Taiwan judicial chief resigns after scandal

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• Taiwan judicial chief resigns after scandal
• Finding Exxon Valdez oil 21 years on
• Man makes sky-high debt protest in Spain
• Inside the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
• Brief normalcy returns to Kashmir after days of unrest
• Mexico drugs gang use 'car bomb'
• BN can retain Sarawak in coming elections: Poll
• Local shares likely to trade higher next week
• 50% disabled children sexually abused in Bangladesh
• Australia 'psychic' octopus picks Gillard as election winner
• Indian court says Hindu gods can't trade in shares
• S.Korea develops long-range cruise missile: report
• Disaster zone
• Taiwan agents jailed for spying for China: report
• Global economic crisis threatens fight against AIDS
• Australian PM calls poll, vowing to move country forward
• Cambodia hosts large-scale peacekeeping drill
• Q+A - How Australia's election may play out
• Australian PM calls election, battle lines drawn
• U.S. gov't told to review terrorist list decision

Taiwan judicial chief resigns after scandal Posted: 17 Jul 2010 01:03 AM PDT TAIPEI, Saturday 17 July 2010 (AFP) - Taiwan's judicial chief on Saturday tendered his resignation in the wake of a high-profile graft scandal implicating senior judges and a prosecutor. read more

Finding Exxon Valdez oil 21 years on Posted: 16 Jul 2010 03:55 AM PDT Environmental activist Dave Janka takes Rajesh Mirchandani to see how oil from the Exxon Valdez can still be found in Alaska 21 years after the spill.

Man makes sky-high debt protest in Spain Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:13 PM PDT A Madrid construction worker has spent several weeks living at the top of a crane in protest at not being paid.

Inside the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Posted: 15 Jul 2010 07:06 PM PDT The BBC has been given exclusive access to film the world's most advanced fighter jet - the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, built by Lockheed Martin for the US and UK military.

Brief normalcy returns to Kashmir after days of unrest Posted: 17 Jul 2010 12:31 AM PDT SRINAGAR, Saturday 17 July 2010 (AFP) - Schools, shops and offices reopened in Muslim-majority Indian Kashmir on Saturday after being shut by weeks of anti-India protests but more closures loomed in the restive region. read more

Mexico drugs gang use 'car bomb' Posted: 17 Jul 2010 12:32 AM PDT Investigators in Mexico say a deadly attack by suspected drug cartel members in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez was a car bomb set off by mobile phone.

BN can retain Sarawak in coming elections: Poll Posted: 17 Jul 2010 12:04 AM PDT The result of the recent Sibu by-election might have cast some doubt over the Barisan Nasional (BN) influence in Sarawak. read more

Local shares likely to trade higher next week Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:43 PM PDT Share prices on Bursa Malaysia are likely to be higher next week on the back of investor optimism over the local bourse, coupled with positive corporate data as well as the government's initiatives in boosting the economy, dealers said read more

50% disabled children sexually abused in Bangladesh Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:42 PM PDT DHAKA, Saturday 17 July 2010 (Bernama) -- A study shows nearly 50% of the disabled children in Bangladesh are sexually abused and a shocking 91% of them in the hands of family members or close relatives, reports China's Xinhua news agency on Saturday. read more

Australia 'psychic' octopus picks Gillard as election winner Posted: 16 Jul 2010 03:33 PM PDT SYDNEY: An Australian newspaper has taken a leaf out of the football World Cup play book, unveiling its own "psychic" octopus that it says has predicted Prime Minister Julia Gillard will win next month's poll. The Sydney Morning Herald showed off "Cassandra" just as Gillard told the Australian people that they would go to national elections on Aug 21. The paper hopes Cassandra will rival the predictive powers of "Paul", a German octopus that called a string of results including the World Cup winner. "Cassandra's preference for Julia Gillard was clear," the newspaper said. "Despite being a solitary animal, she wrapped her long arms around the prime minister," it said next to a photo of the octopus wound around a picture of Gillard. But the octopus's reaction to conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott's photo was less enthusiastic -- she turned a "defensive black colour", the paper said. Marine science expert Professor Rob Harcourt, however, warned that as octopuses have "episodic personalities", Cassandra could change her eight-tentacled vote at any time. "On any given day, an octopus may be bold in all situations and then shy and timid the next day," he told the paper. - AFP

Indian court says Hindu gods can't trade in shares Posted: 16 Jul 2010 03:30 PM PDT MUMBAI: An Indian court has ruled that Hindu gods cannot deal in stocks and shares, reports said today, after an application for trading accounts to be set up in their names. Two judges at the Bombay High Court yesterday rejected a petition from a private religious trust to open accounts in the names of five deities, including the revered elephant-headed god, Ganesha. "Trading in shares on the stock market requires certain skills and expertise and to expect this from deities would not be proper," judges PB Majumdar and Rajendra Sawant said, according to Indian newspapers. The trust, owned by the former royal family of Sangli, in western Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, brought the case after successfully securing income tax cards and savings accounts for the deities. But National Securities Depository Limited (NDSL) rejected the trust's application for permission to open trading accounts, arguing that it would be difficult to take action against the gods in the event of irregularities. "Gods and goddesses are meant to be worshipped in temples, not dragged into commercial activities like share trading," the judges said. Ganesha, also known as Lord Ganpati, is one of the most popular and well-known gods of the Hindu pantheon and is worshipped widely in Mumbai and Maharashtra. - AFP

