Quake hits off Alaska, tsunami 'no threat'

OFFICIALS have cancelled a tsunami warning for parts of southern Alaska and coastal Canada.

The Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre says a tsunami was generated by a strong earthquake, but the waves don't pose a threat to the areas.

The centre says some areas are seeing small sea level changes, but there will be no widespread destructive wave that had earlier been warned about.

The warning area included coastal areas from Cape Fairweather, Alaska, to the north tip of Vancouver Island, Canada. The area extended for more than 1,125 kilometres.

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TV channel facing charges for gang-rape interview

INDIAN police they had filed a case against a cable news channel for airing an interview with the boyfriend of a woman whose gang-rape and murder has spurred protests across the country.

A criminal case was registered late on Friday against Hindi-language Zee News channel over the footage, which police said would lead to the identification of the victim in breach of a law entitling her to anonymity.

The interview showed the boyfriend's face unobscured as he recalled the horrific incident on the night of December 16 when the couple took a private bus to return home from a cinema in south Delhi.

Once in the bus, he was attacked and his 23-year-old girlfriend was allegedly gang-raped by the driver and five others who also violated her with an iron bar causing immense internal damage that led to her death last weekend.

"We have filed a case against Zee News under section 228 A of the Indian Penal Code which deals with disclosing the identity of victims of offences such as rape," police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said.

Indian law does not allow the naming of rape victims without permission from the victim or family members and showing the boyfriend without obscuring his face could be judged to have revealed her identity.

The boyfriend levelled harsh criticism at the police for arriving late at the scene and then delaying taking the couple to hospital while they argued over which police station should take responsibility for the crime.

AFP also interviewed the man and - like Zee News - did not name him.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on authorities not to press charges against Zee News.

"This is an instance of greatly misplaced priorities," Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program coordinator, said in a statement.

"Authorities are hardly protecting the victim's rights by retaliating against news media that are bringing to light details of the horrific crime that claimed her life."

Zee News faces a separate court case in which it is accused of trying to extort money from a lawmaker.

Zee reporters were accused by Naveen Jindal of offering to drop a potentially damaging story in exchange for one billion rupees ($18 million).

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Missing Sydney businesswoman found

A WOMAN who went missing from a Sydney hospital last weekend has been found.

Police found 40-year-old Belinda Burcham, nee Sheehan, in Paddington just before 9pm on Saturday (AEDT).

She was taken by ambulance to hospital, where she is being assessed by doctors.

The Sydney businesswoman and mother of two had left St Vincent's Hospital at Darlinghurst last Sunday with no shoes, phone or money, sparking a search by friends and family.

The Double Bay resident left hospital without medical clearance prompting a search by police from Kings Cross and Rose Bay local area commands.

Police thanked the public for their assistance.

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Malala leaves UK hospital

A 15-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban for promoting girls' education has been released from a Birmingham hospital to live with her family, doctors said Friday.

Photographs released by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham showed Malala Yousufzai hugging nurses, waving and smiling shyly.

Malala will live with her parents and two brothers in the UK while she continues to receive treatment, but will be admitted again in the next month for another round of surgery to rebuild her skull.

Experts have been optimistic that Malala, who was airlifted from Pakistan in October to receive specialised medical care, has a good chance of recovery because the brains of teenagers are still growing and can better adapt to trauma.

"Malala is a strong young woman and has worked hard with the people caring for her to make excellent progress in her recovery," said Dr Dave Rosser, the medical director for University Hospitals Birmingham. "Following discussions with Malala and her medical team, we decided that she would benefit from being at home with her parents and two brothers."

Malala was returning home from school in Pakistan's scenic Swat Valley on October 9 when the Taliban targeted her for criticising their efforts to keep girls from getting an education. The militants have threatened to target Malala again because they say she promotes "Western thinking."

Pakistani doctors removed a bullet that entered her head and headed toward her spine. The decision to send Malala to Britain was taken in consultation with her family; Pakistan is paying for her treatment.

