Japan nuclear safety team received funding

A JAPANESE nuclear watchdog says members of a government team assigned to set reactor safety measures received funding from utility companies or atomic industry manufacturers.

Taking the money was legal but raises questions of independence since the industry would benefit from laxer standards.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority says Nagoya University Professor Akio Yamamoto received 27.14 million yen ($A327,362) over the past three years for research on reactors.

That includes 6.28 million yen from a subsidiary of the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant sent into meltdowns last year.

The authority said on Friday three others on the standards team received industry funding.

Before, regulators were in the same ministry that promotes the industry. The commission was set up this year after calls for a more independent watchdog.

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Jordan Islamists blast Halloween party

JORDAN'S Muslim Brotherhood has condemned Halloween celebrations held in an Amman cafe as "Satanic" and homosexual, with a newspaper reporting acts of vandalism at the party.

"We watched with disgust and shame last night (Friday) homosexual and Satanic rituals in an Amman cafe," the Brotherhood said in a statement on its website.

"This presents a challenge to the values of the Jordanian people and their Arab and Muslim identity, as well as a violation of religious laws."

The group demanded that those who organised the party be tried for the "grotesque act" and complained that such events are allowed to go ahead in Jordan when the people are "stricken by poverty and amid political crises".

Al-Ghad newspaper, meanwhile, reported that violence broke out when "angry youths tried to prevent the Halloween celebrations from taking place" in the cafe in Amman.

It said they tried to storm the cafe, throwing stones and setting fire to property, causing a traffic jam into the early hours of Saturday.

Poverty levels are running at 25 percent in the desert kingdom, whose capital Amman is the most expensive city in the Arab world, according to several independent studies.

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Japan transsexual denied recognition

A PERSON who had a sex-change to become a man has complained of discrimination after a Japanese court reportedly refused to register him as the father of his wife's child.

The 30-year-old, who was born female, had sought to be registered as the father after his wife delivered a boy in 2009 by way of artificial insemination using donated sperm.

But the Tokyo Family Court has ruled the child must be registered as if he was born out of wedlock as the man is physically not capable of reproduction, despite the fact sterile men are routinely recognised as the fathers of babies born using artificial insemination.

The couple married in 2008, after the husband officially changed his gender, and were recognised as husband and wife under a new law that came into effect in 2004.

"Under the law, Japan decided to treat me as a man. I would like to receive the same treatment as a father too," the man, whose name was not reported, told local journalists on Friday, according to the Mainichi Shimbun.

"I feel I am being discriminated against. I will continue to fight so that I can live as a husband and a father," he said, according to national broadcaster NHK.

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Nigerian forces kill 14 kidnappers

NIGERIAN security forces have stormed the hideout of kidnappers of a Turkish national in oil-rich Rivers State and killed 14 of them in a shootout.

"The hoodlums were shot dead during a gun battle with the security agents in their camp in Kaani community in Ogoni land," state police spokesman Ben Ugwuegbulam told AFP of the incident.

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Syrian rebels blame West for extremism

SYRIAN regime forces have launched new air strikes in what is seen as a desperate attempt to reverse rebel gains, as the opposition blamed the international community for fuelling Islamic extremism.

Reacting after Washington urged Syria's rebels to reject extremism, the head of the main opposition Syrian National Council said the West and its partners were to blame for rising radicalisation.

"The international community is responsible, through its lack of support for the Syrian people, for the growth of extremism in Syria," SNC director Abdel Basset Saida told AFP.

"The international community should criticise itself, and ask itself: What did it give the Syrian people? How has it helped the Syrians to stop the regime's crazy killing?" he said.

Thursday saw helicopter gunships strafing a district of Damascus as warplanes pounded rebel bastions in the capital's suburbs and in the northwestern province of Idlib, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

At least three warplane raids were conducted in the northern Damascus suburb of Harasta, home to some of the rebel Free Syrian Army's best organised fighters, as on the other side of the city gunships hit the neighbourhood of Al-Hajar Al-Aswad, it said.

Clashes meanwhile raged in the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, it said, and in Idlib, where FSA forces backed by the Islamist Al-Nusra Front continued their siege of the Wadi Daif army base.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces have this week launched a wave of intensive air strikes analysts say are a response to opposition gains and aimed at "terrorising" and turning local communities against the rebels.

"They are trying to make the civilian population so angry and so scared that it will not be possible for the rebels to find safe havens," said Riad Kahwaji, head of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

The air raids - often using crude barrel bombs stuffed with dynamite and chunks of metal - were not precision strikes on rebel positions but indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas under rebel control.

