Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Aussie tenor Skelton wins top opera award

AUSTRALIAN heroic tenor Stuart Skelton has been named male singer of the year at the second International Opera Awards in London.

The 45-year-old singer from Sydney gave a surprise performance at the awards ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel.
Skelton was given the top gong for his performance in Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes at the English National Opera (ENO).

SLEEP plays a vital role in the early learning and development of babies and young children, a study has found.

Infants who nap are better able to apply lessons learned to new skills, while sleeping appears to help pre-school toddlers retain learned knowledge.
US researchers looked at the ability of young children to recognise something similar but not identical to what they have learned and apply it to a new situation.
Known as "generalisation", language examples include recognising the letter "A" in different fonts, understanding a word regardless of who speaks it, or spotting a grammatical pattern in a sentence never heard before.

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has visited the "tensest border on earth", stepping into North Korean territory and facing off with soldiers from the rogue state.

Mr Abbott on Wednesday took his tough talk on Pyongyang to the next level, inspecting first-hand the demilitarised zone dividing the two Koreas.
The zone feels far from demilitarised, with claymore mines, armed sentry towers and razor-wire fences dotting the no-man's land between the enemy neighbours.
Standing in T2 - a blue building straddling the border of both countries - Mr Abbott had a close encounter with the soldiers defending the isolated regime ruled by Kim Jong-un.

A US Marine posted at the main gate of a North Carolina base has shot and killed a colleague inside a guard shack, a military spokesman says.

Camp Lejeune spokesman Nat Fahy said the shooting occurred at around 5.30pm local time on Tuesday.
Law enforcement and emergency personnel attempted to revive the shooting victim at the scene, but Fahy said the person was later pronounced dead at a base hospital.
Fahy said the Marine who fired the shot from his M4 rifle was in custody and awaiting questioning by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

More than 150,000 killed in Syria

MORE than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria's three-year conflict, as fighting continues to rage across the country, including an attack in the north that killed at least 31 people.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that it has documented 150,344 deaths in the conflict that started in March 2011.
The figure includes civilians, rebels, and members of the Syrian military.
It also includes militiamen, fighting alongside President Bashar Assad's forces and foreign fighters battling for Assad's ouster on the rebels' side.
The Observatory bases its tally on the information the group receives from a network of informants on the ground inside Syria.
In January, the UN said it had stopped updating its own tally of the Syrian dead because it could no longer verify the sources of information that led to its last count of at least 100,000 in July.
Of the 150,344 people who died in the conflict, about a third, 51,212, were civilians, including 7,985 children and 5,266 women, The Observatory said.
The number also includes 26,561 rebel fighters and 35,601 Syrian soldiers as well as 22,879 Assad-loyal fighters and 11,220 foreign fighters battling on the opposition side. The number also includes unidentified casualties totalling 2,871.
Tuesday's attack in the northern town of Maaret al-Artiq came in the form of a barrel bombing - bombardment with containers stuffed with explosives rolled out of military helicopters, the Observatory said.
Syria's uprising began with largely peaceful protests against Assad's rule. It has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones, pitting predominantly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad's government that is dominated by Alawites, a sect in Shiite Islam.
On Tuesday, The Observatory said fighting between Assad's loyalist and the rebels was concentrated in several opposition-held suburbs of the capital, Damascus, and the northern province of Aleppo, where rebels have managed to hold on to large swaths of territory and whole districts of the city of Aleppo, Syria's largest urban centre and its commercial hub.
The rebels captured them from government forces in a 2012 offensive.

source- www.news.com

Monday, March 24, 2014

Warning over youth mental health

MORE must be done to help parents and teachers spot signs of mental illness in children or thousands of youngsters could be at risk of alcohol and drug abuse, self-harm and even suicide, UK experts have warned.

A group of child health specialists have cautioned that many children are at risk of "slipping through the net" if awareness is not improved among adults.
The comments come as a new survey found that more than a third of adults are unsure about the signs of mental illness in a child.
And over half fear approaching the subject in case they are mistaken.
The poll of 2100 British adults found 38 per cent did not know the signs and symptoms of mental illness in youngsters and 51 per cent would be worried about raising the issue for fear of being wrong.

US President Barack Obama and top economic powers have cancelled an upcoming G8 summit in Russia, seeking to deepen Moscow's isolation over its intervention in the Ukraine crisis.

After emergency talks called by Obama, it was announced that the G8 summit in Sochi in June would be replaced by a G7 meeting in Brussels, without Russian involvement.
The G7 also threatened tougher sanctions against Russia for its annexation of Crimea, which has plunged relations between the West and Moscow to their lowest point since the Cold War.
The meeting in The Hague came as Ukraine ordered its outnumbered troops to withdraw from Crimea as yet another of its bases was stormed.

THE death toll from a devastating landslide in the US state of Washington has risen to at least 14 with more than 150 more potentially missing, as the White House announced federal help.

The number of people unaccounted for after the killer mudslide, described as "like a small earthquake," rose to 176, although many of those could be double-counted, emergency managers said.
"I'm very disappointed to tell you that we didn't find any sign of any survivors," said Snohomish County fire chief Travis Hots, after six more bodies had been found, adding to the eight already confirmed dead.

PATRICE Wymore Flynn, a Hollywood actress and cattle rancher who was the widow of Australia's swashbuckling screen legend Errol Flynn, has died at her seaside home in northeastern Jamaica. She was 87.

