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Kerry presses China over N Korea crisis

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 13 April 2013 | 20.47

US Secretary of State John Kerry says North Korea's rhetoric is "unacceptable by any standards." Source: AAP

THE world is facing a "critical time", top US diplomat John Kerry has told China's President Xi Jinping, citing tensions on the Korean peninsula, Iran's nuclear program and the conflict in Syria.

"Mr President, this is obviously a critical time with some very challenging issues," Kerry told Xi in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Saturday.

"Issues on the Korean peninsula, the challenge of Iran and nuclear weapons, Syria and the Middle East, and economies around the world that are in need of a boost."

Kerry arrived from South Korea earlier to press Beijing to help defuse soaring nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula ahead of an expected missile launch by the North, which conducted a nuclear test in February and a rocket test last December.

Beijing is Pyongyang's sole major ally and its key provider of aid and trade, and is seen as having unique leverage over the government of Kim Jong-Un, which has issued repeated threats of nuclear war.

But Xi did not refer to the Korean peninsula or other issues raised by Kerry in his opening remarks at the meeting, instead saying that the US-China relationship was "at a new historical stage and has got off to a good start".

China and the US are both members of the P5+1 nations - the five veto-wielding permanent UN Security Council members and Germany - pressing Iran to give up its what they see as its ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.

The world powers suspect Tehran of developing a covert program aimed at having the capacity to produce a nuclear bomb. Iran denies this and says its work is being conducted for energy and medical purposes.

China, however, is a key trade partner for the Middle Eastern country and has spoken out against US and European Union sanctions targeting its oil exports.

Washington and Beijing have also been at odds over the conflict in Syria.

China, along with Russia, has vetoed UN Security Council resolutions to introduce sanctions against Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria as a two-year conflict has ravaged the country.

As the world's two biggest economies the US and China are major trade partners, while China is the single biggest buyer of US Treasuries.

But the relationship is also characterised by trade disputes and other tensions, most recently regarding allegations of computer hacking.

A report in February from US security firm Mandiant said a unit of China's People's Liberation Army had stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 companies, government agencies and other organisations, mostly based in the US.

Beijing has steadfastly denied the allegations and says it is itself a regular victim of cyberattacks.


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Snorkeller dies at Sydney beach

A snorkeller has died after getting into difficulty at Maroubra Beach, police say. Source: AAP

A SNORKELLER has died after getting into difficulty at Maroubra Beach.

The man was at snorkelling at the beach on Saturday afternoon and had to be pulled out of the water, say police.

He died shortly after arriving at hospital and is yet to be formally identified.


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Bomb blast on bus kills nine in Pakistan

A BOMB has exploded on a bus in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least nine people and wounding seven others.

"At least nine passengers have been killed and seven injured. Bomb disposal officials told me that it was a timed device," Fazal Wahid, a senior police official, told AFP on Saturday.

Shafi Ullah Khan, another police official, confirmed the attack which occurred as the was bus passing through the city's Matani suburb.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which came hours after militants blew up the election office of an independent candidate in the same region, adding to security fears ahead of historic national polls next month.

A recent wave of terror attacks has fuelled concerns that violence will mar general elections on May 11, which will mark the country's first democratic transition of power after a civilian government has served a full term in office.

Pakistan says more than 35,000 people have been killed as a result of terrorism in the country since the 9/11 attacks on the United States.


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Pell appointed to Pope advisory group

Archbishop of Sydney George Pell has been appointed by Pope Francis to a permanent advisory group. Source: AAP

VATICAN CITY/SYDNEY April 13 AP/AAP - Archbishop of Sydney George Pell has been appointed by Pope Francis to a permanent advisory group to help him run the Catholic Church and study a reform of the Vatican bureaucracy.

Cardinal Pell is one of eight cardinals and one monsignor - the others are from Europe, Africa, North and South America, and Asia - who have been appointed to the group.

The panel is a clear indication that Francis wants to reflect the universal nature of the church in its governance and core decision-making, particularly given the church is growing and counts most of the world's Catholics in the southern hemisphere.

In the run-up to the conclave that elected Francis pope one month ago, a reform of the Vatican bureaucracy was a constant drumbeat, as were calls to make the Vatican itself more responsive to the needs of bishops around the world.

Including representatives from each continent in a permanent advisory panel to the pope would seem to go a long way toward answering those calls.

In its bombshell announcement on Saturday, the Vatican said that Francis got the idea to form the advisory body from the pre-conclave meetings.

"He has formed a group of cardinals to advise him in the governing of the universal church and to study a revision of the apostolic constitution Pastor Bonus on the Roman Curia," the statement said.

Pope John Paul II issued Pastor Bonus in 1988, and it functions effectively as the blueprint for the administration of the Holy See and the Vatican City State, meting out the work and jurisdictions of the congregations, pontifical councils and other offices that make up the governance of the Catholic Church, known as the Roman Curia.

Pastor Bonus itself was a revision of the 1967 document that marked the last major reform of the Vatican bureaucracy undertaken by Pope Paul VI.

A reform of the Vatican bureaucracy has been demanded for decades, given both John Paul and Benedict XVI essentially neglected in-house administration of the Holy See in favour of other priorities.

But the calls for change grew deafening last year after the leaks of papal documents exposed petty turf battles within the Vatican bureaucracy, allegations of corruption in the running of the Vatican city state and even a purported plot by senior Vatican officials to out a prominent Catholic as gay.

Francis' advisory group will meet in its inaugural session October 1-3, the Vatican said in a statement.

Cardinal Pell, aged 71, is the eighth Archbishop of Sydney, serving since 2001.

The non-Vatican officials, apart from Cardinal Pell, include cardinals Francisco Javier Errzuriz Ossa, the retired archbishop of Santiago, Chile; Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Mumbai, India; Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany; Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo; Sean Patrick O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston; and Oscar Andrs Rodrguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Monsignor Marcello Semeraro, bishop of Albano, will be secretary.


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Suu Kyi arrives in Japan after 27 years

Myanmar's democracy hero Aung San Suu Kyi has arrived in Japan after 27 years. Source: AAP

MYANMAR'S (Burma's) democracy hero Aung San Suu Kyi has arrived in Japan, her first visit to the country where she spent time as a university researcher nearly three decades ago.

A group of well-wishers including Burmese gathered at Tokyo's Narita airport to greet Suu Kyi, now her country's opposition leader, but were denied the chance to meet her as she left through a backdoor.

"I respect her like my mother," one of Burmese women said in an interview with public broadcaster NHK.

"I want to tell her that I support her strongly."

During her six-day trip, the Nobel laureate is expected to have meetings with some of the approximately 10,000 Burmese who live in Japan, as well as with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.

It is Suu Kyi's first visit to Japan since spending time as a researcher at Kyoto University in 1985-86.

But a leader of about 200 of Myanmar's Muslim minority Rohingya in Japan has expressed disappointment after being told his community was not wanted at events welcoming Suu Kyi.

The Rohingya have been described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.


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Sydney man charged over child porn

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 12 April 2013 | 20.47

A MAN allegedly caught filming up the skirt of a young girl at Sydney train station has been charged after police found child pornography on his mobile phone.

The 35-year-old man was arrested at Sutherland train station about 10am (AEST) Friday when officers found "a number of child abuse and up-skirting images" on his mobile, police said.

