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Rock guitarist trial dumped due to illness

Written By Unknown on Senin, 11 Februari 2013 | 16.57

FRAUD charges against a former rock guitarist have been dropped due to his ailing health.

Kevin James Peek, a guitarist in the 1970s group Sky, was charged in 2011 with more than 200 offences of gaining benefit by fraud.

He was alleged to have been involved in activities that related to the collapse of a West Australian company.

Peek was due to stand trial in the Perth District Court in April, but is being treated for cancer.

Chief Judge Peter Martino agreed with lawyers on Monday that Peek was not fit to stand trial and vacated the matter.


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Whitehaven keen to produce soon at Maules

WHITEHAVEN Coal has been given permission to develop a controversial coal mine in northeastern NSW that green groups warn will "carve the heart" out of the region's native woodlands.

Environment Minister Tony Burke on Monday granted strict conditional approval to Whitehaven's Maules Creek open-cut mine proposal and the nearby Boggabri project, controlled by Japanese company Idemitsu.

More work must be done before the projects can actually proceed but Mr Burke said he was satisfied the conditions would prevent unacceptable impacts on the environment.

"As the conditions make clear where more work, new plans or further modelling needs to take place, then this must be carried out to my satisfaction," Mr Burke said in a statement.

Last week, Mr Burke extended his department's timeframe for considering the Maules Creek project until April 30, much to the disappointment of Whitehaven and its investors.

But he was forced to act on Monday after the leaking of a commercially sensitive letter at the weekend that indicated he had the intention of approving the mine back in December.

Mr Burke has accused the NSW government of leaking the letter, and has ruled it out of any future dealings with the coal company over its flagship development.

Maules Creek made headlines when activist Jonathan Moylan admitted sending a press release to media outlets in early January falsely claiming the ANZ Bank had pulled its $1.2 billion loan to the miner.

Community and environment activists fear the project threatens koala habitats and thousands of hectares of old-growth forests and will force farmers off their land through soil damage.

The Nature Conservation Council of NSW accused Mr Burke of making the "unconscionable" decision to destroy thousands of hectares of state forest for short-term mining profits.

"This decision sounds the death knell for this extraordinary area, and will leave a permanent scar on the landscape," NCC chief executive officer Pepe Clarke said in a statement.

The Australian Greens said it was just the latest "crime" committed by Mr Burke against the government.

The Gillard government was just one of the "arms of the mining industry" and voters wouldn't forget in September, Greens leader Christine Milne said.

Mr Burke said the companies must minimise their impacts on the Leard State Forest and provide "enduring protection" for more than 15,000 hectares of offset projects in the surrounding areas.

These proposed offset areas aim to build wildlife corridors between the Maules Creek and Boggabri mine to protect native species including koalas and swift parrots.

Mr Burke also granted conditional approval for a coal seam methane gas project at Gloucester owned by AGL Energy, but warned it wouldn't go ahead if tests showed there could be an impact on groundwater.

The approvals were welcomed by the NSW Minerals Council, which said the mines would be subjected to some of the strictest conditions in the world and would deliver jobs and economic growth for regional NSW.


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Suicide bomber kills four in Somalia

AT least four people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in his car in an attack aimed at a senior police officer in Somalia's central Galkayo region, police say.

"There are at least five people dead, including the bomber," said Mohamed Abdullahi, a police officer in the town, which straddles the border between the northern breakaway state of Puntland and the self-proclaimed region of Galmudug.

Security sources said that a senior Puntland police official was wounded in the blast, but the reports could not be independently confirmed.

The violence is the latest in a string of attacks in the region, where tensions are high between rival political and clan groups.

Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents also operate in the wider area, and have carried out a series of guerrilla style attacks, but have tended to target mainly the capital Mogadishu.

The Shebab have claimed responsibility for most of the suicide attacks that have taken place in the past year.

