Scuffles erupt at Hong Kong pro-govt rally

SCUFFLES have broken out as thousands marched in support of Hong Kong's scandal-plagued leader Leung Chun-ying, ahead of a mass pro-democracy rally planned for New Year's Day.

About 2500 people took to the cold and windy streets waving Chinese flags and shouting slogans in favour of Leung, who faces possible impeachment proceedings over illegal alterations to his luxury home.

Leung was chosen to lead the southern Chinese city in March by a pro-Beijing election committee, promising to improve governance and uphold the rule of law in the former British colony of seven million people.

But in his first sixth months in power, Leung has seen his popularity ratings slide and faced a no-confidence vote in the city's legislature.

"We welcome people to support the government and to support the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong citizens," said Caring Hong Kong Power, the organisers of Sunday's march, which began at the city's Victoria Park and ended at the government headquarters.

But scuffles erupted midway between pro-Leung supporters and anti-government campaigners who arrived carrying colonial Hong Kong flags.

Some participants were also seen punching two reporters from a local television station, according to an AFP photographer.

"I am not comfortable with the increasing power of groups that create turmoil in Hong Kong," Stan Ngan, a 63-year-old retiree at the event told AFP, referring to increasingly vocal pro-democracy groups.

Pro-democracy campaigners plan to hold a rally on January 1 to demand the resignation of Leung and ask for universal suffrage, with organisers saying they hope to see 100,000 people at the rally.

Hong Kong returned to China in 1997 as a semi-autonomous territory with its own political and legal system that guarantees civil liberties not seen on the mainland, including freedom of speech and association.

Leung survived a vote of no confidence in the legislature earlier this month over illegal structures in his home, including a wooden trellis and a glass enclosure.

But he faces a planned impeachment motion scheduled for early January, with 27 pro-democracy lawmakers in the 70-member legislature saying they would support the motion.

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Jordan rejects Saddam Hussein candidates

JORDAN'S electoral commission has refused to register an independent list of candidates calling itself Saddam Hussein after the executed Iraqi dictator, the group's leader says.

"We have filed an appeal against the electoral commission's rejection of our Saddam Hussein list," Faiz Ziyadneh told AFP on Sunday.

The commission gave its approval on Thursday to all would-be candidates for a general election called for January 23, except the Saddam Hussein list, "because it is the name of an individual", the state Petra news agency reported.

The commission said it rejected "any name that could inflame sectarian, religious or racial enmity or affect national unity".

Ziyadneh condemned the commission's decision, saying it had "no legal basis" and that "electoral law does not stipulate any restrictions on the name of a list".

Ziyadneh said the list was named after one of the group's nine would-be candidates - Saddam Hussein Wared al-Hawamdah - but added it was also in memory of the hanged Iraqi leader.

He stressed the list, based in Mafraq province, north of Amman, was an independent list that did "not belong to any party, least of all the Baath", the Arab nationalist party of Saddam.

Amman's appeals court will decide within three days whether Ziyadneh's list will be allowed to be named Saddam Hussein, he said.

If the court upholds the commission's decision, "(another) name will be decided on at a meeting of the list's members, and we might not stand in the election", Ziyadneh added.

More than 1500 candidates, including 213 women, have been registered for the election, the commission said last Monday.

Saddam Hussein was captured after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and hanged in 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity, including a 1982 massacre of civilians from Iraq's Shi'ite majority community.

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Man shot in stomach in Sydney's southwest

A MAN has been shot in Sydney's southwest.

A 21-year-old man was found with a wound to his stomach after police were called to Green Valley Road, Busby about 11.15pm (AEDT) on Sunday following reports of a shooting.

The man was treated by ambulance paramedics before being taken to Liverpool Hospital.

A crime scene was established that will be examined by specialist forensic officers.

Police have urged anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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Benghazi security a 'huge problem': Obama

PRESIDENT Barack Obama has admitted that a probe into a deadly assault on a US consulate in Libya had uncovered a "huge problem" in security procedures at the mission.

"We're not going to be defensive about it," Obama said in an interview recorded on Saturday for NBC's Meet the Press. "We're not going to pretend that this was not a problem. This was a huge problem."

