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Archbishop embarrassed by links to lender

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 26 Juli 2013 | 20.48

ARCHBISHOP of Canterbury Justin Welby says he was irritated and embarrassed to discover the Church of England had invested in a high-interest loan company he had earlier promised to destroy.

The spiritual leader of the world's 85 million Anglicans had vowed to "compete out of existence" Britain's best-known payday lending company, Wonga, by supporting other forms of community-led lending.

But Welby, who took office in February, said he had now been made aware that the Church had indirectly invested STG75,000 ($A125,722) in Wonga, out of total investments of STG5.2 billion.

In an interview with BBC radio on Friday, the archbishop admitted he was "irritated for a few minutes" after hearing the news, first revealed by the Financial Times.

"It shouldn't happen, it's very embarrassing. But these things do happen. We have to find out why and make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.

The Church claims to have a strong ethical investment policy which explicitly bans companies involved in payday lending, so-called because they offer short-term loans to help customers out until they get paid.

But they have been criticised for their huge interest rates - in Wonga's case, typically the equivalent of 5853 per cent annually, although most loans are agreed for up to six weeks.

Lambeth Palace, the archbishop's office in London, said an independent inquiry would probe how "this serious inconsistency" in its investments occurred.

Welby said it was not clear whether the Church had broken its own rules, noting that it was allowed to invest in a company where less than 25 per cent of its business was in payday loans.

Wonga insists it is a responsible lender and that it has been "instrumental" in helping to raise industry standards.

As part of its ethical investment policy, the church last year sold its shares in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp following the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World.


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Spain train driver detained over crash

The driver of a train that derailed in Spain is being questioned after admitting to speeding. Source: AAP

SPANISH police have announced they have formally detained the driver of a fast-moving train that flew off the tracks, killing at least 78 people, saying he was suspected of "recklessness".

"He has been detained since 8.00pm (on Thursday). He is accused of crimes related to the accident," Jaime Iglesias, the police chief in the northwestern region of Galicia where the accident happened, told reporters, on Friday.

Asked at a news conference in Santiago de Compostela why the driver was being detained, Iglesias said: "For recklessness."

A Spanish judge on Thursday ordered police to question the hospitalised driver following reports he was going twice the speed limit when the train derailed on a sharp bend on Wednesday evening just outside the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela.

The driver - identified by local media as 52-year-old Francisco Jose Garzon Amo - has since been under police surveillance in hospital while being treated for light injuries sustained in the accident.

He has not yet been charged with a crime and police are still waiting to question him.

The driver, while trapped inside his cab immediately after the accident, told railway officials by radio that the train had taken the curve at 190km/h, unidentified investigation sources told leading daily El Pais.

The speed limit on that section of track is 80km/h.

The grey-haired driver, pictured in the media with blood covering the left side of his face after the crash, has been with Spanish state railway Renfe for 30 years and has 13 years' experience as a driver, the rail firm said.

The train's data recording "black box" and other documents were passed over to the judge in charge of the investigation on Thursday.

Attention has so far centred on Garzon Amo, one of two drivers on the train, after media reports described him as a speed freak who once gleefully posted a picture on his Facebook page of a train speedometer showing it was travelling at 200km/h.

The El Pais newspaper, citing sources close to the investigation, said the driver stated immediately after the crash that he had been travelling at 190km/h on a curve with a speed limit of 80km/h.

"I am going at 190! I hope no one died because it will weigh on my conscience," he reportedly told supervisors over the radio while trapped inside the cab after the eight-carriage train flew off the tracks on a curve at 8.42pm.

Dramatic video footage from a security camera showed the fast-moving train, which was travelling from Madrid to the port of Ferrol, slamming into a concrete wall at the side of the track as the engine overturned.

On Friday, the paper reported the driver was unable to brake in time.

"The railway warning systems detected that Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, the driver of the Alvia train that departed Madrid, was travelling at 190 kilometres an hour when it should not exceed 80," El Pais wrote.

"The driver acknowledged that the alarm went off in the control panel and he tried to brake but was not able to avert the tragedy," the newspaper added.