Newly elected President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who took office in September after being chosen by the country's new parliament, faces multiple challenges in efforts to restore peace to the war-torn Horn of Africa nation.

Large parts of the country has been carved up by rival militia forces who have developed autonomous regions that pay little if any heed to the weak central government in Mogadishu.

But Shebab fighters are on the back foot, having fled a string of key towns ahead of a 17,000-strong African Union force, which is fighting alongside Somali government troops to wrest territory from the Islamists.

Ethiopian troops are also battling the Shebab in the southwest of Somalia.

The Shebab remain a potent threat, still controlling rural areas as well as carrying out guerrilla attacks in areas apparently under government control.


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European stocks mixed at open

EUROPE'S main stock markets opened mixed on Monday, with London virtually flat, Frankfurt sliding and Paris posting gains.

London's FTSE 100 index of top companies dipped 0.04 per cent to 6,261.31 points, Frankfurt's DAX 30 shed 0.32 per cent to 7,627.72 points and in Paris the CAC 40 grew by 0.27 per cent to stand at 3,659.30.


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Iranians march to mark revolution

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 10 Februari 2013 | 16.57

HUNDREDS of thousands of people have marched in Tehran and other cities chanting "Death to America" as Iran marked the 34th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that ousted the US-backed shah.

In the capital on Sunday, crowds waving Iranian flags and portraits of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini walked towards the landmark Azadi (Freedom) Square, in a government-sponsored rally which is now a cornerstone of the regime.

Marchers also chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" as they headed for the square, some waving posters of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expected to speak.

Iran is holding similar rallies nationwide, especially in large provincial capitals such as Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz and Kerman.

At the Tehran rally, foreign media were being closely monitored and allowed to cover the event from officially designated areas only.

The rally marks February 11 when the army declared solidarity with the people, turning its back on shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Ten days beforehand, Khomeini returned in triumph from exile in France to lead the revolutionaries to power.

Tehran is currently under a series of international sanctions aimed at curbing its controversial nuclear program of uranium enrichment.

World powers and Iran's arch regional foe Israel suspect that Tehran is trying to develop atomic weapons under the cover of its civilian program, a charge repeatedly and vehemently denied by the Islamic republic.

The sanctions have led to a severe economic crisis, choking Iran's banking system and limiting its oil exports, the country's main foreign revenue earner.

According to a recent survey by the US polling firm Gallup, Iran's nuclear program is supported by a large majority of its population.


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Indian Kashmiris chafe under curfew

RESIDENTS of India's Kashmir valley are upset over a curfew imposed following the hanging of a local separatist which has sparked a fresh debate on capital punishment.

Mohammed Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri Muslim convicted of helping plot the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament which killed 10 people, was executed on Saturday in New Delhi's Tihar jail.

Fearing a backlash over his death, Indian authorities imposed a tight curfew on Saturday in major populated areas of Kashmir.

Internet services were shut down and they also blocked local newspapers in a bid to prevent protests.

At least four people were injured on Saturday during protests, including two who received bullet wounds when government forces fired on a crowd in a village 40km from the biggest city of Srinagar.

Abdul Hafeez, a resident of Srinagar, said his two-month-old granddaughter needed milk but they were unable to go shopping because of the strict orders restricting people to their homes which have been imposed indefinitely.

"We have seen so much violence in the past. We just hope that things return to normal as quickly as possible," he told AFP.

Guru was convicted of waging war against India and conspiring with the Islamist militants who attacked the parliament - an event that brought nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of another conflict.

The one-time fruit merchant and medical college dropout always insisted he was innocent and claimed he was denied a proper legal defence, while some protesters in Kashmir accused the police of framing him.

India, the world' biggest democracy uses capital punishment for the "rarest of rare" crimes.

There had not been an execution since 2004 until the hanging in November last year of Mohammed Kasab, the lone surviving gunman of 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai.

The two executions - both approved under new President Pranab Mukherjee - worried human rights activists who had hoped India was phasing out the practice following its informal eight-year moratorium.

