Abbott welcomes home Afghan veterans

PM Tony Abbott has thanked Australian defence personnel and others who served in Afghanistan. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has formally thanked and acknowledged the almost 35,000 Australians who served in military operations in Afghanistan over the past 13 years, including the 41 who died there.

HIS message was repeated at parades and ceremonies across the nation on Saturday, recognising all who served in Operation Slipper, which started in October 2001 and concluded at the end of last year.

Like a mini-Anzac Day, large crowds of well-wishers lined streets, clapping as serving personnel and veterans marched.In Canberra, a pair of C-130 Hercules flew low overhead. These were the aircraft on which most personnel arrived and departed from bases in Tarin Kowt, Kandahar and Kabul.Some decades ago, Mr Abbott said, Australians came home from another war - Vietnam - and were not properly acknowledged."So, today, on behalf of our nation, I say to all our Afghanistan veterans: we are grateful to have you home, we acknowledge your achievements, and we thank you for your service."Mr Abbott said Australia mourned the 41 who died in Afghanistan."We grieve with the 263 who suffered serious physical wounds and we acknowledge the unseen wounds of hundreds more. Your mission is over but our mission to stand with you and to support you continues," he said.Opposition Leader Bill Shorten echoed his sentiment, saying Australia saluted those who had brought new honour to the Anzac tradition."We renew our promise to remember your brothers, who lost their lives in the mountains and green valleys of Afghanistan. We pledge our support to the wounded and to all those who have come back to Australia forever changed by what they experienced," he told the Canberra ceremony.Those who marched were delighted at the show of support.Flight Lieutenant Steven Booth, 28, an air controller in Afghanistan, said it was great to know the nation was behind them."The public perception of the military is very high and it's great to be able to live up to those high expectations."Army deputy chief Major General Rick Burr, who commanded special forces in Afghanistan, said soldiers were very proud of their achievements, even though special forces incurred many of the casualties."Those people that made the ultimate sacrifice, gave their lives, would say they were doing what they loved, they were doing it with their mates and they were making a difference," he said.March leader in Canberra, Major General Simone Wilkie, who served as deputy commander in Afghanistan, said it was an occasion to consider the service and sacrifice of personnel who served in Afghanistan along with Australian Federal Police staff and government officials."It was over 34,500 ADF members - that would be the equivalent of everyone in Bathurst or Warrnambool deploying on operations over a war that spanned 14 years," she said.Patrick Foxley, 30, was one of about 300 civilians who participated in Operation Slipper."For me, the parade here in Canberra is an opportunity for myself and other defence civilians to have a bit of recognition of the service we provided. I don't think a lot of the general public know that many civilians have ever been on operations," he said.About 400 personnel remain in Afghanistan in non-combat support roles.

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Nathan to hit NT as a category two cyclone

Cyclone Nathan has moved off the Qld coast and is expected to hit the NT as a category two storm. Source: AAP

CYCLONE Nathan has moved off the far north Queensland coast and is expected to hit the Top End as a category two storm.

THE Bureau of Meteorology says Nathan will intensify as it moves away from western Cape York and will reach the Northern Territory on Sunday.

Communities between Nhulunbuy and Port Roper, including Nhulunbuy and Groote Eylandt, are in the firing line and are forecast to be hit with winds up to 155km/h and heavy rain on Saturday and Sunday.A cyclone watch alert is in place for areas between Goulburn Island to Nhulunbuy, including Elcho Island and Maningrida.It will be the second cyclone to hit the Top End in as many months after Lam unleashed its fury on the region in late February, severely damaging some communities.More than 200 people were displaced after Lam damaged or destroyed about 50 homes in the remote area of Galiwinku.Nathan crossed the coast near Cape Flattery, in Queensland's far north, as a category four storm in the early hours of Friday but quickly weakened as it moved west.The two towns expected to cop the worst of the storm - Hope Vale and Cooktown - were hit with heavy rain and strong winds but escaped relatively unscathed.The worst damage was at a vital banana plantation at Hope Vale where almost half the crop was destroyed.The sun came out in Cooktown on Saturday morning and aside from a few branches strewn across footpaths there are few signs a severe storm hit the town a day ago.There have been no reports of major damage or injury from the storm.A cyclone warning was still in place for some western Cape York communities on Saturday, although that's expected to be cancelled soon as the storm moves away from the coast.