Spanish police slightly lowered the death toll to 78, saying they had identified 72 of the fatalities.

"At the moment the figure is 78 dead, 72 have been identified and six remain to be," Galicia police chief Jaime Iglesias told a news conference in Santiago de Compostela on Friday.

Forensic police were working with "mangled bodies", he said, some of which where hard to identify because of the injuries sustained.

Police said the lower death toll arose because some body parts had been wrongly identified in the initial stages as coming from several people when they were from the same person.

Three foreigners are among the dead - an American, an Algerian and a Mexican, the head of the Spanish national police force's forensics department, Antonio del Amo, told the news conference.

Police used DNA samples, dental records and fingerprints to identity the dead and would now use "other tactics" to identify the six remaining victims, he added, without giving details on what the other methods were.

The crash injured more than 100 people, of whom 81 remain in hospital, 31 of them - including three children - in a serious condition, Galicia health services said.


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Polanski victim to release memoir

The woman director Roman Polanski was convicted of raping when she was 13 is releasing her memoir. Source: AAP

THE woman whom director Roman Polanski was convicted of raping when she was 13 has released the cover of her upcoming memoir, showing her in a photo snapped by the director just three weeks before the assault.

The memoir by Samantha Geimer is due to be released in September, but made headlines on Thursday with a photo of the author as a chubby-cheeked adolescent.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Polanski took the picture at the girl's home in 1977 before coaxing her to pose topless. Three weeks later he took her to Jack Nicholson's house where he gave her sedatives and champagne before raping her, according to court testimony.

Polanski was convicted by a US court but fled to France before sentencing and has never returned to the US.

The publisher of the book, entitled, The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski, said it was the first full account of the crime from Geimer's point of view.

"Samantha, as much as Polanski, has been a fugitive since the events of that night more than thirty years ago," the publisher said.


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Marilyn Monroe photos up for auction

Photographs of Marilyn Monroe will be sold with their copyrights at an LA auction house. Source: AAP

MORE than 3700 photos of Marilyn Monroe will soon be sold along with their copyrights, a Los Angeles auction house says.

The photos - plus negatives, slides and copyrights - are part of a collection of more than 75,000 images taken by fashion photographer Milton Greene in the 1950s and 60s.

They will go on the block at the auction house and online on July 27.

By pairing the images with their copyrights, buyers will be allowed to print, sell and earn royalties off the photos.

The photographer's son, Joshua Greene, recently told The Huffington Post it was "a bad business deal".

The archive also includes photos by Greene of Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Farrah Fawcett, Jane Fonda, Ava Gardner, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.

Some of the Monroe photos depict the starlet against a black background, covered in a black sweater that highlights her bare skin.

Other more innocent shots show Monroe in a white coat against a white background.

Greene and Monroe met in 1953 at a photo shoot for Look magazine, when the photographer was 26.

When Greene sent her a copy of the images, Monroe responded with two dozen roses and phoned to say they were the most beautiful photos she had ever seen, according to the Profiles in History auction house.

During the four years that followed the shoot, until Monroe married Arthur Miller, Greene took more than 5000 pictures of her, the auction house said on its website.

Greene worked for magazines such as Vogue, Glamour and Harper's Bazaar during his long career.

"Along with other eminent photographers such as Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, and Norman Parkinson, Milton Greene is credited for bringing fashion photography into the realm of fine art," the auction house said.

An online catalogue with a reproduction of the photographs can be seen on the Profiles in History website at www.profilesinhistory.com/flipbooks/Milton-Greene-Auction/index.html.

AFP dm


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Qld road toll nearly doubles

Queensland's road toll of 21 deaths during the school holidays almost doubled from last year. Source: AAP

THE number of people who died on Queensland's roads during the recent school holidays is nearly double the death toll during the same time last year.

Police say 21 people died during the June and July holidays compared with 11 in that same period last year.

Police Commissioner Ian Stewart says this is unacceptable.

"When we talk about the road toll, we often get caught up in facts and figures - but the cold, hard reality is - 21 people are no longer with us," he said.

