Kidnapped peacekeepers freed in Darfur

TWO Jordanian peacekeepers have been freed after 136 days of captivity in Sudan's Darfur region, the African Union-UN mission to the troubled region said.

"They are safe," UNAMID spokeswoman Aicha Elbasri said.

"This is the longest hostage-taking incident (for UNAMID)."

The peacekeepers were on their way to Khartoum and then Jordan after their release in Zalingei, capital of the recently-created Central Darfur state, she said.

"They were medically checked and they appear to be unharmed and in good health," Ms Elbasri said, adding she had no information on who the abductors may have been.

The Jordanians went missing on August 20 in Kebkabiya town, about 140 kilometres west of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state where the UN has warned in recent months of rising insecurity.

Their release was welcomed by Jordan's police directorate.

"Police corporals Hassan Mazawdeh and Qasem Sarhan are now at the Jordanian mission, enjoying good health," the kingdom's Public Security Directorate said in a statement, without elaborating.

"We thank the Sudanese government and the United Nations for their help, support and coordination," it added.

"We are currently in contact with the Sudanese government and the United Nations to ensure the safe return of the two corporals as soon as possible."

Jordan's police directorate said at the time that the pair disappeared while they shopped in the Kebkabiya area.

They were among a group of peacekeepers buying supplies in a market but they failed to show up at a pre-arranged meeting point at the end of the trip, the police said.

Recent years have seen a wave of kidnappings for ransom in Darfur, where ethnic rebels a decade ago began an uprising against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government.

Although violence is down from its peak, villages have been razed and rebel-government fighting, banditry, inter-Arab and tribal disputes continue to afflict the region, in Sudan's far west.

Last May, unknown captors released a British employee of the UN's World Food Program who had been held for nearly three months in Darfur.

In February, rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement freed five Turks they held captive for several months.

That followed the release in December 2011 of Italian hostage Francesco Azzara, a humanitarian worker abducted for about four months. UNAMID blamed a "criminal element".

That same year three Bulgarian helicopter pilots working under a UN contract were held for 145 days.

An analyst has said that it is often known very quickly who the kidnappers are, but negotiations take time.

Chances that the suspects will be brought to justice are slim because "there are too many links between the government people, (and) the tribes", said the analyst who declined to be named.

It was not immediately clear how many UNAMID members have been taken hostage during the five-year history of the world's largest peacekeeping mission.

Forty-three UNAMID peacekeepers have been killed in hostile action, including five in October.

Dane Smith, the US administration's senior adviser for Darfur, said in December that both militia and bandits have attacked UNAMID peacekeepers and although the Sudanese government has announced investigations "there never are any results".

20.47 | 0 komentar | Read More

K-Pop star Rain in trouble over photos

SOUTH Korean pop star Rain is facing questions after paparazzi photos showed him out on the town with a top actress.

Seoul's Defense Ministry said it is investigating whether Rain broke military rules by meeting actress Kim Tae-hee while on duty.

Rain is fulfilling his compulsory army service as an entertainer for the military. He is not allowed to have private meetings while outside his Seoul base for official duties such as recording and performing.

The ministry says a brief lockup in a military jail cannot be ruled out as a penalty.

Kim's agency admits that the two have dated for a month. Rain's agency neither denies nor confirms it.

Rain joined the military in October 2011 and is scheduled to be discharged in July.

20.47 | 0 komentar | Read More

UK man shot dead at Thai NYE beach party

A 22-YEAR-OLD British tourist has been shot dead as he danced at a New Year party on one of Thailand's most famous islands after a fight between rival Thai gangs erupted on the beach, police say.

The holidaymaker was killed when a Thai man opened fire at a bar on the island of Koh Phangan in southern Thailand in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

"He was shot in the side while he was dancing on the beach," local policeman Lieutenant Colonel Somsak Noorod said, adding the area had been packed with revellers during the evening's New Year celebrations.

Police believe the gunman was aiming at members of a rival gang.

Phangan is a resort island in the Gulf of Thailand neighbouring Koh Samui and draws thousands of backpackers to its famous full moon parties.

