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The UN commissioner for Palestinian refugees on Wednesday urged the world to put pressure on Israel to end its blockades of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying conditions there were going from bad to worse.
   ‘Without access neither people nor goods can move and refugees cannot reach the services they need,’ in the Palestinian territories,’ United Nations Relief and Works Agency chief Karen Koning Abu Zayd told reporters in Amman.
   ‘Access problems make our operations ever more cumbersome, inefficient and costly. We are very concerned about the human impact of the closure regime,’ Abu Zayd said.
   She appealed to donor countries that finance UNRWA humanitarian activities across the Palestinian territories to pressure Israel to ease its blockades.
   ‘The political front is where we need your leadership. UNRWA is not involved in the political sphere but we face consequences of political decisions on a daily basis,’ she said.
   Abu Zayd spoke of 70 per cent unemployment and poverty level in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and said the situation has worsened since Palestinian militants in Gaza abducted an Israeli soldier in June.
   ‘Living conditions in Gaza were in steep decline well before the capture of an Israeli soldier on June 25. Since then the situation has deteriorated dramatically,’ she said.
   ‘Our latest food distribution has been delayed because of severe difficulties getting goods through the Karni crossing,’ between Israel and the Gaza Strip, she said.
   The crossing has been kept largely closed by Israel because of what it said were security threats.
   ‘Fuel and construction materials are only recently available and exports were largely blocked until 10 days ago,’ she added.
   The situation in the West Bank was little better, she said.
   ‘We implore you to keep the West Bank in mind. West Bank commerce is reduced to a trickle by the barrier around Jerusalem ... and a draconian permit regime which limits movement of people and goods and prevents refugees and non-refugees alike from leading normal lives,’ she said.
   She also singled out the city of Hebron where she said Israeli ‘settler violence ... forced out over half the Palestinian population in some neighbourhoods in downtown Hebron’.
   Meanwhile, an Israeli judge on Wednesday ordered the release of Palestinian deputy prime minister Nasseredine al-Shaer, who was detained as part of a crackdown on the Hamas movement, his lawyer said.
   The military judge ordered Shaer to be freed because of ‘lack of evidence’ and no charges were brought against him, his attorney, Osama al-Saadi, said.
   Shaer is the most senior Hamas official to be released since Israel arrested scores of members of the hardline movement after its armed wing claimed joint responsibility for the capture of a soldier near the Gaza Strip in late June.
   Saadi said the 44-year-old Shaer, who was held in jail in Petah Tikva near Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv after his arrest in August, was expected to reach home in the northern West Bank town of Nablus within a few hours.

Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip’s sole power plant in June as part of efforts to recover a seized soldier was a war crime and collective punishment, an Israeli rights group said Wednesday.
   ‘The bombing of the power plant was illegal and defined as a war crime in international humanitarian law, as the attack was aimed at a purely civilian object,’ B’Tselem, Israel’s main rights group monitoring the Palestinian territories, said in a statement.
   ‘It was also an act of collective punishment,’ it said.
   B’Tselem demanded ‘the government of Israel order a criminal investigation into the bombing, with the intention of prosecuting the persons responsible for ordering and carrying out the attack,’ it said.
   Israel bombed the Gaza power plant on June 28, as it launched a massive military offensive in the impoverished coastal strip three days after militants seized a soldier and killed two others in a cross-border raid.
   The offensive, and the plant bombing, was said to be aimed at recovering Corporal Gilad Shalit and at stopping Gaza militants from firing rockets into Israel.
   ‘Although the bombing followed the abduction of corporal Gilad Shalit and the firing of... rockets at Israeli communities, there was no apparent military basis for the action, and it seems that its intention was to satisfy a desire for revenge,’ B’Tselem said.
   ‘Even if one adopts the doubtful claim that the attack provided some definite military advantage, it was disproportionate and Israel has other, less harmful alternatives,’ the group said.
   The power plant bombing has had a devastating effect on life in the densely populated territory, with electricity being rationed to a few hours a day during the hot summer months.
   The offensive has also cut water supplies to a few hours a day and brought sewage treatment to a halt.
   The UN humanitarian aid chief, Jan Egeland, condemned the bombing as clear use of disproportionate force.
   The Gaza Strip is also the heartland of Islamist faction Hamas which came to power in January elections and against which Israel has been applying mounting pressure to get it to renounce violence and recognise the Jewish state.

