Swiss team prepares for Arafat exhumation

A SWISS laboratory team has arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah to prepare for the exhumation of former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, Palestinian sources said on Monday.

The team, along with French investigators, is expected to participate in Arafat's exhumation on November 26, as part of a new investigation into the circumstances of the late leader's 2004 death.

The delegation from the Institute of Radiation Physics at Switzerland's University of Lausanne arrived on Monday, Palestinian sources said, adding that they met with Palestinian health minister Hani Abdeen and justice minister Ali Mhanna.

The team also held talks with Tawfiq Tirawi, head of the Palestinian commission that investigated Arafat's death, "to discuss next steps" and visited the Ramallah mausoleum that houses Arafat's grave.

Arafat died in a French military hospital near Paris on November 11, 2004 and French experts were unable to say what had killed him, with many Palestinians convinced he was poisoned by Israel.

French prosecutors opened a murder inquiry into his death in August after Al-Jazeera television broadcast an investigation in which Swiss experts said they had found high levels of radioactive polonium on Arafat's personal effects.

Polonium is a highly toxic substance rarely found outside military and scientific circles.

It was used to kill former Russian spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 in London shortly after drinking tea laced with the poison.

Last month, Palestinian sources told AFP that French investigators and a team from the Swiss lab would exhume Arafat's body on November 26.

"The Palestinian Authority will provide these teams with every facility in order to determine the circumstances of the death of president Yasser Arafat," the source said.

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G20 action needed, not just planning: Swan

EDS: Not for use before 0001 AEST on Tuesday, November 6.

By Colin Brinsden, AAP Economics Correspondent

CANBERRA, Nov 6 AAP - Treasurer Wayne Swan says the Group of 20 major economies have spent too much time on discussing crisis management and not enough on action to lift growth four years on from the depths of the global financial crisis.

In an address to the G20 Finance Ministers' meeting in Mexico City on Monday, Mr Swan said actions by central banks have helped to stabilise markets and opened the window for governments to undertake decisive reforms to reduce the risk of falling back into crisis.

"But without political action, the markets will slam it closed, as we have all seen too many times before," Mr Swan said, according to a copy of his speech obtained by AAP.

He said it was disappointing that the group was still crisis managing.

"The few of us still here who sat around the G20 in the darkest days of 2008 could not have predicted that more than four years later we would be here still talking about stability mechanisms and further unconventional action by central banks," he said.

"We have spent far too much time in the subsequent four years discussing how to deal with the risks to growth and not enough time taking action to lift growth."

He said whoever won this week's US presidential election must deal urgently with the so-called "fiscal cliff" - the end of tax cuts and the adoption of severe spending cuts at the turn of the year - or risk seeing the US economy plunge back into recession.

He said it was also important that China's new leadership after this week's 18th national congress continued to deliver reforms to shift the Chinese economy towards consumption-led growth.

Mr Swan noted European policymakers were constrained by having to address significant levels of debt over the medium to long term, so they need to develop credible and effective fiscal pathways.

The US and Japan also needed credible long-term fiscal plans to address their very high debt levels, he said.

"To maintain market confidence and to support jobs growth, you need to demonstrate policies are in place which will deal with long-term fiscal pressures," he said.

"You don't need to slash and burn now to deliver sound fiscal outcomes in the medium term. Structural saves start small but grow over time, helping to deliver credible and sustainable fiscal policy."

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Homes under flight path defy common sense

THE federal government has called on NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell to reconsider his plan to allow residential development under the Canberra Airport flight path, saying it "defies common sense".

The NSW government is set to approve the rezoning of the Tralee housing development, which would see 1000 homes south of Queanbeyan developed over five to six years in a $400 million venture.

Federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese says the plan would kill off Mr O'Farrell's own plan to use Canberra Airport as a second hub for Sydney.

"Barry O'Farrell has stated he doesn't support a second Sydney airport actually being in Sydney, and the only option he would support is Canberra," Mr Albanese said in a statement.

"Today's decision renders his plan for Canberra as Sydney's second hub farcical and completely contradictory."

The federal government remained opposed to putting new greenfield housing developments under busy flight paths, Mr Albanese said.

"With passenger traffic at Canberra Airport forecast to grow by 36 per cent in the next decade, there will be an average 97 flight movements a day over the Tralee area.

"I have written to the NSW Planning Minister Brad Hazzard asking him to reconsider this decision."

Mr Albanese said it was extraordinary Mr O'Farrell would give the green light to a development that undermined his alternative to a second Sydney airport.