"India should end this distressing use of executions as a way to satisfy some public opinion," said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Amnesty International was also quick to condemn Guru's hanging as a "disturbing and regressive trend" towards executions in India.

Some of India's press speculated on who could be the next to face the gallows, while respect left-of-centre newspaper The Hindu slammed the execution.

"Guru was walked to the gallows... at the end of the macabre rite governments enact from time to time to propitiate that most angry of gods, a vengeful public," it said.

"There is no principle underpinning the death penalty in India today except vengeance. And vengeance is no principle at all," the daily wrote.

In Kashmir, where a bloody separatist conflict has killed an estimated 100,000 people in two decades, some feared the execution could feed local anti-India feeling and spur more violence.

Police also prevented local newspapers from publishing on Sunday and seized copies of four dailies who managed to go to press in defiance of the restrictions.

"Police seized our newspaper from the press without any prior information to our management," Haji Hayat, editor-in-chief of the English language newspaper Kashmir Reader, told AFP.


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Curry plays cricket like John Howard

AUSSIE actor Stephen Curry says when it comes to cricket, he's like former prime minister John Howard.

At the cricket-themed premiere of the Save Your Legs! in Sydney on Sunday night, Curry said he would have a bit of a game on the green carpet if he wasn't so hopeless.

"I'm no good with the bat, so I don't really want to show off my skills here," Curry, who's best known for his roles in The Castle and The Cup, said.

"(I'm) more of a cricket tragic in the way that John Howard, our former Prime Minister was a cricket tragic - loved the game, armchair expert, couldn't play to save himself.

"And I'm a redhead in this so I'm very similar to Julia Gillard."

Directed by Boyd Hicklin, in Save Your Legs! Curry plays Teddy, the president of D-grade cricket team the Abbotsford Anglers, who find themselves on a cricket tour of India.

Wearing his blue and yellow Anglers jacket, Curry said in light of the recent cheating scandals in Aussie sports he came to the Sydney premiere prepared.

"Look, tonight I am full of peptides," he said.

"I had them injected into my stomach and I was forced to sign a waiver, so I feel like it's basically going to make my green carpet performance as good as it possibly could be, and I'll probably recover very nicely in the morning."

Based on a true story, Save Your Legs! was written by and stars Brendan Cowell, who is a self confessed "cricket nut", having played since he was five and been a member of the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) since he was 14.

Walking the green carpet with Curry and co-star Damon Gameau, he joked that he was OK missing Australia's match against the West Indies for the premiere, because "this is where the real fixture is".

"The Abbotsford Anglers, they're the team everyone's talking about, so we're here and this film's been to London, it's been to Mumbai, so now we're at our home ground at the SCG, ready to play some strokes," he said.

For Cowell and Curry, an Aussie cricket movie has been a long time coming.

Cowell joked that with the success of 1984 Australian miniseries Bodyline, "I think people have been waiting for a great cricket movie, so it's timely".

Curry thinks it's interesting Aussies haven't tried to propel cricket onto the big screen before.

"It's fascinating that in this rich history of filmmaking in this country and our great affiliation with cricket that there actually hasn't been a feature film about cricket," Curry said.

"So I think it's about time and hopefully we've done it justice."

* Save Your Legs! releases in Australian cinemas on February 28.


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Hunt for fugitive LA cop continues

THE hunt for a former Los Angeles police officer suspected in three killings is continuing for a fourth day in snow-covered mountains.

Meanwhile, officials will re-examine the allegations in 2007 by Christopher Dorner, 33, that his law enforcement career was undone by racist colleagues, Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck announced on Saturday.

"I do this not to appease a murderer. I do it to reassure the public that their police department is transparent and fair in all the things we do," the chief said in a statement.

Authorities suspect Dorner in a series of attacks in Southern California over the past week that left three people dead.

They say Dorner had vowed revenge against several former LAPD colleagues whom he blames for ending his career.

