Arizona immigration law appeal set for November

Arizona immigration law appeal set for November

Arizona immigration law appeal set for November

Posted: 31 Jul 2010 12:57 AM PDT

PHOENIX, Ariz. (Reuters) - A U.S. court denied a request for an expedited hearing on Friday and instead set a November date for Arizona's appeal to a federal court ruling that blocked key parts of a state law cracking down on illegal immigration.


Polls turn against Australian PM Gillard

Posted: 31 Jul 2010 12:25 AM PDT

SYDNEY, Saturday 31 July 2010 (AFP) - Australia's conservative opposition has taken an election-winning lead over Prime Minister Julia Gillard's embattled party just weeks ahead of an election, a poll showed Saturday.

read more

China invests 40 billion dollars in Iran oil, gas: minister

Posted: 31 Jul 2010 12:09 AM PDT

TEHRAN, Saturday 31 July 2010 (AFP) - Iran's main economic partner China has invested around 40 billion dollars in the Islamic republic's oil and gas sector, a senior Iranian official said on Saturday.

read more

The marine world in stamps

Posted: 31 Jul 2010 12:07 AM PDT

Zhang Mulai is a stamp collector and a member of council of the Malaysia Philatelic Association. He has attached to fishes since he was young and he mainly collects stamps featuring fishes. Each stamp is like a small tank and the fishes in the three-dimensional stamps are lifelike.

read more


This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Tuanku Mizan pays tribute to country's heroes

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 11:57 PM PDT

Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin today paid tribute to the country's heroes, saying their sacrifices had ensured that peace and harmony prevailed in the country.

read more

Collecting Buddhist stamps

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 11:53 PM PDT

A Buddhist and stamps collector has been integrating his faith with his interest as he has a special preference for collecting stamps with Buddhism theme.

read more


This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Quake in northeast Iran injures 170 people

Posted: 31 Jul 2010 12:22 AM PDT

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7 hit northeastern Iran, injuring around 170 people, state radio reported on Saturday.


Australian PM Gillard heading for defeat - new poll

Posted: 31 Jul 2010 12:22 AM PDT

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is heading for a shock defeat at elections on August 21, a new opinion poll showed Saturday, as government infighting and damaging cabinet leaks threatened to derail her campaign.


Australia bushfires: What went wrong?

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 11:03 PM PDT

A report into the bushfires that tore across Victoria, Australia, in early 2009 has called for sweeping changes to the way the authorities respond to natural disasters.


Excitement ahead of Clinton wedding

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 11:21 PM PDT

Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former US president Bill Clinton, is to marry long-term boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky at a private ceremony.


Five women of Chinese nationality detained in anti-vice raid

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 11:31 PM PDT

Five women of Chinese nationality and two Malaysian men were detained when police raided a karaoke club, believed to be a front for a prostitution den, in Petaling Jaya yesterday.

read more

More initiatives to help smallholders under Bakun resettlement scheme

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 10:52 PM PDT

BELAGA (Sarawak), Saturday 31 July 2010 (Bernama) -- The Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry has identified the setting up of a cooperative and building of farm roads as among the initiatives to help smallholders in the Sungai Asap resettlement area, Bakun, here.

read more

Indian Kashmir under curfew after deaths

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 10:41 PM PDT

SRINAGAR, Saturday 31 July 2010 (AFP) - Thousands of security forces enforced a curfew in the major towns of Indian-administered Kashmir on Saturday, a day after three protesters were shot dead.

read more

Malaysian tycoon launches billion-dollar power firm buyout

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 10:40 PM PDT

KUALA LUMPUR, Saturday 31 July 2010 (AFP) - Malaysian tycoon Ananda Krishnan has made a 1.48 billion dollar buyout offer for power and gambling firm Tanjong, the second major corporate deal he has launched in a week.

read more

Polls turn against Australian PM Gillard

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 03:01 PM PDT

SYDNEY (AFP) - – Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard lost her election lead to the opposition Saturday, with polling showing her party's popularity sinking to levels that prompted the shock axing of her predecessor.

Gillard suffered a spectacular reversal of fortunes in the campaign's second week, with damaging leaks and the ghost of hospitalised former leader Kevin Rudd dogging her bid to return the ruling Labor party to office.

Labor's vote slumped to 48 percent against the conservative Liberal/National coalition's 52 percent, the latest Nielsen poll showed, a six percentage point shift away from Gillard's centre-left party.

Labor's primary vote bled six percentage points in the week to 36 percent while the coalition, led by Tony Abbott, gained four points to a commanding 45 percent.

The numbers are similar to those recorded in early June, which Labor considered so dangerous to its re-election chances it took the massive gamble of dumping first-term prime minister Rudd in favour of Gillard, his deputy.

If replicated at the August 21 polls the polling would translate to an election-winning 4.7 percent swing against Labor and put Abbott's conservatives in office.