20.47 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bomb found near home of Delhi rape suspect

INDIAN police has arrested a man as he tried to plant a crude bomb near the home of one of the suspects in the New Delhi gang-rape case as a backlash against widespread sex crimes gathered steam.

As protests against harassment and violence against women continued, a chart-topping Indian rapper known for his sexually explicit lyrics also became embroiled in a growing campaign against sexism and misogyny in Indian society.

Yo Yo Honey Singh, whose hits include My Home My Village, saw his New Year's Eve concert in New Delhi cancelled following an online campaign which highlighted lyrics allegedly inciting abuse of women.

His 2007 track Prostitute refers to him having violent sex with a woman after he forces her to "dance naked" and includes the line: "You will scream and run but where can you go... I will take your life".

The furore over the rap star comes as the country comes to terms with the December 16 gang-rape in which a 23-year-old medical student was repeatedly assaulted and violated with an iron bar while being driven around in a bus for 40 minutes.

She died from internal injuries in a Singapore hospital at the weekend and her ashes were immersed Tuesday in the holy Ganges river by her family near their native village in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

The unnamed girl, whose parents had sold land to fund her studies, had been out to the cinema with her boyfriend when she was lured onto the bus by a gang of reportedly drunk joyriders.

Sexual violence and gang-rapes are commonplace in India, but the case has brought simmering anger - particularly among young urban women - to the boil and led to protests in the capital and calls for the death penalty for rapists.

Police said they had arrested a 37-year-old man on Tuesday in the narrow by-lanes of a slum in southwest Delhi after he allegedly tried to plant a crude bomb near the house of one of six suspects detained by police for the Delhi rape.

The low-grade device was filled with explosives usually used in firecrackers, a police official said.

Protests in India, which continued on Monday and on New Year's Eve, have also spilled to other parts of the world with people taking to the streets in Hong Kong, Islamabad, London and Kathmandu.

On Tuesday, about 30 women's rights activists protested outside the Indian consulate in Hong Kong, urging authorities to enact tougher laws to punish sex crimes.

The government, which has faced a wave of anger, has set up a panel headed by a former chief justice to recommend changes to the criminal law dealing with sexual crimes.

The panel, which was set up last week, had already received more than 17,000 suggestions until Monday, The Indian Express newspaper reported.

Also on Tuesday, the Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said the six suspects for the gang-rape risked the death penalty if found guilty and the case against them appeared very strong.

"We have a solid case with very good evidence... a magistrate has recorded the victim's dying declaration and we have a prime witness, the girl's friend, who has identified the rapists," Shinde told The Economic Times newspaper.

The victim's boyfriend, whom friends said she intended to marry, tried to prevent the rape and is likely to give crucial evidence during what is expected to be a fast-tracked trial.

Police are to file charges and present their evidence against the suspects - five men and a minor - on Thursday.

Delhi police have said their probe is almost complete, pending the arrival of an autopsy report from doctors in Singapore and the conclusions of forensic experts.

20.47 | 0 komentar | Read More

Pope prays for peace at New Year mass

POPE Benedict XVI prayed for the "gift of peace" this year, condemning the inequality between rich and poor and "unregulated financial capitalism" at a New Year's mass in St Peter's Basilica.

The Pope spoke of "hotbeds of tension and confrontation caused by the growing inequality between rich and poor and the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mentality also expressed by unregulated financial capitalism."

But he also said that humanity had "an innate vocation for peace" and quoted from the Biblical passage: "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God."

Peacemakers "are like the yeast in the dough - they allow humanity to grow according to God's design," he said.

The Roman Catholic Church celebrates New Year's Day as World Peace Day.

The Pope later addressed a crowd in St Peter's Square with his traditional Angelus prayer and invoked the blessing of the Virgin Mary "like a mother blesses her children who are about to set off on a voyage."

"A new year is like a voyage. With the light and grace of God, may it be a voyage of peace for every person and every family, for every country and for the whole world," he said.

20.47 | 0 komentar | Read More

Attacks down but Iraq in 'low-level war'

VIOLENCE in Iraq dropped in 2012, data shows, but insurgents proved they were still capable of mounting waves of attacks and a watchdog warned the country was still in a "low-level war".