The president of a state-run broadcaster which aired deposed premier Thaksin Shinawatra’s final speech on the night of last week’s bloodless coup has resigned, a company spokesman said Wednesday.
   Mingkwan Sangsuwan, the president of the Mass Communications Organization of Thailand – which owns a television network and several radio stations–stepped down Tuesday, the spokesman said.
   The ousted Thaksin government had appointed Mingkwan for the job.
   All of MCOT’s board members, including the president, resigned to “take responsibility” for Channel 9’s act on the night of September 19 when generals toppled the Thaksin government, the broadcaster said in a statement.
   MCOT was the only broadcaster to air Thaksin’s statement declaring a state of emergency, but his live speech from New York where he was at the time of the coup was abruptly cut off after two minutes as soldiers took over the station.
   Following the coup, the military quickly seized control of all Thai TV and radio stations but soldiers arrived late at MCOT, allowing the broadcaster to briefly air Thaksin’s final speech.
   Since the coup, the junta has imposed martial law, purged Thaksin’s loyalists, scrapped planned elections, banned public gatherings and threatened action against foreign media.

The leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels told the Sri Lankan government that he is committed to resuming talks on ending decades of ethnic bloodshed, a minister said Wednesday.
   The message from rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran could boost efforts by peace-broker Norway to arrange a meeting next month in Oslo and bring a halt to 10 months of violence that has claimed over 1,500 lives despite a 2002 truce.
   ‘We need concrete positive commitments from the leader of the LTTE to resume talks. He has given that,’ policy planning minister Keheliya Rambukwella, who is also the government’s chief spokesman on defence matters, told reporters.
   There was no immediate reaction from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
   Asked if the 51-year-old LTTE leader had given the assurance in writing or verbally through Norway, Rambukwella said: ‘I will tell you after I discuss it with the president.’
   President Mahinda Rajapakse had insisted that any resumption of talks, following an aborted meeting in June, should come after Prabhakaran gives a guarantee that he is serious about negotiations and that violence must stop.
   Rambukwella also said last week’s visit to the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi by Norway’s ambassador here, Hans Brattskar, had proved positive.
   ‘He came back with certain positive suggestions,’ the minister said. ‘The president will look at it in the next few days.’
   The new head of Sri Lanka’s truce monitoring mission, Lars Solvberg, has also headed for talks with Tiger political wing leaders.
   The pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website said they were due to discuss the ‘ground situation,’ even as the airforce bombed suspected rebel positions and the two sides shelled each other along a de facto front line in the northern peninsula of Jaffna.
   
   Jets hit Tiger training camp
   Sri Lankan war planes bombed a suspected Tamil Tiger training camp as the two sides exchanged artillery attacks across a de facto front line in the island’s north, the defence ministry said Wednesday.
   Israeli-built Kfir jets pounded positions held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the district of Mannar on Tuesday, the ministry said, adding that the guerrillas had sustained ‘heavy damage’.

India must do more to transform its ‘British colonial-era’ criminal justice institutions as it fights terrorism or it will breach human rights, a report by a US advocacy group said on Tuesday.
   The report, published by the Committee on International Human Rights of the New York City Bar Association, says India made a good start two years ago when it partially repealed the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 2002.
   India was also right to resist the temptation to bring such a law back after July’s deadly Mumbai train bombings in which more than 180 people died, focusing instead on upgrading its intelligence capacity, the report said.
   ‘Respect for human rights when combating terrorism is a strategic imperative,’ Anil Kalhan, chairman of the committee’s India project, said in a statement.
   ‘As the Supreme Court of India has recognised ... draconian laws often provide terrorists exactly the response they hope for and, in the process, plant the seeds for future violence.’
   But POTA was not entirely done away with–a recent report by Amnesty International says hundreds of people originally detained under POTA continue to languish in prisons without trial.
   Laws similar to some of those found in POTA now exist in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the report says, going on to call for their repeal.
   One of the committee’s main worries is that such laws give undue powers to India’s police force - an institution it says has barely modernised since the British colonial era.
   The result, it says, is that Indians are being held in custody for long periods without charge or trial and are facing torture, with those from the lower castes and from religious minorities being particularly vulnerable to abuse.
   The report, available at www.nycbar.org, advises India to work with international institutions to ensure greater transparency in its criminal justice system.
   In a country where bribes, intimidation and physical violence riddle particularly the lower rungs of the criminal justice system, the report urges Indians be given greater powers to hold government officials accountable for human rights abuses.

