Berlusconi 'obliged' to stay in politics

FORMER Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said he felt "obliged" to stay in politics to reform the justice system, the day after he was found guilty of tax fraud and sentenced to a year in prison.

"There are going to be consequences," he told TG5, one of the television stations he owns, after branding Friday's verdict an "intolerable" political ruling.

"I feel obliged to stay in the (political) field to reform the planet justice," he said.

The 76-year-old three-time premier had announced on on Wednesday that he would not run in the next election due in the spring but did not say he was withdrawing completely from political life.

"I will not be presenting my candidacy but I will remain at the side of younger people who can play and score goals," he said.

Two days later he was sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud, a term reduced to one year thanks to an amnesty, and banned from holding public office for five years.

Berlusconi's reaction was defiant.

"This is an incredible and intolerable political sentence. This is no doubt a political verdict, as political as all trials fabricated against me," he said.

The sentence will not come into effect until appeals have been heard by two higher courts. By that time the statute of limitations will probably have kicked in.

His lawyers have said they will file an appeal next month.
 

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EU lawmakers cancel Iran visit in row

A VISIT to Iran by five Euro MPs has been called off after Tehran refused to let them meet with a jailed activist lawyer and a filmmaker, just a day after the two were awarded a prestigious European human rights prize.

"The five MEPs were about to leave for Tehran when delegation chair (Tarja) Cronberg received a phone call from the Iranian ambassador to the EU, saying they would not be allowed to meet with the two Sakharov Prize winners," jailed lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and filmmaker Jafar Panahi, a European Parliament source said.

Sotoudeh, 47, who is serving an 11-year jail sentence for conspiring against state security, and Panahi, 52, who is under house arrest and has been banned from making films for 20 years, were awarded the 2012 Sakharov Prize on Friday.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran categorically rejected any pre-conditions. Therefore this visit has been cancelled," the Young Journalists Club, an affiliate of the state broadcaster, reported on its website.

The ISNA news agency quoted Hossein Sheikholeslam, international affairs adviser to the speaker of parliament, as saying Iran had "rejected a pre-condition set by the European parliamentary delegation to meet with two prisoners".

"If the delegation agrees to visit Iran under the initially agreed conditions and agenda, then there is no objection to the visit... But we cannot accept the current pre-condition."

Iran has cracked down on both since its disputed June 2009 presidential election.

Sotoudeh is a leading human rights campaigner known for her work as a lawyer representing opposition activists, while Panahi has been acclaimed at international festivals for his gritty, socially critical movies.

The human rights and democracy prize "is a message of solidarity and recognition to a woman and a man who have not been bowed by fear and intimidation and who have decided to put the fate of their country before their own," Parliament President Martin Schulz said on Friday.

Schulz had also warned the visit would be cancelled if the delegation was unable to meet Sotoudeh and Panahi.

The rights award comes on the heels of tough new European Union sanctions against Iran aimed at forcing a breakthrough in talks between global powers and Tehran on its disputed nuclear program.

After a biting oil embargo took effect in July, EU foreign ministers last week tightened the economic noose by targeting dealings with Iran's banks, shipping and gas imports.

The last visit by a European parliamentary delegation to Iran was in 2007.

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Russian opposition leaders detained

RUSSIAN opposition leaders have been detained while protesting what they say is the torture of a fellow activist.

Investigators earlier this week said that Leonid Razvozzhayev had turned himself in and confessed to plotting riots. But days later the activist disavowed his confession and filed a complaint over what he said was his abduction from Ukraine.

Rights activists who visited him in jail say he had been tortured into confessing.

Police detained Alexei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov and Ilya Yashin as they were standing outside the Russian former intelligence and former KGB headquarters, protesting "torture and repression."

The three men were among hundreds of people gathered in central Moscow to protest an increasingly relentless crackdown on the opposition in Russia.

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Iraq Eid attacks kill 16

ATTACKS mostly targeting Shi'ite Muslims during the Eid al-Adha holiday, including bombings of a marketplace and a minibus carrying pilgrims, killed at least 16 people in Iraq on Saturday.