Australia's first female leader, Gillard enjoyed a brief honeymoon with the public, with an initial poll bounce of 14 points after she deposed Rudd in a lightning partyroom coup last month.

But the gloss appears to have come off her leadership, with her preferred prime minister rating down 13 points Saturday to 49 percent, against Abbott's 41 percent.

Her formerly stratospheric rating among women had levelled to an even split with Abbott.

Gillard struggled to make headway this week as her campaign was hit with damaging high-level leaks claiming she had opposed popular welfare increases, and widespread speculation Rudd had spilled the information to the press.

Rudd said he would "never comment" on Cabinet discussions and was committed to a Labor victory, as he was hospitalised for gall bladder surgery Friday.

Further leaks dominated headlines Saturday, with the Weekend Australian newspaper reporting that Gillard had sent her former bodyguard to critical national security briefings in her place when she was deputy leader.

- AFP

Blast hits China tax office in apparent attack

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 02:54 PM PDT

SHANGHAI - A blast rocked a local tax office in central China, killing at least four people and injuring 19, in what police say appeared to be a deliberate attack, the official Xinhua news agency said Saturday.

Friday afternoon's explosion occurred at a district tax office in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, Xinhua said.

Initial investigations showed the explosion was a planned attack, Xinhua cited the city's police department as saying in a statement.

China is struggling to contain social tensions, and anger over issues ranging from the cost of health care to a rapidly widening rich-poor gap in the past has exploded into violence.

- Reuters

Pakistan intelligence agency scraps UK visit

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 02:52 PM PDT

LONDON (AFP) - – Pakistan's intelligence agency has scrapped a planned visit to Britain in protest at Prime Minister David Cameron's comments on the export of terror, The Times newspaper reported Saturday.

The daily also said Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was considering pulling out of next week's three-day trip to Britain over Cameron's remarks.

"The visit has been cancelled in reaction to the comments made by the British prime minister against Pakistan," a spokesman for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) told The Times.

"Such irresponsible statements could affect our co-operation with Britain."

Cameron's comments, during his visit to Pakistan's rival neighbour India this week, sparked fury in Islamabad, considered a crucial strategic ally in the West's "war on terror".

"We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country (Pakistan) is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world," he said Wednesday.

A senior Pakistani official told The Times: "It is a clear swipe at Pakistani security agencies, which have lost thousands of soldiers and officers in fighting terrorism," adding that the decision to cancel the ISI trip was taken by the "top military leadership".

Pakistan has been under intense scrutiny this week after leaked secret US military documents detailed alleged links between the ISI and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

The Times said senior ISI officers had been due to discuss counter-terrorism co-operation with British security services in London.

The cancellation will raise "grave concerns" that Cameron may have jeopardised crucial military and intelligence co-operation with Pakistan in his bid to boost commercial ties with India, it added.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown said up to three-quarters of the terror plots under investigation in Britain were linked to Pakistan.

Neither the PM's Downing Street office nor the Foreign Office would comment on the reported move from the ISI.

But the Foreign Office said Zardari's visit was still expected to go ahead as planned.

"Our understanding is that the visit is on," a spokeswoman said.

A spokeswoman for the prime minister said he was still expecting Zardari.

"This is about continuing our good relationship with Pakistan," she told The Times.

The newspaper said Zardari had been due to stay with Cameron at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

Three Kenyans face 76 murder counts in Kampala attacks

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 02:49 PM PDT

KAMPALA (AFP) - – A Ugandan court on Friday charged three Kenyans with 76 counts of murder, the first such cases opened against suspects in the July 11 suicide attacks in Kampala which targeted football fans watching the World Cup final.

Hussein Hassan Agad, Mohamed Adan Abdow and Idris Magondu were charged before a Kampala magistrates court, but did not enter a plea.

They face 61 counts of murder for those killed while watching the World Cup at the Kyadondo Rugby Club in the east of the Ugandan capital and 15 counts for those killed at an Ethiopian restaurant.

Chief Magistrate Deo Sejjemba said the accused were not allowed to enter a plea because the court does not have jurisdiction over the crime of terrorism.

The three will reappear at the magistrates court on August 27, but will not be permitted to plead to the charges until Uganda's Directorate of Public Prosecutions decides the case is ready to move to the High Court.

The men were escorted under heavy security to the court where charges were read to them in a session that lasted less than 15 minutes. They were then remanded to prison.

The charge sheet identified Agad as "a preacher of Islam," while Magondu was identified as an employee of a trading company in Nairobi.

Asked by AFP on his way out of the court room if he was involved in the attacks, Magondu smiled and said "no".

These are the first individuals charged in relation to the two blasts that have been claimed by Somalia's Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab militants.

Police have previously said there is "very strong evidence" that the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers.