Family spokesman Robb Callahan said Wymore Flynn died on Saturday at her ranch in Jamaica's lush Portland parish after battling pulmonary disease for a year.
The US-born actress began her theatrical career in musicals, making her Broadway debut in 1948 in the production Hold It! She was soon signed by Warner Bros as a starlet and headed to Hollywood.
During her early film career, she worked alongside actors such as Doris Day, Kirk Douglas and Randolph Scott. In 1960, she played Frank Sinatra's girlfriend in the original version of Ocean's 11.
She met her future husband when she was cast as the female lead in the 1950 western Rocky

Austrian compares EU with 3rd Reich

AN Austrian far-right politician under fire for saying that Hitler's rule may have been more liberal than European Union regulations has acknowledged that he also disparaged blacks during a speech at a presentation of a book written by a fellow right-winger
Andreas Moelzer initially denied saying that Europe risked turning into a "conglomerate of Negroes ... where chaos multiplies (through) mass immigration".
He admitted doing so after a German newspaper posted a voice recording of his comments on the internet.
Earlier in the day, Jewish Community leader Oskar Deutsch and Eva Glawischnig, the head of Austria's Greens party, demanded that Moelzer withdraw his candidacy to the EU parliament for saying that the European Union is a dictatorship that makes the Third Reich look "possibly ... liberal".
Both comments were made last month but were reported only recently. Moelzer said he used the Third Reich comparison to point to EU over-regulation and that his anti-black comments were "inappropriate".
Moelzer is on the far-right fringe of his FPO party, which has made huge gains over recent years with a stridently Eurosceptic, anti-corruption and anti-foreigner message. It now regularly polls as the most popular of all Austrian parties.

source-www.news.com

Indian woman murdered by her parents

A 26-YEAR-OLD Indian woman has been strangled by her parents, who opposed her recent marriage to a young man of another caste, police say.

The killing happened on Sunday in Andhra Pradesh in southern India after the parents of the woman convinced the couple that they had accepted the marriage by saying they wanted the rituals carried out to complete the union.
The couple, who worked together at a computer company, wed last Friday in the regional capital of Hyderabad, and when they arrived at the village on Saturday, the young woman went to stay with her parents and her husband checked into a hostel, a police spokesman told the PTI news agency on condition of anonymity.
"Kiran Kumar - the bridegroom - tried to call his bride, P Deepthi, by mobile phone Sunday morning, but getting no answer, he alerted the police who broke down the door to the house and found the murdered woman on the bed," the police spokesman said.
The parents, who fled after committing the crime, were arrested on Monday in a neighbouring town, police superintendent Gopinath Jatti told PTI, adding that "both confessed to the crime".
In India, particularly in rural areas, arranged marriages are common, and the parents, in case their sons and daughters want to choose their partners, normally reject candidates of a different religion or caste.

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source-www.news.com

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Australia attends Jakarta maritime talks

INDONESIAN immigration officers in the area where asylum seekers set off for Australia - and where the first orange lifeboat came back - say they are undermanned and overwhelmed, but still stopped almost 1000 people risking their lives last year.

Australia's Defence Minister David Johnston is visiting Jakarta on Wednesday as the difficult period in relations with Indonesia continues.
Defence co-operation was wound back late last year after reports of Australian intelligence monitoring the phones of Indonesia's leaders.
Then Australia apologised to Indonesia when it learned its vessels had breached its territory during operations to turn asylum seekers away.

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin and leaders of Crimea and its biggest city Sevastopol have signed a treaty making the two entities new members of the Russian Federation.

The treaty goes into force immediately, but stipulates an interim period until the end of the year to formalise the accession of the 84th and 85th members of the Russian Federation.
The signing ceremony in the Kremlin on Tuesday came after an almost hour-long address to MPs and governors, in which Putin defended the move that has triggered the worst crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

AT least 17 civilians have been killed and 46 others injured after a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded market in northern Afghanistan.

"A pregnant woman and two children are also among the dead," said Abdul Sattar Barez, deputy governor for Faryab province.
"The bomber driving an explosive-filled auto rickshaw and wearing an explosive vest blew himself up in the crowded Maisara area in Maimana city."

SMOKING increases the risk of breast cancer in older women by almost a fifth, a study has found.

The discovery adds to a growing weight of evidence linking exposure to tobacco smoke with the disease.
US scientists who tracked the progress of around 186,000 women aged 50 to 71 found that those who smoked were 19 per cent more likely to develop breast cancer than never-smokers.
Women who once smoked but then kicked the habit were still 7 per cent more at risk.
The results held true even after accounting for alcohol consumption, which is a major breast cancer risk factor that is more common among smokers.

PEOPLE whose genes make them at risk of obesity could be more likely to pile on weight from fried foods than those with lower risk, a study suggests.

Eating fried food four times a week or more had twice as big an effect on weight for those with high genetic obesity scores compared to those with the lowest, Harvard researchers found.
Even eating the foods once or twice a week increased the risk of being overweight if people had a genetic predisposition to obesity.

Finance News Update, what you need to know

WORLD FINANCE UPDATE:
The Australian dollar is higher as US and European stock markets gain ground, despite Western nations imposing sanctions on Russia.
At 0630 AEDT on Tuesday, the local unit was trading at 90.86 US cents, up from 90.58 cents on Monday.
And the Australian share market looks set to open higher, following the lead of international bourses with investors shrugging off concerns over Crimea's vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.
At 0645 AEDT on Tuesday, the March share price index futures contract was up 17 points at 5,339.
ELSEWHERE:

Putin recognises Crimea despite sanctions

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has brushed off US and European sanctions by approving a decree recognising Crimea as an independent and sovereign state.
The decree is a technical but highly symbolic move that enables Moscow to accept Crimea without Ukraine's consent.

Tributes pour in for designer L'Wren Scott

TRIBUTES have poured in following the death of designer L'Wren Scott, the girlfriend of rocker Mick Jagger, as it emerged her British fashion company had been losing millions of pounds.
The 49-year-old model and designer, who had been dating the Rolling Stones frontman since 2001, was found dead at a New York apartment.
Her body was discovered on Monday morning at the property in Manhattan and it is understood that police do not suspect foul play.

Judicial inquiry tours Manus centre

A TEAM conducting a judicial inquiry into the treatment of asylum seekers on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island has entered the detention centre.
Justice David Cannings led a court-appointed party into the centre on Tuesday morning.
They are examining the conditions asylum seekers are living in as part of an investigation into whether their basic human rights are being catered to.


