China mine explosion kills 18

AN EXPLOSION at a mine in southwest China killed 18 people, state media said, the latest incident to hit the industry, which has a notoriously poor safety record.

Another five people were still trapped underground in the pit after the accident at the Xiangshui coal mine in Liupanshui city in Guizhou Province, the Xinhua state news agency said citing provincial government and company sources.

The blast at the mine, part of the Guizhou Panjiang Group, went off at 11.00 am local time and by early evening 18 people were confirmed dead while several others had been rescued.

China is the world's biggest consumer of coal, relying on the fossil fuel for 70 per cent of its growing energy needs.

But its mines are among the deadliest in the world because of lax regulation, corruption and inefficiency. Accidents are common because safety is often neglected by bosses seeking quick profits.

According to the latest official figures, 1973 people died in coal mining accidents in China in 2011, a 19 per cent fall on the previous year.

But labour rights groups say the actual death toll is likely to be much higher, partly due to under-reporting of accidents as mine bosses seek to limit their economic losses and avoid punishment.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Tonnes of Xmas trees dumped in garden

AN EARLY seasonal delivery went badly wrong in Austria when a truck was involved in a crash and dumped 13 tonnes of Christmas trees in a resident's garden.

Police in Vorarlberg state, at Austria's western tip, say the accident happened Friday night as a truck with a trailer loaded with trees drove through the town of Hohenems.

The trailer hit a wall, tipped over and landed in the garden of a house. A police statement said that the fire service dispatched 30 people to recover the hundreds of fir trees.

A passenger in the truck was injured and taken to a local hospital.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Highway reopens after horror crash

THE Great Western Highway has reopened after a crash that killed four people, and left a man with critical injuries.

The highway reopened in both directions around 12.45am (AEDT) on Sunday, the Transport Management Centre said.

All lanes of the highway had been closed between Bathurst and Lithgow after the crash at Glanmire, east of Bathurst, around 1.40pm on Saturday.

"A lengthy recovery operation has been completed and all diversions have been lifted," a spokeswoman said.

It was reported that the horrific crash - involving a car, a ute and a semi trailer - occurred after one of the vehicles swerved to miss a dog that had run onto the road.

Three people in the car were killed instantly, while a passenger in the ute also died at the scene.

The ute driver was trapped for an hour and half before being airlifted to Westmead Hospital with life threatening injuries.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Anti-immigration couple loses foster kids

THREE children from ethnic minority groups have been taken away from their foster parents because the couple support the anti-immigration UK Independence Party.

The couple from Yorkshire in northern England said they had been fostering children for seven years but have been told by social workers that they were not suitable because of UKIP's calls for curbs on immigration to Britain.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said the decision was "indefensible" and opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband, whose party runs the local authority involved, called for an urgent investigation into the "very disturbing" claims.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage, a member of the European Parliament, said the situation was "appalling" and "disgraceful".

He accused the council of bigotry, insisting that decisions on foster care should be "colour-blind".

Following the outcry, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council announced it would launch an investigation into the actions of its staff.

The couple involved told the Daily Telegraph newspaper they had been "stigmatised and slandered" by the removal of the baby girl, boy and older girl they had been caring for for eight weeks.

The decision came after two officials visited to question them about their membership of UKIP, Britain's fourth-biggest party which campaigns for an end to Britain's membership of the European Union and a freeze on immigration.

The woman, a qualified nursery nurse, said the social worker told her: "We would not have placed these children with you had we known you were members of UKIP because it wouldn't have been the right cultural match".

She asked what UKIP had to do with the decision, "then one of them said, 'Well, UKIP have got racist policies'. The implication was that we were racist."

The identity of the couple, who are in their 50s, has been kept secret to protect the children.

Mr Gove condemned the council for making "the wrong decision in the wrong way for the wrong reasons" and said he would be looking into what happened.

Rotherham council's director of children's services, Joyce Thacker, told BBC radio the children had been placed with the couple as an emergency and it was never meant to be a long-term arrangement.

She added: "These children are not UK children and we were not aware of the foster parents having strong political views. There are some strong views in the UKIP party and we have to think of the future of the children."

UKIP started life on the fringes of politics but a recent ICM poll suggests it now has the support of seven per cent of voters.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Iran congratulates Hamas 'victory'

IRAN'S President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has congratulated Gaza's Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya on a "great victory" over Israel, the two sides say.

Haniya in turn "thanked Iran for its support," they added, days after Tehran confirmed it had supplied military aid to Gaza.

"The Iranian president congratulated the people of Gaza and the (Palestinian) resistance facing Zionist aggression ... on their great victory," Iran's news agency ISNA reported on Saturday.

Haniya's office said Ahmadinejad called late on Friday to praise Gaza's "victory after eight days of Israeli aggression," referring to the Jewish state's Operation Pillar of Defence which ended with a Wednesday ceasefire.

"We stand beside the Palestinian people," the Iranian president added.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani on Wednesday said Iran had supplied military aid to Islamist movement Hamas, which controls Gaza and which fired missiles at Tel Aviv for the first time during the eight-day conflict with Israel.

"We are proud to defend the people of Palestine and Hamas ... and that our assistance to them has been both financial and military," Larijani said in remarks reported by parliament's website, ICANA.ir.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief General Mohammad Ali Jafari also said on Wednesday that Tehran had provided the "technology" for the Fajr 5 missiles used to target Tel Aviv, but denied supplying the actual weapons.

He said they were being "rapidly produced" in Gaza.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Wednesday thanked Iran as well as Egypt for their support during the conflict, saying Iran "had a role in arming" his Islamist movement.

The truce ended eight days of cross border attacks in which 166 Palestinians and six Israelis died.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dubai plans world's largest mall, new city

DUBAI famed for its mega-projects before it was hit by the global financial crisis, has announced a new development to open the world's biggest mall and a park larger than London's Hyde Park.

