Hong Kong seizes South Korea-bound tank

Hong Kong seizes South Korea-bound tank

Hong Kong seizes South Korea-bound tank

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 01:01 AM PDT

HONG KONG, Thursday 23 September 2010 (AFP) - Hong Kong's customs agents said Thursday they had seized a tank bound for South Korea after the high-tech amphibious military vehicle was discovered at one of the city's container terminals.

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Tiger kills palm oil farmer in Indonesia

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 01:00 AM PDT

JAKARTA, Thursday 23 September 2010 (AFP) - A tiger attacked and killed an Indonesian man as he worked on a palm oil plantation, one of the crops blamed for stripping the big cats' habitat, an official said Thursday.

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Indonesian ex-policeman claims Al-Qaeda link

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:58 AM PDT

JAKARTA, Thursday 23 September 2010 (AFP) - An Indonesian police officer who quit the force to become a terrorist said Thursday he was affiliated to Al-Qaeda and had trained about 170 militants to wage jihad, or "holy war".

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Measles outbreak kills 70 children in Zimbabwe: state media

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:57 AM PDT

HARARE, Thursday 23 September 2010 (AFP) - A measles outbreak has claimed the lives of 70 children in Zimbabwe over the past two weeks, mostly among families from apostolic sects that shun vaccinations, state media said Thursday.

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Bigger budget for next year: Husni

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:47 AM PDT

The allocation for Budget 2011 is expected to be higher than this year's total of RM191.5 billion, Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah said today.

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Chinese PM rebuffs US demands for new appreciation of yuan

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:47 AM PDT

NEW YORK, Thursday 23 September 2010 (AFP) - China's premier sought to ease tensions with the US ahead of a speech Thursday in which he is expected to defend Asian giant's currency policy, as US lawmakers prepared to vote on punishing Beijing.

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UEC students can now enter teacher training colleges

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:47 AM PDT

PETALING JAYA, Thursday 23 September 29: The Cabinet has agreed to allow Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) students to enter teacher training colleges with a distinction for SPM Bahasa Malaysia and three distinctions for UEC subjects.

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Bill Gates tops Forbes rich list for 17th year

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:46 AM PDT

BOSTON, Thursday 23 September 2010 (Bernama) -- Microsoft founder Bill Gates has retained his position as the richest man in the United States with a net worth of US$54 billion, topping Forbes '400 Richest Americans List' for the 17th year in a row, according to Press Trust of India on Thursday.

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Qaeda warns France not to attempt rescue of hostages: SITE

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:45 AM PDT

DUBAI, Thursday 23 September 2010 (AFP) - Al-Qaeda has warned Paris not to attempt to rescue five French nationals kidnapped by the jihadists in Niger, SITE monitoring group said Thursday, as France mobilised its forces to find them.

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Six dead in suspected Philippine clan war: police

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:45 AM PDT

ZAMBOANGA, Thursday 23 September 2010 (AFP) - Six members of a family were killed and two other relatives wounded in an attack linked to a suspected clan war in the southern Philippines, police said Thursday.

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Hong Kong activists set sail again for disputed islands

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:40 AM PDT

HONG KONG, Thursday 23 September 2010 (AFP) - A group of Hong Kong activists on Thursday set sail again for an island chain in the East China Sea claimed by Beijing and Tokyo, a day after their vessel was stopped by the city's marine police.

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China marks 30 years of one-child policy

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:39 AM PDT

BEIJING, Thursday 23 September 2010 (AFP) - Han Mei knew when she fell pregnant for the second time that she was facing an extortionate fine, a salary drop and even the loss of her job for having flouted China's infamous one-child policy.

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Singapore private home prices likely to fall a little

Posted: 23 Sep 2010 12:13 AM PDT

High-end market not affected: CapitaLand president and chief executive Liew Mun Leong said the new cooling measures would not affect the high-end property market.

By JOYCE TEO
The Straits Times
Singapore, Thursday 23 September 2010

Private home prices are set to dip marginally in Sinagpore as a result of the Government's recent cooling measures, according to CapitaLand president and chief executive Liew Mun Leong.

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Youngest F1 test driver in Malaysia

Posted: 22 Sep 2010 11:48 PM PDT

16-year-old Nabil Jeffri from the Malaysian Lotus Racing Team has created a record in Formula One history as the youngest test driver in Malaysia.