More than 900 people were injured in serious crashes in that same period.

Police fined 56,536 motorists for speeding, 886 were caught not wearing seatbelts and 1,448 people were issued with a traffic infringement notice for using a mobile phone while driving.

Of the 187,285 random breath tests conducted, 1418 motorists were detected drink driving.


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Facebook surges on mobile ad results

SHARES of social networking giant Facebook have vaulted more than 25 per cent in early trading following a surprisingly good earnings report.

Facebook shares were up 26.0 per cent to $33.39 at 1354 GMT on Thursday (2354 AEST), the highest level since May 2012.

The surge came after the company's earnings report showed large increases in ad revenue from mobile technology.

Facebook shares have not appreciably moved higher since the company's high-profile public offering in May 2012.

But the company has made a priority of following its more than one billion members onto smartphones or tablets as lifestyles increasingly revolve around accessing the internet from mobile devices.

Facebook reported net income in the second quarter of $US331 million ($A362 million) compared with a loss of $US157 million in the year-ago period.

Revenue for the quarter that ended June 30 climbed to $US1.81 billion, up 53 per cent from the same period a year earlier.

Facebook said 41 per cent of its ad revenues came from mobile, compared with 30 per cent in the prior quarter and virtually nothing a year ago.

"We've made good progress growing our community, deepening engagement and delivering strong financial results, especially on mobile," said Facebook chief executive and Mark Zuckerberg .


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Top Tunisian opposition figure shot dead

A LEADING opposition figure and critic of Tunisia's ruling Islamists, Mohamed Brahmi, has been shot dead outside his home near the capital, in the second such assassination this year.

The murder by unknown gunmen sparked angry street protests in central Tunis and Brahmi's birthplace of Sidi Bouzid where he served as MP.

"Mohamed Brahmi, general co-ordinator of the Popular Movement and member of the National Constituent Assembly, was shot dead outside his home in Ariana," Watanya state television and the official TAP news agency reported.

"He was riddled with bullets in front of his wife and children," Mohsen Nabti, a fellow member of the small leftist movement, said in a tearful account aired on Tunisian radio.

The interior ministry, cited by TAP, said that Brahmi, a 58-year-old MP and vocal critic of Tunisia's ruling Islamists, was assassinated as he left home.

Watanya said Brahmi was struck by a hail of 11 bullets fired from point-blank range.

The February 6 assassination of Chokri Belaid, another opposition figure, in front of his home sparked a political crisis in Tunisia and charges of government involvement.

Condemning the latest killing, lawyer Mabrouk Korchid said that Brahmi was "assassinated in cold blood on the day that Tunisia is marking" the 56th anniversary of the republic's declaration.

Brahmi, a man with a bushy moustache and weather-beaten complexion, was elected MP for Sidi Bouzid, birthplace of the 2011 revolution which toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

On July 7, he resigned from his post as general secretary of the Popular Movement, which he founded, protesting that it had been infiltrated by Islamists.

French President Francois Hollande, whose country was the pre-independence colonial power in Tunisia, strongly condemned Brahmi's killing and called on the country to unite behind its post-revolutionary democratic transition.


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Video captures moment of Spain train crash

A VIDEO has been released showing the exact moment a train derailed in northeastern Spain, killing 80 people.

The video, which lasts just 10 seconds, shows the train negotiating a curve in the track before a number of carriages in the middle of the train come off the rails and drag the rest of the carriages off with them.

The images were first released on Spanish website Zoom News, but the video has since appeared on YouTube and a number of websites and TV stations.

According to Zoom News the video comes from a security camera of railway administrator Adif. However, a spokesman for Adif said they could not confirm the images had come from one of their cameras.

Authorities have not said what caused the accident, but it has been reported that the train was travelling at 190 kilometres an hour, more than twice the 80km/h speed limit, when it crashed.

The train was carrying 218 passengers and four crew from Madrid to the coastal town of Ferrol.

It is the deadliest rail disaster in Spain since 1944.


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US durable goods orders jump

NEW orders for big-ticket US manufactured goods rose 4.2 per cent in June, led by demand for aircraft.