His Sutherland home was raided shortly after with police seizing CDs, DVDs, recording devices, computers, an iPad, two mobile phones and a small amount of steroids.

He was charged with producing, disseminating or possessing child abuse material, filming a person's private parts without consent and possessing a prescribed restricted substance.

Conditional bail was granted and he's due before Sutherland Local Court on May 2.


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South African cop filmed beating woman

SOUTH Africa's under-fire police force faced a fresh scandal after footage emerged of an off-duty officer hitting and kicking an unarmed woman.

The security footage, broadcast by the eNCA television channel, shows the man striking the woman to the ground on a petrol station forecourt before launching a sustained assault.

Two uniformed officers are also filmed at the scene, making modest, and ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to restrain their colleague.

But the solidly built man strikes again and chases the woman, kicking her.

As she falls to the ground he stamps on her head.

The two uniformed officers allow the man to leave the scene without arrest.

The assault on the woman was filmed at a gas station on April 5 shortly after 9:00pm local time.

The man was identified as a warrant officer in Smithfield, a small town in the Free State province.

He was in civilian clothes and arrived at the station in a sedan car.

The incident is being probed by the country's police watchdog.

"We are investigating it," Moses Dlamini, spokesman for the Independent Police Investigative Directorate told AFP.

It is the latest incident of South African police brutality captured on film.

In February explosive footage emerged of a Mozambican migrant taxi driver being dragged down a road while handcuffed behind a police van.

He later died in police custody.

Last year, police shot dead 34 striking platinum mine workers, with some of the deaths caught on camera.


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Eurozone approves Cyprus bailout terms

Large bank depositors in Cyprus are facing more cuts as the cost of the EU-IMP bailout increased. Source: AAP

EUROZONE finance ministers have formally approved the terms of a Cyprus debt bailout, after some confusion, saying it could now go ahead once cleared by national parliaments.

Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the 17-nation Eurogroup, said the ministers "welcomed the staff level agreement achieved between Cyprus" and its international creditors, with the terms "fully in line with" a March 25 accord.

Earlier Friday, it had appeared that Cyprus wanted additional aid after the overall bailout cost increased to 23 billion euros ($A29 billion) from the 17 billion euros ($A21 billion) agreed last month.

Cypriot officials clarified that Nicosia was instead hoping to get other funding from the European Commission, such as in grants for infrastructure or other projects so as to support a besieged economy expected to shrink by 12.5 per cent - or even 15 per cent - in the next two years.

Under last month's accord, Cyprus had to cough up 7 billion euros and its creditors - the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - 10 billion euros.

However, because the economy is now expected to fare so badly, another 6 billion euros will be needed which Cyprus aims to find via an even more radical and painful restructuring of its bloated banking sector.

A Eurogroup statement said the approved bailout "is fully in line with the parameters and key objectives" agreed with Nicosia last month.

The Eurogroup noted with satisfaction moves to "address the fragile and unique situation of Cyprus' financial sector," while the overall agreement should allow the economy to "return to a sustainable path," it said.

The first aid payment should thus be possible in May, it added.


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Five die after asylum-seeker boat sinks

AT least five asylum seekers are believed to have drowned after their boat sank in the Sunda Strait while on the way from Indonesia to Australia.

Details of the tragedy emerged after authorities in Indonesia spent the day scrambling for information following reports that an asylum seeker vessel had sunk earlier on Friday.

But Habibullah Hashimi, one of 14 men plucked from the water by fishermen off the coast of Sukabumi in West Java, has told AAP that he was on a boat that sank on Wednesday morning.

The 29-year-old confirmed that at least five other passengers had drowned, adding that he had been in the water for about 24 hours before help finally came.

There were 72 people aboard the vessel, he said.

All were ethnic Hazara from Afghanistan.

"The ship just broke," Mr Hashimi said.

"We saw about five people dead. They were in the water."

Mr Hashimi's group had linked arms as they struggled to survive.

"The sea kept moving us around," he said.

Mr Hashimi, who was recuperating in Bogor, about two hours drive from Jakarta, said that the boat he was on sank at about 11am local time (2pm AEST) on Wednesday, about nine hours after setting off for Christmas Island.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) had earlier reported having received information that a boat may have sunk in the Sunda Strait at about midnight (3am AEST) on Friday.

"Some passengers may have been rescued by a fishing vessel," an AMSA spokeswoman said.

The information was in turn passed on to the Indonesian national search and rescue agency BASARNAS.

But BASARNAS was unable to locate the area where the incident was believed to have occurred, prompting a scramble for information.

Provincial search and rescue offices in Jakarta and Lampung on the island of Sumatra also had little idea of what had happened, or where to look for survivors.

"We don't have the coordinates for the area where we could search. Do you have that information? Please share it with us," an officer with the Jakarta search and rescue office said when contacted by AAP.

"We only received information from BASARNAS that it's in the south of Sunda Strait and they've been rescued by local fishermen. But where is it? We're now contacting local ports and others if they have such information."

Indonesian authorities on Friday evening had not yet dispatched any helicopters or search and rescue vessels to look for survivors.

In August last year, BASARNAS was criticised over their response to the sinking of an asylum seeker vessel in the same patch of water.

More than 100 asylum seekers drowned on that occasion but it was later revealed that an aerial search was not launched until six hours after the vessel first made a distress call.

It was almost 24 hours before the first survivors were pulled from the water.


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First womb transplant woman is pregnant

THE first woman ever to receive a uterus from a deceased donor, is two-weeks pregnant following a successful embryo transplant, her doctors say.

Twenty-two-year-old Derya Sert was revealed to be almost two-weeks pregnant in preliminary results after in vitro fertilisation at Akdeniz University Hospital in Turkey's southern province of Antalya, her doctor Mustafa Unal said in a written statement.

"She is doing just fine at the moment," Unal said.

Sert was described as a "medical miracle" when she became the first woman in the world to have a successful womb transplant from a dead donor in August 2011 at the same Antalya hospital.

The groundbreaking news of her pregnancy will rekindle hopes for thousands of childless women across the world who are unable to bear their own babies.

Sert was born without a uterus, like one in every 5,000 women around the world, and her doctors waited 18 months before implanting the embryo to make sure the foreign organ was still functioning.

Hers was the second womb transplant to be performed in the world, the first being in Saudi Arabia in 2000 from a living donor, which failed after 99 days due to heavy clotting. Doctors had to remove the organ.

The baby is expected to be delivered via C-section and the uterus to be removed from Sert in the months following the birth to avoid further complications and the risk of rejection.

The young woman had started to menstruate after the transplant, which her doctors had said was an important signal that the womb was functional.

Experts however warn the pregnancy carries several health risks to the patient as well as to the baby, including birth defects due to the use of immunosuppressive drugs as well as preterm delivery.


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Aussie cars in global recall over airbags

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 11 April 2013 | 20.47

Millions of Japanese cars are being recalled worldwide because of possible problems with airbags. Source: AAP

MORE than 10,000 cars sold in Australia are included in a global recall of more than three million vehicles produced by four major Japanese manufacturers amid concerns over airbags.

Honda appears the worst affected locally with 9980 cars across three models to be recalled.

Toyota will recall 1700 cars and Mazda 597.

Nissan Australia says the number of its vehicles affected is still being determined.

The recall involves vehicles built between 2000 and 2004 which could have a problem with passenger side airbags.