The killings and threats that Dorner allegedly made in an online rant have led police to provide protection to 50 families, Beck said.

A captain, named as a target in the manifesto posted on Facebook, told the Orange County Register he has not stepped outside his house since he learned of the threat.

"From what I've seen of (Dorner's) actions, he feels he can make allegations for injustice and justify killing people and that's not reasonable," said Captain Phil Tingirides, who chaired a board that stripped Dorner of his badge.

"The end never justifies the means."

On Saturday, a smaller search party took advantage of a break in stormy weather to look for Dorner in the San Bernardino mountains, about 130 kilometres northeast of downtown Los Angeles, where his burned-out pickup truck was discovered Thursday.

A law enforcement officer told The Associated Press that authorities found weapons in the truck.

Also, newly-released surveillance video showed Dorner tossing several items into a dumpster behind an auto parts store in National City on Monday.

The store's manager told FOX5 in San Diego an employee found a magazine full of bullets, a military belt and a military helmet.

On Friday night, authorities searched a Buena Park storage unit and collected evidence as part of their investigation but did not provide further details.

Earlier on Friday, another warrant was served at a La Palma house belonging to Dorner's mother. Officers collected 10 bags of evidence, including five electronic items.

In his online manifesto, Dorner vowed to use "every bit of small arms training, demolition, ordnance and survival training I've been given" to bring "warfare" to the LAPD and its families.

Dorner served in the US navy, earning a rifle marksman ribbon and a pistol expert medal.

He was assigned to a naval undersea warfare unit and various aviation training units, according to military records. Dorner took leave from the LAPD for a six-month deployment to Bahrain in 2006 and 2007.

The flight training he received in the navy prompted the transportation security administration to issue an alert, warning the general aviation community to be on the lookout for Dorner.

February 1 was Dorner's last day with the navy and also the day CNN's Anderson Cooper received a package that contained a note that read, in part, "I never lied."

A coin riddled with bullet holes that former Chief William Bratton gave out as a souvenir was also in the package.

Police said it was a sign of planning by Dorner before the killing began.

On February 3, police say Dorner shot and killed a couple in a parking garage at their condominium in Irvine. The woman was the daughter of a retired police captain who had represented Dorner in the disciplinary proceedings that led to his sacking.

Dorner wrote in his manifesto that he believed the retired captain had represented the interests of the department over his.

Hours after authorities identified Dorner as a suspect in the double murder, police believe Dorner shot and grazed an LAPD officer in Corona and then used a rifle to ambush two Riverside police officers early Thursday, killing one and seriously wounding the other.

The crime spree spanned across a wide area of Southern California, prompting several police agencies, including the FBI, to form a task force.


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Iranian dissidents killed in Iraq camp

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 09 Februari 2013 | 16.57

DOZENS of mortars and rockets fired on a camp housing Iranian dissidents near Baghdad has killed five members of the opposition group, Iraqi security officials say.

The United Nations called for an immediate investigation and said monitors were following up on deaths, the first confirmed fatalities as a result of violence at the group's new camp since they moved there last year.

Five members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) were killed by the mortars and rockets, two Iraqi security officials said on condition of anonymity. Between 39 and 40 members of the group were wounded, along with three Iraqi policemen.

The MEK, whose leadership is based in Paris, said in a statement that six people were killed and 50 wounded.

One Iraqi security official said around 40 rockets and mortars were fired into the camp, while the MEK said 35 were launched.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack.

The United Nations said its special envoy Martin Kobler had asked Iraqi authorities to "promptly conduct an investigation into this," and added, "we have our monitors on the ground to follow-up."

Eliana Nabaa, spokeswoman for the UN mission in the country, said Iraqi officials had told the United Nations that "all those who were injured were hospitalised immediately."

The mortars struck at a transit camp known as Camp Liberty where some 3,000 residents from the MEK were moved last year, on Iraq's insistence, from their historic paramilitary camp of the 1980s -- Camp Ashraf.