Orders for durable goods, long-lasting manufactured products, rose to $US244.5 billion ($A268 billion), an increase of $US9.9 billion from May, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.

Analysts had predicted a much smaller 1.8 per cent increase on average.

The May reading was revised sharply higher to $US234.6 billion from an initial estimate of $US231.0 billion.

The June reading was the fourth increase in durable goods orders in the past five months.

But transportation equipment orders, a typically volatile item, drove the increase.

Civilian aircraft orders soared 31.4 per cent and defence aircraft orders jumped 18.7 per cent.

Orders were flat excluding transportation.

Excluding defence, orders rose 3.0 per cent.

On a year-over-year basis, new orders were up 3.7 per cent.


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Speed examined in horror Spain train crash

THE driver of a Spanish high-speed train that derailed, killing at least 80 people, has been named as a suspect in one of Europe's worst rail accidents.

A court in Santiago de Compostela ordered police to question Francisco Jose Garzon, 52, who had admitted to driving at 190 kilometres per hour on a curve where the speed limit was 80km/h.

The train carrying 218 passengers from Madrid to Ferrol derailed and split apart late on Wednesday at Angrois, about 4km from the regional capital, Santiago de Compostela.

Officials confirmed that the number of dead had risen from 78 to 80. Ninety-five injured people remained in hospital. Thirty-six of them, including four children, were in critical condition.

The injured included several citizens of the US and the UK, the two countries' embassies said.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who visited the accident scene and the injured in hospital, said both the government and the judiciary were investigating the causes of the tragedy.

The driver had boasted on Facebook that he sometimes defied controls by driving trains at 200km/h, the daily El Pais reported.

Garzon, who has 30 years of experience, suffered only minor injuries.

The stretch of track on which the train was travelling did not have an automatic cab signalling system, which would have stopped it in the event of excessive speed, representatives of the engine drivers' union said.

They also criticised the route of the train, which was based on a conventional - instead of high-speed - rail line and included a steep curve.

The rail management company said the train's security systems were adequate.

The train was running five minutes late, but the drivers' union said there was no pressure on staff to speed up in such cases.

The train had been inspected the day before the accident, sources at the rail company Renfe said.

People fearing for their loved ones are still waiting for about half of the fatalities to be identified. Some of the bodies were so disfigured that identification was difficult.

All of the carriages left the rails, the rear engine caught fire, and one of the wagons was hurled 15 metres. Wagons that were ripped open or smashed on top of each other were scattered around.

"We heard a noise, enormous, like never before. We went down there and saw that the convoy had split in two," said a witness.

Local residents rushed to the site, bringing water and blankets and smashing wagon windows with stones to help those trapped inside.


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Russian reporter's children boycott trial

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 24 Juli 2013 | 20.48

A RUSSIAN jury has begun hearing the case against five men suspected over the murder of anti-Kremlin reporter Anna Politkovskaya, despite a boycott of the trial by her children and their lawyers.

Judge Pavel Melekhin of the Moscow City Court on Wednesday declined to postpone the trial as requested by Politkovskaya's two children, who had warned the court that they would not be available to attend proceedings this week.

Politkovskaya's children have also complained that as the injured party their legal rights have been violated because they were not consulted over the composition of the jury.

"We have waited almost seven years for the killers to stand trial but the state could not wait a few days," Politkovskaya's daughter Vera and her son Ilya wrote in a statement published in the pages of their late mother's newspaper, the Novaya Gazeta.

"We refuse to take part in such a trial," the siblings said, calling on their legal representatives to also boycott the proceedings.

The case has dragged on for seven years after Politkovskaya was shot dead in 2006, in a killing linked to her reporting in the North Caucasus.

At the first session, the defendants pleaded not guilty after the judge declined to postpone the jury trial until the injured party and their lawyers can be present.

Some of the defendants also asked for their detention conditions to be improved, the Novaya Gazeta reported from the hearing.

Prosecutors accuse Chechen Lom-Ali Gaitukayev of organising a criminal group with his three nephews -- Rustam, Ibragim, and Dzhabrail Makhmudov -- to kill Politkovskaya.