It’s not every night that the president of an Islamic republic appears on a US comedy show to joke about Osama bin Laden.
   But Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf did just that on Tuesday, all in the name of book sales, after last week using a press conference with US president George W Bush to plug his recently-released memoirs.
   Looking relaxed and sporting a brown suit and orange tie, Musharraf proved an unusual hit on the late-night ‘Daily Show with Jon Stewart,’ managing to get through his 15 minutes of comedy fame without looking too uncomfortable.
   After pouring a cup of jasmine tea for the Pakistani leader, Stewart casually asked Musharraf, ‘Where’s Osama bin Laden?’ prompting the reply: ‘I don’t know. If you know where he is, you lead on, we’ll follow you.’
   Teasing Musharraf over two attempts on his life on the same bridge in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi just weeks apart in 2003, Stewart joked: ‘I’d come up with a new way to go to work.’
   While Stewart kept the best lines for himself, Musharraf earned broad applause for his deadpan response to his host’s observation that the Pakistani leader seemed more relaxed about heightened security than the average American.
   ‘Yes I am,’ Musharraf said, matter of fatly.
   The jibes at Bush were not far behind, with Stewart asking: ‘In your book... there’s no mention of Iraq. Is that because you felt like it was such a smart move and has gone so well that to mention it would be gloating?’
   He asked Musharraf about his meeting with Bush in Washington last week: ‘Does he seem open, or paying attention, or does he, let’s say, have the TV on?’ Stewart asked.
   ‘He was listening carefully,’ Musharraf replied, before being interrupted with: ‘Because he sleeps with his eyes open, I just want you to know that.’

The new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, got down to work Wednesday on his agenda to build a more muscular Japan but faced immediate scepticism, with media saying his cabinet line-up lacked enthusiasm for change.
   ‘I’ll do my best,’ Abe, 52, told reporters on his first full day of work since replacing veteran leader Junichiro Koizumi.
   ‘It looks like a more comfortable place to live in than I imagined,’ Abe said as he toured the recently renovated prime minister’s residence with his wife Akie.
   Abe, the first premier born after Second World War, is known for his nationalist views and has vowed to revise Japan’s US-imposed pacifist constitution.
   He has also pledged to work to repair ties with China and South Korea, which have been strained by Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni war shrine.

A suicide car bomb exploded near a Canadian military convoy in southern Afghanistan Wednesday while officials reported they had killed 14 Taliban rebels elsewhere.
   The suicide attack in the southern city of Kandahar missed the Canadian convoy and wounded an Afghan civilian, the police said. The blast was so powerful that it tore the car containing the explosives into chunks, an AFP reporter at the scene said. Pieces of the attacker’s body were strewn across the site.
   The incidents followed a major attack on Tuesday that killed 18 people in the town of Lashkar Gah, about 145 kilometres to the west.
   The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack, one of the deadliest in a surge of suicide blasts this year.

A top North Korean official told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that his country’s nuclear arms were for ‘self-defence’ as he accused Washington of using non-proliferation and terrorism as ‘a pretext’ to invade sovereign states.
   In a rare North Korean explanation on the international stage of its policy, the deputy foreign minister, Choe Su Hon, said the Stalinist state’s ‘possession of deterrent power, solely for self-defence, is fully in line with the interests of the regional countries for peace and security.’
   He also reiterated that Pyongyang could not resume six-party talks on ending its nuclear program as long as it remains subject to US financial sanctions.

Myanmar’s junta on Wednesday detained three pro-democracy activists hours ahead of a ceremony marking the 18th anniversary of Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party, a spokesman and a family member said.
   Authorities took away Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi and Htay Kway without giving any reason, said Myint Thein, a spokesman for the National League for Democracy party.
   A relative of Min Ko Naing confirmed their detention, but Myanmar authorities declined to comment.
   The activists were scheduled to attend a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the formation of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party, at its headquarters in Yangon.