Pakistan also appointed Malala's father, Ziauddin, as its education attache in Birmingham. The position, with an initial three-year commitment, virtually guarantees that Malala will remain in Britain for now.

Her case won worldwide recognition, and the teen became a symbol for the struggle for women's rights in Pakistan. In an indication of her reach, she made the shortlist for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" for 2012.

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'World's fattest man' loses 292k

A MAN once dubbed the world's fattest says he is looking forward to a normal life after shedding 292 kilograms.

UK Postman Paul Mason weighed in at 444 kilos before a gastric bypass in 2010 to reduce the size of his stomach.

He now weighs 152 kilos and says he needs further surgery costing close to $US60,000 ($58,000) to remove folds of loose skin.

The 51-year-old has told London's Sun tabloid he was ashamed to be called the fattest man in the world because he felt guilty.

He still wants to drop a few more pounds down to between 89 and 95 kilos.

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More Tas communities threatened

TWO huge bushfires were threatening more Tasmanian communities after homes were destroyed and police investigated a suspected death in the south of the state.

Up to 65 buildings, including houses, a school and an RSL club, had been destroyed in the small community of Dunalley, 55 kilometres southeast of Hobart.

Police said around 15 properties at nearby Boomer Bay and more at Connellys Marsh had also been lost as the impact of catastrophic fire conditions in southern Tasmania began to emerge.

More communities were being affected late on Friday night by the Dunalley area fire and another in the Derwent Valley northwest of Hobart which was causing concern again after winds changed.

Copping and Boomer Bay residents were being advised to move to the site of the Falls music festival at Marion Bay, while the communities of Dodges Ferry, Primose Sands, Connellys Marsh and Susans Bay were also being threatened.

Fire crews were monitoring potential spot fires further south at Eaglehawk Neck and banking on a southerly change due late on Friday night to stop the fire from spreading.

The second fire was impacting Karanja, with Lawrenny and Hamilton expected to be affected on Saturday morning.

Tasmania deputy police commissioner Scott Tilyard said a team was on the ground at Dunalley to investigate a fire crew's concerns that a man may have been trapped while trying to defend his house.

"We can't at this early stage rule out that there has been loss of life," Mr Tilyard told reporters in Hobart.

He said around 50 people had sheltered near the Boomer Bay jetty and another group were safe at the local pub.

Police boats were checking the shoreline for people reported to be sheltering in the water - although none had been located - as well as ferrying supplies to the cut-off Tasman Peninsula.

A helicopter was evacuating those needing treatment.

Electricity and some phone communications were out of action on the peninsula, which was cut off with the closure of the major Arthur Highway.

Around 600 people were taking refuge at temporary accommodation at Nubeena and 1500 people were reported to have visited the Port Arthur convict ruins on Friday.

"Those people are being looked after as best we can," Mr Tilyard said.

"The main thing is they are safe."

Huge plumes of smoke were visible from Hobart as the island capital sweltered through its hottest day on record. The temperature reached 41.8C at 4.05pm (AEDT), the hottest it has been since record keeping started in 1883.

Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) Chief Officer Mike Brown said conditions on Friday had reached the catastrophic level in the rating system that was developed after the Black Saturday fires in Victoria.

Elsewhere, a grass fire at Epping in the state's north had been contained and another blaze near Bicheno on the east coast had been downgraded.

Mr Brown said the change would bring lower temperatures and higher humidity but little rain.

"Tonight we still consider that there's a serious danger," he said.

Acting premier Bryan Green said the state government would provide whatever emergency assistance was needed and would liaise with the federal government.

A police hotline has been activated for people concerned about relatives and friends - 1800 567 567.

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China 'copies' star architect's design

ALREADY famed for fake designer bags and pirated DVDs, imitation in China may have reached new heights with a set of towers that strongly resemble ones designed by renowned architect Zaha Hadid.