Research queries advice on 'unhealthy' fat GUIDELINES urging people to eat less "unhealthy" fat may be too simplistic, new research suggests. An international study found no overall association between saturated fat consumption and heart disease, contrary to current advice. In addition, levels of "healthy"

Iraq tries to legalise child marriage

A CONTENTIOUS draft law being considered in Iraq could open the door to girls as young as nine getting married and would require wives to submit to sex on their husband's whim.

The measure, aimed at creating different laws for Iraq's majority Shi'ite population, could further fray the country's divisions amid some of the worst bloodshed since the sectarian fighting that nearly ripped the country apart after the US-led invasion.
It also comes as more and more children under 18 get married in the country.
"That law represents a crime against humanity and childhood," prominent Iraqi human rights activist Hana Adwar said.

US President Barack Obama's appearance on the Between Two Ferns satirical online talk show this week has reached 15 million views - almost at Justin Bieber levels.

The website Funny or Die said on Friday that Obama's interview with Zach Galifianakis, posted on Tuesday, will likely beat Bieber's record of 17.8 million views for the show.
The pop singer's appearance was posted in September.
The president's appearance to persuade young people to sign up for health insurance is a key moment for the internet, much like Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats were for radio and the Kennedy-Nixon debate for television, says Dick Glover, CEO of the comic website started by Will Ferrell.

A MAN in the US state of Florida convicted of attempted murder in a confrontation over loud music with an unarmed black teen won't be sentenced until after his retrial on a murder charge.

A Duval County judge made that decision on Friday and also scheduled a new trial for Michael Dunn, who is white, for May 5. The case has stirred racial tensions.
Dunn had been scheduled this month to be sentenced for attempted murder and firing into a vehicle, but his lawyer was concerned that statements Dunn makes at a sentencing hearing could be used against him in his second trial.

VETERINARIANS at the San Diego Zoo have performed a rare caesarean section on an 18-year-old gorilla.

Zoo spokeswoman Christina Simmons said the female baby gorilla was in guarded condition Friday, having suffered complications from the birth Wednesday night at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
The full-term baby gorilla weighed two kilograms.

THERE is more than enough proof that would allow a jury to decide to convict Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and al-Qaeda spokesman of conspiring to kill Americans, a judge said as he turned down a defence request to dismiss the case.

"The government's evidence in (the count) of the conspiracy to murder Americans is dramatically more than merely sufficient," US District Judge Lewis A Kaplan said on Friday.
He added that he also saw evidence as "more than sufficient to warrant a conviction" on other charges concerning providing material support to terrorists.

EMERGENCY services are warning people to stay away from Auckland's northern beaches where homes are threatened as high tide peaks and ex-Cyclone Lusi causes havoc.

Lusi hit Northland on Friday night, unleashing 91mm of rain near Whangarei over 27 hours and wind gusts of 139km/h at Cape Reinga.
A storm surge damaged a restaurant on Paihia's wharf and a seawall, several boats came ashore, Marsden Point was closed to all shipping and roofing iron lifted on a building in Mangawhai.
On Saturday, Auckland became the target.

THE missing Malaysian airliner was apparently deliberately diverted and flown for hours after vanishing from radar, said Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, stopping short of confirming a hijack as the "excruciating" jet drama moved into uncharted new territory.

Najib said on Saturday that investigators believed "with a high degree of certainty" that Malaysia Airlines flight 370's communications systems were manually switched off, and that the plane veered westward in a fashion "consistent with deliberate action" after dropping off primary radar.
But he told a highly-anticipated press conference watched around the world that he could not confirm rising suspicions that the plane had been forcibly taken over.

AN exploratory subway shaft dug just down the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has uncovered a treasure trove of fossils in the land where sabre-tooth cats and other early animals once roamed.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday that the fossils included mollusks, asphalt-saturated sand dollars and possibly the mouth of a sea lion dating to two million years ago, a time when the Pacific Ocean extended several kilometres farther inland than it does today.
"Here on the Miracle Mile is where the best record of life from the last great ice age in the world is found," said paleontologist Kim Scott.

HE parents of a Japanese woman abducted by North Korea in 1977 have met their Korean-born granddaughter for the first time.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry confirmed on Sunday that the elderly couple spent time with Kim Eun Gyong over several days last week in Ulan Bator, Mongolia.
The meeting could be a small step toward resuming official government talks between Japan and North Korea.

THE final words from the cockpit of a missing Malaysian jetliner gave no clue of anything wrong even though one of the plane's communications systems was disabled, officials say.

The finding, they say, adds to suspicions one or both of the pilots were involved in the disappearance.
As authorities examine a flight simulator confiscated from the home of one of the pilots and dig through the background of all 239 people on board and the ground crew that serviced the plane, they are also grappling with the enormity of the search ahead, warning that they need more data to narrow the hunt.

Nuclear dump fire preventable: US report

THE truck that caught fire a half mile underground at a southeastern New Mexico nuclear waste dump was 29 years old, improperly maintained and operating without an automatic fire-suppression system, according to a report.

The report to be released Friday also will detail deficiencies in emergency training and responses at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) near Carlsbad.
"It was preventable," Ted Wyka, a Department of Energy official who led the investigation, told a community meeting on Thursday evening.

THE remains of 20 British soldiers killed in action during the First World War will be laid to rest with full military honours, almost 100 years after they died.

The soldiers who died in the Battle of Loos in 1915 were found in 2010 during clearance work for new buildings near Vendin-le-Vieil, north of Arras, France.
Only one of the 20 troops discovered has been identified - Private William McAleer, of the 7th Battalion the Royal Scottish Fusiliers, part of the 45th Brigade, 15th (Scottish) Division.
Born in Leven, Fife, 22-year-old Pte McAleer died shortly after the battle began and he was identified due to his identity disc being found with his body.

THREE people have been killed and six are missing after a cyclone hit the Pacific island of Vanuatu, officials say.