China warned Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian on Wednesday against introducing a new constitution for the island, saying the move would be an act towards independence that could not be tolerated.
   Chen said over the weekend that redefining the island’s territory in relation to China would be on the agenda as part of his constitutional reform push, which Beijing views as code for Taiwan’s independence.
   ‘We will not tolerate Taiwan’s de jure independence by a constitutional amendment,’ the spokesman for China’s cabinet-level Taiwan Affairs Office, Li Weiyi, told reporters.
   ‘We are closely paying attention to the movement of constitutional reform on the Taiwan island. We will be highly alert
   to any development of the situation.’

US air strikes destroyed a house during a gun battle before dawn in a restive city north of Baghdad which killed eight people, the military said.
   US forces had attracted fire from a building in Baquba during a raid in pursuit of suspected al-Qaeda militants, the military said in a statement.
   Soldiers initially killed two men and then ordered air strikes, which killed two more men and four women, it said.
   Two other men and a woman were wounded, and the US forces treated them before detaining the men and taking the woman to hospital. The statement described all the
   men killed and wounded as terrorists.
   ‘Coalition forces strive to mitigate risks to civilians while in pursuit of terrorists. Terrorists continue to deliberately place innocent Iraqi women and children in danger by their actions and presence,’ it said.
   Relatives said the dead were a family of seven and a neighbour.
   ‘I was inside preparing for Ramadan morning meal. I heard explosions and shooting and I ran out,’ one young, weeping woman told Reuters television as neighbours held her arms.
   ‘When I came back I saw all my family killed. My father — four women and three men. All of them, including my brother and his pregnant wife. They took two of our family away, a man and a woman. They were wounded,’ she said. She did not give her name.
   Baquba is in Diyala province where many locals are hostile to US forces and al-Qaeda militants have strong influence.
   Earlier reports from Iraqi police wrongly described the air strikes as a mortar attack. The US military said it knew of no mortar attack in the area and neighbours interviewed by Reuter’s television confirmed the building was hit by air strikes.
   This month is Ramadan, when Iraqis wake before dawn for a large meal and fast during the day.
   US troop presence keeps neighbours from invading Iraq: Talabani
   The Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, said here Tuesday that the US military presence in Iraq keeps neighbours from invading his country.
   ‘The American presence has always prevented any kind of foreign invasion to Iraq,’ Talabani said.
   ‘That’s one of the main reasons why we think that we need an American presence, even symbolical, in the country to prevent our neighbours attacking us,’ he said at a forum at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, a Washington think thank.
   Talabani also said Baghdad could not ‘further tolerate’ neighbours’ interference in its internal affairs.

The Iraq war has become a ‘cause celebre’ for global terrorists, fuelling recruitment and hostility to the United States in the Muslim world, according to intelligence findings declassified Tuesday.
   Portions of the National Intelligence Estimate were released in a febrile political atmosphere whipped up after the leak of parts of the study suggesting the war had made America more vulnerable to terrorism.
   The report shows that Bush, who maintains the war has made America safer, was warned by intelligence agencies in April that the conflict was acting as a de-facto recruiting sergeant for terrorist groups.
   ‘The Iraq conflict has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement,’ the report said.
   But the assessment also appeared to back up Bush’s contentions that US troops must stay on in Iraq to inflict a significant blow in the ‘war on terror.’
   ‘Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves and be perceived to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight,’ the assessment said. The assessments came in declassified portions of the ‘key judgments’ section of the estimate, which represents consensus views of all 16 US intelligence agencies.
   The report also found that US-led counter terror tactics had seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qaeda and disrupted its operations–but it said Osama bin Laden’s group still posed the greatest threat to US soil and installations abroad of any single terror group.
   Key US anti-terror ally the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, further roiled the debate Tuesday by saying on CNN that he believed the conflict ‘has made the world a more dangerous place.’
   Late Monday, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte denied that America was less safe than it had been before the September 11 attacks in 2001. The leak of the report to the New York Times and Washington Post at the weekend ignited a ferocious political row in the fevered days in the run-up to November’s congressional elections.
   A clearly angered Bush earlier Tuesday said he would declassify parts of the document, saying releasing portions of the report would ‘stop all the speculation’ and ‘gossip’ linking Iraq and terrorism.
   Even before he spoke, and before the publication of some of the document, opposition Democrats demanded the entire report should be released along with other recent intelligence assessments on Iraq and terrorism.
   ‘The American people deserve the full story, not those parts of it that the Bush administration selects. President Bush should declassify the entire NIE,’ Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy said in a statement.