Two police officers, Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov and Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, are accused of providing information about her address and schedule.


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Russia denies parole to Pussy Riot member

RUSSIA has denied parole to a jailed member of punk band Pussy Riot who has been sentenced to two years in jail for a protest against President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow church.

Maria Alyokhina, 25, had requested parole for the second time at a regional court in Perm, an industrial city more than 1100 kilometres east of Moscow, after a district court ruled to keep her in jail in May.

Alyokhina is one of three members of Pussy Riot who were sentenced to two years in prison after they sang a "Punk Prayer" against the Russian Orthodox Church's close ties with Putin in Moscow's central Church of Christ the Saviour in February 2012.

Alyokhina and a bandmate were convicted and sentenced to jail in August 2012, while the third woman was given a suspended sentence on appeal.

Observers had expressed some hope that the Perm court would free Alyokhina, who has a young son at home, because she was unexpectedly told to pack her belongings and moved out of her penal colony in the town of Berezniki on July 12 to participate in the parole hearing.

However, on Wednesday, she was denied a personal presence in the courtroom, speaking to the judge via a video link. Her lawyers suspect that she will be transferred to a different penal colony after the hearing to serve out the rest of her sentence.

The convictions of the women on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred have been denounced as disproportionate by many liberal Russians and public figures around the world, from music legend Paul McCartney to Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

More than 100 famous musicians including Madonna, Elton John and Sting signed an open letter released on Monday appealing for the women to be freed.

"While understanding the sensitivities of protesting in a place of worship, we ask that the Russian authorities review these harsh sentences, so that you may return to your children, your families and your lives," stars wrote in the letter coordinated by rights group Amnesty International.

The second jailed Pussy Riot punk Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, is serving her sentence in a prison colony in the region of Mordovia, 500 kilometres southeast of Moscow and is due to attend a parole hearing in the regional capital of Saransk on Friday.

The third Pussy Riot member to be convicted, Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, was freed on appeal with a suspended sentence after her lawyer argued she was grabbed by guards in the Moscow church before she could actually take part in the protest.


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Indian school head held in mass poisoning

POLICE have arrested the head of a school in eastern India where 23 students died after eating food contaminated with pesticide, an officer told AFP.

"The principal surrendered ... and we have arrested her for questioning," said Sujeet Kumar, police chief of Saran district in Bihar state where the children died.

"We need to talk to her first before framing charges," the official said on Wednesday by telephone.

The children, aged four to 12, died after eating a free lunch of lentils, potatoes and rice cooked at the school in a poverty-stricken village on July 16.

Oil used to cook the food contained an agricultural insecticide that was five times the strength sold in the market place, a forensic report found.

The head teacher fled and has been on the run since the incident in Gandaman village, which also left some 30 children ill in hospital and sparked angry protests.

Police raided the home of the head teacher last week where ingredients for the meal and cooking oil were kept, an officer has said.

Free lunches are offered to about 120 million school children throughout India in what is the world's largest school feeding program.

Bihar is one of the country's poorest and most densely-populated states.

Educators see the midday meal scheme as a way to increase school attendance. But children often suffer from food poisoning because of poor hygiene in kitchens and occasionally sub-standard food.


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EU may be rising from recession: survey

THE eurozone may be on the road out of recession, business data shows, but more evidence is needed to say if Europe will soon cease to be a drag on the global economy.

A key survey of business activity switched back into growth in July for the first time for 18 months.

Markit chief economist Chris Williamson said on Wednesday: "The best PMI reading for one-and-a-half years provides encouraging evidence to suggest that the euro area could - at long last - pull out of its recession in the third quarter."

Recession in the eurozone is widely regarded as a main drag on global economic momentum.

This has been underlined recently by the big economies in the Group of 20, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Monetary Fund.

European stock markets advanced on the upbeat data with London gaining 0.81 per cent and Paris up one per cent. The euro edged up to $1.3233.

The latest survey of sentiment among purchasing managers, the people responsible for buying materials and products for businesses, is a leading indicator.