A developer in the southwestern city of Chongqing is putting up buildings that share the distinctive round contours and white stripes of a 39-floor shopping and office complex conceived by the British-Iraqi designer and being built in Beijing.

The magazine China Intellectual Property noted that the "design sketch indeed shows certain similarities", and listed several buildings by the developer that resembled others elsewhere in China.

Satoshi Ohashi, project director at Zaha Hadid Architects for the Beijing complex, told Der Spiegel Online: "It is possible that the Chongqing pirates got hold of some digital files or renderings of the project."

It could rank among the more flagrant ripoffs in a country already notorious for imitating foreign products without permission - but the developer of the Chongqing project, Meiquan 22nd Century, has denied any copying.

Such accusations "do not conform with the truth" and "have had a negative impact" on the company, general manager Yao Yumao said at an earlier press conference, according to a transcript published online.

Ms Hadid was the first woman to win architecture's prestigious Pritzker prize.

Her avant-garde designs have been in high demand in China, where she has a granite and glass opera house in the southern city of Guangzhou and an arts centre under construction in Chengdu, among other projects.

China's ability to reproduce foreign products is best known for imitation luxury purses and copies of Hollywood films. But knockoffs have ranged from a three-dollar version of Kate Middleton's engagement ring to fake Apple stores and an entire Austrian village.

In 2012 a developer unveiled a recreation of the centuries-old alpine hamlet of Hallstatt, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in what the state-run news agency Xinhua called "a bold example of China's knock-off culture".

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Pair charged after Sydney police assaulted

A MAN and a woman have been charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest after a confrontation with two officers in Sydney's west.

Police said the officers went to a unit at Carramar about 1.40pm (AEDT) on Thursday to serve paperwork when they saw a 27-year-old man who was allegedly breaching his bail conditions.

It's alleged that as they attempted to arrest him, a 46-year-old woman grabbed one of the officers, while the man struck the other on the back of his head and spat in his face.

Police said the woman threw a glass vase at the female officer, missing her, then struck her in the face and grabbed her around the throat.

That officer received a black eye in the struggle.

When other officers arrived, the man and woman were arrested.

They were treated at the scene for minor injuries by paramedics before being taken to Fairfield Police Station.

The man was charged with assaulting police, resisting arrest and breaching bail and was refused bail to appear at Parramatta Bail Court on Friday.

The woman was charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest and was given strict bail conditions to appear at Fairfield Local Court on February 6.

The male police officer was taken to Liverpool Hospital for treatment and has since been released.

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Afghan warlord vows more bloodshed

AFGHAN warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has vowed to kill as many Western soldiers as possible before NATO combat forces withdraw from the country in 2014.

Hekmatyar, a former prime minister who leads Afghanistan's second largest militant group Hezb-i-Islami, told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper on Wednesday that fresh attacks would send a warning to "others waiting to invade Afghanistan".

"Before the withdrawal of invading forces, the Mujahideen would like to witness with their own eyes a scene that will teach the invaders to never think of coming this way again," he said in a video obtained by the Telegraph in response to questions asked through an intermediary.

Hekmatyar, designated a global terrorist by the United States, warned that Afghanistan could collapse into bloody civil unrest after NATO troops withdraw, 13 years after the US-led invasion.

"The fact is that the government has failed," said the former premier, who is shown in the video with a white beard and wearing a black turban.

"We might have a dreadful situation after 2014 which no one could have anticipated."

NATO is aiming to train 350,000 Afghan soldiers and police by the end of 2014 to take over responsibility for security.

But trust between the two sides has been seriously undermined by "insider" attacks by Afghan forces that killed more than 60 foreign troops in 2012, and the transition process has been beset by other problems including desertions.

Hekmatyar indicated that Hezb-i-Islami, notorious for its bloody siege of Kabul in the 1990s, has softened some of its hardline Islamist policies such as banning women from education.

He condemned the Pakistani Taliban's blocking of girls' schooling, which was thrown into the spotlight in October by its attempted murder of 15-year-old education campaigner Malala Yousafzai.

