EGYPT'S highest judicial authority on Saturday slammed a decree by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi that makes his decisions immune from judicial oversight as an "unprecedented attack."
The new constitutional declaration is "an unprecedented attack on the independence of the judiciary and its rulings," the Supreme Judicial Council said in a statement after an emergency meeting.
A PARTY strategist and Barnaby Joyce's chief of staff will join long-serving senator Ian Macdonald on the Liberal National Party's (LNP) Queensland senate ticket.
LNP official James McGrath and Joyce staffer Matthew Canavan were chosen to run second and third on the ballot by the LNP State Council in Brisbane on Saturday from a field of 16 candidates.
Their selection puts them in line to replace out-going LNP senators Sue Boyce and Ron Boswell in parliament after they retire at the end of their term in 2014 if the LNP can retain three senate seats.
Senator Macdonald, who has been the number one candidate for the Queensland Liberal Party senate ticket since 1990, was once again selected for the number one position.
LNP president Bruce McIver said the candidates came from all around Queensland and from all walks of life.
"They are united by a determination to fight hard for Queensland and to help deliver the change of government in Canberra that our state so desperately needs," Mr McIver said.
Mr McGrath, an LNP official, was publicly backed by prominent federal Liberals including Malcolm Turnbull when he unsuccessfully campaigned for preselection for the federal seat of Fisher.
He lost to former Howard minister Mal Brough.
Mr Canavan has worked for Senator Joyce since March 2010 and was previously an senior executive at accounting firm KPMG, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Businessman David Goodwin, small business owner and scientist Theresa Craig and barrister Amanda Stoker will also appear on the ballot in positions four, five and six respectively.
LNP state director Brad Henderson said it was a strong field of candidates.
The three spots are all considered winnable.
AT least 16 people have been killed and 22 others injured when a passenger bus collided with a truck in a mountainous area of northwestern Pakistan.
The accident happened as the bus travelled from the port city of Karachi to the northwestern town of Swabi in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, officials say.
The driver lost control as he was overtaking a truck on a sharp bend when another bus appeared from the opposite direction, local administration chief Sajjad Khan told AFP.
"The driver tried to avert a collision with the bus and smashed into the lorry which he had been overtaking," Khan said quoting wounded passengers.
"At least 16 people were killed and 22 wounded, including women and children."
He said Ispeena in the Karak district, where the accident took place, was very dangerous with drivers going to fast.
"We have one or two fatal accidents every week because drivers while descending usually lose control," he said.
Pakistan has one of the world's worst records for fatal traffic accidents, blamed on poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.
A BOMB blast in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus has killed four people and seriously wounded a member of a faction backing Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The explosion late on Thursday in the Yarmouk camp targeted the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
Four people died and a PFLP-GC activist was seriously wounded when the bomb planted under his car went off, the group said. It blamed the rebel Free Syrian Army for the attack.
Yarmouk has been pulled into Syria's fighting before, most recently earlier this month when clashes in and around the camp killed and wounded dozens.
The refugee camp is also close to two southern neighbourhoods of the capital - Tadamon and Hajar Aswad - that have seen weeks-long clashes between rebels and government troops.
Regime forces shelled the two neighbourhoods and also raided the central Damascus neighbourhood of Bab Sreijeh, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Activists said several people were arrested.
In other violence around the country, Islamic extremists, including members of the al-Qaida inspired Jabhat al-Nusra group, battled with pro-government Kurdish gunmen in the northern town of Ras al-Ayan, near the border with Turkey.
The Islamist militants entered the town earlier this month and have since clashed almost daily with the Kurdish gunmen.
The Islamic militants and the Kurdish factions have also added to the complexity of Syria's conflict.
When government forces withdrew from Kurdish areas in northeastern Syria in July, they were quickly replaced by Kurdish fighters from the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD.
The Kurds would battle the rebels when they attacked predominantly Kurdish areas in Syria. The Kurdish group is affiliated with the PKK, rebels fighting for autonomy in the Kurdish-dominated southeast region of Turkey. For its part, Ankara has sheltered and backed Syria's opposition.
As for the Islamic militants, they are fighting on the side of the rebels and have played a bigger role in the Syrian conflict in recent months, with many openly saying they want to set up an Islamic state. The opposition is split, with some groups strongly opposed to extremism.
Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with an uprising against Assad's regime, inspired by other Arab Spring revolts, but quickly morphed into a civil war that has since killed more than 40,000 people, according to activists.
When the unrest began, the country's half-million Palestinians struggled to stay on the sidelines. But in recent months, many have started supporting the uprising although they insisted the opposition to the regime should be peaceful.