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Strike in France set to cripple services

Posted: 22 Sep 2010 11:30 PM PDT

French trade unions have launched their second 24-hour strike in a month to try to halt President Sarkozy's attempt to increase the official retirement age from 60 to 62.


Obama calls for new vision for world aid

Posted: 22 Sep 2010 11:37 PM PDT

US President Barack Obama has warned the world will miss ambitious anti-poverty goals if it does not change its approach to aid and development.


The advanced nation lifestyle

Posted: 22 Sep 2010 11:33 PM PDT

The 131 entry-point projects (EPPs) under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) are significant symbols of an advanced nation. They include a high-speed rail system, a nuclear power plant, an extensive upmarket shopping district, and widespread broadband and wireless Internet access.

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Zuckerberg to make US$100 million school gift

Posted: 22 Sep 2010 03:03 PM PDT

NEW YORK: Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg will donate US$100 million (RM309 million) to the troubled public school system in Newark, New Jersey, the New York Times reported yesterday.

The donation was to be announced on the Oprah Winfrey television show, the report said.

The Times said the gift would be the first instalment in an education endowment to be started by Zuckerberg.

It would be by far the largest publicly known gift by Zuckerberg, whose fortune was estimated last year by Forbes magazine at US$2 billion.

The gift is many times larger than any the system has received before, and amounts to one-eighth of the US$800-million annual operating budget.

It was not yet clear how the money would be used, or over what period of time.

The Times said the gift would be made with the condition of giving back some control of the school system to the mayor of the city, Cory Booker. The state currently runs the system in the troubled city.

The report said Zuckerberg has no connection to Newark, but in July he and Booker met at a conference and began a conversation about the mayor's plans for the city.

Facebook declined to comment on the report, responding to an AFP inquiry with a one-sentence e-mail message saying "We don't have anything to announce."

Public generosity

Zuckerberg's act of public generosity would come a week ahead of the Oct 1 release of "The Social Network" film, a Hollywood take on the birth of Facebook that casts a harsh light on its founder.

Promises of elitism, geekdom, betrayal and greed are fuelling anticipation for the film and early reviews have mentioned the potential for it to be a contender in the Academy Awards.

Facebook and Zuckerberg have not sanctioned the film, which is based on the book "The Accidental Billionaires" and is directed by David Fincher, who won an Oscar nomination for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

The film takes viewers back to Harvard, where Zuckerberg was a student with dazzling computer skills who didn't fit in at the status conscious elite university.

The screenplay, written by Aaron Sorkin, creator of hit television series The West Wing, opens with Zuckerberg as a 19-year-old Harvard student who has trouble even making eye contact, according to a draft circulating on the Internet.

In the film, a clearly brilliant but socially off-key Zuckerberg is dumped by his girlfriend and takes refuge in his computer, setting in motion the disputed events leading to the creation of Facebook in 2004.

"The movie might be a sign that Facebook has become meaningful to people -- even if the movie is fiction," the Palo Alto, California-based company said in response to an AFP query.

"What the movie may or may not contain is not what we're focused on. What matters more is building a useful, innovative service that people enjoy using to connect and share."

- AFP

Asia wary as China asserts territorial ambitions

Posted: 22 Sep 2010 02:54 PM PDT

By Sarah Stewart

ANALYSIS KUALA LUMPUR: As a newly assertive China confronts Japan and the United States over its territorial ambitions, other Asian nations are growing wary of being crushed between brawling powers.

China has a long list of disputes over land and sea, including swathes of the Himalayan plateau also claimed by India, and the islets and reefs of the Spratlys chain staked out by Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei.

As Beijing's economic might grows, many of its neighbours now find themselves defending their own territorial ambitions against a giant they literally cannot afford to offend.

China's threats of unspecified "further action" against Japan, which has refused to release a trawler captain detained in an incident in disputed waters in the East China Sea two weeks ago, have rung out across the region.

And Beijing has warned the United States not to wade into one of its most complex disputes, the island chains of the South China Sea, during Friday's meeting in New York between President Barack Obama and Southeast Asian leaders.

As the old saying goes, smaller nations must ensure they do not become "the grass that is trampled when the buffalos fight", said Simon Tay from the Singapore Institute for International Affairs.