He insisted that Hezb-i-Islami "consider education is as necessary for girls as it is for boys".

The former premier also blasted Britain's Prince Harry, who has been serving in Afghanistan since September, as a "jackal" who was "drunk" while on duty.

"The British prince comes to Afghanistan to kill innocent Afghans while he is drunk," Hekmatyar told the Telegraph.

A spokeswoman from Prince Harry's office at Clarence House declined to comment on Hekmatyar's remarks.

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Filipino child dies from NYE shooting

A 7-YEAR-OLD girl has died after being hit in the head by a stray bullet during New Year's Eve revelry in the Philippines, heightening calls to halt one of Asia's most violent celebrations of the event.

Stephanie Nicole Ella was watching fireworks with her family in their working-class neighbourhood in Manila's suburban Caloocan city when she suddenly collapsed, blood spurting from her head.

As she fought for her life, extensive media coverage of her ordeal turned her into a symbol of widespread concern over the country's violent new year celebrations.

President Benigno Aquino III's spokesman, Edwin Lacierda, said Ella's death on Wednesday "puts the burden on all of us to make certain that this tragedy is not repeated".

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Mandela rests at home

SOUTH Africa's presidency says former leader Nelson Mandela is progressing with his recuperation from illness and doctors are closely monitoring his condition.

Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said on Wednesday "everything is moving OK" as 94-year-old Mandela rests at his home in Johannesburg after a hospital stay last month.

The former president received treatment for a lung infection and also had gallstones removed.

Maharaj says Mandela is "taking it easy" and is under "close medical attention".

Mandela spent 27 years in prison under apartheid and became South Africa's first black president in democratic elections in 1994.

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Pope prays for peace at New Year mass

POPE Benedict XVI prayed for the "gift of peace" this year, condemning the inequality between rich and poor and "unregulated financial capitalism" at a New Year's mass in St Peter's Basilica.

The Pope spoke of "hotbeds of tension and confrontation caused by the growing inequality between rich and poor and the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mentality also expressed by unregulated financial capitalism."

But he also said that humanity had "an innate vocation for peace" and quoted from the Biblical passage: "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God."

Peacemakers "are like the yeast in the dough - they allow humanity to grow according to God's design," he said.

The Roman Catholic Church celebrates New Year's Day as World Peace Day.

The Pope later addressed a crowd in St Peter's Square with his traditional Angelus prayer and invoked the blessing of the Virgin Mary "like a mother blesses her children who are about to set off on a voyage."

"A new year is like a voyage. With the light and grace of God, may it be a voyage of peace for every person and every family, for every country and for the whole world," he said.

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Attacks down but Iraq in 'low-level war'

VIOLENCE in Iraq dropped in 2012, data shows, but insurgents proved they were still capable of mounting waves of attacks and a watchdog warned the country was still in a "low-level war".

The warnings, which come after the first full year since American forces completed their withdrawal in December 2011, were punctuated by a series of nationwide shootings and bombings on New Year's Eve in which 28 people were killed and nearly 100 wounded.

The latest violence came just days ahead of a major Shi'ite commemoration ceremony, and after more than a week of non-stop anti-government rallies in Sunni-majority areas where demonstrators allege targeting of their community by Iraq's Shi'ite-led authorities.

A total of 144 people were killed across Iraq last month, including 40 policemen and 15 soldiers, and 360 others were wounded, according to figures compiled by AFP based on reports from security and medical officials.

The monthly death toll was near 2012's low of 136 set in October.

And data released by Iraq's ministries of health, interior and defence said 2,174 people were killed throughout last year, sharply lower than in previous years, particularly compared to the height of the country's brutal sectarian war from 2005 to 2008 when tens of thousands were killed.

But Britain-based monitor group Iraq Body Count put the overall death toll at 4,471, more than double the official figures, though the last three months of 2012 represented a record low.