On September 11, the anniversary of the 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda on New York and Washington, heavily-armed militants stormed the US consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi and attacked a nearby CIA safehouse.

Four Americans died in the assault, including US ambassador Chris Stevens, and Obama's domestic opponents have attacked the administration's handling of both security prior to the attack and public statements afterwards.

In his interview, Obama said all of the recommendations of a critical report into the State Department's operation in Benghazi would be implemented, and said US agents were hunting down those responsible for the killings.

"With respect to who carried it out, that's an ongoing investigation. The FBI has sent individuals to Libya repeatedly," the president said.

"We have some very good leads, but this is not something that I'm going to be at liberty to talk about right now."

Obama also defended UN ambassador Susan Rice, who was accused by Republican lawmakers of misleading the public when she said the attack was a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim film made privately in the United States.

Rice had been considered the frontrunner to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as America's top diplomat in Obama's second term, but dropped out of the running after becoming the focus of Republican attacks.

"She appeared on a number of television shows reporting what she and we understood to be the best information at the time," Obama said, accusing opponents of making a scapegoat of his close ally.

"This was a politically motivated attack on her. I mean, of all the people in my national security team, she probably had the least to do with anything that happened in Benghazi."

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Russia sends landing ships to Syria

A RUSSIAN warship carrying a marines unit has left its Black Sea port for Syria amid preparations for a possible evacuation of nationals living and working in the strife-torn country, news reports say.

The Novocherkassk landing ship is the third such craft dispatched since Friday to the Tartus port that Russia leases from its last Middle East ally, agencies cited an unnamed official in the general staff as saying.

The reports said the Azov and Nikolai Filchenkov landing ships had also been sent to Syria from their Russian bases.

The military source said the Novocherkassk would arrive at Tartus within the first 10 days of January.

The Novocherkassk and another landing ship called Saratov both made a rare port call to Tartus in late November.

Officials did not disclose the details of that visit.

The Tartus base is Russia's only remaining naval station outside the former Soviet Union and is seen as a major strategic asset for Moscow.

Russia has been accused of using the base to supply Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with secret military shipments supplementing the official weapons sales that Moscow has made to Damascus since Soviet times.

But recent rebel gains prompted Russia to admit for the first time this month that Assad's days in power may be numbered.

Officials have since openly acknowledged making preparations for a possible evacuation should the safety of Russians in Syria be threatened by Assad's downfall.

The three landing ships will be joining what Russian reports said was a much broader exercise off the coast of Syria involving vessels from three naval fleets.

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Magazine mistakenly publishes Bush obit

GERMANY'S respected news weekly Der Spiegel has mistakenly published an obituary for former US president George Bush senior, hours after a family spokesman said the 88-year-old was recovering from illness.

Bush was hospitalised in Houston November 23 for treatment of a bronchitis-related cough and moved to intensive care on December 23 after he developed a fever.

On Saturday, spokesman Jim McGrath said Bush was moved out of intensive care into a regular hospital room again after his condition improved.

The unfinished obituary appeared on Der Spiegel's website for only a few minutes on Sunday before it was spotted by internet users and removed.

In it, the magazine's New York correspondent described Bush as "a colourless politician" whose image only improved when it was compared to the later presidency of his son, George W Bush.

"All newsrooms prepare obituaries for selected figures," the magazine said on its Twitter feed. "The fact that the one for Bush senior went live was a technical mistake. Sorry!"

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Switzerland freezes Mubarak sons' $300m

SWISS authorities have frozen $US300 million ($A290 million) sitting in Credit Suisse accounts in Geneva held by the sons of deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, the newspaper Le Matin Dimanche has reported.

The funds are held in accounts belonging to Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, sons of the ex-president who are currently being held in an Egyptian prison.

The brothers are accused of using their position as scions of Egypt's long-time ruler to help themselves to villas, luxury cars and stakes in the country's key companies.

According to the newspaper, the funds were deposited at the Credit Suisse in 2005, which was after Switzerland tightened rules governing transactions by politically exposed depositors.

A Credit Suisse spokesman refused comment, citing the bank's secrecy policy.