Toyota USA said the vehicles were equipped with front passenger airbag inflaters which could have been assembled with improperly manufactured propellant wafers.

This could cause the inflator to rupture and the front passenger airbag to deploy abnormally in the event of a crash.

The abnormal inflation cold also burn part of the vehicle's interior and cause a fire, a Toyota spokesman in Japan said.

However, there were no reports of such incidents.

In Japan the four car makers put the worldwide total at 3.39 million vehicles while Japan's transport ministry said the number of vehicles affected would reach 2.92 million. There was no explanation for the discrepancy.

Toyota expects to recall more than 1.7 million vehicles, Honda more than 1.1 million, Nissan about 480,000 and Mazda more than 45,000.

The car makers said the airbags were made by the Tokyo-based Takata Corporation.

Honda Australia said its three models affected were the Civic sedan built between 2001 and 2003, the CR-V built between 2002 and 2003 and the 2003 model Jazz.

Toyota said its recall would affect Corolla and Avensis Verso models built between 2000 and 2004.

It said the vehicles would be inspected and if needed the airbag inflater would be replaced at no cost.

Mazda Australia's recall all involved the first generation Mazda 6 built between 2002 and 2003.


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Qantas says Dreamliner delivery delayed

Qantas says the delivery of the airline's first Boeing 787 will be delayed. Source: AAP

AUSTRALIAN flag carrier Qantas says that the delivery of its first Boeing's 787 Dreamliner may be delayed by "a couple of months" but reiterated its backing for the troubled aircraft.

Qantas International chief executive Simon Hickey told reporters in Singapore that the first of 14 Dreamliners ordered by Qantas is now expected to be delivered "sometime after August" due to battery problems.

Asked how long after August -- the month of delivery previously mentioned by Qantas -- Hickey said: "It wouldn't be more than a couple of months."

The Dreamliners were grounded globally on January 16 after a series of overheating problems with the cutting-edge plane's lithium-ion battery system.

"I think the aircraft is a phenomenal aircraft," Hickey told reporters after launching a new Qantas lounge at Singapore's Changi Airport.

"What it does is provide the economics of a jumbo with a much more number of seats which is fantastic. So you can get either frequency or distribution strength by using an aircraft such as the 787," he said.

"We're still very committed to the 787."

In addition to the 14 B787-8 planes on order, Qantas has retained purchase rights for 50 of the B787-9 variant, he said.

The Dreamliners were grounded after a battery caught fire in a parked Japan Airlines 787 at Boston's Logan Airport and battery smoke forced an emergency landing of an All Nippon Airways 787 in Japan.

On March 12, the US Federal Aviation Administration approved Boeing's plan for testing the batteries as the first step toward the plane's return to flight.

Hickey said the problems with the Dreamliner batteries were part of "teething issues with any new aircraft that has ever been available to put in the air".

"I still think it's a fantastic aircraft," he added.


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Australia's unemployment rate hits 5.6%

Australia's unemployment rate has jumped to its highest level in more than three years. Source: AAP

AUSTRALIA'S unemployment rate has jumped to its highest level in more than three years and is expected to rise further, boosting the chances of further interest rate cuts.

The unemployment rate rose to 5.6 per cent in March, from 5.4 per cent in February.

The total number of people with jobs fell by more than 36,000 as the unemployment rate hit its highest level since September 2009, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found.

The figures partially reversed a surprise surge in February, which saw total employment rise by 71,500, one of the largest monthly rises in the history of the survey.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Australia chief economist Saul Eslake said while the February figure probably reflected changes to the population sample used by the ABS, the March data was a better reflection of the state of the jobs market.

He expects the unemployment rate to move higher in the next few months before peaking around six per cent.

In fact, he says, the unemployment rate would already have been that high if it hadn't been for a fall in workplace participation during the past two years.

The economy is still creating jobs but not quickly enough to keep up with population growth.

And if the unemployment rate continues to rise, Mr Eslake believes further rate cuts will be back on the agenda as early as June.

"If this trend continues, and I expect it will, it will materially add to the case for further rate cuts," he said.

Business groups warned the latest unemployment figures were a sign of worse things to come in the jobs market.

"Amongst many sectors we are seeing hiring restraint or shedding including in construction, retail and manufacturing and there is no signal this is improving," Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry chief economist Greg Evans said.

"We are concerned the mainstream economy may not be growing sufficiently to keep a lid on an unemployment rate which is trending higher."

But CommSec economist Savanth Sebastian said the volatility of the employment figures made it difficult to assess the current strength of the jobs market.

"If anyone had been wondering what was the true state of the labour market, they would certainly still be confused after the latest jobs result," he said.

"Such volatile swings in employment across two months certainly make it difficult to pick a trend. Clearly the answer lies somewhere in the middle."

Tasmania recorded the biggest rise in unemployment, lifting 0.7 per cent to 7.3 per cent, followed by NSW and Victoria which recorded increases of 0.2 per cent to 5.5 per cent and 5.6 per cent respectively.


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'Bear' joins Vic police force with a growl

A new high-tech armoured rescue vehicle has been added to Victoria's crime-fighting artillery. Source: AAP

A NEW high-tech armoured rescue vehicle has been added to Victoria's crime-fighting artillery, helping police tackle terrorism and get a grip on dangerous scenarios.

The $400,000 "BearCat" vehicle, imported from the United States, will be used for sieges, armed stand-offs and in dealing with dangerous criminals.

"It is bullet resistant, blast resistant and it means Victorian police have up-to-date modern vehicles to use in a dangerous and hostile situation," Police Minister Kim Wells said on Thursday as he grabbed the keys for the armoured beast.

Federal Emergency Management Minister Mark Dreyfus said the vehicle could also be used for counter-terrorism and rescue operations.

Police are thrilled with the new tool in their arsenal.

Deputy Police Commissioner Tim Cartwright said the BearCat is carefully designed to protect police against armed offenders.

"(When) our guys are in this, they are protected from armed offenders and they get a greater opportunity to rescue people who are in need," he said.

The first BearCat vehicles were supplied to the ACT, the Northern Territory and South Australia mid-2011, as part of a national counter-terrorism committee project and will be provided to every state and territory.


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Serbian gunman dies after killing 13

A SERBIAN gunman who shot dead 13 people earlier this week before shooting himself in the head has died from his injuries, a hospital source says.

"Ljubisa Bogdanovic passed away at 2pm (2200 AEST)," the source at Belgrade's emergency centre told AFP on Thursday.

The 60-year-old Bogdanovic on Tuesday went on a shooting rampage in the tiny village of Velika Ivanca, 50 kilometres south of Belgrade, killing six men, six women and a two-year old boy.

The motive for the murders remains unclear, although his wife Javorka, who was herself shot and injured, and another relative reportedly told police the gunman had a history of domestic violence.

The victims are expected to be buried on Friday as Serbia remains in shock after its worst such bloodbath in 20 years.


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Cruise giant fined for Italy disaster

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 10 April 2013 | 20.47

ITALY'S Costa Crociere, the biggest cruise operator in Europe, has accepted limited responsibility for the Costa Concordia disaster in which 32 people died.

A court ruled the company will have to pay a fine of one million euros ($A1.26 million) and will no longer be investigated for alleged responsibility in the disaster. Costa will instead aim to take part in the expected trial as an injured party.