It warned in its annual report that "the country remains in a state of low-level war ... with a 'background' level of everyday armed violence punctuated by occasional larger-scale attacks designed to kill many people at once."

"2012 has been more consistent with an entrenched conflict than with any transformation in the security situation for Iraqis in the first year since the formal withdrawal of US troops," it said.

US troops withdrew in December 2011, though a small contingent of around 150 soldiers remains as part of a bilateral agreement to help train and supply Iraq's security forces.

Baghdad's police and military are widely agreed to be largely able to maintain internal security, but are not expected to be fully capable of defending Iraq's borders, airspace and waters until 2020.

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Workers 'killed boss, ate body parts'

Tea plantation workers torched a vehicle and the home of their boss, killing both him and his wife, following a labour dispute in the northeastern Indian state of Assam. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

POLICE in northeast India say they believe workers on a tea plantation who bludgeoned their boss and his wife to death last month also ate parts of their bodies.

A crowd of 1000 workers at the privately-owned M.K.B. Tea Estate in the state of Assam surrounded the plantation owner's bungalow last week. A mob then set it on fire in violence blamed on festering labour unrest in the region.

"Our investigations say that at least five plantation workers ate the flesh of the tea planter and his wife after they were brutally killed," Numol Mahatao, deputy police chief of Tinsukia district, told journalists.

"We suspect that about 15 people were actually involved in the crime although there were some 1000 present there at the spot," the police official said. "We have identified all the masterminds and nine are in our custody so far."

Mr Mahatao said the reports of cannibalism were based on a confession from one of the workers present during the attack.

Tea workers are notoriously badly paid and often housed in poor accommodation in remote areas. They have few protections from police and cannot take advantage of laws designed to guarantee them health care and fair working conditions, rights groups say.

The Indian Express newspaper said the violence was sparked by orders from the boss for 10 estate workers to vacate their quarters and by the detention of three employees by police over unspecified disputes.

"We are investigating the reasons that led to the attack. But whatever may be the reason, such acts of barbarism are unacceptable in this modern world," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.

Assam produces around 55 per cent of India's annual tea production, which stood at 988.32 million kilograms last year, and the state is home to more than 800 tea estates.
 

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Scandal for Labor over bear in there

WHEN Australia does political scandal, it never seems to reach the heights of other nations.

Consider the colour television affair which dogged the government of Malcolm Fraser in 1982.

For the Hawke Labor government, it was the Paddington Bear affair two years later.

The end result was special minister of state Mick Young - a former shearer and Labor national secretary - had to stand down from the ministry for a second time.

He first stood down in July 1983 in the wash-up of the Combe-Ivanov affair when it emerged Young had indiscreetly told a friend of links between former Labor Party secretary-turned-lobbyist David Combe and a Soviet intelligence agent. Young was reinstated six weeks later.

Then on July 5, 1984, Young was flying back into Australia and at Adelaide Airport signed a customs statement saying there was nothing to declare in his baggage.

Included in the luggage he was taking home for his wife Mary and sister-in-law Laurel Hughes were gifts - including a large and undeclared Paddington Bear.

The bear eventually incurred $1093 in duty.

But for Young, there were immediate problems.

The presence of a cuddly toy has tended to trivialise this controversy.

But the opposition compared it to the colour TV affair of 1982 which cost two Fraser government ministers their jobs when a television was declared to be black-and-white instead of colour, thereby evading customs duty.

Cabinet papers for 1984 and 1985, released by the National Archives of Australia on Tuesday, show the Labor government acted quickly, commissioning an inquiry into the bear affair led by lawyer Michael Black, QC.

But cabinet gave Black no special powers to compel answers to his questions and proposed the inquiry be conducted in an inquisitorial rather than adversarial manner.

Black duly produced a 135-page report, concluding there was no intention to evade customs duty, although Young should have taken more time and exercised greater care when he filled out the customs declaration form.

Young, who always insisted he knew nothing of the bear, returned to the ministry.