Tay said the new dynamic was potentially healthy, but if the competing powers "do start to push and pull", the 10-member Southeast Asian bloc must present a united front and not be split Cold War-style.

China vehemently opposes "internationalising" its territorial wrangles, preferring to deal quietly with each claimant country on a bilateral basis, a stance that gives it more clout.

So it was no surprise that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's proposal at July security talks in Hanoi for a multilateral approach on the South China Sea was met with a sharp rebuke.

"There was quite an interesting and sharp exchange between the Americans and the Chinese," said Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo, recounting the discussion that followed with Clinton's Chinese counterpart.

"At some points, the atmosphere was just a little tense," he said with diplomatic understatement.

Complete sovereignty

China insists it has complete sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea, a region rich in oil, gas and fisheries, as well as a strategic waterway linking East Asia with Europe and the Middle East.

But Clinton said that resolving competing claims there was "pivotal" to regional stability and the national interests of the US, which has flagged its concern over a looming threat to free navigation.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates in June called for free access to the South China Sea, and alluded to alleged threats against US oil and gas firms interested in offshore exploration in waters claimed by Vietnam.

Chinese vessels last year confronted US naval surveillance ships in stand-offs in the disputed region, which Beijing's critics say it views as a "Chinese lake".

India is also watchful over China's growing presence, particularly its heavy investment in ports being built in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, seen as part of its ambitions for a bluewater naval fleet.

Some regional nations, particularly Vietnam which fought a brief but deadly 1998 naval battle with China in the South China Sea, have welcomed the new US willingness to act as a counterweight to Beijing.

China has assured the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations it has no hegemonic ambitions, and so far shown no sign of military aggression, but fears remain that if left unchecked it will become a regional bully.

Muscular approach

However, Li Mingjiang from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said non-claimant states were not as enthusiastic about Washington's attempts to reclaim its old clout in Asia.

Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore "really don't want to see any confrontation between China and the US because when you have that kind of situation, they may have to take sides and that is something they are very reluctant to do".

Some observers say China has been provoked to some extent, by the US and by Japan which itself is taking a more muscular approach by refusing to release the Chinese captain whose trawler collided with Japanese coastguard vessels.

Rodolfo Severino, a former Asean secretary-general, said regional nations would continue to firmly pursue their long-standing territorial claims despite the growing might of China.

"The interest of Southeast Asia in this is that there should be no disruption of peace and stability and freedom of navigation," he said.

"But at the same time, Southeast Asians don't want China and Japan to come to blows, or China and the US. China should not be provoked into taking violent measures."

With the new dynamic, "a great opportunity lies on the table, as does great risk," said Ernest Bower from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"The question is whether diplomacy and Asian regionalism can succeed," he said... failure in this effort would represent unacceptable risk to Asia's continued economic growth, relative peace, and future prosperity."

- AFP

Chinese protesters threaten Sydney roof plunge

Posted: 22 Sep 2010 02:46 PM PDT

SYDNEY: One of nine Chinese nationals protesting on the roof of an Australian immigration centre will jump if officials do not agree to review their cases by noon today, an activist said.

The nine, believed to be aged between 20 and 27 years and including a pregnant woman, have been on the two-storey Sydney detention building since 8am yesterday, following earlier protests and a suicidal leap this week.

"What they're saying to me is that if they don't hear back from the department of immigration by 2.30pm one of them will be jumping off the building," refugee activist Ramesh Fernandez said.

"They've requested that the department of immigration give them protection visas because if they go back they will be persecuted. As you can imagine, the stress of this current situation is getting worse."

Fernandez spoke to the group by telephone through an interpreter and said they were extremely dehydrated, having refused food and water for three days. One of the four women on the roof is reported to be pregnant.

The protest follows a 30-hour standoff with a group of Sri Lankan Tamils which ended on Tuesday and was prompted by the death of a 36-year-old Fijian man who leapt off a roof a day earlier, traumatising fellow inmates.

Australia has a policy of mandatory detention for asylum-seekers while their claims are processed, and generally holds detainees on remote Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.

But increasing numbers of illegal immigrants arriving by boat -- more than 4,000 so far this year -- have forced the reopening of mainland centres, including Sydney's Villawood facility, which houses about 300 people.

- AFP

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