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Aspirations push Indian newspaper boom

REWATIRAMAN Shukla, a young office worker living in a New Delhi slum, can't remember a time his family did not have a newspaper delivered. Even when home was a single room in a congested tenement without plumbing. Even when his father worked long hours as the single breadwinner to provide bare necessities.

THE newspaper was what Shukla's father believed would open the world of opportunity for his three children. And now, families like his are firing the exceptional growth of regional newspapers in India.

At a time when scores of Western newspapers have downsized or shifted to online editions, the Indian newspaper industry is booming. Media analysts say the regional language newspapers are expected to clock double-digit figures in the coming decade as millions of new literates choose papers as their primary source of information."Newspapers, especially in the regional languages, are a fast-growing space in India right now. We are bang in the middle of it, so we are very excited," said Pradeep Dwivedi of Dainik Bhaskar, or Daily Sun, the most popular Hindi newspaper in the country, with about 3.57 million copies sold each day.Democratic India has a long history of print news; the first paper was founded more than 230 years ago. The government's Registrar of Newspapers in India lists more than 82,000 publications. Nearly 33,000 of these are in Hindi, the language spoken by 41 per cent of India's 1.2 billion people. Thousands of others are in India's many regional languages, and many of those also have circulations in the millions. Readership is even greater, as a single copy of a newspaper is often shared by numerous people.Overall, regional newspapers will grow 12 to 14 per cent annually for the next several years, according to estimates by consulting firm KPMG India.Media experts said the newspaper boom in the smaller towns is driven by its young and aspirational population. The enormous push for education over the past five decades has bumped up literacy rates, which grew from 65 per cent to 74 per cent in a decade ending in 2011. But there's a long way to go, with the government predicting universal literacy will be achieved only in 2060.The plethora of television news channels in regional languages has surprisingly only increased newspaper readership, said P.N. Vasanti, director of the Centre for Media Studies in New Delhi."We call it the 'appetiser effect'. In a study of media habits of people, we found that the more that people watched television news, the more they were turning to the newspapers to check the facts," she said."In India, the credibility of newspapers and the written word is way beyond that of the television news channels."Rewatiraman's father, Ved Prakash Shukla, has been subscribing to a Hindi newspaper for 15 years for his children's sake, even when tight finances made it something of a luxury."It was tough. My wife would scold me, saying, 'Why are you wasting money on a paper when we don't have money to buy food?"' Shukla said one recent morning as he sat on the stairs outside his tiny home with his paper and morning cup of tea."But I saw the newspaper as an investment in my children's future. In my job as a chauffeur, I saw how the children of the rich speak English and know all about what's happening in the world."Shukla's investment appears to be paying off. Rewatiraman was recently promoted and has begun climbing the corporate ladder with some success."All those years of reading the paper. It's been worth it," Rewatiraman said.

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Indian army kills two 'Kashmiri rebels'

Government forces in Indian Kashmir have killed two suspected rebels, police say. Source: AAP

INDIAN soldiers have killed two suspected Kashmiri rebels after they tried to sneak into the army's main infantry headquarters in the Indian portion of the disputed Himalayan territory, police say.

SENIOR police officer Danish Rana said the army foiled the rebels' pre-dawn bid on Saturday and later killed them in a gunbattle in the Samba region.