The warnings, which come after the first full year since American forces completed their withdrawal in December 2011, were punctuated by a series of nationwide shootings and bombings on New Year's Eve in which 28 people were killed and nearly 100 wounded.

The latest violence came just days ahead of a major Shi'ite commemoration ceremony, and after more than a week of non-stop anti-government rallies in Sunni-majority areas where demonstrators allege targeting of their community by Iraq's Shi'ite-led authorities.

A total of 144 people were killed across Iraq last month, including 40 policemen and 15 soldiers, and 360 others were wounded, according to figures compiled by AFP based on reports from security and medical officials.

The monthly death toll was near 2012's low of 136 set in October.

And data released by Iraq's ministries of health, interior and defence said 2,174 people were killed throughout last year, sharply lower than in previous years, particularly compared to the height of the country's brutal sectarian war from 2005 to 2008 when tens of thousands were killed.

But Britain-based monitor group Iraq Body Count put the overall death toll at 4,471, more than double the official figures, though the last three months of 2012 represented a record low.

It warned in its annual report that "the country remains in a state of low-level war ... with a 'background' level of everyday armed violence punctuated by occasional larger-scale attacks designed to kill many people at once."

"2012 has been more consistent with an entrenched conflict than with any transformation in the security situation for Iraqis in the first year since the formal withdrawal of US troops," it said.

US troops withdrew in December 2011, though a small contingent of around 150 soldiers remains as part of a bilateral agreement to help train and supply Iraq's security forces.

Baghdad's police and military are widely agreed to be largely able to maintain internal security, but are not expected to be fully capable of defending Iraq's borders, airspace and waters until 2020.

20.47 | 0 komentar | Read More

Workers 'killed boss, ate body parts'

Tea plantation workers torched a vehicle and the home of their boss, killing both him and his wife, following a labour dispute in the northeastern Indian state of Assam. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

POLICE in northeast India say they believe workers on a tea plantation who bludgeoned their boss and his wife to death last month also ate parts of their bodies.

A crowd of 1000 workers at the privately-owned M.K.B. Tea Estate in the state of Assam surrounded the plantation owner's bungalow last week. A mob then set it on fire in violence blamed on festering labour unrest in the region.

"Our investigations say that at least five plantation workers ate the flesh of the tea planter and his wife after they were brutally killed," Numol Mahatao, deputy police chief of Tinsukia district, told journalists.

"We suspect that about 15 people were actually involved in the crime although there were some 1000 present there at the spot," the police official said. "We have identified all the masterminds and nine are in our custody so far."

Mr Mahatao said the reports of cannibalism were based on a confession from one of the workers present during the attack.

Tea workers are notoriously badly paid and often housed in poor accommodation in remote areas. They have few protections from police and cannot take advantage of laws designed to guarantee them health care and fair working conditions, rights groups say.

The Indian Express newspaper said the violence was sparked by orders from the boss for 10 estate workers to vacate their quarters and by the detention of three employees by police over unspecified disputes.

"We are investigating the reasons that led to the attack. But whatever may be the reason, such acts of barbarism are unacceptable in this modern world," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.

Assam produces around 55 per cent of India's annual tea production, which stood at 988.32 million kilograms last year, and the state is home to more than 800 tea estates.
 

20.47 | 0 komentar | Read More

Hawke Labor had its immigration 'issues'

BACK in the mid-1980s the Labor government of Bob Hawke had immigration problems almost to be envied by Labor of 2013.

Asylum seekers arriving by boat were not a problem - because there weren't any.

The Human Rights Commission actually favoured holding illegal immigrants in immigration detention centres, albeit as an alternative to jails.

And the illegal immigrants were mostly visa overstayers, of whom about a third departed of their own accord. Another third left under immigration department supervision with the rest, just under a third, deported.

Cabinet papers for 1984 and 1985, released by the National Archives of Australia, show then immigration minister Chris Hurford was concerned that the system of processing those seeking to become permanent residents was outmoded and becoming increasingly unworkable.

Applicants were appearing at the rate of 10,000 a year, with appeals by those rejected producing backlogs of a year or more.