Earlier this month, the FPLP-GC clashed with anti-government Palestinian gunmen in Yarmouk.
The Observatory reported that the body of Syrian novelist Mohammed Rashid Roweily was found late on Thursday in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, nearly two months after he was kidnapped.
State-TV said Roweily was "liquidated by terrorists".
Ruwiely, 65, was once the representative of Arab Writers' Union in Deir el-Zour and had written several novels. The Observatory said his decomposed body was found along with four other bodies, including that of a retired army officer. All were kidnapped around the same time.
FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr has been urged to intervene in the case of a Melbourne businessman languishing in Dubai following a three-year murky legal case.
Matt Joyce, 45, from Melbourne, was arrested in January 2009 on suspicion of bribery while working on a development project for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government-owned Nakheel property group.
He was charged along with Marcus Lee, from Sydney.
During a Senate adjournment debate speech on Thursday night Liberal senator Helen Kroger said the prosecution's evidence was dubious and had been scrutinised in the Victorian Supreme Court in June this year.
"In his judgement, Justice Croft found that Mr Joyce and his co-accused are victims of a false complaint to Dubai authorities by senior executives of Sunland," she told the chamber.
She acknowledged that Australia had a long history of not interfering with the judicial systems of other nations when it came to cases involving Australian citizens.
However, Senator Kroger said the "inconsistent and seemingly random way" the Labor government gets involved in such cases demanded questions.
Senator Carr had made "public diplomatic entreaties" in the case of a Tasmanian lawyer who is detained in Mongolia, working for Rio Tinto.
"We all recall Prime Minister Gillard getting on the phone personally to speak to the young man and his parents who was charged and imprisoned in Bali for carrying drugs," she said.
"Why hasn't the prime minister or the foreign minister picked up the phone and pursued diplomatic channels in seeking a resolution to this travesty of justice?"
Senator Kroger said Ms Gillard had "not sought to make direct contact," in the case of Mr Joyce but had written a letter to the Head of the Rulers Court.
There was a danger more Australians could find themselves potentially in trouble in United Arab Emirates because of the Qantas and Emirates partnership agreement with Dubai being the transit stopover for all Qantas international flights, Senator Kroger said.
"There have been many speeches made in this place about forgotten people, forgotten Australians, and it is with great sadness that I suggest that another name needs to be added to this list," she said.
THE European Commission has given a conditional green light to the massive tie-up between Swiss mining giant Xstrata and commodities trader Glencore that would create a global leader.
"The clearance is conditional on the termination of Glencore's off-take arrangements for zinc metal in the European Economic Area with Nyrstar, the world's largest zinc metal producer, and the divestiture of Glencore's minority shareholding in Nyrstar," it said in a statement on Thursday.
MOR
Billionaire Clive Palmer says he isn't worried about being kicked out of the Liberal National Party. Source: AAP
CLIVE Palmer says he has resigned from the Liberal National Party, despite receiving a letter that he said reinstated his membership to the Queensland party.
The mining billionaire said he was resigning from the LNP because he didn't want to "become the issue".
"It's important that with the critical issues facing the state, I don't become the issue," he told ABC's Lateline program.
"So I discussed the issue with my wife and at 8.30pm (AEST) tonight I thought the best course of action for me would be to resign from the LNP straight away."
Mr Palmer said he had received a letter by the LNP president's executive committee confirming his suspension had been lifted as of Thursday morning.
Mr Palmer was suspended from the party on November 9.
The LNP executive was set to meet on Friday morning to decide whether the life member will remain in the party.
Mr Palmer told AAP earlier there was no way he would have been expelled from the party, because there had been no complaint made against him.
He said his resignation would now allow him to speak more honestly because he "wasn't restrained in any way".
"It's a bit of a shock to me to leave a party I've been a member for 43 years, and to leave in such circumstances.
"But I weighed everything up and I think it's very brave and courageous of the state executive of the LNP to restore my suspension and lift that as they did."
He reiterated earlier comments that the Queensland government was too heavily influenced by lobbyists and by business.
He said senior political figures had threatened his business interests because he'd spoken out politically.
"Well, I believe that to be true.
"I believe that our interests have been threatened because of the political stands that I've taken by people, and I think that's wrong.
"I don't want my employees to bear any burden because of the stands I've taken on what I thought was right."
But Mr Palmer did not rule out a future political role, including the possibility of setting up his own party.
"I certainly will remain interested and I certainly won't be silenced by anybody when I see people being persecuted in this country."
JAPANESE nuclear reactor maker Toshiba has unveiled a remote-controlled robot resembling a headless dog that they hope will be used at the battered Fukushima power plant.