There was no independent confirmation of the fighting.Suspected rebels targeted government forces for a second straight day.On Friday, they entered an Indian police station in the region.A four-hour gunbattle left two Indian paramilitary soldiers, two militants, one policeman and a civilian dead, police said.The rebels often attack Indian government forces and other targets in Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan.They demand Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with Pakistan.

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Bank no threat to established order: China

CHINA'S planned Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will complement rather than compete with established international lenders, officials say, as another two European countries expressed their interest in joining.

THE new development bank is moving forward despite opposition from the United States, after France, Germany, Italy and even long-time US ally Britain have given their blessing.

China's finance ministry said late on Friday that Switzerland and Luxembourg were also planning to join the AIIB.Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said the bank would not be a threat to other multilateral financial institutions including the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank, the official Xinhua news agency reported."History revisited, the establishment of regional investment banks including the ADB and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development did not weaken established (institutions), rather they reinforced the multilateral financial organisations and more vigorously push forward the global economy," Lou said.Lou said the new initiative, to be funded primarily by China, was proposed to meet the enormous demand for infrastructure investment in Asia.As a key member of the World Bank and the ADB, China will continue to support the existing banks in their work of global poverty relief and development, Lou said.Switzerland will formally become a founding member of the bank later this month if approved by other members, China's finance ministry said in a statement.A separate ministry statement said Luxembourg had also applied.Twenty-one countries including China, India and Singapore have expressed interest in joining the initiative to improve infrastructure in emerging Asian economies.The bank is expected to be formally established by the end of this year.

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Train derails in India, killing 31

THREE coaches of a passenger train have derailed in northern India, killing 31 people and injuring at least 50 others.

RESCUERS were using gas cutters to rip apart the mangled wreckage to search for trapped people following Friday's derailing.

They pulled 31 bodies from the wreckage, said Ashwini Srivastava, a spokesman for the railways.The engine and two coaches of the Janata Express jumped off the tracks near Bachhrawan village in Uttar Pradesh state.Several people were feared trapped in the wreckage, and rescue efforts were focused on bringing them out alive, said Ram Murath Yadav, a police official at the site of the accident.One of the derailed coaches was crushed by the impact and most of the casualties were in that coach, he said.The cause of the derailment was not immediately known. The federal rail ministry has ordered an inquiry.The driver of the train escaped unhurt and was being questioned, Srivastava said.Train accidents are common in India. The country's railroad network is one of the world's largest and carries more than 23 million passengers each day. Most accidents are blamed on poor maintenance and human error.

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WA woman banned from owning pets for 20yrs

A WA woman has been banned from owning an animal for 20 years after neglecting her two dogs. Source: AAP

A 53-YEAR-OLD woman has been banned from owning an animal for 20 years after neglecting her two dogs so badly they needed to be put down.

PETA Brien was also sentenced to a one-year, community-based order and ordered to pay costs of $1083.

She was convicted of animal cruelty offences in the Perth Magistrates Court on Friday after failing to provide sufficient food and water for the dogs and failing to take steps to alleviate harm to them.Both had been abandoned at a Maylands property and were emaciated, but one of the dogs, a two-year-old Maltese shitzu cross named Little Man, was found lying lifeless and whining, suffering dehydration, conjunctivitis and ulcerated eyes.Little Man also had severely matted fur and grass seeds embedded in his skin, which had caused severe infection and maggots in and around his hind region.RSPCA WA chief inspector Amanda Swift said the penalty was appropriate because a person who treated dogs so poorly did not deserve the privilege of owning one.

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Deregulation 'threat to Tas uni campuses'

THE future of regional University of Tasmania campuses could be at risk if the federal government's deregulation plans do not go hand-in-hand with funding, vice-chancellor Peter Rathjen says.

THE institution has campuses in Hobart, Sydney, Launceston and Burnie and it is the latter two in the north of the state that could suffer.