The shootings and explosions, which also left more than 40 people wounded, were the latest in a spate of violence in the past week that has broken a relative calm in Iraq, even though authorities had announced a series of moves to boost security during the four-day Eid break.

UN special envoy Martin Kobler condemned Saturday's violence as "atrocious", adding in a statement: "The targeting of worshippers is an appalling crime."

In the east Baghdad district of Maamal, a bomb exploded in a neighbourhood market as women were shopping for groceries alongside their children at around 9am (4pm AEDT).

At least five people were killed, including three children and a woman, security and medical officials said. They added that 13 others were wounded.

Just north of Baghdad in the town of Taji, a magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to a minibus ferrying Shi'ite pilgrims killed at least five people and wounded 12 others, a security official and medics said.

The doctors warned that the toll could rise.

Officials said some Iranian pilgrims were among the dead and wounded, but it was unclear how many. Differing tolls and details of casualties are common in the chaotic aftermath of attacks in Iraq.

A Shi'ite car salesman in the town of Muqdadiyah was shot dead, and eight people were wounded by a car bomb targeting a Shi'ite religious foundation's offices in the town of Tuz Khurmatu.

Shi'ites in Iraq typically use the Eid al-Adha holiday, which began on Friday, to either visit relatives, the graves of dead family members or shrines of key figures in Shi'ite Islam located across the country.

In the run-up to the holiday, authorities in several provinces, including Baghdad, announced tightened security for the holiday, apparently to no avail.

While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, Sunni militants frequently target Shi'ite pilgrims during Muslim holidays such as Eid or Shi'ite commemoration ceremonies.

In Mosul, 350km north of Baghdad, three attacks targeting the tiny Shabak community killed five people and wounded 10 others, officials said.

In separate shootings, gunmen burst into the homes of Shabak families and killed five people and wounded four others, including young children, while a bombing in the compound of a family home wounded six.

"The security forces are supposed to be responsible for protecting all the citizens of Mosul," said Qusay Abbas, a Shabak member of the provincial council of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital.

"This is a very troubling attack."

The Shabak community numbers about 30,000 people living in 35 villages in Nineveh. They largely follow a faith that is a blend of Shi'ite Islam and local beliefs.

The community was persecuted under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and after the 2003 US-led invasion they were targeted several times by al-Qaeda.

Mosul is widely cited as one of the places where al-Qaeda Iraqi front still holds sway.

At least 49 people have been killed in a week since October 20, more than in the first 15 days of the month combined, according to an AFP tally.

At least 250 people have been killed as a result of unrest in each of the past four months.

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Rebels raid poultry farm

COMMUNIST guerrilla rebels raided a poultry farm in the southern Philippines and torched two buildings after the owner ignored their extortion demands, the military said on Saturday.

Thousands of chickens were killed after rebels from the New People's Army set fire to the buildings in a pre-dawn attack on Friday, military spokesman Captain Alberto Caber told reporters.

The rebels later contacted the farm owner Onyx Go by telephone, threatening to return with gasoline and matchsticks unless he agreed to pay up 60,000 pesos ($1400) a month, according to a military statement.

The raid marked the second such attack on businesses owned by Mr Go since last year, when his chicken shop in a nearby town was ransacked by the rebels, Captain Caber said.

The Maoist NPA has been waging a decades-old guerrilla campaign that has cost tens of thousands of lives.

Earlier this month the Philippine government said it hoped to resume peace talks with the communist rebels, after announcing a peace agreement with Muslim rebels who also operate in the restive south.

Talks with the communist rebels were suspended in November last year due to persistent demands by the rebels to free jailed comrades they claimed were consultants to the negotiations.

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Hong Kong to cool property market

HONG Kong announced it will raise real-estate purchasing and resale costs to cool its overheating property market down, in a move targeting non-local buyers and speculative activities.

The prices of small and medium sized residential flats in the southern Chinese city, famous for its sky-high rent, surged 20 per cent for the first nine months of the year, prompting the government to take action.

The new measures include the increase of special stamp duties for properties re-sold within the first three years of its purchase and imposing an extra 15 per cent transaction cost on non-local buyers and local and foreign companies.

