China praises N.Korea ties; Kim may be headed home

China praises N.Korea ties; Kim may be headed home

China praises N.Korea ties; Kim may be headed home

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 01:06 AM PDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's state media on Monday sang the praises of relations with North Korea, whose leader Kim Jong-il and youngest son have reportedly been on a visit to their ostracised country's only powerful ally.


Putin says "more interested than everyone" in 2012 vote

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 01:06 AM PDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin hinted that he would return to the Kremlin in 2012 for another six years, saying in an interview published on Monday he was "more interested than everyone else" in the election.


Ecuador bus crash kills 38 in highlands, 12 hurt

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 01:06 AM PDT

QUITO (Reuters) - A bus winding its way through Ecuador's highlands toward the capital of Quito went off the road before dawn on Sunday, killing 38 passengers in the worst accident of this kind in the country in years.


Malaysian rapper faces sedition charge over YouTube clip

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 12:05 AM PDT

A Malaysian rapper is being investigated for sedition, police said Monday, after posting a YouTube video which drew allegations he was stirring up ethnic tensions in the multicultural nation.

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Sex case widens at exclusive Australian department store

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 12:01 AM PDT

SYDNEY, Monday 30 August 2010 (AFP) - Up to 16 women could take part in a 33 million US dollar sexual harassment case involving David Jones, Australia's most exclusive department store, lawyers for the chief complainant said Monday.

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Israel won't extend settlement freeze ahead of talks

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 12:30 AM PDT

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel will postpone any decision on whether to extend a partial freeze on settlement construction until after the Sept. 2 start of peace talks in Washington, a senior cabinet minister told Reuters on Sunday.


Fire kills nine in Russian nursing home

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 12:30 AM PDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Nine people died in a nursing home fire on Monday in central Russia, the Emergencies Ministry said, in what local media said was caused when one of the occupants set himself alight.


S.Korean president criticised over botched reshuffle

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 11:45 PM PDT

SEOUL, Monday 30 August 2010 (AFP) - South Korea's President Lee Myung-Bak said Monday he had accepted the resignation of his prime ministerial nominee, as critics highlighted the political damage from a bungled cabinet reshuffle.

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Wife of ex-GOME chairman paroled in China as showdown looms

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 11:45 PM PDT

BEIJING, Monday 30 August 2010 (AFP) - A Chinese court on Monday freed on parole the wife of the former head of appliance giant GOME, prosecutors said, as the jailed disgraced tycoon battles for control over the empire he founded.

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Eruption

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 11:43 PM PDT

The Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra spewed a vast cloud of smoke and ash high into the air on 30 August, disrupting flights and sending thousands more people into temporary shelters.

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Tengku Muhammad Ismail proclaimed as Regent of Terengganu

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 11:24 PM PDT

Sultan of Terengganu Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin today officially proclaimed his son Tengku Muhammad Ismail as the Regent of Terengganu in a ceremony at Istana Maziah here.

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Human bones found at Australia's backpacker murders site

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 11:22 PM PDT

SYDNEY, Monday 30 August 2010 (AFP) - Australian police confirmed Monday that bones found in a forest where serial backpacker killer Ivan Milat dumped his victims were human but said they were keeping an open mind on the investigation.

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AgBank temporarily halts property market loans

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 11:05 PM PDT

HONG KONG, Monday 30 August 2010 (AFP) - Agricultural Bank of China said Monday that it has temporarily suspended property market loans to counter a surge in real-estate lending, but insisted the country's property sector was "healthy."

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Singapore ramps up measures to cool property market

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 11:04 PM PDT

SINGAPORE, Monday 30 August 2010 (AFP) - Singapore on Monday announced fresh anti-speculation measures to cool its private property market as the city-state's double-digit economic growth keeps upward pressure on demand.

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Indonesians urged not to react emotionally on dispute with Malaysia

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 11:02 PM PDT

JAKARTA, Monday 30 August 2010 (Bernama) -- Indonesian House of Representative Speaker Marzuki Alie on Monday urged Indonesians not to react emotionally related to dispute with Malaysia as it could bring negative impact to the country's image, reports China's Xinhua news agency.

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Ghapur asks Liew for explanation on Chin's statement

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 11:00 PM PDT

Kalabakan Umno chief Datuk Abdul Ghapur Salleh has demanded that Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president Datuk V.K. Liew clarify the statement made by his deputy Datuk Chin Su Phin that the party could no longer work with Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman.

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Former Putrajaya Corporation director freed of bribery charges

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 10:55 PM PDT

Former Putrajaya Corporation director Datuk Shahoran Johan Ariffin was acquitted and discharged by the Sessions Court here of a charge of receiving a bribe in the form of an air ticket to London.