He eventually quit politics in 1988, again dogged by political scandal over his alleged handling of campaign donations for the 1987 election.

He died in April 1996 aged 59.

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Russia investigates Moscow plane crash

RUSSIAN medics have begun identifying the bodies of four crew killed when a passenger jet careened off the runway of a Moscow international airport and smashed into a highway.

Rescue workers recovered the flight recorders from the four-year-old Tu-204 of tycoon Alexander Lebedev's Red Wings airlines late on Saturday as Russia began mourning its latest post-Soviet crash.

"The plane touched down in the proper landing area but for some reason was unable to stop on the strip," Federal Air Transport Agency chief Alexander Neradko said in televised remarks.

A bigger loss of life was averted only because the 210-seat liner was empty except for eight crew on their return from a charter flight to the Czech Republic.

Mobile-phone footage of the accident posted on the internet showed large chunks of debris hurtling over the highway and smashing into cars speeding on the highway whose drivers had to make sudden emergency stops.

The jet split into three pieces and required the temporary shutdown of both the Kiev Highway and Vnukovo, Moscow's third-largest airport and the site of a special terminal for Kremlin officials.

A security source said investigators had brushed aside poor weather conditions or pilot error and were focusing on technical problems with the Tupolev as the most likely cause.

"According to preliminary information, the Vnukovo catastrophe may have been caused by problems with the plane, which became exposed in difficult weather conditions," the unnamed official told the Interfax news agency.

Witnesses said heavy gusts accompanying a light snowfall were swirling over the airport at the time the plane came in for landing on Saturday afternoon.

Red Wings owner Lebedev - a billionaire famous for his critical view of the Kremlin and his ownership of the London Evening Standard and The Independent in Britain - said the jet had passed a meticulous check in November.

"Plane number 47 had accumulated 8500 flight hours and underwent its last serious check on November 23," Lebedev tweeted.

He also suggested that traffic controllers' initial refusal to authorise landing - requiring the plane to complete several circles over Vnukovo - might have been a contributing factor.

"All machinery has its limits, even when it is new," Lebedev wrote.

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French paper to publish comic on Mohammed

A FRENCH weekly known for publishing cartoons of Prophet Mohammed to the ire of conservative Muslims says it plans to release a comic book biography of Islam's founder that will be researched and educational.

Satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has on several occasions depicted Islam's prophet in an effort to defend free speech and defy the anger of Muslims who believe depicting Mohammed is sacrilegious.

"It is a biography authorised by Islam since it was edited by Muslims," said Charlie Hebdo's publisher and the comic's illustrator, who goes by the name Charb.

"I don't think higher Muslim minds could find anything inappropriate," Charb said on Sunday.

The biography will be published on Wednesday and was put together by a Franco-Tunisian researcher known only as Zineb, Charb said.

The publisher said the idea for the comic book came to him in 2006 when a newspaper in Denmark published cartoons of Mohammed, later republished by Charlie Hebdo, drawing angry protests across the Muslim world.

"Before having a laugh about a character, it's better to know him. As much as we know about the life of Jesus, we know nothing about Mohammed," Charb said.

In September, Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of a naked Mohammed as violent protests were taking place in several countries over a low-budget film made in the United States that insults the prophet.

In 2011 Charlie Hebdo's offices were hit by a firebomb and its website pirated after publishing an edition titled "Charia Hebdo" featuring several Mohammed cartoons.

Charb, who has received death threats, lives under police protection.

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Man missing after canoe tips on NSW river

A MAN is missing after his canoe tipped over on a river in southwestern NSW.

The man, aged in his late 20s, was paddling on the Murrumbidgee River when the canoe overturned about 2.30pm (AEDT) on Sunday.

He failed to resurface, police say.

Police and emergency services were called out to a caravan park at Darlington Point and a search was begun. It was suspended at nightfall.

Police said the search would resume at first light on Monday and involve local officers, the State Emergency Service and Volunteer Rescue Association.

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