The tetrapod, which weighs 65 kilograms and is about one metre tall, is designed to be able to cover difficult terrain - such as going up steep steps - that regular robots struggle with.
The robot's triple-jointed legs are designed to give it maximum flexibility, with engineers saying it will be able to go into spaces where high radiation makes it impossible for workers to do so.
The robot can carry a load of 20 kilograms and is equipped with cameras and a radiation metre, expected to help workers decide which parts of buildings are safe to enter and for how long.
The machine can also carry a small wired vehicle equipped with a camera and send it out to crawl into small spaces to carry out inspections.
Toshiba engineer Goro Yanase on Wednesday said the as-yet unnamed robot could be upgraded to carry more than 80 kilograms, climb ladders and step over obstacles up to 50 centimetres high.
Robots have already been used inside the wrecked plant to take video footage, including the US-made PackBot and Japanese-made Quince crawler robots, but Toshiba is awaiting the go ahead from plant operator TEPCO to deploy its creation.
The massive earthquake and tsunami of March 11 last year sparked an atomic emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the northeast of the country.
Efforts to clear up after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 are still continuing, with high levels of radiation hampering operations.
The decommissioning of the crippled plant is expected to take several decades.
BLOOD cancer patients are being encouraged to bring along a family member to participate in a world-first study hoping to uncover the causes of follicular lymphoma.
Researchers from the University of New South Wales are launching a unique study into the causes of follicular lymphoma, one of the most common types of a rare group of blood cancers, or non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The study will survey patients currently being treated for the cancer along with a family member without the disease.
They'll be questioned on their lifestyle and occupation, and samples of their DNA will be taken.
It's a world-first study which tries to uncover why some members of a family develop the disease, while others don't.
"In families we share genes and share exposures, so this is using a rather novel way of designing the study, to try and find out what's different between two brothers or sisters," the study's leader, associate professor Claire Vajdic told AAP.
"This is the first time we've targeted the most common form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma to better understand why it occurs and what factors contribute to it and identify potential treatments."
The study has already begun in Victoria, and the university is now looking for participants in NSW.
"Even though is a very common disease, we need to conduct a study in two states so that we get meaningful results," Ms Vajdic said.
The study has been prompted because of an "epidemic" of new cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, with incidences increasing by 40 per cent in the last 25 years.
While the reasons behind this are not clear, researchers believe it may have something to do with occupational exposures to pesticides and insolvents.
That's why study participants will have their blood samples collected to search for pesticides and see why they've developed.
Ms Vajdic said the potential for the study's findings could be big.
"It's an incurable disease at this stage.
"We want to identify the risk factors for this disease to target better programs to guide people on how they can reduce their risk of developing it."
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard says the government is "working through" allegations that Australian aid money is going into a fund that is being used to pay for fake and ineffective anti-malarial drugs in some of the world's poorest countries.
Australia has agreed to put $100 million into a global fund to provide drugs to combat the spread of malaria, but it has been reported in the United States that the fund is the subject of corruption in at least four countries.
Ms Gillard told reporters in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh at the end of the East Asia Summit that she was aware of the allegations and they were being examined.
"We, through our aid program, take a very rigorous approach to the expenditure of Australian dollars and we have monitoring and checking processes," she said.
Ms Gillard said Australia had a lot of experience in fighting diseases and knew how to "make a difference".
"We've put a lot of vaccine into kids' arms and down their throats ... but of course you have always got to be vigilant about the expenditure of every Australian dollar," she said.
PALESTINIAN militants have fired a rocket toward Jerusalem, causing an explosion moments after air raid sirens sounded across the city.
The sound of the blast could be heard in the distance from downtown Jerusalem.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the rocket apparently did not reach the city and authorities are searching for the blast site.
It's the second rocket attack aimed at Jerusalem since a round of fighting broke out between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza last Wednesday. Jerusalem, nearly 80 kilometres from Gaza, is the most distant city the militants have targeted.
The rocket attack occurred as diplomats were trying to work out a cease-fire.
The EU has recognised Syria's National Coalition as the legitimate representative of Syria's people. Source: AAP
FRESH fighting between Kurdish militiamen and Syrian rebels has erupted in the northern Syria town of Ras al-Ain, where dozens have died since the new front in Syria's complex civil war opened last week.
Elsewhere in northern Syria, several rebel battalions went on the offensive on Tuesday and attacked the Sheikh Suleiman air defence battalion west of Aleppo city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The clashes came less than two days after rebels, armed with at least five tanks according to a military source, took full control of the sprawling Base 46 in the same province.
