May - Britain's interior minister - ranks second, followed by Ana Botin, chief executive of Santander UK bank.

The top five also includes Supreme Court judge Brenda Hale and Elisabeth Murdoch, chair of television company Shine Group and daughter of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

The list was assembled by a panel that included journalist Eve Pollard, politician Priti Patel and crime novelist Val McDermid.


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Dutch pull frozen food on horsemeat fears

DUTCH supermarkets have became the latest European shops to remove frozen meals from their shelves amid fears they may contain horsemeat disguised as beef.

"Plus supermarkets have withdrawn frozen lasagne of the Primafrost brand from shelves as a precaution," spokeswoman Debbie Huisman told AFP.

She said the withdrawn products were not dangerous but could contain horsemeat without it being marked on the packaging.

Boni supermarkets have withdrawn the same product, said Roel Vincken, spokesman for the Dutch Food and Goods Authority (NVWA).

"This is a decision that the supermarkets are taking themselves, we have to wait for the results of the enquiry to take official decisions," he told AFP.

The NVWA on Monday opened a probe to see whether any beef products stocked on shelves contain horsemeat as the frozen food scandal spreads across Europe.

The authorities are also investigating whether any Dutch company has been involved in fraudulent horsemeat trading.

The first results of the probe are expected early next week.

Supermarket chains in Britain, France and Sweden have pulled millions of frozen ready meals, including lasagne and moussaka dishes, from store shelves after it emerged last week that meals labelled as containing processed beef were actually found to contain up to 100 per cent horsemeat.

Horsemeat is readily available on Dutch shelves and the country produced about 1000 tonnes of horsemeat in 2011, according to the Dutch central statistics office.


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Rebels overrun Syria military airport

REBELS have seized a military airport in Syria's northern province of Alepp, capturing for the first time a fleet of deployable warplanes including MiG fighter jets, a watchdog says.

During their operation to take over the Al-Jarrah aiport, rebels killed, injured or imprisoned some 40 troops, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The remainder of the troops pulled out from the airport, leaving behind several warplanes and large amounts of ammunition," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"This is the first time rebels capture warplanes, among them MiG fighter jets," Abdel Rahman said, adding that airports captured in the past by rebels had only "damaged or otherwise unusable" planes left behind by regime troops.

Tuesday's capture of the Al-Jarrah military airport came a day after Islamist rebels overran the town of Tabqa, situated in the neighbouring province of Raqa, before taking control of the nearby strategic Al-Thawra dam on the Euphrates.

"The rebels' progress in this area has been extremely quick," Abdel Rahman said.

"While the army has full control of parts of Damascus province, the capital and the central province of Hama, it is suffering losses in Homs in the centre, Deir Ezzor in the east, and Aleppo and Raqa in the north.

"There are clashes all over the country, and it is impossible for the army to control every flashpoint."

Activists in Aleppo have told AFP that rebel fighters in the north have shifted their focus in recent weeks to the capture of military airports and bases.

"They are important because they are an instant source of ammunition and supplies, and because their capture means putting out of action the warplanes used to bombard us," Aleppo-based activist Abu Hisham said via the internet.

The capture of Al-Jarrah airport came just over a month after rebels overran Taftanaz airbase, the largest in northern Syria.

Amateur video shot by rebels overrunning Al-Jarrah on Tuesday and distributed via the internet showed a fleet of warplanes lining the airport's runways.

"Thank God, Ahrar al-Sham (Islamist rebels) have overrun the military airport" at Al-Jarrah, said an unidentified cameraman who shot a video at the site.

"MiG warplanes are now in the hands of Ahrar al-Sham. And here is the ammunition," the cameraman added, filming two Russian-made fighter jets like those the army has used since last summer to bombard rebel targets.

Meanwhile, clashes raged on Tuesday near other airports in Aleppo province, activists said.

Rebels were targeting Nayrab and Kwayris military airports, as well as Aleppo international airport, which has been closed since January 1, activists said.


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Pope was considering quitting for months

Written By Unknown on Senin, 11 Februari 2013 | 20.47

THE Pope's brother, Georg Ratzinger, says the pontiff had been advised by his doctor not to take any more transatlantic trips and had been considering stepping down for months.

Pope Benedict XVI announced on Monday that he would resign on February 28.

Talking from his home in Regensburg to the news agency dpa, Georg Ratzinger said his brother was having increasing difficulty walking and that his resignation was part of a "natural process".

"His age is weighing on him," the 89-year-old said of his 85-year-old brother. "At this age my brother wants more rest."

Georg Ratzinger did not answer his telephone for calls seeking further comment.


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Pope Benedict is diehard traditionalist

POPE Benedict XVI, who has announced his intention to resign this month, will be remembered as a staunch defender of Catholic orthodoxy, a diehard traditionalist and a lightning rod for controversy.

The German intellectual succeeded the long-reigning and popular John Paul II in April 2005 aged 78 after serving nearly a quarter-century as the church's doctrinal enforcer, earning himself the nickname, God's Rottweiler.

The 85-year-old, who blamed his age for preventing him from continuing at the head of the papacy, will be the first Pope to do so in centuries.

"I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me," the head of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics said as he would step down on February 28.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's hardline approach, his nationality and his age were all seen as handicaps to his becoming Pope, and Benedict had famously said in a 2010 interview that he would resign if he felt he could no longer carry out his papal duties.

As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then as Pope, he rejected the ordination of women and marriage for priests. He opposed homosexuality and communism and was never afraid of upsetting political sensibilities.

In 1984, he said "communist regimes which came to power in the name of the liberation are one of the disgraces of our times."

Ratzinger has also attacked rock music, calling it "the expression of basic passions".

As Pope, Benedict championed Christianity's European roots and showed his conservatism by repeatedly stressing family values and fiercely opposing abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage.