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Australia's first Aboriginal MP shrugs off racist taunts

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 04:24 AM PDT

By Madeleine Coorey

SYDNEY: The first Aborigine to be elected to Australia's Parliament today said he was unworried by racist taunts that have followed his win, saying they were outweighed by messages of support.

Ken Wyatt won the seat of Hasluck in Western Australia for the conservative Liberal Party in Aug 21 polls, rising above childhood poverty to become the first indigenous person ever elected to the lower House of Representatives.

Since then, he has received at least 50 racist emails and phone calls from angry voters, with some saying they would not have voted for him had they known he was indigenous.

"They don't perturb me," 58-year-old Wyatt told Sky News of the jibes.

"Throughout my life I have experienced the sharp edge of some of the racist taunts that have come my way, but when I outweigh these by the hundreds and hundreds of emails and calls I've had, they are only miniscule in the bigger picture."

Wyatt rose from an impoverished childhood, during which he trapped rabbits and picked fruit for cash to help put food on the table for his family, to become a school teacher and later work in Aboriginal health and education.

When he recently attended the 70th birthday of his former primary school teacher, he brought her a gift that he would never have been able to afford as a child -- an apple.

In claiming the seat on Sunday after a protracted vote count, he said he owed his success to his education which was made possible by a local charity that early on recognised his ability.

"I have come from a life of poverty and through my own individual efforts I stand now within the national arena," he said.

Alcoholism rife

Wyatt said he was naturally inclined towards the right-leaning Liberal Party, despite the fact that this placed him at odds with his father.

But he said his first speech to Parliament would pay tribute to the former leader of the centre-left Labor Party, Kevin Rudd, who made an historic apology to the nation's indigenous people in 2008.

"I think people really appreciate the fact that an apology was given," he said today, adding that his mother and her siblings were members of the so-called "Stolen Generations" -- indigenous children removed from their families at a young age to be brought up by white people and in institutions.

"What made me extremely proud was the fact that her life, her experiences were recognised and the pain that she went through was acknowledged."

Wyatt said he wanted to improve the lot of Aborigines, who have a lower life expectancy and generally poorer health than other Australians, with thousands living in poverty in remote Outback settlements where alcoholism is rife.

The United Nations last week warned that Australia faced a problem with "embedded" discrimination, citing the "unacceptably high level of disadvantage and social dislocation" for Aborigines in the Northern Territory.

Indigenous Australians have previously served in the Senate -- with Neville Bonner appointed to the upper house in 1971 and Aden Ridgeway elected to the Senate in 1998 -- but Wyatt will be the first to serve in the more powerful lower house.

Indigenous people were for decades denied the vote by officials, and until 1967 were not even included in the national census.

- AFP

French 'Spiderman' arrested after scaling Sydney skyscraper

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 03:48 AM PDT

SYDNEY: A French climber known as "Spiderman" was arrested on the roof of a 57-storey Sydney skyscraper today after scaling the building without ropes or a harness to raise awareness of climate change.

Alain Robert climbed the 150-metre (492-ft), twin-towered Lumiere apartment building in central Sydney in about 25 minutes, as dozens of curious onlookers packed the pavement to cheer, clap and take photographs.

"I think people were impressed with him, he is the world's best climber," publicist Max Markson told AFP. "His motivation for doing it is... to raise awareness of global warming and the environment."

The Frenchman unfurled a banner advertising the www.onehundredmonths.org website which claims mankind has only limited time before greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reach irreversibly dangerous levels.

"Don't jump!" a group of schoolboys shouted as Robert neared the top, capturing video of the stuntman on a mobile phone.

Robert was arrested by police when he reached the skyscraper's roof and taken to a nearby police station.

"At this point he's in custody at City Central," a police spokeswoman said. "No charges have been laid."

Robert, 48, has overcome crippling vertigo prompted by two 15-metre falls in the 1980s to climb some of the world's tallest buildings, as well as iconic monuments such as the Eiffel Tower and the Luxor Obelisk in Paris.

He has also climbed the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge and was last year fined A$750) for climbing the city's 219-metre Aurora Place building without permission.

In June, Robert was forced to call off plans to scale the nearby Deutsche Bank building, towering some 240 metres high, after security guards blocked his access.

- AFP

 

 

Most Japan voters support PM in party race - polls

Posted: 29 Aug 2010 11:27 PM PDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - A fresh slew of opinion polls showed a vast majority of Japanese voters want Prime Minister Naoto Kan to beat powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa in a ruling party leadership vote next month that is threatening to create a policy vacuum as Tokyo struggles with a strong yen and fragile recovery.


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