S.Korea develops long-range cruise missile: report Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:38 PM PDT SEOUL, Saturday 17 July 2010 (AFP) - South Korea has developed a longer-range cruise missile capable of hitting nuclear or military sites in North Korea, a report said Saturday. read more

Disaster zone Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:14 PM PDT Workers stage a disaster zone along Michigan Avenue at the Chicago River bridge during the filming of "Transformers 3" in Chicago. read more This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Taiwan agents jailed for spying for China: report Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:09 PM PDT TAIPEI, Saturday 17 July 2010 (AFP) - Two former law enforcement agents from Taiwan have been sentenced to prison terms for selling secrets to China, a report said Saturday. read more

Global economic crisis threatens fight against AIDS Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:08 PM PDT WASHINGTON, Saturday 17 July 2010 (AFP) - The global fight against HIV/AIDS is threatened by stagnating economies around the world, which have caused governments to shrink their budgets and, with them, grants to fight the illness. read more

Australian PM calls poll, vowing to move country forward Posted: 16 Jul 2010 02:50 PM PDT By Amy Coopes SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard today called an Aug 21 election, vowing to tackle the flashpoint issues of refugees, the economy and global warming, just weeks after taking power. Gillard, 48, said she would ask the Australian people to endorse her leadership after she ruthlessly deposed former prime minister Kevin Rudd in a party coup. "Today I seek a mandate from the Australian people to move Australia forward," Gillard said, officially kicking off the five-week campaign. "This election I believe presents Australians with a very clear choice -- whether we move Australia forward or go back." Australia's first woman prime minister said the nation had "come too far as a country and evolved too much as a society to risk the kind of backward-looking leadership" offered by her conservative opponent Tony Abbott. The former industrial lawyer laid out her case for re-election on the issues of asylum seekers, economic management and climate change, painting herself as a progressive optimist who was "asking the Australian people for their trust". But -- after just three weeks in office in which she insisted she had made some "big strides forward" -- she warned it would be a "very close election" and that a "close, tough, hard-fought campaign" lay ahead. She faces an uphill battle to deliver the centre-left ruling Labor party a second three-year term in office, after a spectacular fall from the dizzying heights of popularity it enjoyed for its first two years in power. Self-confessed atheist The likely bloody campaign pits self-confessed atheist Gillard against scrappy former student boxer Abbott, head of the Liberal-National coalition, who played a key role in sinking Rudd's career. Once regular sparring partners on commercial breakfast television, Gillard said she expected Abbott to prove a "robust" opponent. "We are ready to govern," a confident Abbott told party faithful in Queensland ahead of the announcement. "This is a bad government and it deserves to lose." The opposition would need to win an additional 17 seats, or cause a swing of 2.3%, to return to power, less than three years after their 11 years in rule were ended by Rudd's landslide election victory in November 2007. Formerly his deputy, Gillard has enjoyed a strong opinion poll surge since succeeding Rudd, who in six months went from being one of the most popular prime ministers in Australian history to being discarded. The key factors that led to his political implosion were his decision to shelve a carbon emissions trading scheme after Abbott vowed to oppose it and a plan to impose a much-disputed 40% tax on mining profits. Political timebombs After being sworn in on June 24, Gillard began defusing the political timebombs she inherited, quickly striking a deal with major miners which scrapped the mining super tax, replacing it with a watered down version. She pledged to fight climate change and is widely expected to announce a new plan to put a price on carbon emissions during the electoral campaign. But her bid to neutralise the sensitive issue of stemming the flow of asylum seekers to Australia by outsourcing their processing to East Timor backfired when legislators there dismissed the plan. And Gillard has come under criticism from the opposition and media over the brutal manner in which she rose to power. "They executed the elected prime minister of Australia because they say the government lost its way," Abbott said in Queensland, a key battleground state. "But what we have seen from this government is a seamless transition from incompetence to incompetence." A Nielsen and Galaxy opinion poll last week gave Labor a narrow but election-winning 52% to 48% lead over the opposition coalition, up from early June. The election for members of the lower House of Representatives and half of the Senate is expected to be played out in key marginal seats in the populous eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. - AFP

Cambodia hosts large-scale peacekeeping drill Posted: 16 Jul 2010 09:53 PM PDT KAMPONG SPEU, Saturday 17 July 2010 (AFP) - Cambodia opened its first ever large-scale international peacekeeping training exercise with a ceremony Saturday at a military base south of the capital. read more This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Q+A - How Australia's election may play out Posted: 16 Jul 2010 10:34 PM PDT CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard called an election for August 21, with her Labor party holding a narrow lead in opinion polls and facing a tough poll campaign focusing on the economy, climate and asylym seekers.

Australian PM calls election, battle lines drawn Posted: 16 Jul 2010 10:27 PM PDT CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard called an election on Saturday for Aug. 21, with the tightly-fought poll to be decided over policies on economic management, climate and border protection.

U.S. gov't told to review terrorist list decision Posted: 16 Jul 2010 10:27 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department must review its designation of the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran, or PMOI, as a foreign terrorist organization, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday.

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