Tropical Cyclone Lusi swept across the country this week and damage assessments were still coming in from remote areas, the National Disaster Management Office said on Friday.
Office director Shadrack Welegtabit said three deaths had been confirmed and a search was underway for six missing women and children.

WORSENING haze from forest and brush fires on Indonesia's Sumatra island has forced the closure of an international airport, officials say.

Smog pollution reached hazardous levels in the island's Riau province in the past few days, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency.
Nugroho also said it has been linked to respiratory and skin problems in about 60,000 people.
The Sultan Syarif Kasim airport in Riau capital Pekanbaru has been closed until Saturday, he said. Sixteen local and regional airlines serve the airport.

A CONTENTIOUS draft law being considered in Iraq could open the door to girls as young as nine getting married and would require wives to submit to sex on their husband's whim.

Internet troll loses NZ conviction appeal

TEENAGE "internet troll" Tristan Barker's appeal against his conviction for assaulting Australian television journalist David Eccleston has been dismissed in a New Zealand court.

In a reserved decision, Justice Edwin Wylie found the Rotorua District Court judge who convicted and discharged the 18-year-old last September was correct in her sentencing stance.
Barker, son of former Split Enz drummer Michael Baker, had admitted the charge.
Appealing the decision in the High Court at Rotorua last month, Barker's lawyer Bill Lawson argued a conviction could prevent him taking up a basketball scholarship in the US in the future, travel to the US and some other countries, plus affect his future employment.

THE teenage US student who sued to get her parents to support her after she moved out of their home has reunited with them, and the family is now asking for privacy.

Rachel Canning's return does not involve any financial or other considerations, the lawyer for the 18-year-old's parents said on Wednesday.
Angelo Sarno said that the dispute had been settled "amicably," but refused to comment further on the litigation.

A US man has been indicted on federal charges of stealing a fossilised dinosaur footprint from the Jurassic period.

The US attorney's office in Utah announced on Wednesday that a grand jury returned the indictment against 35-year-old Jared Ehlers of Moab. He is facing up to 20 years in prison on the most serious of four counts.

JULIE Bishop has questioned whether any media outlet, let alone the ABC, should be contracted to run a government-funded overseas television broadcasting service.

The foreign minister has again raised concerns about the Australian Network at a Chatham House policy forum in London.
The former Labor government in 2011 controversially awarded the $223-million contract to run the overseas network to the ABC over Sky News.

HIDDEN cameras have captured the birth of three tiger cubs at London Zoo.

Three of the world's rarest tigers were born to five-year-old Sumatran tigress Melati on February 3 after a 106-day pregnancy.
The cubs arrived in the early hours, and all were born within an hour.
The entire birth process was monitored using remote camera technology. The zoo has yet to establish the sex of the cubs.

THE severe winter floods in the UK are likely to result in more than STG446 million ($A829.92 million) being paid out to people whose homes, businesses and vehicles were damaged, according to updated figures from insurers.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) estimates that around STG276 million will to be paid to around 9000 home owners whose properties were flooded, STG149 million will go to businesses after 3100 claims were received from this sector, and STG22 million will be paid to vehicle owners, with 5400 claims for flooded vehicles received.

A HORMONE naturally released during sex, childbirth and breastfeeding could provide a new treatment for anorexia, research has shown.

Oxytocin - dubbed the "love hormone" or the "cuddle chemical" - has been shown to alter anorexics' tendencies to fixate on images of high calorie foods and larger body shapes, one study has shown. Research has also found the hormone changed anorexic patients' responses to images of angry and disgusted faces.

A CALIFORNIA board has approved parole for former Charles Manson follower Bruce Davis, but Governor Jerry Brown - who vetoed parole for Davis just last year - can stop his release.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says parole was granted for the 71-year-old Davis after a hearing on Wednesday at the California Men's Colony.

'Outstanding' UK union boss crow dies

BRITIAN'S trade union movement is in shock after the sudden death of firebrand rail union leader Bob Crow at the age of 52.

The general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union is believed to have suffered a heart attack at his home in east London.
The union announced the news "with the deepest regret" and said his death would leave a "massive gap".
Tributes poured in from unions, politicians and campaign groups, as well as business and industry leaders.

A FIFTH Brazilian man allegedly involved in trying to import 2.5kg cocaine into New Zealand is on the run.

Four men have been arrested after a man was caught at Auckland Airport with two suitcases containing cocaine worth an estimated $NZ1 million ($A953,153) in Auckland on Friday.
Police say they're also looking for 43-year-old Rodrigo Gerlach Rila, a Brazilian national who once lived on Auckland's North Shore.

CLEVER people are more trusting than their less intelligent counterparts, researchers have claimed.

Those who are smarter than most may be better judges of character, they said. That group may also be more trusting of other people because they are better at weighing up situations, according to research from academics at Oxford University.
The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, examined data from an American social attitudes survey.

THE two websites Britain cannot live without are the BBC and social networking site Facebook, new research has found.

The top five websites were revealed to be Facebook (24 per cent), BBC (20 per cent), Amazon (nine per cent), Gmail (five per cent) and Yahoo (five per cent), in a poll for Nominet, the company that runs the .uk internet infrastructure.
Facebook was chosen by 32 per cent of women, while for men (26 per cent) the BBC website was in the number one position.

A TROPICAL cyclone is expected to bring wet and stormy weather to much of New Zealand just in time for the weekend.

Cyclone Lusi is expected to hit the northern part of the country on Saturday or early Sunday and move south over central New Zealand, affecting people from Northland down to Canterbury.
People should prepare for a dangerous storm including heavy rain, gale force winds, large coastal waves and storm surges, the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management says.

MORE than 1500 victims of a cholera outbreak in post-earthquake Haiti have filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to overturn the United Nations' immunity from liability for the epidemic that killed more than 9000 Haitians.