"It is a balanced solution," the company's lawyer, Marco De Luca, told reporters in Grosseto in Tuscany where the court hearing was held and where preliminary hearings will begin on Monday to decide whether the accused should face trial.

Prosecutors have levied charges against six people including captain Francesco Schettino and the head of Costa Crociere's crisis unit Roberto Ferrarini for the January 2012 incident.

The charges have to be confirmed before any trial can go ahead.

The giant luxury liner crashed into the Italian island of Giglio with 4229 people on board just as many passengers were dining on the first night of their Mediterranean cruise, prompting a panicked and chaotic night-time evacuation.

Dozens of passengers are suing the company for damages, although most of those who were not injured or did not lose loved ones have accepted 11,000 euros in compensation from Costa, which belongs to US giant Carnival.

Wednesday's ruling bears only on the criminal investigation and not on civil proceedings.


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Iran boosts aid effort after deadly quake

At least 30 people have been killed and 800 injured in a 6.1 magnitude earthquake that hit Iran. Source: AAP

IRAN has stepped up relief efforts for survivors of a powerful earthquake that killed 37 people and damaged dozens of villages but left its sole nuclear power station unscathed.

More than 90 villages in the southern province of Bushehr were hit hard by Tuesday's quake, with two destroyed, the head of Iran's Red Crescent rescue corps, Mahmoud Mozafar, told state television.

More than 850 people were injured and about 800 houses were destroyed.

Mozafar said the priority was to get aid to stricken villages after the search for survivors ended on Wednesday morning.

Ali Alipour, who owns a cultural centre in the village of Khormoj, about 35 kilometres from the quake's epicentre, said he had run for cover when it hit and "the sound of death filled the fields".

"Water and food are being distributed among survivors. Portable toilets are also being set up," Alipour told AFP.

Authorities said the relief operation got underway a few hours after the 6.1-magnitude quake struck at 4.22 pm (2152 Tuesday AEST) on Tuesday.

About 2100 tents have been set up in the quake zone, emergency officials said.

The epicentre was just 90 kilometres southeast of the port city of Bushehr, home to Iran's only nuclear power plant.

Iran said it had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that there had been no damage to the plant.

The UN watchdog said its incident and emergency centre was "not currently seeking additional information from Iran" following analysis of the "earthquake's magnitude and other seismic parameters, as well as its location."

Iran's atomic energy chief Fereydoon Abbasi Davani said the plant was not operational when the quake struck as it was "under maintenance," Iranian media reported.

The Russian-built plant was designed to withstand an earthquake of a magnitude greater than 8, Abbasi Davani added.

The plant's chief engineer, Mahmoud Jafari, said "no operational or security protocols were breached."

First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi and Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar travelled to the quake zone to check on relief operations, state television reported.

A resident, who asked not to be identified, said power and water supplies were "gradually being restored".


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Russian Patriarch denounces feminism

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has cautioned against the dangers of feminism. Source: AAP

THE Russian Orthodox Patriarch has cautioned against the dangers of feminism, denouncing "propaganda" that encourages women to take roles beyond housekeeping and rearing children.

"I consider the phenomenon called feminism very dangerous," said the powerful Patriarch Kirill in a speech delivered Tuesday and posted Wednesday on the official Russian Orthodox Church website.

"Feminist organisations proclaim a pseudo-freedom of women, which should be manifested outside marriage and family."

But he argued: "The man should be focussed on matters outside (of the house), he must work and earn money, but the woman is always directed to the inside, towards her children and her home."

"If that very important function of the woman is broken, then this is followed by the breaking of everything else: family, and in a larger sense, the motherland."

The ultra-conservative Patriarch Kirill, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, makes no secret of his political preferences and has sternly criticised mass opposition protests.

Despite petitions by many believers, he also supported harsh punishment for the members of all-female group Pussy Riot, two of which were jailed for performing a "punk prayer" in Russia's main Cathedral of Christ the Savior to highlight his close ties with the state.

He is also a champion of the government's drive to restore so-called family values as the cornerstone of the campaign to reverse the decline in the Russian population.

"We know how false propaganda of false values really works," said Kirill.

"An opinion is forced down that the woman's mission to be a mother is degrading," he told an organisation of Ukrainian Orthodox women.

"It's not an accident that most feminist leaders are unmarried," he said, adding that there is nothing wrong with a woman having a career if she "correctly sets priorities" and "serves her duty as a wife and mother" as well as "bringing public good".

"Birth rates fall when values are shifted and broken, when satisfying one's personal needs, one's egoism becomes the priority," he said.


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French leader to 'eradicate' tax havens

French President Francois Hollande has vowed to take action against the excesses of secret finance. Source: AAP

MIRED in a scandal over an ex-minister's secret Swiss bank account, French President Francois Hollande has vowed to "eradicate" tax havens, increase checks on officials' finances and crack down on tax cheats.

Laying out a series of measures just over a week after his former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac was charged with tax fraud, Hollande promised "a relentless battle against the excesses of money, greed and secret finance."

The new "moralisation" drive will include measures to limit the use of tax havens by forcing banks to expose their foreign activities, Hollande told a post-cabinet press conference on Wednesday.

"Tax havens must be eradicated in Europe and the world," Hollande said.

"French banks will be required to every year make public the list of all their subsidiaries everywhere in the world, country by country," and will be required to "declare the nature of their activities," he said.

Hollande said he wanted the requirement extended to banks across the European Union and eventually to major corporations.

Hollande also announced initiatives to restore confidence in public officials and boost the fight against tax evasion, with a new law to be presented by April 24.

A new "completely independent" government authority will be created to monitor the assets and potential conflicts of interests of ministers, parliamentarians and other senior elected officials, he said.

The government has already ordered ministers to declare their assets publicly by Monday and other officials will face the same requirement once the law is adopted.

A special prosecutors' office will also be created to lead the fight against corruption and tax evasion, and punishments for fiscal crimes will be increased, Hollande said.

His Socialist government is scrambling to contain the scandal surrounding Cahuzac, who last week was charged with tax fraud after admitting to having an undeclared foreign bank account containing about 600,000 euros ($A754,053).

Critics have called for a cabinet reshuffle over the scandal and said the new measures did not go far enough to restore confidence in the government.

"We're still as much in the dark," said the head of the main opposition right-wing UMP party, Jean-Francois Cope.

"None of the measures proposed would have prevented the Cahuzac scandal."

"The attempts at distraction continue. The president has still not taken the full measure of the scandal, of what's happening with Cahuzac," said Christian Jacob, the head of the UMP faction in the lower house National Assembly.

Hollande said he felt "wounded" and "bruised" by the scandal, insisting that Cahuzac's behaviour "goes against all of my personal views".

Cahuzac - who resigned on March 19 after prosecutors opened a probe into the account - had repeatedly denied its existence to the president, on the floor of parliament and in media interviews.


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Fast NBN may not be enough: futurist

THE benefits of ultra-fast broadband will really become clear when the bedroom lamp makes a telephone call and the dishwasher emails the water board, a prominent futurologist says.

It may seem like science fiction but technology experts all point to a not-so-distant future where our entire lives are wired - our cars, our homes, even our spectacles will be connected to the internet and communicate with each other.

Just a fortnight ago, Telstra's chief technology officer Dr Hugh Bradlow predicted fridges in 2020 will know when they're empty and order groceries online.

