Syria pro-regime gunmen kill 13 in family

A SYRIA pro-regime militia has killed 13 members of the same family, including six children, in the Mediterranean coastal village of Bayda, a watchdog has charged.

"The number of people from one family who were killed by regime forces in the village of Bayda ... has risen to 13," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.

The killings came to light one day after they occurred, while fierce clashes pitting rebels against troops raged in Banias nearby.

"The three men, unarmed, were shot dead outside their home. The militiamen then broke in, and killed the women and the children," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

He did not know how the women and children were killed by what he said were members of the pro-regime National Defence Force.

"We have conflicting reports. Some say they were shot dead, others that they were burnt alive," he added.

Abdel Rahman attributed the violence to a revenge attack motivated by sectarian hatred.

"The Banias area is home to a mixture of Sunnis and Alawites. On Saturday, four Alawite members of the National Defence Force were killed in fighting there," he told AFP.

"The pro-regime militiamen took revenge for their deaths by killing this family," he added.

On May 2 and 3, some 300 people were massacred in Banias and Bayda, according to a toll compiled by the Observatory.

While Banias was one of the first towns to see demonstrations calling for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, its location in Tartus province - an Alawite bastion - has prompted particularly fierce crackdowns there.

09.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Man hurt in Sydney home invasion

A MAN has been assaulted by a gun-wielding attacker during a home invasion in Sydney's northwest.

Police were called to a unit complex in Telopea at about 6pm (AEST) on Sunday where a man allegedly had entered a unit armed with a pistol and argued with the occupants.

During the incident a man aged in his forties was struck to the back of the head and sustained a deep cut, police said.

His assailant fled the scene before police arrived.

The injured man was taken to Ryde Hospital where he remains in a stable condition.

The man is described as being of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern appearance, aged in his twenties and last seen wearing a white T-Shirt and black pants.

09.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Sinai attacks kill two Egyptian soldiers

GUNMEN have killed two Egyptian soldiers and a policeman in three separate attacks in the restive Sinai peninsula bordering Israel, security and medical sources say.

In the town of El-Arish on Sunday unidentified assailants shot dead one soldier in front of the television and broadcasting building, another who was on guard duty, and the policeman in an attack on a police station, a security source told AFT said.

09.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Rebels kill 21 Soldiers In Colombia

AT least 17 soldiers have been killed in an ambush staged by FARC rebels in Colombia's Arauca province bordering Venezuela, media reports say.

Four other soldiers died in fighting with the guerrilla group in the southern province of Caqueta, the reports said.

The soldiers were killed on Saturday, when Colombia marked the 203rd anniversary of its independence from Spain.

The ambush was staged by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrillas in El Mordisco, a rural area along the highway that links the cities of Fortul and Tame.

The firefight in Caqueta left three soldiers wounded, the army's 12th Brigade said in a statement.

Six guerrillas were killed and two others were captured by soldiers, the army said.

President Juan Manuel Santos, meanwhile, took part in a series of Independence Day events on Saturday.

The president called on citizens and Colombia's political parties to back the peace talks his administration has been holding with the FARC for the past eight months.

The FARC, Colombia's oldest and largest leftist guerrilla group, is on both the US and European Union lists of terrorist groups.

Drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping-for-ransom are the FARC's main means of financing its operations.

09.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Shots fired at NSW Central Coast house

SHOTS have been fired into a house on the NSW Central Coast and an improvised explosive device has been left near a car on the property, police say.

It's believed two shots were fired from a car, hitting the garage door of the house at Ettalong Beach at about 5am (AEST) on Sunday.

Police said an undetonated improvised explosive device was located near a car parked on the driveway. The occupants of the home were not injured in the incident.

The Police Rescue and Bomb Disposal Squad attended the scene and rendered the improvised explosive device safe.

Police were told a small light-coloured vehicle was seen nearby driving at excessive speed without headlights moments after the shooting.

09.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Six injured in Mexico oil pipeline blast

AN oil pipeline has exploded in a rural area in central Mexico, igniting a huge blaze in which six people were injured, the state oil company says.

Petroleos de Mexico said on its Twitter account that Sunday's blast appeared to have been caused by an attempted theft of crude oil.