The ruler of the Gulf desert city state, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, announced the plan for a "new city within Dubai," according to an official statement on Saturday, naming it after himself.

No cost was stated for "Mohammed bin Rashid City," to be carried out by his Dubai Holding and the publicly-listed Emaar Properties, which developed many of Dubai's prestigious projects, including Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower.

The plan also features new residential areas, although the emirate continues to have a surplus of units built during a five-year bubble which burst in 2009.

The "Mall of the World" will have a capacity of 80 million visitors a year to become the "largest in the world," said the statement, while its park will be "30 per cent bigger than Hyde Park of London."

The mall will be connected to a family entertainment centre to be developed in cooperation with Universal Studios International that will be the largest in the region, aiming to attract six million visitors a year.

The emirate already has countless malls and hotels, including the Dubai Mall, touted as the world's largest shopping, leisure and entertainment destination, with 62 million visitors this year.

"The current facilities available in Dubai need to be scaled up in line with the future ambitions for the city," Sheikh Mohammed said in the statement.

Dubai's tourism is growing by 13 per cent a year, according to the statement, with hotel occupancy hitting 82 per cent in 2011 while hotel revenues grew 22 per cent last year, exceeding 16 billion dirhams ($4.26 billion).

The emirate rocked global financial markets in autumn 2009 over its debt crisis, but Dubai has restructured the mountain of debt owed by its corporations, and its economy has returned to growth after contracting in 2009.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

EU, IMF work on Greek debt compromise

THE EU and the International Monetary Fund are working on a compromise to break the deadlock on Greece's debt mountain which has held up the latest rescue loans, a Greek finance ministry source says.

The European Union and IMF, which are fronting Greece's multimillion-euro loan rescue, are 10 billion euros ($A12.5 billion) away from a solution that will satisfy debt management requirements on all sides, the ministry source told AFP.

The IMF has insisted for months that Greece must bring its runaway debt to 120 per cent of output by 2020.

Under the compromise now in the works, the IMF could accept a revised debt target of 124 per cent, the ministry source said.

The International Monetary Fund works to its own internal principles that it should not lend to a country if debt in the medium-term looks unsustainable. The IMF's cut-off point is medium-term debt of 120 per cent of annual output.

But with Greece's economy rapidly contracting owing to the deepening recession that has gripped the country for the past five years, this target has become progressively unrealistic.

In absolute terms, the Greek debt still exceeds 300 billion euros, a sum that will represent about 190 per cent of the country's output in 2014.

The EU-IMF disagreement over Greece's debt sustainability has held up the disbursement of loans from the country's 130-billion-euro financial rescue agreed in February.

Athens has been waiting since June for an instalment of 31.2 billion euros ($A39.03 billion) that was held up owing to reform delays and a protracted electoral campaign.

By the end of 2012, it is also due to receive two more payments, worth five billion and 8.3 billion euros.

In return, it has pledged to implement a series of draconian and unpopular austerity budget measures.

Marathon talks on unblocking the loans collapsed in Brussels this week.

But officials have voiced confidence that a deal will be reached Monday, at the next emergency meeting of the Eurogroup of finance ministers from the 17 states that use the single currency.

"We are working hard on the issue," said Germany's deputy government spokesman Georg Streiter, adding that there was "relative optimism" regarding the upcoming meeting.

"The issues are complex...but there is the desire to find a solution ... though there is still a little work to be done," added German finance ministry spokesman Martin Kotthaus.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Real estate agent 'stole for sale signs'

A CONNECTICUT real estate agent has been charged with stealing a competitor's for sale signs from the front lawns of area homes.

Police say 54-year-old Robert Toth, of Shelton, was charged with third-degree larceny and first-degree criminal trespass. Mr Toth owns American Home Realty in Trumbull, Connecticut.

Police say US Asset Realty owner Jihad Shaheer complained in September that his signs had been stolen from more than a half-dozen sites in Bridgeport and from the front of two homes in Stratford.

Police tell the Connecticut Post that they later determined that Mr Toth had been taking the signs. Mr Toth had worked for Shaheer before opening his own real estate company.

Mr Toth declined to comment.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Man in naked standoff on London statue

A NAKED man has climbed atop an equestrian statue in the heart of Whitehall, London's government district.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said the man, believed to be in his 30s or 40s, has been sitting atop the statue on Friday for the better part of two hours.

"We're still talking to him. We're still trying to get him down without causing any injury to him," he said.

Photos posted to Twitter appear to show the man straddling a statue of the 19th century Duke of Cambridge, down the street from the prime minister's official residence.

The man's motives aren't clear, and, with London's late autumn temperature reaching a brisk 10C, it's not clear how long he can stay there.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indonesian militant killed in Philippines

THE Philippine military says it has killed an Indonesian Islamic militant allegedly involved in the 2005 beheading of three Christian schoolgirls.

Ustadz Sanusi was one of seven members of the extremist Jemaah Islamiyah group believed to have sought refuge in the southern Philippines, said Philippine army regional spokesman Captain Alberto Caber.

He was shot dead in the southern city of Marawi late on Thursday while fleeing a hideout that was being raided by police and military forces.

"When the troops arrived to arrest him, there was a commotion. He was chased and someone fired," Caber told AFP.

"It was Ustadz Sanusi who was hit. He was rushed to a hospital but he died."

The Indonesian embassy in Manila declined to comment on the raid.

Jemaah Islamiyah, a South East Asian extremist group, is blamed for a string of attacks including the 2002 bombings in the Indonesian resort of Bali, which killed 202 people.

Regional intelligence analysts claim that Sanusi played a major role in the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls in the restive Indonesian town of Poso in 2005.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More