"This will be a world where each device in the home, car and environment talks to each other," Dr Bradlow said.

And that means Australia will need super-duper, ultra-fast internet to make it all work, according to US-born author, engineer and futurist Mark Pesce.

"The average Australian household probably now has four or five devices that are connected to the internet," he told AAP.

"But in 10 years it's probably going to be 100 or 200 devices that are connected.

"And they're all trying to get over the pipe, whether it's your car talking to the dealership or your lamp talking to the electricity company or your dishwasher talking to Sydney Water.

"So it really becomes an issue of latency, not just bandwidth."

Ultimately, even Labor's planned $44 billion national broadband network (NBN) with speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) probably wouldn't be enough to cope in the long-term future and will need upgrading, Mr Pesce said.

And the coalition's plans for a $29.5 billion NBN with speeds of 25 Mbps certainly won't be enough, he added.

Criticism of the coalition's NBN plans continued on social media sites on Wednesday, with actor Russell Crowe joining a chorus of disapproval on Twitter.

"Coalition NBN plan, half the cost to be 1/4 (one quarter) as efficient? Obviously somebody needs to explain to them the point of the NBN," he posted online.

But coalition MPs have been vigorously defending the plans, which were unveiled on Tuesday.

Opposition communication spokesman Malcolm Turnbull told Fairfax Radio on Wednesday: "In our network, what we will do is build in capacity with the option of upgrading as and when demand arises."


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Frenchman appeals O'Keefe conviction

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 09 April 2013 | 20.47

A 37-YEAR-OLD Frenchman has insisted on his innocence as he appeals his conviction for murdering an Australian student who was severely beaten, strangled and dumped in a car park outside Paris.

Brazilian-born Adriano Araujo Da Silva was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison in January 2012 for the murder 11 years earlier of 28-year-old Jeannette O'Keefe.

O'Keefe's body was found rolled up in a sleeping bag in a parking lot in the Paris suburb of Les Mureaux on January 2, 2001 -- three days after a series of events left her alone and without a bed for the night on New Year's Eve.

"I am innocent, I must be acquitted," Araujo Da Silva told the court as his appeal began in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

A ruling is expected on Thursday.

Araujo Da Silva had confessed to the crime twice before retracting his testimony, admitting to taking the woman to his home and having an argument with her, but insisting she left unharmed.

He said he had met O'Keefe on the Champs Elysees in Paris on New Year's Eve and taken her to his home in Les Mureaux, where her body was found three days later.

French investigators found male DNA under the victim's fingernails, but it was eight years before they found a match, when Araujo Da Silva's genetic profile was entered into a database after he was arrested for petty theft.

He confessed to the killing when detained by police, saying he had beaten O'Keefe and strangled her to death when she refused to have sex with him a second time and threatened to call police.

An autopsy found she had been struck by at least 13 blows before being strangled to death.

Araujo Da Silva told the court on Tuesday that he had only confessed under pressure from police, who had said he would receive a lighter sentence if he admitted to the crime.

"I was tricked and manipulated during questioning," he said.

O'Keefe's four brothers and sisters, who are civil plaintiffs, were in court for the start of the appeal.


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Google abusing its dominance: FairSearch

GOOGLE is in firing line of a group of major companies, including Microsoft and Oracle, over its offerings for Android-powered mobile phones.

The European Commission has been urged to move quickly to protect competition and innovation in the critical market by Thomas Vinje, Brussels-based counsel for FairSearch, which groups 17 high-tech companies, including also Nokia, Expedia and TripAdvisor.

"Failure to act will only embolden Google to repeat its desktop abuses of dominance as consumers increasingly turn to a mobile platform dominated by Google's Android operating system," Vinje said in a statement on Tuesday.

FairSearch said it had filed a complaint with the Commission, charging that the internet giant wanted Android operators to use its leading applications such as Maps or YouTube.

It said Google's Android is the dominant smartphone operating system, accounting for 70 per cent of the market by the end of 2012, while it has 96 per cent of mobile phone search advertising.

The companies grouped in FairSearch also complained about Google in the Commission's 2010 anti-trust probe of the firm which focused on its dominance of the internet search market.

Last week, six European countries, including France and Britain, launched joint action against Google to try to get it to scale back new monitoring powers that watchdogs believe violate EU privacy protection rules.

Google last year rolled out a common user privacy policy for its services that grouped about 60 previous sets of rules into one and allowed the company to track users more closely to develop targeted advertising.

The action came after the European Union's 27 member states warned Google in October not to apply the new policy and gave it four months to make changes or face legal action.

When that deadline expired in February, several European data protection agencies set up a taskforce to pursue co-ordinated action against the US giant.

Google insists its privacy policy respects European law.


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Aust-China free trade talks set for May

TALKS on a free trade agreement between China and Australia will continue in May, Prime Minister Julia Gillard says.

The two countries agreed to start negotiations on the FTA in April 2005 and to date 18 rounds of talks have been held.

Ms Gillard told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday that she had told Premier Li Keqiang in their first formal meeting since he came to power in March that it was a "gap" in the relationship that Australia wanted to rectify.

Trade Minister Craig Emerson said Australia was seeking "high ambition" from the agreement, including agricultural tariffs and quotas, manufactured goods, services, temporary entry of people and foreign investment.

"We could have a low ambition FTA, like a trophy to sit on the national mantelpiece...but we want it to do work," he said.

Dr Emerson said that during the meeting with Premier Li in the Great Hall of the People on Tuesday, the Chinese leader had looked around the room asking: "Who is the FTA guy?"

"I said I'm the FTA guy," Dr Emerson said.

"The premier was very keen and spent some considerable time talking about the challenge but also the great benefits an FTA would bring."

Australia has six FTAs with New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, US, Chile and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The countries covered by these FTAs account for 28 per cent of Australia's total trade.

Australia is engaged in nine FTA negotiations covering a further 45 per cent of Australia's trade.


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Egypt pope blasts Morsi over violence

EGYPT'S Pope Tawadros II has accused President Mohamed Morsi of "negligence" in his response to deadly clashes outside Cairo's Coptic cathedral, the worst sectarian crisis since he took power in June.

Morsi had telephoned Tawadros after Sunday's violence which saw crowds pelt mourners with stones after they emerged from a funeral service for slain Coptic Christians.

Shocking television images showed police fire tear gas at St Mark's cathedral - symbol of the Coptic community which has long complained of discrimination and has been the target of frequent sectarian attacks.

Morsi "promised to do everything to protect the cathedral but in reality we don't see this," Tawadros told the private ONTV channel in a call-in.

When asked why, Tawadros said he believed "it comes under the category of negligence and poor assessment of events."

Two people died in Sunday's clashes which erupted after the funeral service of four Christians killed in earlier violence in a town north of Cairo. One Muslim was also killed in those confrontations.

Tawadros said the church had never before in its history witnessed this level of attack.

"This flagrant assault on a national symbol, the Egyptian church, has never been subjected to this in 2000 years," Tawadros said.

He called on authorities to take a strong position against such kinds of attacks.

"There has to be a clear stance from the state ... because matters now have crossed the limits of freedom of expression and have reached a level of chaos," he said.

"Some officials have expressed kind feelings, these feelings are not enough at all," he continued.