The suit, filed in a New York federal court on Tuesday, also is seeking compensation for the deaths and the 700,000 people made ill by the epidemic, and funding for sanitation and clean water in Haiti.
The lawsuit comes days after the US State Department asked a New York court to grant the UN immunity from legal action brought by another group of cholera victims.

Depth, distance reduce impact of US quake

ONE of the largest earthquakes to hit California in decades has rattled the state's northern coast, but its depth and distance from shore reduced the impact on land, with no reports of injuries or damage.

The magnitude-6.9 quake struck at 10:18pm on Sunday and was centred 80 kilometres west of Eureka and about 16 kilometres beneath the Pacific seabed, according to the US Geological Survey.
By late Monday morning, it had already produced 20 aftershocks of magnitude-3.5 or larger, and more were expected over the coming days, said Keith Knudsen, deputy director of the USGS's Earthquake Science Center in Menlo Park, California.

BOSTON Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev destroyed his mobile phone before being arrested, a lawyer for one of Tsarnaev's friends has said in court.

The information was disclosed on Monday during a pre-trial hearing in US District Court as lawyers for three of Tsarnaev's friends asked a judge to order prosecutors to turn over a variety of records and documents to the defence.
The defence requested all communications between Tsarnaev and the three men, as well as all communications between Tsarnaev and other people.

SYRIA'S health care system is on the brink of collapse, with medics forced to engage in "brutal medical practices" in order to save lives: knocking out patients with metal bars because of lack of anaesthesia, or amputating infants' limbs for lack of other ways to treat their injuries.

International charity Save the Children in a report published on Monday said newborns die in hospital incubators during power outages, while millions of children have been exposed to deadly diseases, some of which are preventable with vaccinations and basic medical equipment.
The conflict has ravaged Syria for three years and has hit the country's health facilities and health providers hard. Hospitals have been bombed by government forces in rebel-held areas. Armed men with the opposition have forced their way into clinics to have their fighters treated. Many doctors have fled the country to escape harassment from the warring sides.

OFFICIALS say a truck has collided with a bus on a highway in southern Egypt that was flooded after heavy rains, killing 16 people.

A security official in the city of Assiut said the bus driver lost control of the wheel on an inundated stretch of road, striking the truck and then overturning. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorised to speak to reporters.

NEW Zealanders won't get a chance to vote to change the nation's flag this year.

Prime Minister John Key says there won't be a referendum on changing New Zealand's flag at September's general election, but if National is re-elected the public will have their say in the next parliamentary term.
Mr Key raised the prospect of a referendum in January, saying he personally favoured changing the flag to a black one with a silver fern on it, but in a speech at Victoria University on Tuesday, he put it on hold.

JUSTIN Bieber caused havoc during his recent visit to Australia with graffiti sprees, allegations of heavy-handed behaviour by his body guards and visits to strip clubs.

But the 20-year-old apparently can't even remember whether or not he was here.
During a court appearance in the US on Thursday over separate claims the singer instructed his bodyguards to assault photographer Jeffrey Binion, Bieber was quizzed about his past movements.
"Do you remember being in Australia ever?" the photographer's lawyer Mark DiCowden asks in video footage of the four-hour deposition.

MODERN Family star Ty Burrell is known for his comedic chops, but he also has a refined palate.

In what may be a first for an American, Burrell came away from Australia loving Vegemite.
While Ed O'Neill, Sofia Vergara, Julie Bowen and the rest of the Modern Family cast were not fans of Australia's favourite breakfast spread during their recent visit Down Under to shoot an episode of the hit sitcom, Burrell stashed a few jars in his luggage before flying back to the US.
"I love Vegemite," says Burrell, who plays bumbling dad Phil Dunphy.

ON a chilly morning last weekend, a 57-year-old Japanese man adjusted his diving mask before heading out to sea from the tsunami-hit northeast coast.

Yasuo Takamatsu is learning to scuba dive in hopes of finding the remains of his wife.
As Japan marks the third anniversary of the 2011 tsunami on Tuesday, 2636 people remain missing, their bodies presumably swept out to sea. Another 15,884 have been confirmed dead.
Takamatsu's wife Yuko was at her office when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that spawned the tsunami struck offshore at 2.46pm.

JOE McGinniss, the adventurous and news-making author and reporter who skewered the marketing of Richard Nixon in The Selling of the President 1968 and tracked his personal journey from sympathiser to scourge of convicted killer Jeffrey MacDonald in the blockbuster Fatal Vision, has died aged 71.

McGinniss, who announced in 2013 that he had been diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer, died on Monday from complications related to his disease.
His lawyer and longtime friend Dennis Holahan said he died at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Ovary removal aids high-risk women

FOR women who carry a notorious cancer gene, surgery to remove healthy ovaries is one of the most protective steps they can take. New research suggests some may benefit most from having the operation as young as 35.

Women who inherit either of two faulty BRCA genes are at much higher risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer than other women, and at younger ages. Actress Angelina Jolie generated headlines last year when she had her healthy breasts removed to reduce her cancer risk.
Monday's study is the largest yet to show the power of preventive ovarian surgery for those women. The surgery not only lowers their chances of getting either ovarian or breast cancer. The study estimated it also can reduce women's risk of death before age 70 by 77 per cent.

A KOREAN-FLAGGED fishing ship is stranded in Antarctica with 90 passengers aboard.

Chile's Navy says the Kwang Ja Ho struck the ocean floor about 450 metres from the coast while cruising through Antarctic waters.
The maritime governor for Chile's portion of Antarctica says a rescue mission was launched.
Officials have confirmed everyone on board is safe and there currently is no risk of a fuel spill.

THE photographer who was allegedly punched in the face by Australian actor Sam Worthington claims it was Lara Bingle who attacked him first on a New York street.

Paparazzo Sheng Li appeared in a Manhattan court on Monday charged with misdemeanour counts of assault and harassment.
Police allege Li was aggressively taking photos of Bingle and Worthington as they walked along a Greenwich Village street on Sunday afternoon.
Li deliberately kicked Bingle in the shin and Worthington retaliated by punching Li in the face, NYPD lieutenant John Grimpel told AAP.
Li's lawyer Ron Kuby told a different story.