The measures "targets speculative activities, and for most genuine homebuyers it would not affect them because they won't be reselling in a short period of time", said Financial Secretary John Tsang.

The extra 15 per cent transaction cost "will cause inconvenience to some non-local buyers. We hope that they will understand that this is an extraordinary measure introduced in exceptional circumstances," Mr Tsang said.

The new measures will go into affect today.

Mr Tsang attributed the substantial increase in the demand for property to low interest rates, adding that the city's economy is showing signs of slowing down due to a weak US market recovery and Euro sovereign debt crisis.

"It is apparent that the property market and the local economy are heading in different directions," he said.

Mr Tsang also acknowledged that the city was in short supply of residential units.

Hong Kong in August unveiled a series of measures to cool the red-hot property market, including to provide around 65,000 new units on the market in the next three to four years.

"Maintaining a healthy stable property market will be our ongoing endeavour," Mr Tsang said.

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Retail Adventures goes into administration

DISCOUNT store business Retail Adventures has gone into voluntary administration with jobs at risk and store closures expected.

Retail Adventures is the largest trader of discount stores such as Sam's Warehouse, Crazy Clark's, Chickenfeed and Go-Lo stores.

The company's board of directors made the decision to place the company in voluntary administration and appointed Deloitte's Vaughan Strawbridge and two of his partners to oversee the restructure of the business, the company said in a statement.

Under the restructure, the company's 238 stores and 5000 full-time staff will continue under the Sam's Warehouse and Crazy Clark's brands.

The company said 29 Crazy Clark's, Go-Lo and Chickenfeed stores have already been closed, with more store closures expected in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.

It said 57 Chickenfeed and Go-Lo stores will be rebranded as Crazy Clark's stores.

Retail Adventures chief executive Penny Moss said all staff who lose their jobs will be paid their entitlements with alternate employment offered where possible.

"The infrastructure and overheads of both the distribution centres and our head office are currently unsustainable," she said in a statement on Saturday.

"The restructure is necessary to preserve value for the creditors and make sure the business is financially viable in the future."

The 238 continuing Sam's Warehouse and Crazy Clark's stores will be operated from Saturday under licence from the voluntary administrators by DSG Holdings Australia Pty Ltd, the current holding company of Retail Adventures.

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Sudan-Iran links scrutiny after blast

SUDAN'S links to Iran came under scrutiny after Khartoum accused Israel of a deadly missile strike on a military factory in the heart of the Sudanese capital.

The cabinet met in urgent session late Wednesday after the government said evidence pointed to Israeli involvement in the alleged attack at around midnight Tuesday on the Yarmouk military manufacturing facility in southern Khartoum.

Sudan accused the Jewish state of a similar raid 18 months ago.

Analysts, however, said they had not ruled out an accidental cause for the latest blast.

Israeli officials have expressed concern about arms smuggling through Sudan and have long accused Khartoum of serving as a base of support for militants from the Islamist Hamas movement.

Israel refused all comment on the Khartoum allegations, but Amos Gilad, a top Israeli defence official, called Sudan "a dangerous terrorist state."

Gilad, director of policy and political-military affairs at the defence ministry, refused to reply directly when asked whether Israel was involved in the attack, which Sudan said was conducted by four radar-evading aircraft.

"The regime is supported by Iran and it serves as a route for the transfer, via Egyptian territory, of Iranian weapons to Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists," he told his country's army radio.

"Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is regarded a war criminal."

Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in Sudan's Darfur region where a rebellion began in 2003.

His cabinet issued no statement after its late Wednesday meeting, where Bashir joined anti-Israel protesters in chanting "Allahu akbar" ("God is greater").

About 300 demonstrators denounced the United States and carried banners calling for Israel to be wiped off the earth.

"There was supposed to be an agreement between Sudan and Iran to produce some kind of non-conventional weapons," a diplomatic source told AFP on Thursday.

The source, asking not to be identified, said he was also told that the Yarmouk factory was involved in drone production.

But Jonah Leff, of Small Arms Survey, a Swiss-based independent research project, said he doubts such equipment is made locally.