Following the attack, Morsi said: "I consider any attack on the cathedral an attack against myself," and proposed to revive the defunct Justice and Equality Committee, which was established to look at promoting citizenship and equality.

"The committees and the groups, we have had enough of them. We want action and not just words," Tawadros said.

"Committees are formed every day but there is no work taking place on the ground."

Hani Sobhi, a young Copt, explained that live television coverage of the funeral service during which Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood was booed had been the spark for the violence.

"Inside the cathedral we chanted 'Down with the Brotherhood rule' and that was aired live on television. At the exit, the people were ready and waiting for us," he said.

Christians account for between six and 10 per cent of Egypt's population of 84 million people.


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Spain sees economy improving in early 2013

SPAIN'S economy is faring a little better after an end-2012 slump and growth could even return by the end of 2013, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos says, as doubts grow over the prospects for debt-laden southern European economies.

The Spanish economy had "clearly" improved from the final three months of 2012, when output plunged by 0.8 per cent, De Guindos told an economic forum.

The Spanish economic chief did not, however, predict an economic expansion in the first quarter of 2013.

"The first quarter of this year will be clearly less bad than the previous quarter," De Guindos said.

Later, on the margins of the forum, he said the government expected gross domestic product to show a decline of 0.5 or 0.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, a further slight improvement in the second quarter and nearly zero growth in the third quarter.

In the final three months of 2013, the government believed there was a "possibility" of positive economic growth for Spain on a quarterly basis, De Guindos said.

The minister stressed, however, that his first-quarter estimate was based on incomplete data with all the figures for March yet to come in.

Spain is immersed in a double-dip recession after failing to recover convincingly from the collapse of a decade-long property boom in 2008, an economic disaster that has sent the unemployment rate soaring to a record 26 per cent.

The Spanish economy, the eurozone's fourth-largest, contracted by 1.4 per cent last year, the second worst yearly slump since 1970.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government is predicting a return to economic growth in 2014 if the country sticks to a program of cost-cutting measures and of reforms aimed at improving economic efficiency.

The government has admitted that it will have to revise its existing forecast for an economic dip of only 0.5 per cent this year.

The Bank of Spain is predicting a 1.5-per cent plunge in output this year and only a "modest rebound" in 2014.

Portugal is preparing a new battery of spending cuts after the country's constitutional court rejected a number of austerity measures aimed at respecting the terms of its international bailout.

Spain recorded an annual public deficit equal to 7.0 per cent of gross domestic product last year, missing a 6.3-per cent target it had agreed with the European Union.

Now, the Spanish government wants Brussels to agree to relax its 2013 deficit target to about 6.0 of GDP from the previously agreed 4.5 per cent, a government source said this month.


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Vic man arrested over mum's bashing death

Written By Unknown on Senin, 08 April 2013 | 20.48

A MAN has been arrested over the bashing death of a 29-year-old woman in her Victorian home.

Police announced late on Monday they had arrested a 30-year-old man over the woman's death, hours after telling reporters her traumatised four-year-old son had seen the man suspected of killing her.

The boy told police he saw an unknown man inside his Ballarat home, west of Melbourne, on the night his mother died.

Relatives found her body in her bedroom on Saturday morning.

Police say she was assaulted with a blunt object and suffered injuries to her head and body.

Detective Inspector John Potter, head of Victoria's homicide squad, said the boy spotted a man inside the house before her death, but couldn't identify him.

"It's pretty difficult to take it much further than that," Det Insp Potter told reporters earlier on Monday.

"We're talking darkish clothing, and that's probably the best we've got."

The boy and his mother had gone out on Friday night but returned home by 8.30pm (AEDT).

The stranger then entered the house at some point between 8.30pm Friday and 10.30am Saturday.

Det Insp Potter said police believe the man was involved in the mum's slaying but can't pinpoint the exact time he was inside the home.

The boy would have been aware of what happened to his mum, he said.

"You can imagine under these circumstances the child is extremely traumatised," he said.

Police say there were no signs of forced entry and it's possible the woman knew the man.

Det Insp Potter said security footage from nearby businesses was being viewed for clues.

He said police had spoken to the woman's former partner and followed those lines of inquiry "thoroughly".

"This is quite a brutal crime to a woman in her own home so we're very keen to work out who's responsible," he said.

A 30-year-old Sebastopol man was in police custody and being interviewed, police said just before 10pm (AEST) on Monday.


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Women's screams haunt Qld witnesses

A cold-case inquest in Queensland has heard chilling witness accounts of two women being abducted. Source: AAP

CHILLING witness accounts of two women being abducted and bloodcurdling screams in the night have emerged at a cold-case inquest in Queensland.

Fresh evidence about how two Sydney nurses died almost four decades ago and who might have killed them was revealed in Toowoomba Magistrates Court on Monday.

The evidence in the second coronial inquest into the 1970s deaths of Lorraine Wilson and Wendy Evans raises serious questions about the initial police investigation.

Wilson, 20, and Evans, 18, disappeared while hitchhiking in Queensland in October 1974.

Their skeletal remains were found, bound and with multiple skull fractures, two years later at Murphys Creek, near Toowoomba.

A 1985 inquest failed to result in charges being laid but police have uncovered new evidence.

On Monday, for the first time, the names of seven persons of interest were revealed in court.

A former officer described how in 1974 he had listened helplessly to two women's distant screams for more than half an hour, unable to detect where they were coming from in the bush.

Former Toowoomba policeman Ian Hamilton had been about four or five kilometres from where the women's bodies were eventually found.

He and his partner were called to a youth camp near Murphys Creek near the foot of the Toowoomba Range one night in October 1974.

"(It's) probably the only time in the service I've ever experienced the hairs stand up on the back of my neck," he told the court.

"They were just the most blood-curdling, horrendous screams I've ever heard in my life.

"It was obvious that they were in desperate trouble."

Other witnesses told of seeing two women matching the victims' descriptions being manhandled by two or more men into a green Holden by the side of the road at Toowoomba.

One woman screamed: "Help me, oh God help me", according to witness Brian Britcher, who said he was too scared to stop or call police until at least the next day.

"I've lived with that for (more than) 30 years," he said.

The inquest was played a recording of a 2008 police interview with one of the three surviving people of interest.

In it, Desmond Roy Hilton tells of hearing some of the persons of interest bragging "that they gave two girls a good hiding ... down the bottom of the range".

Mr Hilton is to give evidence at the inquest on Wednesday.

A former police investigator told the inquest he believed there was enough evidence to arrest Hilton's cousin, Wayne Hilton, for the murders, but he'd died in 1986.

Former senior sergeant Paul Ruge also called the original police investigation inadequate, saying lines of inquiry weren't followed up.

Outside court, Wendy Evans' sister Michelle Tuifufu said it was a difficult day but the two murdered women needed "their day in court".

Lorraine Wilson's brother said it was harrowing listening to the account of what was possibly his sister's screams.

"Something should have been done way back then," Eric Wilson said of the failed investigation.

"It would have saved a lot of angst, a lot of grief."

The inquest continues in Toowoomba on Tuesday.


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Leader who transformed a nation

MARGARET Thatcher was the woman who, virtually single-handed and in the space of one tumultuous decade, transformed a nation.

In the view of her many admirers, she thrust a strike-infested half-pace Britain back among the front-runners in the commanding peaks of the industrial nations of the world.