The latest findings contrast with consumer gloom, largely a result of record high eurozone unemployment which is a lagging indicator of how the economy performed in past months.

The Markit Eurozone Composite Purchasing Managers Index logged 50.4 points, above the 50-mark signalling growth, and a bigger-than-expected rise according to analysts after posting 48.7 points in June.

The survey, which had given negative readings since February 2012, is closely watched as a reliable pointer to the trend of business activity.

Economists said cautiously that findings for July could be a sign that recession was on the wane.

The outcome, the fourth monthly rise in a row overall, was also marked by a two-year high logged in the manufacturing sector, which recorded 50.1 points, up from 48.8.

The rate of job losses eased, Markit said, while the feedback from star economy Germany showed that rising output there was at a five-month high level.

But the French economy, the second-biggest in the eurozone, still showed contraction although at a slower pace, giving a reading of 48.8, up from 47.4 in June.

Taken together, the data provides a "summer filip to policymakers," Williamson said, given political or financial turmoil in Italy, Cyprus, Greece and Portugal.

Williamson said that although manufacturing had led the revival, there were also "promising signs of stabilisation in the service sector, which hints at some much-needed upturns in domestic demand."

The services sector gave a survey reading of 49.6 points, up from 48.3.

Record eurozone unemployment is tipped to reach 12.3 per cent at the end of 2014 by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, with under-25s the hardest hit.

Williamson said that although jobs were still being lost, there was also "welcome news in that companies are cutting back on headcounts to a lesser extent than earlier in the year."

While cautioning that there have been "false dawns" before, Ben May of London-based Capital Economics said the eurozone economy appeared to be "on the mend and might perhaps soon exit recession."


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Tokyo bourse to pay $115m over blunder

A JAPANESE appeals court has ordered the Tokyo Stock Exchange to pay $US107 million ($A115.78 million) compensation over its failure to stop a $US400 million trade blunder in 2005, upholding the initial verdict.

The lawsuit against Asia's largest bourse was filed by Mizuho Securities - part of Japanese mega bank, Mizuho Financial Group - which demanded Y41.5 billion ($A450.72 million) in compensation.

The Tokyo District Court ruled that the TSE must pay Y10.7 billion to the securities firm, saying Mizuho must bear part of the responsibility after one of its employees placed an erroneous - and very costly - order.

The trader punched in a sell order for 610,000 shares in a telecom firm at one yen each, instead of one share at Y610,000, briefly causing turmoil on the Tokyo bourse, whose head resigned soon afterwards to take responsibility.

The TSE had admitted that a fault in its system prevented the trader from cancelling his command, leaving his firm saddled with a loss of more than Y40 billion.

Mizuho Securities said its claim against the TSE reflected losses on sales completed after the cancel instruction was made, and argued that the exchange was entirely culpable for the loss.

But the lower court said the trading firm bore some responsibility and the Tokyo High Court on Wednesday upheld that ruling.

Last month, a German court heard how a bank employee had fallen asleep on his keyboard and accidentally transferred 222 million euros ($A318.42 million), instead of the 62.40 euros he had intended.


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Assault on Iraq jails kills 41

Written By Unknown on Senin, 22 Juli 2013 | 20.48

MILITANTS attacked two Iraqi prisons in a bid to free inmates, sparking all-night clashes in which at least 41 people were killed, officials have said.

The coordinated attacks on Taji prison, north of Baghdad, and the Abu Ghraib facility, west of the Iraqi capital, were launched on Sunday night and raged for around 10 hours, officials said.

A police colonel said seven inmates escaped from Abu Ghraib during the clashes but were later arrested, while jihadists claimed on the internet that thousands of prisoners were freed.

Officials said at least 20 members of the security forces were killed and 40 wounded in the attacks.

Justice ministry spokesman said that 21 inmates were killed and 25 wounded during rioting at the prisons, without specifying whether they were bystanders or taking part in the fighting.

It was not immediately clear how many of the militants who attacked the prison were killed, wounded or captured.