The Britain-based Observatory said that at least 29 people had died in clashes in Ras al-Ain, near the Turkey border, over the past 24 hours.
The casualties included four Kurdish fighters, a local Kurdish official, and 24 members of the Islamist Al-Nusra Front and Gharba al-Sham rebel battalions.
The Kurdish fighters are members of the People's Defence Units, the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which is linked to Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Activists in Ras al-Ain, located in the largely Kurdish province of Hasakeh, said that 35 Kurds were taken prisoner by the Gharba al-Sham and Al-Nusra Front, while 11 insurgents were captured.
A Ras al-Ain activist, who gave his name only as Hevidar, told AFP that tension has been high between rebels and the PYD since the insurgents took the town last week.
The clashes on Monday erupted after a Kurdish demonstration, which demanded that all rebels not from the town leave, was met with refusal.
Syria's civil war, which activists say has killed more than 39,000 people, began as an anti-regime uprising in March last year but morphed into a conflict pitting mainly Sunni rebels against Assad's regime dominated by his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
But earlier this month Kurdish residents backed by PYD militiamen began taking control of towns near the border with Turkey as pro-government forces pulled out without a fight, sparking tension and clashes with established rebel groups in the region.
North and northeast Syria are home to most of the country's two million-strong Kurdish minority, who have mostly stayed out of the civil war leading to angry allegations by the opposition that they are cutting deals with President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Kurds question why the rebels entered a safe area, which they say is home to thousands of refugees who fled embattled areas of the country.
Violence also erupted on Tuesday in the capital Damascus when the army shelled the southern Damascus district of Hajar al-Aswad, the Observatory said, while state media reported that two mortars hit the ministry of information building.
Southeast of Damascus, regime forces shelled Daraya - the scene of the worst massacre in the 20-month conflict - in the latest of several attempts to storm the town over the past few days, the watchdog said.
And on the eastern outskirts of the capital, where the army has boosted its operations, three rebels were killed in shelling on the towns of Harasta and Irbin amid fierce clashes which left a fourth insurgent dead.
At least 122 people were killed nationwide on Monday in Syria - 37 civilians, 28 soldiers and 57 rebels, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, lawyers and medics in civilian and military hospitals.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday he feared that the militarisation of the conflict in Syria could turn the country into a "regional battleground."
"We are deeply concerned about the continued militarisation of the conflict, horrendous violations of human rights and the risk of Syria turning into a regional battleground as the violence intensifies," Ban told reporters during a visit to Cairo.
He urged the international community to support the efforts of UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi for "an inclusive Syrian led political transition that will address the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people."
As the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate, Ban also appealed to countries "to generously contribute more to our humanitarian programs inside Syria and in the region and to assist Syria's neighbours in dealing with the refugee crisis."
A TEENAGER has been charged over a stabbing at a railway station in Sydney's northwest.
Police were called to Eastwood station around 4.15pm on Monday after a fight between two youths which allegedly ended with a 16-year-old stabbing an 18-year-old in the chest and upper arm.
The younger teenager was detained by members of the public until police and paramedics arrived.
The older was taken to Westmead Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Officers arrested the 16-year-old Dundas Valley boy at the scene.
He was taken to Ryde Police Station and charged with reckless wounding, possession of a knife in a public place and possession of a prohibited drug.
Police said he was granted conditional bail and would appear before Hornsby Childrens Court on December 12.
KEVIN Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull could never join forces to create their own political party because they wouldn't be able to decide who should lead it.
At least, that was what the former prime minister told the ABC Q&A audience on Monday - although he was quick to add, "That was a joke."
Host Tony Jones observed Mr Rudd and Prime Minister Julia Gillard couldn't agree on leadership issues either.
"And nor could Malcolm and Tony (Abbott)," Mr Rudd shot back.
The former leaders of the Labor and Liberal parties needled each other as they answered a series of questions about their ambitions.
"It remains a matter of complete bafflement to me why the Labor Party doesn't put Kevin back," Mr Turnbull said.
"But that just proves why I'm not suited to the Labor Party - because I'm too rational."
Mr Rudd wondered how Mr Turnbull managed to get on with his leader, saying they were "chalk and cheese" and suggested, "You're more at home on our side of politics, mate".
He said Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was Labor's "central asset".
"We hope that there's going to be a policy-based election," he said.
"But for that to occur Mr Abbott is going to have to either a) go or b) have a deep personal reformation in terms of being faintly interested in policy of any description whatsoever."
With polls repeatedly showing voters like the pair better than their respective party leaders, Mr Turnbull was at pains to emphasise he would be part of any coalition government leadership team even if not as prime minister.