Her detractors, many of them just as vociferous, saw her as the personification of an uncaring new political philosophy known by both sides as Thatcherism.

Tireless, fearless, unshakeable and always in command, she was Britain's first woman Prime Minister - and the first leader to win three General Elections in a row.

Mrs Thatcher, who became Baroness Thatcher, resigned as Prime Minister in November 1990 after a year in which her fortunes plummeted.

It was a year in which she faced a series of damaging resignations from the cabinet, her own political judgments were publicly denounced by her own colleagues, catastrophic by-election humiliations, internal party strife, and a sense in the country that people had had enough of her after 11 years in power.

But history will almost certainly proclaim her as one of the greatest British peacetime leaders.

Her supporters believe she put the drive back into the British people.

And as she transformed the nation - attempting to release the grip of the state on massive industries and public services alike - she strode the earth as one of the most influential, talked-about, listened-to and dominant statesmen of the Western world.

When Argentina invaded the Falklands, she despatched a task force to the South Atlantic which drove the enemy off the islands in an incomparable military operation 8,000 miles from home.

She successfully defied Arthur Scargill's nationwide and year-long miners' strike, which threatened to cripple Britain's entire economic base.

Her triumphant achievement of power in May 1979 signalled the end of the era when trade union leaders trooped in and out of 10, Downing Street, haggling and bargaining with her Labour predecessors.

Instead she stripped the unions of many of their powers with the aim of transferring them to managements and individual consumers.

Whether you liked Mrs Thatcher or loathed her - and her Tory predecessor Edward Heath hated her beyond belief - whether you agreed with her or found her policies utterly repugnant, you could not deny her energy and drive.

Even many political foes secretly admired this single-minded woman, who never contemplated defeat and for whom all issues were black and white, not hedged about with grey.

Even - indeed particularly - her most bitter political enemies were forced to praise her crusading clarity of purpose and her determination, in their eyes, to serve "her people".

Veteran left winger Tony Benn frequently held her up as an example of how a great political party should be led, comparing her with what he regarded as Neil Kinnock's fudged leadership of the Labour Party.

Margaret Thatcher towered above all other political figures in Britain and her dominance of the Cabinet was supreme and rarely challenged. She was the equal of statesmen across the world. She elevated Downing Street to something like the status of the White House and the Kremlin, symbols of the then two great superpowers. Nobody talked down to her.

Yet the Iron Lady - a title bestowed upon her by her enemies in Moscow, which, incidentally she relished - was not all stern, steely and strident. She was delightful with children and she could not disguise her glee - "We are a grandmother" - when her grandson Michael was born in Dallas in February, 1989.

She regularly and touchingly admitted that she could not do her job properly without the unfailing and unstinting support of her "marvellous" husband, Denis. He was, she said, the "golden thread" running through her life. His death, in June 2003, some weeks after major heart surgery, was a profound blow to her.

Sir Denis, as he became after she left Downing Street, was constantly at her side, an impeccable consort, protecting her and guiding her in all weathers and in all parts of the world.

He was a wonderful source of encouragement and comfort to her when, as sometimes happened, she returned home in tears after a particularly gruelling day. He made no attempt to disguise his contempt for those who opposed his wife, but he never got involved publicly in policy or political discussions.

His death came at a time when Margaret Thatcher's own health - she was ten years younger than him - was the subject of speculation. She had suffered a series of strokes and her doctors had forbidden her to make any more speeches - instructions which she was occasionally known to breach.

Sir Denis's death was a massive blow to Lady Thatcher.

Her dramatic political downfall had come about during the second of two challenges to her leadership. She realised that if she stayed on to take her challenger Michael Heseltine - a man she disliked intensely, personally and politically - into a second ballot, he would almost certainly supplant her. That was a prospect she could not bear to see happen.

And so, after consulting her cabinet colleagues, one by one, she decided she must go, and tearfully gave the Cabinet the news the following morning.


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Thatcher to get 'ceremonial' funeral

FORMER British prime minister Margaret Thatcher will receive a "ceremonial funeral" with military honours, but she will not get a state funeral.

Downing Street says Queen Elizabeth II has authorised a ceremonial funeral - a step short of a state funeral - to be held at St Paul's Cathedral.

Cameron cut short a trip to Europe following news of Thatcher's death.

Downing Street says the funeral will be attended by a "wide and diverse range of people," and the service will be followed by a private cremation.

It did not provide further details on the timing of the service, saying only that the arrangement are "in line with the wishes" of Thatcher's family.

Cameron was in Madrid for talks with Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy.

He had been due to travel to Paris on Monday evening for talks with French President Francois Hollande, but Downing Street confirmed that had now been postponed.


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Former British PM Margaret Thatcher dies

Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher has died following a stroke. She was 87 years old. Source: AAP

MARGARET Thatcher, Britain's first female prime minister, who died aged 87, will be remembered as "The Iron Lady" who helped end the Cold War and whose economic reforms divided the country.

Behind the bouffant hair, trademark handbag and voice was an uncompromising Conservative who regularly cut her male colleagues and opponents down to size with a sharp tongue and even sharper political brain.

Right-wingers hailed her as having hauled Britain out of the economic doldrums but the left wing accused her of dismantling traditional industry, claiming her reforms helped unpick the fabric of society.

On the world stage, she built a close "special relationship" with US president Ronald Reagan which helped bring the curtain down on Soviet Communism. She also fiercely opposed closer ties with Europe.

But in the final years of her life, Thatcher - the 20th century's longest continuous occupant of 10 Downing Street, from 1979 to 1990 - cut a subdued figure.

After a series of minor strokes, she was told by doctors to quit public speaking in 2002 and, as dementia took hold, she appeared increasingly rarely in public.

Her daughter Carol revealed the former premier had to be repeatedly reminded that her husband Denis had died in 2003.

Meryl Streep portrayed both her rise to power and her period of failing health in the Hollywood film The Iron Lady, which hit the screens in December 2011.

Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on October 13, 1925 in the market town of Grantham, eastern England, the daughter of a grocer.

After grammar school and a degree in chemistry at Oxford University, she married businessman Denis in 1951 and two years later had twins, Carol and Mark.

She was first elected to the House of Commons in 1959 and succeeded former prime minister Edward Heath as opposition Conservative leader in 1975 before becoming premier four years later.

Her enduring legacy can be summed up as "Thatcherism" - a set of policies which supporters say promoted personal freedom and broke down the class divisions that had riven Britain for centuries.

Pushing her policies through pitched Thatcher's government into a string of tough battles, though.

When Argentina invaded the remote British territory of the Falkland Islands in 1982, Thatcher dispatched troops and ships, securing victory in two months.

Two years later, an Irish Republican Army bomb planted at her hotel in Brighton on the southern English coast, nearly killed her and her Cabinet during the Conservatives' annual conference.

And her government crushed a coal miners' strike against pit closures in 1984-1985 after a bitter struggle, and union powers were curbed.

But it was the same uncompromising style that initially earned her respect which eventually proved her undoing.

One of her closest allies, Geoffrey Howe, resigned in 1990 with a devastating speech which blamed Thatcher's fierce Euroscepticism.

She faced a leadership challenge soon afterwards and quit after failing to receive the expected level of support, to be replaced by her finance minister John Major.

After a tearful departure from Downing Street, she was appointed to the House of Lords as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.

She also wrote her memoirs and delivered lectures around the world.