He also reintroduced the long-discarded Latin mass under certain conditions.

Above all, Benedict will be remembered for a disastrous public relations record that got him into hot water with Muslims, Jews, gays, native Indians, Poles, AIDS activists and even scientists.

Memories are still fresh of the fury the German Pope unleashed in the Muslim world with a speech in September 2006 in which he appeared to endorse the view of an obscure 14th-century Byzantine emperor that Islam is inherently violent.

The academic lecture sparked violent protests in several countries as well as attacks on Christian targets.

In 2009, the Pope struggled to mollify Jews after he invited a breakaway ultra-conservative faction back into the fold of the Catholic church by lifting the excommunication of four bishops, including one who insists that no one died in Nazi gas chambers.

Just weeks later Benedict added AIDS activists to the list of groups he has angered.

On a trip to Africa, the region hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic, he said that condom use could be aggravating the crisis.

Born on April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, in the predominantly Catholic southern German region of Bavaria, he was the son of a policeman.

Ratzinger gravitated gradually towards the priesthood, entering a seminary in 1939, the same year he was required to join the Hitler Youth movement.

He was ordained priest at the same time as his older brother Georg in 1951, and began teaching theology at Freising College in 1958.

Ratzinger went on from there to teach at several other German universities, notably in Bonn, Meunster and Regensburg.

The brilliant scholar caught the eye of Cologne Archbishop Joseph Frings, a cardinal who brought him to Rome to work as an adviser to the Second Vatican Council, hammering out modernisation reforms from 1962 to 1965.

Pope Paul VI named Ratzinger archbishop of Munich in 1977 and made him a cardinal the same year.

The four-year stint in Munich was his only real pastoral experience before he became Pope.

It was during the 1978 conclave of cardinals to elect a successor to Paul VI that Ratzinger got to know Karol Wojtyla, the future John Paul II.

Three years later he agreed to head the Vatican's doctrinal congregation.

One of his first moves was to spearhead opposition to liberation theology, the movement with Marxist overtones that swept Latin America in the 1970s.

It focuses on Christ as the liberator of the oppressed and emphasises the Christian mission of bringing justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activism.

A quiet, almost shy person, Benedict never succeeded in generating the fervour enjoyed by John Paul II.

Instead, he shunned rock star status, once describing himself as "just the vicar" at the Catholic church's periodic World Youth Days.

The Polish Pope was greeted with enthusiasm bordering on hysteria at these events, and he did little to dampen down the adulation, to the consternation of some in the church hierarchy.

The intellectual Benedict, an accomplished pianist, was a prolific writer.

Apart from three encyclicals, or instructions to the Roman Catholic flock, he wrote around 40 other works including a best-seller, Jesus of Nazareth, that contested political interpretations of Christ's role.


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Pope says will resign on Feb 28: Vatican

POPE Benedict XVI says he will resign on February 28 because his age prevented him from carrying out his duties, an unprecedented move in the modern history of the Catholic church.

He is the first pontiff to do so in nearly 600 years and the decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new Pope before the end of March.

The 85-year-old Pope announced his decision in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals on Monday morning.

"After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry," the Pope told the meeting.

"In order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me," he said.

"For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is," he said.

Pope Benedict had hinted in a book of interviews in 2010 that he might resign if he felt he was no longer able to carry out his duties.

The last Pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants.

Benedict called his choice "a decision of great importance for the life of the church".

The move sets the stage for the Vatican to hold a conclave to elect a new Pope by mid-March, since the traditional mourning time that would follow the death of a pope doesn't have to be observed.

There are several papal contenders in the wings, but no obvious front-runner as was the case when Benedict was elected pontiff in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II.


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Three Korean doctors slain in Nigeria

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 10 Februari 2013 | 20.47

THREE South Korean doctors have been killed in a knife attack in northeastern Nigeria, police say.

Men armed with knives slit the throats of the three Korean doctors in a pre-dawn attack in the town of Potiskum, police said, in the latest such killings in recent months.

"Further investigations have shown that the victims were Korean nationals and not Chinese as earlier stated. They were doctors from South Korea," Yobe State police commissioner Sanusi Rufa'i told AFP.

A senior military officer in the state also said they were from South Korea.

In Seoul, the foreign ministry said it was checking the reports, but noted that few Koreans live in the town.

"The chance that the slain would be Koreans is not high," a foreign ministry official told Yonhap news agency. "But we are checking further related situations via diverse channels."


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Aussie parents stressed over cash: report

AUSTRALIANS are struggling to put money aside, while households are feeling less comfortable after having spent their carbon tax compensation allowances, a survey has found.

Single parents and couples with children are suffering the most anxiety as the majority of Australians struggle to accumulate monthly savings, the ME Bank household financial comfort report found.

The study of 1500 households in December 2012 found financial comfort levels had declined over six months, scoring their welfare at 5.29 out of 10.

"Current comfort levels are similar to those reported when they feel occasional stress or worry," the report said.

In May last year, 1.6 million families were given allowances of up to $110 per child ahead of the carbon tax starting.

This led to households feeling more comfortable in June 2012.

But by December, those Family Tax Benefit A and B payments had been spent, making households with children feel less secure, the report said.

"This downshift in comfort for households with children may reflect a return to normal levels after a temporary positive effect of increased government payments that came through in the June quarter 2012," it said.

Australians are also struggling to save, with 52 per cent of surveyed households having no cash left over at the end of a typical month.

A quarter of survey respondents said they could not maintain their lifestyle for a month if they lost their job or could not raise $3000 in the case of an unexpected emergency.

Still, 63 per cent of people in the report are managing to meet monthly expenses, despite poorer households worrying about living costs.

Retirees had the highest level of household financial comfort while single parents had the lowest.


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