Hurford said administrative law sought to establish safeguards against arbitrary exercise of discretion by officials. In the peculiar field of immigration, delay worked to the benefit of the applicant.

"These safeguards have been abused so that administration has now become a nightmare, both in terms of frustration of government and the resources consumed," he said.

Hurford cited the recent case of a man who arrived without a passport or visa. The man admitted he had deliberately disposed of his passport and was refused entry at the airport.

Previously he sought and was refused a visa three times overseas.

His appeals occupied a Federal Court judge for a week and then the full Federal Court for another two days.

"The plain fact is that adverse decisions involve more time and resources than favourable ones," the minister lamented.

Hurford recommended change to immigration laws to penalise those who did the wrong thing, removing review rights, other than through the High Court.

Hurford also proposed special immigration appeal adjudicators who would sit alone in hearing cases. Those seeking leave to appeal would have no automatic right to remain in Australia pending the outcome.

The minister said the determination of refugee status was another major area of concern because of its political delicacy.

He recommended that power to decide on these cases should remain with him, acting on advice of the refugee status determination committee.

Hurford had other concerns. Australia's immigration detention centres were strained and he needed better facilities and more staff.

By 2013 standards, this wasn't much of a problem.

Now there are more than 5000 people in immigration detention facilities. In 1985, the three detention centres in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth had a combined capacity of 170.

They all were visa overstayers awaiting deportation with an average stay under a fortnight.

Hurford conceded the illegal immigrant population, estimated at 50,000, was increasing. It was estimated 30,000 a year became illegal immigrants but about half left or regularised their status.

The long-term illegal immigrant population was estimated around 15,000.

Hurford said the Human Rights Commission had recommended significant improvements in conditions at the detention centres which the government was implementing.

In a review of the Migration Act in May 1985, the commission recommended that the practice of holding illegal immigrants and deportees in jails should cease forthwith and the immigration detention centres be used instead.

Boats carrying asylum seekers from Indo-China started arriving in 1976 and ended in 1981, with none at all arriving until the second wave began in 1989-90.

That prompted Labor to introduce the controversial policy of mandatory detention in 1992.

20.47 | 0 komentar | Read More

Hawke Labor set about reform with zeal

ALMOST three decades on, the Hawke-Keating government of the mid 1980s still retains its reputation as a reformist administration.

So what was it actually like to be there in those heady days?

Susan Ryan, a minister in the government, recalls there was a sense of history at play.

"We did from the beginning have a sense that it was a big opportunity for us as a Labor government to do big things," she told reporters at the launch of the cabinet papers for 1984-85.

"Some of our ministers had been in the Whitlam government and had been quite scarred by the short and tumultuous term of that government."

Ryan was senator for the Australian Capital Territory from 1975-87. Following Labor's election in 1983, she became minister for education and youth affairs and minister assisting the prime minister for the status of women.

She quit federal politics in December 1987 and is currently the inaugural age discrimination commissioner with the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Bob Hawke led Labor to victory in March 1983, ousting the coalition government of Malcolm Fraser.

Often referred to as a man-of-the-people, Hawke entered 1984 with a spectacularly high approval rating of 70 per cent, facing Andrew Peacock who headed a fractious coalition.

Labor's healthy lead in the opinion polls - 54-40 per cent - is something its modern-day counterpart can only dream about.

Despite this enviable electoral support, Labor wasn't on easy street, Ryan recalls.

The economy wasn't performing well. Unemployment and inflation were being pushed up by rising wages designed to cover cost-of-living pressures. Despite a floating dollar that prompted a rapid devaluation, the nation's balance of trade was bad and getting worse.

On the back of Hawke's popularity and dissatisfaction with the coalition, Labor had romped home at the 1983 election. It expected the December 1984 ballot to be a rerun, but that's not how it turned out.

Hawke was distracted by personal anguish having learned his daughter Rosslyn was addicted to heroin. As well, Peacock performed better than most pundits had expected.

"We did get back quite well, but it was a quite scary episode," Ryan said.

"However, we did not pull back at all on our program of reform and it did not make us more risk averse or more cautious."

The biggest challenge was the need to reform the tax system.