"Regrettably if they (voters) are Kevin-fanciers ... Kevin, to the loss of his party and I think to the loss of the country, will remain not-so-enigmatically on the back bench," he said.
Mr Rudd lamented the current political climate, which "suffocates" discussion.
"For God's sake what we need in this country is a mature national conversation about policy options for the nation's future around the common vision for where we want to be in 2010, 2020, 2030, 2040," he said.
"It's a rolling Punch and Judy show where everyone knocks each other out over a technical flaw here, someone overstating the case there."
A DISSIDENT Chinese poet has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for contract fraud, his lawyer says.
Li Bifeng, 48 - who was previously jailed for five years for involvement in the Tiananmen Square democracy movement - was sentenced at Shehong County Court in Sichuan province on Monday, said lawyer Zhao Jianwei.
He said the defence would appeal.
"We believe the verdict was not based on the facts and the prosecutors and the court violated procedural laws and regulations."
Li's friend - exiled dissident Liao Yiwu - said Li was targeted because he was suspected of financing Liao's escape from the country last year. Liao said those suspicions were false.
Earlier this year Liao launched an international appeal from Germany calling for Li's release. Nobel Prize for Literature winner Herta Muller and Ha Jin, winner of the US National Book Award, were among those who joined the appeal.
Li's wife said Monday's verdict was untenable.
Zhan Xia said the charge related to a sales agreement her husband had signed with an alcohol company to help sell apartments on southern Hainan island.
"After the apartments were sold, the company sued him for contract fraud, which is groundless," she said.
"His being on trial must be related to his alleged help of Liao because the economic charge against him can't be proven," she said.
Zhan said she had only seen her husband once since he was detained in September 2011 and that was at his trial in July.
"He wasn't in good mental health and was suffering from high blood pressure," she said.
A man from Shehong County's prosecutor's office said he knew nothing about the case. Calls to Shehong Public Security Bureau rang unanswered.
A MAN has died following a crash in north Queensland.
The two-car crash happened on the Gillies Highway near Yungaburra about 4pm on Sunday.
The 80-year-old Yungaburra man was transported to Cairns Base Hospital after the crash, but died from his injuries.
A 29-year-old man was taken to Atherton Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott's approval rating may be on the wane but the coalition would win an election on a two-party basis, the latest Fairfax/Nielsen poll says.
According to the poll, the opposition would win 53 per cent of the vote (up one point since last month) and Labor would receive 47 per cent (down one point).
The poll, in Monday's Fairfax newspapers, shows Labor's national primary vote is steady on 34 per cent, while the coalition's vote has risen by two points to 45 per cent, with the Greens up one point on 12 per cent.
Mr Abbott's approval eased one point to 36 per cent. His disapproval is steady at 60 per cent.
His net approval is down a point to minus 24, a new personal low.
Voter approval for Prime Minister Julia Gillard remains steady on 47 per cent and, with her disapproval steady on 48 per cent, she has an unchanged net approval of minus one.
Ms Gillard maintains a nine-point lead over Mr Abbott in the preferred prime minister stakes at 51 per cent (up a point) to Mr Abbott's 42 per cent (up two points) in the national poll of 1400 taken from Thursday to Saturday.
DANIEL Craig will become the highest-paid James Bond actor after signing on for two more films as the famous British spy.
Craig, 44, who is in Australia driving the release of Skyfall - his latest outing as 007 - will be paid STG31 million ($A48 million) to star in two more titles of the 50-year-old franchise, The Sunday Times reports.
As Skyfall continues to prove itself a box office scorcher around the globe, plans are under way for a 2014 release of the next 007 instalment, followed in 2016 by Craig's fifth turn in the tuxedo.
Craig's pay packet has taken a steep climb since he first appeared as Bond in the 2006 flick Casino Royale, for which he received STG3 million, the newspaper reported on Sunday.
Quantum of Solace, released in 2008, brought in STG7 million for the MI6 tough guy role, while Craig has collected STG17 million for his latest appearance.
Craig's 007 predecessor Pierce Brosnan earned up to US$16.5 million for his third and final Bond film, Die Another Day.
Sean Connery, the original Bond, was paid an average of STG218,000 for each film, equating to about STG3.2 million in 2012 terms.
The same calculations saw Australian George Lazenby paid STG468,000 for his one-off appearance, Roger Moore earn a STG6.3 million on average per film and Timothy Dalton pocket STG5.4 million per film for his efforts.
The latest deal offered to Craig means he will earn STG9.6 million on average for each of his five Bond films.