"In a competitive, deregulated environment, any part of the University of Tasmania that is not itself financially viable, will come under question," Professor Rathjen told ABC radio on Friday."Both the Launceston and the Burnie campuses lose money. We are deeply committed to them, but if you are Bunnings or Woolworths or Coles operating in a deregulated, competitive environment, you do not retain loss-making operations."Prof Rathjen said he has engaged in negotiations with Canberra over the planned legislation changes for more than a year, but is yet to reach specifics about his university, which runs valuable research projects in areas that are not wealthy or capable of financially supporting a campus."We will have to weigh up what the financial impact is on the university and where the university's priorities lie," he said."We lose about $75 million a year on doing our research. How important is that research compared to how important our regional campuses are?"Those are the decisions that management will be forced to confront if we can't get the resources that are needed to restructure an institution to make it financially viable in a deregulated context."

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Melbourne Press Club Quill Awards winners

* Monash University Gold Quill

Adele Ferguson, Deb Masters & Mario Christodoulou - The Age & ABC Four Corners* Young Journalist of the YearAlexis Daish - Nine News* Best TV Or Video Current Affairs/FeatureAli Russell, Caro Meldrum-Hanna, Max Murch & Clare Blumer - ABC Four Corners* Best Radio Current Affairs ReportNeil Mitchell - 3AW* Best News Report in WritingRichard Baker & Nick McKenzie - The Age* Best Feature in WritingJewel Topsfield - The Age* Best Breaking News CoverageDamon Johnston, Gary Oxley, Nathaniel Bane & Kiah Doodi - Herald Sun* Best Radio News ReportYvette Gray - 3AW* RACV Transport QuillJosh Gordon & Henrietta Cook - The Age* Keith Dunstan Quill for Best Columnist/BloggerJohn Silvester - The Age* Best News PhotographWayne Ludbey - Herald Sun* Best Features PhotographEddie Jim - The Sunday Age* Best Coverage Of An Issue Or EventRuth Lamperd & Monique Hore - Herald Sun* Best Sports PhotographColleen Petch - Herald Sun* Best Camera WorkPhil Loschiavo - Seven News* Best Three Headlines in any MediumWarwick McFadyen - The Age* Best CartoonRon Tandberg - The Age* Grant Hattam Quill for Investigative JournalismRuth Lamperd - Herald Sun* Best Illustration or Graphics in any MediumJim Pavlidis - The Age* Best Regional or Rural Affairs Report in any MediumSue Neales - The Australian* Best Use of Digital Or Social MediaTom McKendrick, Felicity Lewis, Bridie Smith, Mark Stehle, Nathanael Scott & Joe Benke - theage.com.au* Best Sports News Story in any MediumPatrick Bartley - The Age* Best Sports Feature in any MediumJake Niall - The Age* Best TV Or Video News ReportLaura Turner - Nine News* Best Suburban Report in WritingDana McCauley, Fiona Sexton & Julie Hedjes - Port Phillip Leader* Best Business Story in any MediumAdele Ferguson, Deb Masters & Mario Christodoulou - The Age & ABC Four Corners* The Victorian Government Quill for reporting on disability issuesNick McKenzie, Richard Baker, Peter Cronau, Karen Mitchelmore, Max Murch - The Age & ABC Four Corners

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FIFA banks $US2 billion in 2014

FIFA says it earned record revenue of $US2 billion ($A2.62 billion) last year, thanks to the World Cup's commercial power.

THE governing body's annual financial report released on Friday shows total profits of $US337 million coming from the four-year cycle for the 2014 soccer tournament in Brazil.

FIFA pocketed $US140.7 million in profit in 2014 alone. It added $US91 million to its reserves, which now stand at $US1.523 billion.It expects income to keep rising for the 2018 World Cup in Russia despite FIFA and the host country's reputation issues.FIFA's expenses also soared, topping $US5.38 billion in the past four years.Last year, FIFA spent $US261 million in World Cup bonuses to soccer bodies, $US27 million buying a hotel in Zurich and $US39.7 million rewarding senior officials.

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