The Hungarian prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, apologised on Wednesday for the tone of a leaked speech in which he admitted lying about the parlous state of the economy to win April’s election.
   The leak of the profanity-littered tape triggered violent protests this month and calls for the government of Socialists and Free Democrats to quit. On the tape Gyurcsany said in May that ‘we lied in the morning, we lied in the evening’.
   ‘Of course I am sorry–these were the words of reproof, affection and passion,’ Gyurcsany told a press conference.
   Gyurcsany said he recognised he had lost the people’s trust and it would take a long time to regain their confidence, but he insisted plans to cut the budget deficit, which is running at 10.1 per cent of gross domestic product, must be implemented.
   Since winning the election, the government has reversed tack on economic policy and introduced hefty tax rises and subsidy cuts to rein in the biggest deficit in the European Union.

The Syrian foreign minister told the United Nations on Tuesday that the US ‘war on terror’ has failed and that US policies caused the September 11 attacks.
   The foreign minister, Walid Muallem, condemned Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon before the UN General Assembly and said the ‘logjam’ in Middle East peace efforts meant further confrontation was likely.
   Muallem spoke hours after the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, announced in a newspaper interview that the United States hoped to persuade its allies to back new sanctions against Syria over its purported role in destabilising Lebanon and Iraq and supporting the Palestinian movement Hamas.
   Highlighting the fifth anniversary of the September 11 strikes, Muallem blamed US policies for increased international tensions.
   ‘Years after the war on terror began; one asks has the world become a safer place? It is clear that the war did not achieve its objectives, and that terror has become more widespread.

Venezuela’s foreign minister on Tuesday lodged a protest with the US ambassador over his temporary detainment during the weekend at a New York airport.
   The formal protest came after President Hugo Chavez suggested Venezuela would respond with ‘equal treatment’ if the incident were repeated.
   Nicolas Maduro met with US Ambassador William Brownfield and submitted a letter expressing his government’s ‘energetic protest over the action taken by immigration officials of the US government.’ He demanded that Washington publicly make amends for the ‘unfriendly, reprehensible and unacceptable’ incident.
   Maduro says authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport tried to frisk him and threatened to handcuff him Saturday as he prepared to catch a flight after attending the UN General Assembly.
   The US government has sought to block Venezuela’s bid for a seat, and the race is to be decided by a secret-ballot UN vote next month.

New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has struck back at the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, in the escalating political bickering over which president — Bill Clinton or George W Bush — missed more opportunities to prevent the September 11 attacks
   Clinton, D-NY, took aim at the president, Bush, and Rice over their roles in 2001 before the attacks, part of a growing argument that ignited after former president Clinton gave a combative interview on ‘Fox News Sunday’ in which he defended his efforts to kill Osama bin Laden.
   ‘I think my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are not going to take these attacks,’
   Hillary Clinton said Tuesday. ‘I’m certain that if my husband and his national security team had been shown a classified report entitled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside the United States’ he would have taken it more seriously than history suggests it
   was taken by our current president and his national security team.’
   The senator was referring to a classified brief given to Bush in August 2001; one that Democrats say showed the Bush administration did not do enough to combat the growing threat from al-Qaeda.

S Korea to spend $500m developing surface-to-air missiles
South Korea will spend some 500 million dollars over the next five years to develop its own surface-to-air missile systems, military authorities said Wednesday. Fired vertically from launch pads, the new missiles–tentatively named Cheolmae (Iron Hawk) – will have a range of 40 kilometres and use multi-purpose radar in searching and destroying targets. ‘The new missile systems will replace the existing Hawk missile systems, which are too outdated now,’ said a spokesman for the Defence Acquisition Program Agency, which approved the development project. The project will involve 16 local firms and six research institutions, he said.
— AFP

Nepal rebels apologise for taxing widow of French climber
Nepal’s Maoist rebels said Wednesday they have apologised to the widow of famed French climber Jean-Christophe Lafaille for demanding she fork out a ‘tax’ to pay her last respects to her husband. Rebel leaders Prachanda and Baburam Bhatterai gave a letter of apology plus a 136-dollar refund to the French ambassador in Kathmandu during a meeting earlier this week. ‘Our two leaders have said they apologise for the deeds of our party cadres. That should not have happened,’ said Suresh Ale Magar, a Maoist official. Lafaille disappeared in January while attempting a solo winter climb without oxygen of the 8,463-metre Mount Makalu.
— AFP