A SURFER who thought he was going to die after being attacked by a great white shark off a New Zealand beach says he bears no grudge against the fish.

British man Darren Mills, 28, was paddling off Porpoise Bay beach in the Catlins in early February when the three-metre predator pounced.
The shark clamped its jaws around Mr Mills' leg pinning him to his surfboard.
"I started punching it on the nose, a sensitive area for a shark, then got hold of its snout and tried to prise it off," the air conditioning engineer told British tabloid The Daily Mirror on Monday.
"It must have been on my leg for four seconds but it felt a lot longer."
When the shark let go, Mr Mills swam to shore with four huge bite marks on his right leg and a large puncture wound.

SAMSUNG has unveiled its answer to Apple's flagship iPhone 5s in a move set to ramp up the rivalry between the world's two biggest phone makers.

Samsung debuted the Galaxy S5 on Monday evening at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.
The phone will begin shipping worldwide, including to Australia, on April 11.
The phone freshens up the flagship Galaxy line, which has been Samsung's chief weapon in the battle for global smartphone supremacy.
With a 5.1-inch screen, the S5 is slightly larger than the phone it updates - the one-year-old Galaxy S4.

EGYPT'S military-installed government has resigned en masse in a surprise move ahead of a presidential poll likely to bring defence minister and army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power.

A limited reshuffle to allow Sisi to step down as defence minister and enter elections had been expected.
But the across-the-board resignations led by the increasingly unpopular prime minister Hazem al-Beblawi surprised even some in the cabinet.
Appointed in July after the military ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, Beblawi's government came under pressure to step aside amid a worsening economy and a spate of militant attacks and labour strikes.

RUSSIA has sought answers for the latest deadly plane crash to raise concerns about the safety of its civil aviation, with investigators focusing on a fault with the 23-year-old plane or pilot error as the likely cause.

The Tatarstan Airlines Boeing 737-500 crashed on landing at the airport in the Volga city of Kazan after a flight from Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Sunday night, killing all 44 passengers and six crew on board, the emergencies ministry said.

NZ military most tolerant to gay soldiers

NEW Zealand has topped a new global index ranking armed forces for inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexuals and transgender soldiers, with Australia rating in fifth place.

The LGBT Military Index assesses admittance, tolerance, exclusion or persecution of homosexuals to measure 103 armies worldwide, the Hague-based Centre for Strategic Studies think-tank said.
New Zealand topped the index and the Netherlands and UK ranked joint second with Sweden coming in fourth.

AS a Mississippi student minister preached at a youth centre, the wooden floor started to rumble and quickly collapsed, sending about 70 people tumbling to the first floor below.

About 35 people were injured in the collapse on Wednesday night, with most suffering cuts and broken bones. None of the injuries was considered life-threatening.
"We were blessed by the Lord," Pastor Tommy Davis said on Thursday.
"we are getting all the inspections done to a get a better perspective about what happened Wednesday night."

MOTORISTS' appetite for eating-and-driving is on the increase.

More than three in five drivers admitted to eating at the wheel in the past year, a UK survey by road safety charity Brake and insurance company Direct Line showed.
Based on responses from 1000 drivers, the survey showed that in the last 12 months:
- A total of 29 per cent have opened and eaten food at the wheel;

A COLLECTION of 13 gene defects can be used to identify men most at risk from life-threatening prostate cancer, scientists have shown.

The discovery raises the prospect of screening men for the first time to single out those predisposed to developing aggressive and potentially deadly tumours.
Scientists tested blood samples from 191 British men with prostate cancer who had at least three relatives affected by the disease.

DOCTORS at a London hospital have started treating heart attack patients with their own stem cells in the largest trial of its kind ever undertaken.

The patients at the London Chest Hospital are among the first of 3000 participants in a Europe-wide study looking at the life-prolonging potential of stem cell therapy.
All will be treated within five days of suffering a heart attack. Stem cells taken from bone marrow will be injected into their hearts in the hope of increasing survival rates by a quarter.

RESEARCHERS say they have found new evidence that Greece's financial crisis is taking a toll on the health of its citizens, including rising rates of HIV, tuberculosis, depression and even infant deaths.

Since the economic crisis hit several years ago, the government's health spending has been slashed and hundreds of thousands of people have been left without health insurance. As cuts have been made to AIDS prevention programs, rates of HIV and tuberculosis in drug users have spiked.
Previous studies have found suicides in Greece have increased by about 45 per cent between 2007 and 2011. The new research found the prevalence of major depression more than doubled from 2008 to 2011, citing economic hardship as a major factor.

US judge orders new mental exam of shooter

THE judge in the Colorado theatre shootings case says defendant James Holmes must undergo a second psychiatric evaluation at the state mental hospital.

The ruling on Wednesday said Holmes' first evaluation last northern summer was incomplete and inadequate.
The critical findings of that evaluation haven't been made public.
The judge granted prosecutors' request for a second evaluation but said it should be done by another doctor at the state hospital, not by doctors chosen by the prosecutors.

NEW Zealand's new privacy commissioner says he's disturbed by a "strange behavioural change" in what people do when they mistakenly receive personal information.

Privacy commissioner John Edwards told parliament's justice and electoral select committee on Thursday he thinks there's been a change over the last few years in what people do when they find something in their inbox, for example, that is not intended for them.

THE US Department of Homeland Security has warned airlines to watch for explosives hidden in the shoes of passengers flying into the United States, officials say.

The alert is based on new intelligence indicating that a shoe bomb may be used to blow up a US-bound jetliner, said two law enforcement officials who described the bulletin on the condition of anonymity.
Officials said the threat was not specific to a particular airline, flight, country or time.
It was not related to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

BEING obese increases a man's risk of breast cancer by nearly a third, research has shown.

