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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Wikileaks: Australia FM blames US

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Kevin Rudd, Australian foreign minister: "US personnel responsible for cable leak"

Australia's foreign minister has said the US is to blame for the release of thousands of diplomatic cables on Wikileaks, not its Australian founder, Julian Assange.

Kevin Rudd said the release raised questions about US security.

Mr Rudd said he did not "give a damn" about criticism of him in the cables.

Mr Assange, arrested in the UK over sex crime allegations in Sweden, has accused the Australian government of "disgraceful pandering" to the US.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard had earlier called Mr Assange's release of the cables "grossly irresponsible".

Over the past two weeks, Wikileaks has released thousands of classified messages from US envoys around the world, from more than 250,000 it has been given.

Washington has called their.....

Wikileaks cables show Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang details

Mr Xi - expected to be China's next president - spoke of a love of US war films

US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks have revealed more about the attitudes and concerns of the two men expected to lead China from 2012.

Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang - tipped as China's next president and premier - had separate dinners with US Ambassador Clark Randt in March 2007.

Both spoke proudly of economic advances in their respective regions.

Mr Xi was revealed as a US war film fan, while Mr Li said residents' biggest worry was corruption.

At that time Mr Xi was Communist Party secretary in Zhejiang province and Mr Li held the same position in Liaoning.

Both are now members of the nine-strong Politburo Standing Committee and are widely seen as China's leaders-in-waiting.

According to one cable, Xi Jinping had a "frank and friendly" conversation with Mr Randt, much of which focused on economic development in Zhejiang.

Residents were most concerned about education, affordable housing and healthcare, Mr Xi reportedly said, and also about "the working style of government and.....

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Pakistani interior minister denies flood aid corruption

The bill for floods in Pakistan earlier this year is estimated to be about $9.7bn

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik has defended the way his country is distributing millions of dollars of flood relief.

His comments follow allegations of corruption from flood affected people.

The government has launched a huge compensation scheme under which people can withdraw cash aid from local banks using special electronic cards.

Some people say they have been denied cards, while others say payments made have disappeared from their accounts.

Under the compensation scheme, the government will eventually give more than 85,450 rupees ($1,000, £631) per household to 1.5 million families who have been directly affected by the disaster, reports the BBC's Jill McGivering.

So far, some 38,000 cases of fraud are......

Mass grave claims investigated in Sri Lanka

The authorities in Sri Lanka have sent a team of forensic experts to Mulaithivu to investigate unconfirmed reports of a mass grave.

Imprisoned Tamil Tiger rebels told the investigators that the grave, about fifteen kilometres from Kilinochchi, contained the remains of twenty-six army and navy personnel, allegedly taken prisoner and then shot dead by the insurgents.

Cremated

A military spokesman Major General Ubaya Medawela, told......

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'No survivors' in New Zealand mine

All 29 miners trapped in a coal mine in New Zealand have been presumed dead after a "horrific" second blast tore through the colliery, plunging the country into mourning.

Police said there was now no chance of finding anyone alive, confirming the country's worst mining accident in nearly a century and prompting anguished scenes as distraught relatives wept, shouted and collapsed to the floor.

"There was another explosion at the [Pike River Coal] mine. It was extremely severe," Gary Knowles, the police official co-ordinating the rescue attempt, told reporters.

"Based on expert evidence I have been given ... it is our belief that no one has survived and everyone has perished."

Knowles said the explosion, whose cause was unknown, ripped through the Pike River coal mine at 2:37pm local time, (0137 GMT), on Wednesday, five days after the initial blast trapped the 29 men including 24 New Zealanders, two Australians, two Britons and a South African.

The victims of the blasts ranged from a 17-year-old on his................

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Wednesday, November 3, 2010

South Korea fires warning shots, second incident in days

South Korea's navy fired warning shots to drive away a North Korean fishing boat at a maritime border on Wednesday, the second incident in six days, jangling nerves in Seoul ahead of next week's G20 summit.

The South Korean capital, about 100 km (60 miles) south of the demilitarized zone dividing the peninsula, is on heightened alert ahead of the summit over concerns Pyongyang may try to create an incident to embarrass its rival.

Washington has pressed Beijing to use its influence over the North not to create an incident in the run up to the meeting.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told a news conference in Seoul that he was not expecting any trouble from across the border.

"I don't think the North will try to do anything when leaders of the international community are meeting to discuss..........

Greek parcel bomb targets Merkel

German police disarm potentially harmful package at chancellor's office hours after similar parcels go off in Athens.

A spokesman for the German chancellor said the package from Greece 'would have been able to harm people' [AFP]

Police have disarmed a potentially harmful package at the German chancellor's office that arrived from Greece, just hours after similar small parcel bombs exploded outside the Russian and Swiss embassies in the Greek capital of Athens.

A spokesman for Angela Merkel, the chancellor, said the suspicious package, intercepted in the mailroom of her office, was personally addressed to the German leader and "would have been able to harm people''.

Thomas de Maiziere, the German interior minister, said that not only did the package have a Greek return address, but authorities had been able to trace that it had been sent from Greece two days ago.

"It contained an explosive device. Based on everything that we know, it was built in the same way and visually resembled the package that exploded at the Swiss embassy in Athens,'' de Maiziere said.

Meanwhile in Greece police detonated suspect packages found at the cargo terminal of