Four policemen and two firefighters who responded to the explosion and fire were injured in a secondary explosion, Pemex said.

The incident occurred in an open field near the municipality of Tonanitla, about 40km from Mexico City.

09.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Fire damages Paris office of Femen

A PRE-DAWN fire has damaged the Paris office of the radical topless feminist group Femen in what police are treating as an accident.

But the group called it a "disturbing coincidence", noting that the Paris branch, headquartered in a working-class district in the northeast of the city, had recently received a phone message calling the activists "witches" who should "burn".

The fire broke out at 5am local time on Sunday in a room where Ukrainian activist Inna Shevchenko, who was recently granted asylum in France, has been sheltering.

She was not present at the time, though several members of the group were asleep in the offices located on the building's second and top floors.

Among them were Pauline Hillier and Marguerite Stern, who were detained for nearly a month in Tunisia after a topless protest on May 29.

Firefighters said no one was injured.

But Hillier said the group was "shocked" by the incident and "would like to know what really happened".

She said: "We get death threats every day. Yesterday we received a message that said 'burn witches'.

"We find that there are many coincidences and this has happened just one week after the stamp controversy," she said.

Shevchenko was said to have partly inspired a new stamp released on Bastille Day, France's national day, bearing the image of Marianne, the female symbol of the French Republic.

That sparked fierce controversy, with critics of Femen denouncing the new Marianne as a "Christianophobe, hater and ideologue".

Earlier this month Shevchenko provoked Muslim ire when she tweeted at the beginning of Ramadan: "What could be more stupid than Ramadan? What is uglier than this religion?"

09.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Company tax top priority, says business

BUSINESS has told the federal government that balancing the budget is not their main concern, with a survey finding cuts in company tax and infrastructure spending as far more important.

According to an Australian Industry Group survey of 330 manufacturing, services and construction companies, 35 per cent listed company tax cuts as the top priority, while 33 per cent nominated infrastructure spending.

Only 16 per cent said balancing the 2013-14 budget was a top priority, Ai Group said.

"It (the survey) shows that business believes that in this current economic environment balancing the Budget is not the main game," Ai Group chief Innes Willox said in a statement.

09.29 | 0 komentar | Read More

NSW sex abuse inquiry to start Monday

A SPECIAL NSW inquiry into allegations of a child sex abuse cover-up in the Catholic Church will begin in Newcastle on Monday.

The special commission of inquiry was announced by NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell in last November, following explosive allegations made to the media by police officer Peter Fox.

Detective Chief Inspector Fox will be the first of a long list of senior police who will take the witness box when the inquiry begins in the Newcastle Supreme Court on Monday.

The senior investigator asserted the church had covered up evidence in relation to pedophile priests in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in the Hunter region of NSW.

The inquiry will look at how the church handled complaints about former priests Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher, both now deceased.

It will also look at the circumstances in which Inspector Fox was asked to stop investigating sex abuse in the diocese.

The NSW inquiry will sit for two weeks in May and three weeks through June and July.

It is separate from the Federal Royal Commission into child sex abuse.

Margaret Cunneen SC has been appointed as Special Commissioner to the inquiry.

09.29 | 0 komentar | Read More

Qld men cop highest sun risk: report

ONE in eight men and one in 12 women in Queensland get sunburnt on an average weekend, according to a report in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Young men who work outdoors appear to be most at risk, and people who take part in physical activity are more likely to report sunburn.

Sunburn is defined as redness that lasts more than 12 hours.

The report is based on interviews with 16,473 Queensland residents aged 18 years and over during 2009 and 2010. They were asked if they had been sunburnt on the previous weekend.

Queensland has the highest melanoma rate in the world.

People aged 18 to 24 years are seven times more likely to suffer sunburn than those aged over 65. People aged 35 to 44 are five times more likely to be burnt.

Sunburn is less likely among people who generally take protective measures in summer, the authors write.

"Our results are broadly consistent with a 2004 Queensland survey showing young age and male sex greatly increase odds of sunburn," write the authors from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research and the Preventive Health Unit at Queensland Health.

They say sunburn is still a major public health issue despite 50 years of attempts to educate the public.

The most common reason given for getting burnt is a failure to use sunscreen or protective clothing.

09.29 | 0 komentar | Read More