National police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba told AFP earlier on Friday that several Pakistani citizens are still being held for questioning in connection with the blasts, but they have not been charged with any crimes.

At least one of the Pakistanis was identified in email obtained by police as the Kampala-based coordinator for the Shebab.

The Shebab insurgents in Somalia said the attacks were carried out to punish Uganda for sending troops to the African Union mission which is supporting the fragile transition government of the Horn of Africa country.

Instead of beating a withdrawal, African leaders who wrapped up a summit in Kampala this week approved a troop surge for the Somali force to counter the Islamists seeking to topple the embattled Somali government.

AU commission chief Jean Ping said they had received pledges for 4,000 troops to beef up the force which currently comprises some 6,000 Ugandan and Burundian soldiers.

However, some observers argue that more troops risk worsening the near-daily violence in Mogadishu and buttressing the Islamist rebels' cause.

Previous military interventions by the United States and the United Nations in the early 1990s failed to quell Somalia's conflict that has raged for nearly two decades.

New BP boss faces up to massive Gulf oil clean-up

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 02:44 PM PDT

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana: Incoming BP boss Bob Dudley has vowed that the firm would stand by Gulf residents for years to come, as it prepared to scale back oil spill clean-up efforts and move to a new phase.

Making his first trip to the region since being named to take the helm of the British energy giant, Dudley said with no oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for two weeks now the company's focus was shifting to long-term economic and environmental recovery.

"We've had some good news on the oil... but that doesn't mean we're done. We'll be here for years," Dudley told reporters in Mississippi, one of the five states hit by the massive oil spill.

BP next aims to drown the well in an operation dubbed a "static kill," in which mud and cement will be injected down through the ruptured wellhead via a cap installed on July 15.

Dudley confirmed the operation had been pushed back by a day, saying "we are hopeful by Tuesday the static kill will have been performed."

The US pointman on the crisis, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, said the operation had been delayed as engineers had to clear out debris from the damaged wellhead caused by a recent storm.

"Some of the sediment around the sidewalls sort of fell in on itself.... It's not a huge problem but it has to be removed before you can put the pipe casing down," Allen said.

BP senior vice president Kent Wells said company officials are confident that the static kill will succeed, since the cap in place for the past two weeks appears to be holding.

The lack of any leaks is "giving us more confidence that this well has integrity," which is a positive sign for the operation, Wells said.

"Everything is looking good at this point," he added.

He said the goal would be to push down any oil in the well during the static kill to avoid new leaks into the water. But if the static kill is halted, Wells said the permanent sealing via a relief well would continue as planned.

BP said the relief well is likely to intersect the existing well thousands of feet below the ocean floor within eight to 10 days and be sealed off by the end of August.

With the focus now moving towards mitigating the long-term impact of the worst-ever US oil spill, Dudley said there would be signs that the operation was changing.

Miles of protective boom will be withdrawn from coastlines, and fewer clean-up crews in hazmat suits would be seen on beaches no longer soiled by oil.

"So you'll probably see that kind of a pullback. But commitment, absolutely no pullback," he pledged.

It remains unknown just how much oil has spilled into the Gulf since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in April, killing 11 workers. Best estimates put the amount at between three to 5.3 million barrels.

Allen said a team of experts was carrying out an "oil budget" to calculate how much was released, how much was captured and how much has evaporated, adding he hoped the report would be released in the coming days.

"It's something we ultimately need to know for the total amount of oil that's out there," Allen said.

Dudley will take over as BP's chief executive on October 1, when Tony Hayward, who was widely criticized in the United States for his handling of the crisis, hands over the reins.

BP announced Friday it was hiring disaster management consulting firm Witt Associates -- called in after hurricanes Katrina, Gustav and Ike -- to help draw up a long-term Gulf recovery plan.

BP also said Friday it will meet its pledge to set up a 100-million-dollar fund to help oil industry workers who have lost their jobs as a result of a six-month moratorium placed on deepwater Gulf drilling.

The first grants from the foundation would be made by September 1, according to the company.

Meanwhile, in another encouraging sign for Gulf residents, Louisiana reopened wide swaths of state fishing grounds closed in the wake of the spill after testing the seafood.

But some 57,539 square miles (149,026 square kilometers) of federal fishing waters remain off-limits, robbing Louisiana of a key economic lifeline.

The US House of Representatives was to vote Friday on overhauling offshore drilling rules and ending a 75-million-dollar cap on energy firms' liability for economic damages from oil spills.

The Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources (CLEAR) Act would also deny new offshore drilling leases for up to seven years to companies like BP that have poor safety standards.

- AFP

Seize opportunity to succeed, Najib tells young Malaysians

Posted: 30 Jul 2010 09:29 PM PDT

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak today urged young Malaysians to seize the opportunity provided by the government to excel in their studies and fulfil their dreams.

read more

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)