Other risk factors include enlarged male breasts, and having an extra X chromosome besides the one men normally inherit from their mothers.
Around 100 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in Australia and about 400 each year in the UK, but the causes of male breast cancer are poorly understood.

KYLIE Minogue has arrived at the Brit Awards in a black knee-length rubber dress with a huge bow detail accompanied by her sister Dannii.

The Voice coach was among the arrivals at the most glamorous night of the year for the UK music world on Wednesday at London's O2 Arena.
A slimline Boy George attracted attention with his new towering quiff and what appeared to be a graze around the left side of his face, although he is well known for his elaborate experiments with make-up.

US President Barack Obama says he doesn't view violent clashes in Ukraine and Syria as part of a "Cold War chessboard" where the United States competes with Russia.

Obama said that although Russia had influence on both governments, the turmoil in the two countries had risen among people insisting on fundamental rights.
Obama said he wishes Russia will eventually back those values, but, "Right now there are times when we have strong disagreements".

UKRAINE'S embattled president and leaders of the protests that have been roiling the country have agreed on a truce to halt the violence that has killed 26 people.

A protest leader was quoted as saying the government pledged not to attack an opposition encampment in central Kiev while further negotiations unfold.
President Viktor Yanukovych met with opposition leaders and the two sides agreed to halt the violence and to hold talks on ending bloodshed, a statement on the presidential website said.
The statement did not give any further details.

Bikie and gang members hit with gun ban

MORE than 220 people in NSW have been banned from possessing firearms, the majority of them members of bikie and other criminal gangs.

NSW Police say those issued with Firearm Prohibition Orders include 44 members and associates of the Brothers For Life gang, 42 members of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang and 39 men associated with Assyrian organised crime networks.

POLICE have called off the search for two brothers-in-law who went missing while fishing off Cape Jervis, south of Adelaide, on Sunday.

A helicopter carried out a final grid search of the area on Wednesday morning, but did not locate the men or their 4.6-metre half cabin boat.
Police believe the boat has sunk.

TEACHER training is set for an overhaul with Education Minister Christopher Pyne wanting more focus on the practical aspects.

An eight-member ministerial advisory group will report by the middle of the year on how education degrees at universities can better prepare new teachers.
"There is absolutely no reason at all why Australia, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world ... shouldn't have the best teacher training in the world," Mr Pyne told reporters in Adelaide on Wednesday.

SIXTY Victorian properties linked to the Comancheros have been raided amid police fears of a payback involving the Hells Angels.

At least 18 people were arrested, including the Comancheros' Victorian vice president, when police swooped early Wednesday morning.
Firearms, drugs including large quantities of steroids, ammunition, cash, tasers, swords and explosives were seized at 58 of 62 addresses targeted.

A CATHOLIC principal believed a pedophile teacher was a risk to students but gave him the benefit of the doubt and didn't report a serious child sex abuse complaint against him.

Terence Hayes has taken the stand for a second time at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Brisbane.
The primary school principal received a complaint from a schoolgirl in 2007 about inappropriate behaviour by teacher Gerard Byrnes, including the most serious allegation that he "had put his hands up our skirts".

FEDERAL Treasurer Joe Hockey has backed the federal police after they controversially raided Seven Network's offices.

Dozens of officers searched the network's inner-Sydney offices on Tuesday, looking for evidence of a lucrative interview with Schapelle Corby.
The network denies a deal has been made with the convicted drug smuggler.
Mr Hockey was on Wednesday asked whether he agreed with Seven that the raids were "overkill".
"I support the AFP," he told reporters in Sydney.

100 illegal guns seized in Qld raids

POLICE hunting black-market gun traders in Queensland have seized more than 100 weapons and arrested five people.

The haul, which included silencers, was seized during raids in southeast and central Queensland as part of a state and federal police operation launched in September.
Police executed search warrants at Mount Archer near Rockhampton and Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, and Tweed Heads, on the Queensland-NSW border.

QUEENSLAND'S chief magistrate has warned judges not to undermine the Newman government's law and order agenda.

Tim Carmody has used an address to warn all three arms of government to respect the separation of powers, and "keep their hands to themselves, and off the others".
The chief magistrate used a welcome ceremony for two new magistrates to remind the judiciary it must implement laws set by the government, regardless of what they think of them.

TWO people have escaped injury after a light plane crashed into a paddock south of Adelaide.

The twin-engine Piper made an emergency landing in the paddock, about one kilometre from the Aldinga Airport, on Wednesday about 11.30am (CDT).
Police say the two people on board appear to have escaped injury, but may be suffering from shock.

source-www.news.com

'Wage explosion' claim astonishes unions

UNIONS are "gobsmacked" by Employment Minister Eric Abetz's suggestion Australia is on the verge of an explosion in wages, while one of his ministerial colleagues says wage growth is likely to be subdued.

Business groups agree wage growth is likely to be moderate but say unions are still able to put too much pressure on businesses to cave into demands.
Senator Abetz warned in a speech on Tuesday of a "wages explosion" that would push thousands of people out of work if employers and unions didn't take a responsible line in wage agreements.
Australian Council of Trade Unions president Ged Kearney says Senator Abetz's claim is irresponsible and false.

AN 82-year-old man is in a critical condition after his car rolled backwards, in the third driveway accident in Adelaide this year.

Police say the man was knocked to the ground in the Davoren Park driveway on Tuesday night.
He was taken to hospital, where his condition deteriorated and he is now considered critical.
On Monday, an 82-year-old Adelaide woman died when her car rolled down a Wynn Vale driveway and hit her.

THE wait for Victoria's most urgent ambulance patients is getting longer, with paramedics taking more than 20 minutes to arrive at some cases, a new report shows.

The annual Report on Government Services shows Victorians waited an average of 11.2 minutes for a code one ambulance in 2012-13, the longest wait of any state.
Ten per cent of Victorians waited nearly 23 minutes for a code one ambulance, longer than in 2011-12.