The MEK was founded in the 1960s to oppose the shah of Iran, and after the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted him it took up arms against Iran's clerical rulers.

It says it has now laid down its arms and is working to overthrow the Islamic regime in Tehran through peaceful means.

Britain struck the group off its terror list in June 2008, followed by the European Union in 2009 and the United States in September 2012.

The State Department holds the group responsible, however, for the deaths of Iranians as well as US soldiers and civilians from the 1970s into 2001.

The MEK has no support in Iran, and no connection to domestic opposition groups.


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India parliament attack plotter hanged

A man who took part in a plot to attack India's parliament in 2001 has been hanged, authorities say. Source: AAP

A KASHMIRI separatist has been executed over his role in a deadly attack on parliament in New Delhi in 2001, an episode that brought nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

Mohammed Afzal Guru, a former fruit seller, was hanged at Tihar Jail on the outskirts of the capital on Saturday after his final appeal for mercy was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee.

He is only the second person to be executed in India in nearly a decade.

With authorities fearing a backlash over the execution, a curfew was imposed in parts of Indian-administered Kashmir and the centre of the main city was sealed off.

While India's main opposition party welcomed the execution, one of Guru's co-accused who was later cleared said it was a travesty of justice.

"Afzal Guru was hanged at 8am. All legal procedures were followed in the execution," Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told reporters.

"The situation in Kashmir is being closely monitored," he added.

A senior police officer at the jail told AFP that Guru had been woken up three hours before his execution after being held in solitary confinement.

Guru was found guilty of conspiring with and sheltering the militants who attacked the parliament in December 2001.

He was also held guilty of being a member of the banned Islamist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, which fights against Indian rule in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, where a separatist conflict has claimed up to 100,000 lives.

Five armed rebels stormed India's parliament in New Delhi on December 13, 2001, killing eight police officers and a gardener before they were shot dead by security forces. A journalist wounded in the attack died months later.

As the decision to hang Guru emerged, security forces imposed a curfew in rural areas parts of Indian-administered Kashmir, with the announcement made by loudhailer as police patrolled the Kashmir Valley.

Although there was no formal curfew order in Srinagar, police hastily erected barricades across main entry roads and in the city centre in a bid to prevent any possible demonstrations against the execution.

Three police helicopters could also be seen hovering overhead in Srinagar, the main city in what is India's only Muslim majority state.

A former chief minister of Kashmir once warned that executing him would lead the country to "go up in flames" because of a backlash from rebels in Indian Kashmir.

India alleged the militants behind the parliament attack were supported by Pakistani intelligence, leading the nuclear-armed rivals to deploy an estimated one million troops to their borders for eight months.

Guru's conviction, which has been delayed on several occasions, was both highly political and hotly contested. He described his imprisonment as a "gross miscarriage of justice" in his mercy appeal to the president.

A group of activists including lawyers have campaigned for him, saying his trial had major problems, including fabricated evidence presented by the police and the lack of proper legal representation.

Protesters against his "unfair" conviction have held regular demonstrations in Kashmir demanding his release, while right-wing Hindu activists have long demanded his execution to send a message to other potential attackers.

"Finally justice has been done but I want to ask the government what took them so long to reject his mercy plea and execute him," said Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, one of the leaders of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

Guru was initially convicted along with Shaukat Hussain, a former student at Delhi University and S.A.R. Geelani, a New Delhi college teacher, who were also handed the death sentence.

Geelani was freed on appeal after two-years of imprisonment, adding to the doubts about the initial trial.

Speaking after Saturday's execution, he said Guru never received a fair trial. "How can you send someone to the gallows?," he told AFP. "The whole process was flawed."

Executions are only carried out for "the rarest of rare" cases in India and Guru's is only the second since 2004.

The sole surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Pakistani-born Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, was executed on November 21 last year.


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