Mr Leff's project has documented the presence of a drone, landmines and other Iranian weapons in Sudan but he thinks they were acquired directly from Iran.

"There's a lot of speculation that Iran has provided technical assistance to the Sudanese for their weapons manufacturing but I haven't been able to confirm that they're producing any Iranian weapons," he said.

On a visit to Tehran last August, Bashir described the relationship between Sudan and Iran as "deeply rooted".

Leff identified Yarmouk as part of Sudan's Military Industry Corporation, which claims to produce a variety of weapons from pistols to battle tanks.

"They're highly secretive... It's hard to know what exactly they're producing and what is propaganda," Leff said.

Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman told reporters that the factory made "traditional weapons".

Nearby residents said an aircraft or missile had flown overhead shortly before the area exploded in flames, sending bursts of white light into the night sky.

Sudan called on the UN Security Council to condemn Israel for what its envoy, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, called "a blatant violation of the concept of peace and security" and the UN charter.

On Wednesday, before officials accused Israel, the governor of Khartoum state Abdul Rahman Al-Khider dismissed speculation that "other reasons" caused the explosion, which he said happened in a store room.

The diplomatic source said "the human factor" - a possible accidental cause - should not be ruled out although Sudanese officials are taking allegations of Israeli involvement seriously.

Mr Leff said it is just as likely that the Sudanese are blaming Israel to avoid embarrassment after an accidental blast.

In April last year, Sudan said it had irrefutable evidence that Israeli attack helicopters carried out a strike on a car south of Port Sudan.

That incident mirrored a similar attack by foreign aircraft on a truck convoy reportedly laden with weapons in eastern Sudan in January 2009.

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Pope's butler set to be jailed

THE Pope's butler Paolo Gabriele will be locked up in a Vatican police cell after the prosecution decided not to appeal against his 18-month prison sentence for leaking papal documents, the Vatican says.

Gabriele had been under house arrest since he was found guilty on October 6 of stealing documents from Pope Benedict XIV's apartments. A judicial source said later he would not be appealing against the verdict.

"Given that no appeals have been lodged against the sentence of October 6 in respect of Mr Paolo Gabriele, it becomes definitive," a statement from Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Holy See press office, said on Thursday.

"As a result, on the warrant of the president of the court the prosecutor gave orders this morning for his imprisonment, in carrying out the sentence," the statement said.

"The warrant should be executed during the day."

The former butler was found guilty of leaking hundreds of sensitive Vatican documents in a case that has been dubbed "Vatileaks" and included allegations by a former governor of the city state of massive fraud within its walls.

A papal pardon has not been ruled out.

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Chinese investment in Australia slows

CHINESE investment in Australia has declined since 2009 while Australian investment in China almost tripled, a new report shows.

The latest Asialink Index, calculated by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the Melbourne Institute, shows Australia's economic relationship with China soared to new highs, growing by 53.5 per cent in 2011.

This reflects buoyant growth in outward investment - up by 278 per cent in 2011 - from Australia into China and strong growth in tourism, the index released on Friday shows.

But Chinese investment in Australian projects fell by 51 per cent.

PwC partner Tim Cox said this was in stark contrast to widespread perceptions in public debate on foreign investment.

Australian investment in China now amounts to about $17 billion, just $2 billion shy of the flow of funds the other way.

"The recent increase in Australia's investment into China is encouraging as it demonstrates that Australian businesses are preparing to commit to deeper engagement - beyond exports - for the longer term," Mr Cox said in a statement.

"It also provides important context for some community concerns about Chinese investment in Australia."

The index shows Australia's engagement with Asia increased by eight per cent over the past five years, whereas engagement with the rest of the world declined by 13.3 per cent.

But Asialink CEO Jenny McGregor warned that the jump in engagement with China could mask the fact that more needed to be done to maintain relationships elsewhere in the region.

Ms McGregor highlighted the finding that engagement with ASEAN had been relatively flat over the past five years.

As well, the measurements of our economic relationships with Japan and Korea are down from positions of relative strength.

The index shows that in 2011 engagement in the education sector fell for the first time in a decade.

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