Ryan said cabinet discussion of tax reform was one of the most exciting periods of her time in politics.

"The discussions sometimes went all night," she said.

"They were at a very high level of intensity because there were lots of diverse views."

Ryan said she was swayed to the merits of Keating's Option C - a goods and services tax set at 12.5 per cent on everything, compensated by improvements in welfare benefits and pensions.

"Keating really led the charge and really instructed us all.

"He was at his best. He was fantastic. He explained all of these complex things. He'd be very dramatic, he would always stand up, his arms would be flailing around, he'd draw graphs and diagrams about what would happen."

Ryan found the then treasurer's argument totally persuasive, saying he educated the cabinet and the community about how the tax system worked and why it had to be reformed.

"He even educated those highly-educated members of the cabinet who were Rhodes scholars and the like, excepting, of course, prime minister Hawke, a Rhodes scholar who of course did know as much as Paul did about it."

A high point for Ryan was achieving progress on affirmative action at a time when few women held senior positions in the workforce.

Despite vehement opposition and dire predictions that the Sex Discrimination Act would destroy family life, Christianity and much more more, it was implemented without a significant struggle.

Ryan's low point was the reintroduction of university fees, a significant backtrack on the former Whitlam government which abolished tertiary fees in 1974.

Her "unreconstructed Whitlamite position" on fees was not shared in cabinet.

"The economic rationalists considered my position to be that not only of a dinosaur, but an innumerate dinosaur," she said.

Ryan said the government decided not to proceed with a plan to impose a $1400 fee at that time, but, once started, the debate about fees never went away.

"I won a couple of battles in the following two years. I lost the war."

In 1987, "some innocent little thing" called the administration charge ($250 for all tertiary students) was introduced.

"It was the thin edge of the wedge."

Subsequently, education minister John Dawkins oversaw the introduction of the Higher Education Contributions Scheme which still operates to this day.

Ryan said Whitlam's policy of ending university fees had allowed many women, who had left school at 15 or 17 and who never contemplated going to university because of the cost, to gain professional qualifications as mature-age students.

Whitlam still gets letters from women saying "if I hadn't been able to go to university my life would have been unlivable, but I got these professional qualifications".

"There was an important social impact," Ryan said.

20.47 | 0 komentar | Read More

Fireworks light up foreshore at Gold Coast

CARTOON superheroes shone on a highrise wall as fireworks lit up the beachfront for the New Year's Eve curtain-raiser at Surfers Paradise.

Thousands of revellers took in the 9pm (AEST) show, a precursor to the main event at midnight which is billed as one of the biggest fireworks displays in Queensland for New Year's celebrations.

Organisers went with a superheroes theme for this year's family party, hoping to encourage children to attend as their favourite superhero and several little Spidermen and Supermen could be seen among the crowd.

Projected images of superheroes such as the Phantom and Batman were displayed on a highrise building adjacent to the beach as the fireworks display began.

"It's going to be a big year, bring on 2013," Coomera resident Steve Hoffmann, who brought his wife and son to the display, told AAP.

The event was one of several held up and down the Gold Coast while other centres in Queensland also lit up with their family-friendly displays.

The main event at Brisbane's South Bank had to be delayed by 10 minutes due to a helicopter needing the airspace above the Brisbane river to deliver a patient to nearby hospital but after that it was all systems go.

The midnight spectacular is expected to draw 80,000 people to the riverbank at South Bank with laser light shows and fireworks that launch underwater among the highlights.

"We've been working on a few surprises," Skylighter Fireworks director Max Brunner told Brisbanetimes.com.

"All I can say is that this year will be the biggest display a Brisbane New Year's Eve has ever had."

Public transport is being offered free of charge to revellers in Queensland's south-east from 9pm (AEST) until 5.30am (AEST) on New Year's Day.

Up in Queensland's north, torrential rain did little to dampen spirits as the early fireworks show along Cairns's esplanade went off as scheduled.

The heavy rain appears to have headed south leaving clear skies at midnight for revellers in Cairns and Townsville, though other centres such as Mackay and Bowen could face a damp start to 2013.

20.47 | 0 komentar | Read More