Philippines dismisses Muslim rebel threats
The Philippine government has shrugged off Muslim rebel threats of renewed hostilities as peace talks remain deadlocked over the distribution of land, a senior government official said Wednesday. Chief presidential aide Eduardo Ermita conceded that the talks with the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Libertion Front ‘are at a stalemate right now on the issue of territory.’ Ermita, speaking on the sidelines of a counter-terrorism forum in Manila, said the government simply could not sign an agreement giving up whole villages to the MILF unless those villages were to agree to the move in a
plebiscite.
— AFP

First batch of E Timorese police returns to work
A batch of East Timorese police have returned to work in Dili, the first to don uniforms since unrest in May saw them relieved of their duties, the United Nations said Wednesday. Twenty-five members of the national police have resumed duty under a mentoring scheme being run by the UN police, the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste said in a statement. ‘The return to duty of these police in the capital is a crucial step in restoring Timorese public authority and ensuring law and order on the streets of Dili and the whole country,’ acting UN police commissioner Antero Lopes said in the statement.
— AFP

Russia rejects move to give Putin third term
Russia’s top election authority on Wednesday threw out a call for a people’s poll that would clear the way for the president, Vladimir Putin, to stay on in power, making it more likely he will step down as he plans in 2008. Putin has said repeatedly he will abide by the constitution that restricts a head of state to serving two consecutive four-year terms in power at any one time, and go in 2008. But this has not stopped supporters from urging the 53-year-old Putin to stay on and in the latest such move a group from a southern Russian region formally sought a referendum to get the two-term rule scrapped. Rejecting the move, Russia’s election chief Alexander Veshnyakov said: ‘None of the members of the Central Election Commission, none of the experts, have any doubts that the question in its present form cannot be used for a referendum.’

Mexican president-elect decries
violence
Mexico’s president-elect says murder and mayhem fuelled by drug smuggling have overwhelmed the governments of the nation’s capital and key states across the country. Felipe Calderon said the wave of bloodshed is ravaging state governments controlled by each of Mexico’s three major parties. He singled out Mexico City, the northern states of Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, the southern state of Guerrero and his home state of Michoacan, as being especially hard-hit. ‘It seems to me that drug violence has overwhelmed the governments,’ Calderon said Monday in a radio interview. Calderon called for legislative and law enforcement efforts to curb drug violence across party lines ‘in a very coordinated way.’ Calderon takes office December 1.

Steve Irwin gets road named after him
Australian crocodile wrangler Steve Irwin will be immortalised in tarmac when the road outside his family zoo is renamed in his honour, officials revealed on Wednesday. The premier of northeastern Queensland state Peter Beattie announced that the road that runs past Irwin’s Australia Zoo in the small town of Beerwah will be called Steve Irwin Way by the end of the year. ‘Steve Irwin and his family have put Beerwah on the map and I can think of no more fitting tribute,’ Beattie said, dubbing the ‘Crocodile Hunter’ ‘Queensland’s most well-known ambassador ever’.

Bulgaria, Romania to join EU in 2007
The European Commission on Tuesday gave Bulgaria and Romania the go-ahead to join the European Union in January, but with the closest monitoring system ever imposed on new members. The 26th and 27th members of the European club will be allowed to join up on January 1, 2007, Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso announced at a plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. ‘I would like to congratulate the peoples and the authorities of Bulgaria and Romania for all the efforts they have produced in order to fulfil the conditions for accession to the European Union,’ said Barroso.

Jordan court convicts 5 in terror plot
Jordan’s military court on Wednesday convicted five men of plotting attacks against US troops in Iraq, including a cousin of slain al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The five were sentenced to prison terms ranging between six months to five years. Four defendants, including al-Zarqawi’s cousin, are in police custody. A fifth suspect, Raed al-Nawayseh, who is at large and was being tried in absentia, received the harshest punishment of five years in jail. Prime suspect Salem al-Ojeimi also was sentenced to five years in jail. But the court quickly reduced his sentence to three years, saying it wanted to give him another chance to repent since he had no previous terrorism or criminal record.
— AFP