"It defies common sense that he's killed off his own idea, however absurd it might have been in the first place."

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Hotline fails to reduce hospital burden

A GOVERNMENT-BACKED medical hotline is having a minimal impact, if any, on reducing the burden on hospital emergency departments, a study has found.

More than half the callers to the healthdirect help line attended an emergency department despite a recommendation to the contrary, research published in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday found.

The national 24-hour help line, launched in 2006, connects callers with a nurse to assess the patient and provide recommendations. It expanded last year to include GPs.

A study carried out by the Royal Perth Hospital emergency department from August 2008 to April 2009 traced admissions back to the helpline and found 52.4 per cent were patients who attended emergency despite being advised against it.

The lead authors, emergency physicians Dr Joseph Ng and Professor Daniel Fatovich, said the cost of running medical hotlines was often justified by promoting a reduction in pressure on emergency departments.

But previous studies had shown that telephone triage services had a limited impact on reducing attendances, the authors said.

One large review of multiple studies could not find a case where a hotline had decreased pressure on an emergency department, and another found a nurse helpline increased attendances, the authors said.

"Given the healthdirect referrals to the ED in our study represented fewer than two per cent of ED attendances, the impact of telephone triage is minimal," the study said.

Dr Ng said the number of patients going to an emergency department after being given alternative advice indicated an issue with access to after hours services.

"Maybe these patients were being told to go to their family doctor and they would have tried really hard to, but maybe these services are just not available out of hours," Dr Ng told AAP.

He said the study showed callers to the healthdirect service who attended the hospital emergency department were more likely to be younger and female than those who self-referred or were sent by their GP.

Associate Professor Patrick Bolton from the University of NSW said the study showed that a phone call did not seem to be answering patients' questions about whether a visit to an emergency department was required.

"Consideration must be given to whether healthdirect represents the best use of finite health dollars," Assoc Prof Bolton said in an accompanying editorial.

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Number of indigenous heavy smokers drops

A DRAMATIC drop in the number of indigenous Australian heavy smokers could reduce deaths and disease caused by tobacco, research suggests.

The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who smoked more than 20 cigarettes a day almost halved between 1994 and 2008, a report in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday found.

The rate dropped from 17.3 per cent of indigenous people in 1994 to 9.4 per cent in 2008 - a 45 per cent decrease.

The decline occurred among both men and women, in remote and non-remote areas and included all age groups except older indigenous people.

However, those smoking one to 10 cigarettes a day increased by almost one-third, from 16.8 per cent to 21.6 per cent.

Smoking is the number one cause of chronic conditions and diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease among indigenous Australians.

Fifty per cent of indigenous people smoke compared with less than 20 per cent of the wider community.

Researcher Associate Professor David Thomas from the Menzies School of Health Research said it was well known that heavier smokers have higher health risks so the reduction was welcome news.

He said the decline happened before the federal government's $100 million investment to reduce smoking in Aboriginal communities in 2010.

"We are riding a wave of change," Assoc Prof Thomas told AAP.

"Reducing smoking intensity and prevalence will lead to reduced deaths and illness due to smoking."

He said wider anti-tobacco campaigns and smoke-free laws introduced across the country may have had an impact on the drop in heavy smoking rates.

The changes may have come about by heavy smokers cutting down or young people not taking up the habit heavily, Assoc Prof Thomas said.

Although there have been widespread concerns about underreporting of cigarette smoking, he said earlier research in remote Northern Territory communities showed a correlation between cigarette sales and self-reported smoking.

The increase in light smokers was worrying so tobacco control programs need to take this group into account, Assoc Prof Thomas said.

He said the federal government program to tackle tobacco use could see indigenous smoking rates drop further.

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Miners should remain optimistic on China

AUSTRALIA'S mining companies have reason to be optimistic despite a difficult past 12 months during which profits fell and their share price suffered a big hit due to lower commodity prices and a slowing Chinese economy, a report says.

The Aussie Mine 2012 Staying the Course report from financial services company PwC found the so-called mid-tier miners made a combined net profit of $1.6 billion in 2011/12, down by 44 per cent from the previous year.

The report, in its sixth year, focused on the largest 50 mining companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange with a market capitalisation of less than $5 billion at June 30, 2012.

PwC partner Wayne Huf and global mining leader Tim Goldsmith said 2012 had not been an easy time for the mid-tier 50, given the rising concerns about China's economic growth.

