India and Pakistan in Kashmir border skirmish
6 January 2013 Last updated at 06:54 GMT
Indian and Pakistani troops have exchanged fire across the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region.
Pakistan said Indian troops had raided a military post in the Haji Pir sector of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, killing a soldier and injuring another.
An Indian army spokesman said Pakistan had “initiated unprovoked firing” at Indian military posts.
Kashmir is claimed by both nations in its entirety and has been a flashpoint between them for more than 60 years.
Exchanges are not uncommon but rarely result in fatalities.
‘Small arms’
The Pakistani military’s public relations office said the two sides were still exchanging fire in the area.
Fears of lives lost as search for bodies begins in Tasmania fires
<.br> January 6, 2013 – 7:18PMUp to 100 people remain unaccounted for as devastating bushfires that have ravaged southern Tasmania continue to burn.
Until we’ve had the opportunity to check every one of those locations we won’t be in a position to confirm there has been no deaths
Police are conducting painstaking property-to-property searches in the worst hit towns of Dunalley, Boomer Bay and Marion Bay as they fear lives may have been lost.
More than 100 buildings have been destroyed by the fires, which continue to burn out of control in several areas of the state but no deaths have yet been confirmed.
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Acting Police Commissioner Scott Tilyard said there were grave fears for many people yet to make contact with family or authorities.
Kosovo bars entry to Serbian President Nikolic
KOSOVO
Pristina has denied entry to Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic in response to Belgrade refusing entry to Kosovar officials. The leader has wanted to visit a monastery for an Orthodox Christmas celebration.
Kosovo officials on Saturday said they had rejected the Serbian president’s entry request to visit to the Gracanica monastery to attend an Orthodox Christian Christmas service on Monday.
The denial of entry to Nikolic was said to have come in response to four Kosovo government ministers being refused entry to Serbia during 2012.
Kosovan Deputy Premier Hajredin Kuci told the newspaper that Nikolic would be allowed to visit only once Serbia permitted Pristina officials to visit ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia.
Banda assures IMF of Malawi’s economic reform
Malawi’s President Joyce Banda has assured the IMF that the southern African country will not backtrack on reforms to help the economy recover.
05 JAN 2013 10:50 – SAPA
Banda, criticised at home for devaluing the kwacha currency under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), told a joint press conference late Friday that “there will be no backtracking on the reforms”.
“This is why I have been able to take difficult decisions that could have destroyed my political career because I know if we did not take this route the country could not be on the recovery path,” said Banda.
Visiting IMF managing director Christine Lagarde urged the country to “stick to reforms for continued cooperation with the IMF”.
Kajaki dam: The great white elephant of Afghanistan
Kabul government may struggle to run the dam in the former Taliban stronghold as American army begins withdrawal
AP KAJAKI, AFGHANISTAN SUNDAY 06 JANUARY 2013
In the approaching twilight of its war in Afghanistan, the US is forging ahead with a giant infrastructure project long criticised as too costly in both blood and money. The effort to refurbish the massive Kajaki dam and hydro-electric power system, which is supposed to bring electricity to 332,000 people and increase crop yields, has cost $500m.
But completion, originally envisaged for 2005, is now projected for some time in 2015, the year after most combat troops will have left the country. And there are some crucial ifs: if a convoy carrying 900 tons of concrete can make it up a dangerous road to the site without being attacked by the Taliban … if the Afghan army can hold out in an area that thousands of US Marines struggled to secure … and if the Afghan government can manage the dam.
Robots find Barrier Reef coral at extreme depths, amazing ocean scientists
Living coral found at 125 metres, four times deeper than scuba limit
Tracy McVeigh
The Observer, Sunday 6 January 2013Robots have found living coral on the Great Barrier Reef at a depth four times greater than most scuba divers can reach and far beyond the depth at which scientists expected to find them.
A team from the Catlin Seaview Survey discovered the reef corals living at 125 metres, the deepest ever found on the reef. Reef corals are in a perilous state around the world, under threat from climate change through warming oceans and acidification of seawater as well as by coastal pollution and unsustainable fishing practices. The remarkable find was made on the outer edge of the Ribbon Reefs off the north of the Barrier. The extreme depth is more than four times the depth of the shallow reef coral habitat (0-30m) which most scuba divers can reach.
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