Police locate two bodies in northern NSW

POLICE searching for a missing father and daughter have located two bodies at Pottsville in northern NSW.

Police said the two bodies were located by an SES volunteer in dense bushland at the Pottsville sand dunes.
Greg Hutchings, 35, and his four-year-old daughter Eeva Dorendahl-Hutchings have been missing from Pottsville since January 11 after failing to meet up with family at a local park.

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has talked down the prospects of government help for fruit processor SPC Ardmona ahead of a cabinet meeting this week.

The Victorian-based company wants $50 million from the federal and Victorian governments to upgrade its product development facilities, which would be topped up by a larger investment from parent company Coca-Cola Amatil.

AN Australian-developed tai chi-based exercise program has helped people reduce their blood sugar and blood pressure, according to a new study.

The gentle program is based on movements from the ancient Chinese form of exercise, but is specifically designed to help people with chronic diseases, says University of Queensland researcher Dr Xin Liu.
The 52 people who participated in the study experienced encouraging health improvements, regardless of their diet or other factors, said Dr Liu.

HUMAN remains have been found near where a 12-year-old boy was taken by a crocodile in the Northern Territory.

Authorities have shot dead three crocs in the search for the reptile that snatched the boy while he was swimming with friends in a billabong west of Jabiru in the Kakadu National Park on Sunday.
Another boy, 15, was bitten but released by a croc during the attack.
Acting Police Commander Michael White says search teams have found human remains near where the boy was taken.

US court won't stop execution of Mexican

A US federal appeals court is refusing to halt the execution of a Mexican national convicted of killing a Houston police officer, despite diplomatic pressure and pleas from the Mexican government.

THE biggest push yet to end Syria's bloodshed has been marked by fiery exchanges as the warring sides and global powers clashed over President Bashar al-Assad's fate at a UN peace conference in Switzerland.

After a day of formal speeches set to be followed this week by talks involving the two sides, UN leader Ban Ki-moon urged Syria's regime and opposition to finally work together at the table.
"The world wants an urgent end to the conflict," Ban said on Wednesday in a closing press conference at the talks in the Swiss town of Montreux.
"Enough is enough, the time has to come to negotiate."

A US federal appeals court is refusing to halt the execution of a Mexican national convicted of killing a Houston police officer, despite diplomatic pressure and pleas from the Mexican government.

Edgar Tamayo is scheduled for lethal injection at a Texas prison on Wednesday evening.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals considered an appeal that renewed an earlier contention that Tamayo was mentally impaired and therefore ineligible for execution. But the court said the appeal, which was filed last week, came too late.
Tamayo's lawyers are now taking their appeal to the US Supreme Court.
They also are appealing a judge's refusal on Tuesday to stop the Texas parole board from a clemency recommendation in Tamayo's case.
The 46-year-old inmate was convicted in the January 1994 slaying of Guy Gaddis.

source-www.news.com

Chinese activist stays mum in court

THE founder of a grassroots movement to boost accountability for Chinese officials has gone on trial on charges of disrupting public order.

But Xu Zhiyong didn't utter a word during the six-hour, closed-door proceedings to protest what he considers an unjust case.
The trial of the legal scholar and New Citizens founder reflects the determination of the government led by Xi Jinping to quash the loosely knit activists before they can challenge Communist Party rule, even though their goals largely overlap with the party's stated drive to root out corruption and build a fairer society.

EATING more oily fish can increase brain size in later life and may help prevent age-related mental decline, a study has found.

People with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil preserve bigger brains as they age, the research shows.

In particular, they maintain more nerve cells in the hippocampus, the brain's key memory centre.

The larger neural volume linked to omega-3 intake is equivalent to reducing the effects of brain ageing by up to two years, say scientists.

Pope draws 6.6 million at Vatican in 2013

THE Vatican says Pope Francis drew more than 6.6 million people to his audiences, Masses and other Vatican events in 2013, more than twice as many as his predecessor Benedict XVI did in his first year as Pope.

The statistics released on Thursday cover only events held at the Vatican starting from Francis' March 13 election.
They don't include his trips, including World Youth Day in Brazil and trips within Italy: The Vatican estimated that some 3.7 million people attended Francis' final World Youth Day Mass in Rio alone, though statisticians put the true figure at about half that.

A LAWYER who let slip JK Rowling's secret thriller-writer identity has been fined STG1000 ($A1800) for breaching client confidentiality rules.

Chris Gossage of London law firm Russells Solicitors - which represents Rowling - told a friend of his wife that the Harry Potter creator was author of The Cuckoo's Calling, published last year under the name Robert Galbraith.

A QUARTER of men who make a New Year's resolution to lose weight have already given up on their diets by January 2, a poll suggests.

Some 26 per cent of men abandon their diets after one day, a survey found.
Meanwhile, one in 10 women cave in to cravings for unhealthy food after 24 hours and 31 per cent give up their diet within one week, according to health company Bupa.

US President Barack Obama has played golf with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key in Hawaii, in an unusual holiday encounter.

The statesmen hit the green at a US Marine Corps base on the northeastern coast of the island of Oahu on Thursday.
Obama and his family are spending more than two weeks in Hawaii and have rented a house near the base, about 20 kilometres from Honolulu, where Obama was born.
The leaders, joined by Key's teenage son Max and White House aide Marvin Nicholson, hit several balls and joked around in front of reporters.

ALICIA Keys and Blackberry are set to part ways at the end of January, just one year after the singer signed on as "global creative director".

The Canadian company confirmed Keys' upcoming departure to Reuters on Thursday.
It comes as Blackberry shifts its focus away from the consumer market and towards businesses and governments.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

More than 150,000 killed in Syria

MORE than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria's three-year conflict, as fighting continues to rage across the country, including an attack in the north that killed at least 31 people.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Monday, March 17, 2014

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Friday, March 14, 2014

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Monday, March 10, 2014

Monday, February 24, 2014

Thursday, February 20, 2014