But her public appearances became increasingly scarce in recent years as her health deteriorated. She was even forced to miss a planned 85th birthday party at Downing Street.

Thatcher did, however, live long enough to see another Conservative, David Cameron, return to Downing Street after a gap of 13 years - albeit at the head of a coalition government.

"We have lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton," Cameron said following her death.

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said: "Margaret Thatcher was a great politician and a bright individual. She will do down in our memory and in history."


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Nazi hunter criticises Australia in report

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 07 April 2013 | 20.47

THE Israel branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre has criticised Australia and several other countries for failing to do enough to bring perpetrators of the Holocaust to justice.

The centre's 12th annual report on efforts to hunt down Nazis accuses a raft of nations of failing to prosecute or investigate alleged Nazis.

"The most disappointing result in a specific case during the period under review was the decision by the Australian High Court to reject the extradition request submitted by the Hungarian authorities for Karoly (Charles) Zentai, who was accused of the murder in November 1944 of 18-year-old Peter Balasz," it said.

The Los Angeles-based centre said Zentai allegedly killed the Jewish teenager "whom he caught on a tram without the yellow star required of all Jews," and took part in manhunts for other Jews in Budapest in 1944.

Only the United States scored an "A" on the report; Canada, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Serbia each got a "B".

At the bottom of the table it gave Australia, Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Norway, Sweden and Syria "F" grades.

"Countries like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the Ukraine consistently failed to hold any Holocaust perpetrators accountable, primarily due to a lack of the requisite political will," the report said.

It added that Sweden and Norway "refuse to investigate, let alone prosecute, due to a statute of limitations."

At the top of the centre's list of most-wanted alleged war criminals is Alois Brunner, who is accused of being a key operative for Adolf Eichmann and of responsibility for the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews.

Born in 1912 and last seen in 2001, Brunner lived in Syria for decades, the centre said, but acknowledged the chances of his still being alive were "relatively slim."

The report came as Israel prepared to observe Holocaust Day from sundown on Sunday, with the entire nation coming to a standstill for two minutes of silence on Monday to remember the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust in World War II.

To coincide with the commemoration, Tel Aviv University on Sunday released its annual report on global anti-Semitism, which it said climbed sharply last year.

"A considerable escalation in the level of violent and vandalistic acts against Jews was recorded in 2012," it said.

"The combined number of 686 such acts represents an increase of 30 per cent over the 2011 figure of 526."

The report said the largest number of attacks took place in France, where 200 incidents occurred, followed by the United States (99) Britain (84) and Canada (74).

It said the fatal shooting of three Jewish children and a rabbi at a school in the French city of Toulouse in March 2012 had sparked a wave of copycat attacks.

It "triggered a wave of copycat violent incidents against Jewish targets, mainly in France - one of the worst experienced by the community."

The report also said far-right parties exploited European economic woes to push "a clear anti-Semitic agenda."

"In Hungary and Greece, as well as in Ukraine, vociferous representatives of these parties openly incite in parliament against local Jewish communities," the survey said.

"Blatant anti-Semitic and anti-Israel expressions appeared to ignite violent activity in Hungary, and a significant rise in desecration of cemeteries and Holocaust memorials was recorded in Poland."


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Thousands at Egypt Copt funeral prayers

THOUSANDS of people have packed Cairo's main cathedral for the funeral prayers of four Coptic Christians killed in sectarian clashes.

"Down, down with Brotherhood rule," the congregation chanted in reference to the ruling Muslim Brotherhood of President Mohamed Morsi.

"Leave!" they chanted as they held up wooden crosses, television footage showed.

One Muslim was also killed in the clashes which flared on Friday night in Al-Khusus, a poor area in Qalyubia governorate, after a Muslim in his 50s objected to children drawing a swastika on a religious institute.

The man insulted Christians and the cross, and an argument broke out with a young Christian man who was passing by, which escalated into a gun battle between the Muslims and the Christians in which assault rifles were used.

A priest in Al-Khusus, Suryal Yunan, said on Saturday attackers torched "parts" of an Anglican church.

Muslims also set a Christian home ablaze and ransacked a pharmacy owned by a Copt, a police official said.

A number of angry Muslim residents tried to surround the town's Mar Girgis church, but the security presence in the area prevented them from doing so.

Both sides then lit tyres in the narrow streets where residents live in crowded slum housing.

Christians form between six and 10 per cent of Egypt's population of nearly 83 million people.

The country's Coptic Christians and Muslims have clashed on several occasions since the revolution that toppled the former president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

Around 50 Christians and several Muslims have been killed in the clashes.


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Foxtel picks up its first Logie

PAY TV has infiltrated the industry's awards night with Foxtel picking up its first Logie.

Foxtel won the Most Outstanding Sports Coverage award in Melbourne on Sunday night for its Olympics broadcast.

Eddie McGuire accepted the peer-voted award with host Matt Shirvington.

Shirvington thanked the Australian athletes who took part in the Olympics for making the coverage possible and the games memorable.

"Foxtel is an innovative and forward thinking company," he said.


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Taiwan man's tree-top protest goes on

A TAIWANESE activist's unusual tree-top protest has gone into its 11th day and Pan Han-chiang is vowing to continue until a local council drops a controversial development project.

The government of New Taipei City, on the outskirts of the capital, plans to build a swimming pool and an underground parking garage in the grounds of a junior high school in the Panchiao district.

Despite objections from conservationists, some nearby residents and alumni and teachers of the school, a contractor started removing five out of the 32 targeted 40-year-old trees from the campus late last month.

In reaction, activist Pan, 46, climbed one of the trees on March 28 and has refused to come down, with meals and water supplied by his supporters on the ground.

The sit-in has halted preparatory work on the project.

"This is the last method we can use now... the protest will continue indefinitely if the government decides to go ahead with the project," his brother Pan Han-sheng told AFP on Sunday.

The city government insists that the project, estimated to cost Tw$310 million ($A10 million), is designed to meet public demand and the trees will be replanted elsewhere.

But opponents question the wisdom of removing mature trees - many of them unlikely to survive transplantation - to build the swimming pool and especially the underground parking garage, which they say is unnecessary.

"These trees are part of the collective memory of tens of thousands of students graduating from the school. It is cruel to cast off their memory," said Pan Han-sheng.

He said at least 3000 people have expressed opposition to the project.


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Sebbens hopes Logie opens more doors

Actress Shari Sebbens wins the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding New Talent at the Logies. Source: AAP

ACTRESS Shari Sebbens hopes winning a Logie opens more doors for her - and not just the ones at a hi-fi store where she works part-time.

Sebbens won the peer-voted Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding New Talent at the annual television awards night at Melbourne's Crown Casino.

The panel of judges singled out Sebbens for her role as Julie in the ABC indigenous-based series Redfern Now.

"This is the first time I have ever received anything with my name on it," Sebbens said.

"I'll give it to my mum."

Sebbens, who also appeared in the critically-acclaimed movie The Sapphires, says she has a few projects on the horizon which includes a movie.

However she is still battling unemployment as an actress.

"Other than that I'll go back to my part-time job at JB Hi Fi," Sebbens said.

Puberty Blues star Brenna Harding may have missed out on the Graham Kennedy award but she was voted the Most Popular New Female Talent.

It was the only award the highly-acclaimed series won from five nominations.


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