The attacks were launched at around 9:30 pm (1830 GMT) on Sunday when the gunmen fired mortar rounds at the prisons.

Four car bombs were detonated near the entrances to the jails, while three suicide bombers attacked Taji prison, said the police colonel.

Five roadside bombs also exploded near the prison in Taji.

Fighting continued throughout the night as the military deployed aircraft and sent in reinforcements around the two facilities.

The situation was eventually brought under control on Monday morning, according to the colonel.

"The security forces in the Baghdad Operations Command, with the assistance of military aircraft, managed to foil an armed attack launched by unknown gunmen against the ... two prisons of Taji and Abu Ghraib," the interior ministry said in a statement late on Sunday night.

"The security forces forced the attackers to flee, and these forces are still pursuing the terrorist forces and exerting full control over the two regions."

But comments posted on social networking websites, including some Twitter accounts apparently operated by jihadists, said thousands of prisoners had escaped.

The attacks on the prisons came a year after Al-Qaeda's Iraqi front group announced it would target the Iraqi justice system.

Abu Ghraib became notorious after photographs showing Iraqi detainees being humiliated and abused by their US guards were published in 2004.

It also served as a torture centre under executed dictator Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.


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Karzai contests sacking of minister

Afghanistan's interior minister Mujtaba Patang has been sacked less than a year after taking office. Source: AAP

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai has contested parliament's decision to sack his interior minister for failing to stem rising Taliban attacks.

MPs sought to oust Mujtaba Patang as Afghan forces increasingly replace US-led NATO troops, scheduled to withdraw next year, and as the government searches for ways to open peace talks with the insurgents.

Patang, who took office less than a year ago, lost a vote of confidence by 136 to 60 in the lower house of parliament, or Wolesi Jirga.

"He's lost the vote of confidence and I on behalf of the Wolesi Jirga request the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to introduce another individual to the parliament for a vote of confidence," said speaker Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi.

Patang, a former deputy interior minister and a career police officer, was dismissed a month after the Afghan government formally took over responsibility for nationwide security from foreign troops.

He has been widely accused of incompetence since taking on the portfolio. Unlike former warlords who dominate Afghan politics, he lacks a strong personal power base.

Karzai announced in a statement that although it was the MPs' right to pass a vote of no confidence, he was appealing to the Supreme Court before deciding whether or not to accept Patang's dismissal.

"He emphasises that the giving no confidence vote should be justified and according to the law," said Karzai's office.

"For clarification the president decided to refer the issue to the Supreme Court, and after the Supreme Court rules, he will decide on it," it added.

Patang defended his record in response to a barrage of accusations from the floor, saying that his police force of 157,000 was on the frontline of the war.

He said 2,748 Afghan police had been killed since March 21, in what would be an astonishing rate of around 22 a day.

A spokesman for the ministry later told AFP that the figure included police who had been injured as well as killed.

Afghanistan's 350,000-strong security forces are suffering a steep rise in attacks as the NATO combat mission winds down, with police and army casualties previously said to have increased by 15-20 per cent since 2011.

Patang likened the ministry he had inherited to "an old car with a broken engine". Afghan and foreign money had been wasted, he said, because there was no system.

"In eight months I have created a system. I have made 122 policies and strategies for the interior ministry," he said.

Instead, other people were responsible for insecurity, he said.

In another example of Afghan officials lashing out at their US backers, Patang said an American convoy had paid $US1 million to the Taliban in bribes to get to Badghis province when he was police commander of northern Afghanistan.


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UBS settles US mortgage lawsuit

Swiss banking giant UBS has settled a lawsuit linked to US subprime housing mortgages. Source: AAP

SWISS banking giant UBS says it has settled a lawsuit linked to US subprime housing mortgages which sparked the 2008 global financial crisis.

The bank did not specify how much the settlement amounted to, but said it has set aside 865 million Swiss francs ($A1.01 billion),in the second quarter to meet litigation costs including the case.

"The full cost of the settlement is covered by litigation provisions established by UBS during the second quarter of 2013 and in prior periods," Switzerland's biggest bank said.