Those concerns, coupled with weaker commodities prices, caused the market capitalisation of these mid-tier miners to fall to $51.8 billion at June 2012, down by 31 per cent from the March 2011 post global financial crisis peak of $75.3 billion.

Despite these short-term challenges, the report said the future was bright.

"We are in no doubt that the development and urbanisation of China still has many years to run," the pair said in the foreword of the report.

"This will continue to be the biggest determinant of the prospects of the mid-tier 50."

Atlas Iron CEO Ken Brinsden said China would remain a key buyer of Australian iron ore.

"China still needs to grow and their domestic ore is lower grade and more expensive to produce, therefore they are at a competitive disadvantage," Mr Brinsden said in the report.

"Demand from China for iron ore from external sources will remain."

Meanwhile, Mr Brinsden criticised the federal government mineral resource rent tax.

He said it had impacted on investment, triggered volatility in the performance of mining companies and created a significant administrative cost for companies such as Atlas.

"Our offshore investors are now continually questioning us on what is going on in Australia and what is next," Mr Brinsden said.

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Aust's lowest paid the third lowest taxed

AUSTRALIA'S lowest paid workers are also among the lowest taxed, a report says.

A study by chartered accountant UHY Haines Norton found that a single, unmarried Australian whose take-home pay was up to $US25,000 ($A24,141) a year had the third-lowest personal tax rate.

Only Japan and the United Arab Emirates were ahead of Australia in the study, which covered 25 countries including all members of the Group of Eight (G8) nations, as well as the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

UHY tax partner James Tng said the report suggested Australia had found a balance between a progressive and competitive tax system.

"There has been a general easing of the tax rates of low- and middle-income earners over the past decade, beginning with the introduction of the GST in 2000," Mr Tng said in a statement.

"Australia also wasn't forced to raise personal taxes due to the fiscal strength of our economy prior to the global financial crisis where there was little debt and very little in the way of the social security hurdles compared to other European economies."

Australians with take home pay of $US200,000 ($A193,000) were the 14th lowest taxed in the survey.

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Nigerian forces kill 14 kidnappers

NIGERIAN security forces have stormed the hideout of kidnappers of a Turkish national in oil-rich Rivers State and killed 14 of them in a shootout.

"The hoodlums were shot dead during a gun battle with the security agents in their camp in Kaani community in Ogoni land," state police spokesman Ben Ugwuegbulam told AFP of the incident.

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Gandhi to speak for scandal-prone gov

SONIA Gandhi, chief of India's ruling Congress party, and Premier Manmohan Singh were set to speak at a massive rally to whip up support for the scandal-tainted government ahead of 2014 elections.

Italian-born Ms Gandhi, India's political grand matriarch who led Congress to back-to-back wins in 2004 and 2009, is moving into high gear as she seeks to persuade voters to elect the party for a third straight term, analysts say.

At the rally in the Indian capital, leaders will defend the government's blitz of controversial reforms to allow wider foreign investment in the retail, insurance and aviation sectors aimed at spurring a sharply slowing economy.

"We want to tell people that these are people-friendly measures - these are for the betterment of the common man," a senior Congress party official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

The left-leaning government is deeply wary of a voter backlash in the elections due within 18 months over the reforms that have drawn strong political opposition in the still heavily poor country of 1.2 billion people.

Also due to speak along with Gandhi and Singh at the rally in the capital New Delhi will be Sonia's 42-year-old son Rahul Gandhi, expected to be the party's candidate for prime minister in the polls, the party official said.

"All three of them are scheduled to give speeches," he said.

The rally is being staged a week after 80-year-old Singh overhauled his cabinet to give it a more youthful face with the inclusion of younger ministers to appeal to the country's vast youth population.

Congress is struggling to restore its credibility as a force fit to govern in the face of a drumroll of corruption charges that have put it on the defensive almost since the last elections in 2009.

The Congress party official said the party was hoping Sunday's rally would be attended by over 100,000 people.

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Early voting gives Obama the edge

PRESIDENT Barack Obama is heading toward election day with an apparent lead over Republican Mitt Romney among early voters in key states.

But Mr Obama's advantage isn't as big as the one he had over John McCain four years ago, and that gives Mr Romney's campaign hope that the former Massachusetts governor can erase the gap in Tuesday's election.

About 25 million people already have voted in 34 states and the District of Columbia. No votes will be counted until election day but several battleground states are releasing the party affiliation of people who have voted early.

So far, Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. Republicans have the edge in Colorado.

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