The paper said Egypt-linked funds had also been frozen at the Swiss office of French banking giant BNP Paribas.

Switzerland has opened a probe targeting 14 people close to the Mubarak regime who are suspected of embezzling public funds and widescale corruption.

Earlier this month, Swiss authorities refused to provide their Egyptian counterparts with access to their findings so far, citing concerns for the "institutional situation" in Cairo.

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Second-hand exporters mimic charity

CHARITIES are reportedly having millions of dollars diverted away from them by second-hand clothing exporters who are imitating appeals and donation bins.

According to an investigation by Fairfax published on Monday, the exporters launch appeals that imply the goods will either be recycled or go towards charitable causes by using a variety of methods, including a network of bins and pictures of children in Third World countries.

To stay within the law, some even include a declaration in small-print, stating they are a commercial business but others reportedly use collection bags for fake charities.

National Association of Charitable Recycling chief executive Kerryn Caulfield said the losses to charities amounts in "the tens of millions".

"It's taking stock away from charities, it skews the lines of governance, puts doubt in the minds of the community and impacts on the employment opportunities for people with disabilities in these charities," she told Fairfax.

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Korea says North 'rocket' could reach US

NORTH Korea's recent rocket launch amounted to the test of a ballistic missile capable of carrying a half-tonne payload as far as the US west coast, the South Korean defence ministry says.

North Korea launched its three-stage Unha-3 rocket on December 12, insisting it was a purely scientific mission aimed at putting a polar-orbiting satellite in space.

Sunday's estimate was based on analysis of an oxidiser container - recovered from the rocket's first-stage splashdown site - which stored red fuming nitric acid to fuel the first-stage propellant.

"Based on our analysis and simulation, the missile is capable of flying more than 10,000 kilometres with a warhead of 500-600 kilograms," a defence ministry official told reporters.

The estimated range of 10,000 kilometres covers the whole of Asia, eastern Europe and western Africa as well as Alaska and a large part of the US west coast including San Francisco.

Without any debris from the second and third stages to analyse, the official said it could not be determined if the rocket had re-entry capability - a key element of inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology.

Most of the world saw the North's rocket launch as a disguised ballistic missile test that violates UN resolutions imposed after Pyongyang conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

The success of the launch was seen as a major strategic step forward for the isolated North, although missile experts differed on the level of ballistic capability demonstrated by the rocket.

The debris collected by the South Koreans was made of an alloy of aluminium and magnesium with eight panels welded manually.

"Welding was crude, done manually," the ministry official said, adding that oxidiser containers for storing toxic chemicals are rarely used by countries with advanced space technology.

The South's navy later recovered three more pieces of the rocket - a fuel tank, a combustion chamber and an engine connection rod - from the Yellow Sea and has been analysing them since Friday, Yonhap news agency said.

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Kenya arrests 61 over tribal violence

KENYAN police have arrested 61 suspects over a brutal attack on a remote village in the southeast involving two rival communities that left 45 people dead including women and children.

Villagers were hacked to death and their homes torched in Friday's attack on Kipao village in the Tana River delta region, an area where deadly tribal violence killed another 100 people earlier this year.

Police said on Saturday they had arrested 56 people, including a policeman, in the wake of the onslaught, which they feared could further inflame tensions between the rival Orma and Pokomo communities in the area.

Another five were arrested in a late-night "security operation", a police officer said on condition of anonymity on Sunday.

Police attributed the killings to a disarmament operation in the area but the violence could also be linked to the election being held next March, the first since Kenya was gripped by deadly inter-ethnic killings after a December 2007 vote.

Police said the dead in Kipao included 16 children, five women and 10 men, along with 14 assailants.

The United States said on Saturday it condemned "in the strongest terms" the renewed violence between the communities in the Tana area, where conflicts have flared intermittently over access to land and water points.

Kenya votes on March 4 in its first election since the disputed 2007 vote, which led to the worst inter-ethnic violence since independence with more than 1100 people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Two of the candidates running for the presidency are Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who lost his bid in the 2007 vote, and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in the violence which shattered Kenya's image as a beacon of regional stability.

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