UBS and 17 other financial institutions were sued by the US Federal Housing Finance Agency in September 2011 for violating federal securities laws when selling residential mortgage-backed securities to government-backed lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The agency accused the 18 firms of misleading Fannie and Freddie about the credit-worthiness of the assets.

"UBS has reached an agreement in principle with the Federal Housing Finance Agency," UBS said.

The bank added that the deal, which still requires a final go-ahead from the different parties, would settle claims connected to the securities between 2004 and 2007.

Despite setting aside massive provisions, the bank, which is due to announce its second quarter results on July 30, said it would post a net profit of around 690 million francs for the three months ending June.

That is a jump of 62.5 per cent from a year ago and a stark improvement over the first quarter, when net profit slid 4.5 per cent. In the fourth quarter of 2012, UBS posted a loss of 1.9-billion francs.

The bank said its operating profit before tax would reach about 1.02 billion francs, an increase of 7.3 per cent over the second quarter in 2012.

Analysts hailed the better-than-expected results and the settlement of the mortgage securities suit, with Panagiotis Spiliopoulos of Vontobel predicting "juicy dividend payouts in the years to come".

Following the announcements, the bank's stocks jumped 3.4 per cent to 18.21 francs in midday trading, outperforming the Swiss stock exchange's main index, which gained just 0.12 per cent.


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Plain packs reduces allure of cigs: study

Plain packaging for cigarettes diminishes the appeal of smoking, according to medical research. Source: AAP

SCIENTISTS say they have evidence that plain packaging for cigarettes diminishes the appeal of smoking, as anti-tobacco campaigners suggest.

European countries are considering whether to follow Australia, which last year became the first country in the world to sell cigarettes in plain packets.

Cigarettes are now sold in identical olive-brown packets bearing the same typeface, in addition to health warnings.

Researchers questioned 536 smokers in Victoria during the transition phase, when both branded and plain-pack products were on sale.

Nearly three-quarters of those interviewed were smoking from plain packets, and the others from branded packets.

Plain-pack smokers were 66 per cent likelier to think their cigarettes were of poorer quality compared with a year earlier, and were 70 per cent likelier to say they found them less satisfying.

They were also 81 per cent likelier to have thought about quitting at least once a day during the previous week and to rate quitting as a higher priority in their lives compared to smokers using brand packs.

The study, published on BMJ Open by the British Medical Journal, did not follow up these smokers, to see what they thought or did after the transition period.

But, it says, the "early indication" is that drab packaging takes the gloss off cigarette brands.

"Plain packaging is associated with lower smoking appeal, more support for the policy and more urgency to quit among adult smokers," it says.


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Customs denies boat tied up to WA platform

CUSTOMS denies claims that an asylum seeker boat tied itself to an oil and gas platform off the West Australian coast.

Customs and Border Protection said the passengers on the wooden boat were waving at workers on the Santos-operator MODEC Venture II FPSO vessel off Dampier last week, but did not approach the platform.

But West Australian Premier Colin Barnett has heard otherwise.

"I obviously am concerned," he told reporters on Monday.

"The fact that, as far as I understand, it was actually tied up to the platform, that was an extremely dangerous situation.

"Had there been a fire, had there been an explosion, that could have been extremely dangerous and risky for the people on the platform, let alone the asylum seekers."

But Customs denies this claim.

"At no stage did the vessel tie up alongside the oil and gas floating platform," a spokesperson said in a statement.

Santos last week said it would not comment on the matter.

Mr Barnett said he understood Australian surveillance and security forces were "absolutely stretched" at the time.

The asylum seekers, believed to be Vietnamese, will be the last group processed on Christmas Island as they were intercepted and brought ashore before Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced his dramatic Papua New Guinea plan on Friday.

Mr Barnett also said he thought the PNG deal would likely discourage people smugglers and asylum seekers considering a dangerous sea journey to Australia.

"Wait and see, I guess," he said.

"It certainly is a strong reaction.

"I think the public were crying out for stronger measures to be taken.

"Whether it becomes a permanent or long-term solution I think remains to be seen."


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