"These are dumb bombs, not smart bombs, and when you are using them you are not trying to gain any tactical advantage," said Kahwaji.

Violence on Wednesday killed at least 152 people across Syria, including 58 civilians, said the Observatory.

It says more than 36,000 people have now been killed since the uprising against Assad's regime broke out in March 2011 and evolved into an armed civil conflict.

Most of the rebels, like the population, are members of Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad's government is dominated by his Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

The country's fractured opposition, whose members range from pro-Western liberals to hardline Islamists, has struggled to find common ground against Assad, especially on the political front.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said Washington wanted to help the Syrian opposition unite against Assad, but warned against Islamic extremists trying to "hijack" the revolution.

"There are disturbing reports of extremists going into Syria attempting to take over what has been a legitimate revolution against an oppressive regime for their own purposes," Clinton warned during a visit to Croatia.

The opposition should "strongly resist the efforts by the extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution," she said.

The international community's divisions over the conflict were exposed once more on Wednesday, as UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi urged China to do more to help tackle the crisis and talks between French and Russian officials in Paris failed to resolve disagreements over Assad's regime.

After the talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defiantly accused the West of fuelling the violence by insisting on Assad abandoning power.

"If the position of our partners remains the departure of this leader who they do not like, the bloodbath will continue," Lavrov said.

Brahimi, who visited Moscow and Beijing this week in bid to revive peace efforts after a failed ceasefire bid for last weekend's Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday, is due to present new proposals for resolving the conflict to the UN Security Council later this month.

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Saudi gas truck blast kills at least 22

A GAS tanker truck has exploded on a main road in the Saudi capital, killing at least 22 people, injuring about 111 others and leaving a trail of destruction, officials say.

The lorry veered into a bridge pylon at a junction on Khurays Road in Riyadh about 7.30am (1530 AEDT), causing a gas leak that spread out and then burst into flames, destroying nearby cars and a business, the officials told AFP.

An AFP photographer at the scene reported widespread damage to the area, with dozens of cars mangled by the blast and burned out.

A bus that had been gutted by the fire stood idle on the flyover, with witnesses saying that the vehicle had been transporting workers whose fate remained unknown.

Another truck fell off the bridge from the impact of the explosion, the witnesses said.

Amateur video footage posted on the internet showed thick black smoke billowing from different spots around the flyover whose pylons were also damaged.

Civil defence personnel carried two "completely charred" bodies from the site.

"The death toll of the gas truck fire in Khurays has increased to 22 people, in addition to 111 wounded," a civil defence official said.

Earlier, a civil defence official who requested not to be named told AFP that at least 14 people were killed and around 60 others hurt "in the explosion of the truck when it hit a bridge pylon".

Civil defence spokesman in Riyadh, Mohammed al-Hammadi, said the explosion took place after gas leaked from the tank of the lorry, according to SPA state news agency.

"The explosion and fire happened after leaked gas filled the area. Huge damage happened, in addition to many traffic collisions," he said, adding there were fatalities without specifying how many.

Hammadi said a nearby show yard of construction machinery was severely damaged by the explosion.

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Nigeria accused of massive rights abuses

NIGERIAN security forces have committed massive rights violations including summary executions in trying to crush the insurgency by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, Amnesty International says.

In a report on Thursday, the London based rights groups charged Nigeria's military with carrying out extra-judicial killings and showing "little regard for the rule of law or human rights" in its campaign against Boko Haram.

"The cycle of attack and counter-attack has been marked by unlawful violence on both sides, with devastating consequences for the human rights of those trapped in the middle," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary general.

Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency is believed to have left more than 2,800 people dead since 2009, including killings by security forces.

Nigeria has deployed special military units to several areas hit hardest by the group, including the northeastern city of Maiduguri, considered the Islamists' base.

"Amnesty International received consistent accounts of witnesses who saw people summarily executed outside their homes, shot dead during operations, after arrest, or beaten to death in detention or in the street by security forces in Maiduguri," the rights group said.

"Witnesses interviewed by Amnesty International described seeing people who were clearly no threat to life, unarmed, lying down or with their hands over their head or cooperating shot at close range by the security forces," the report further said.

Residents of Maiduguri have previously accused soldiers of firing on bystanders after suspected Boko Haram attacks, although the military has consistently denied wrongdoing.

Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, the military spokesman in Maiduguri, told AFP he was not yet familiar with Amnesty's allegations and would respond later Thursday.

The rights group said Boko Haram's relentless targeting of civilians "may constitute crimes against humanity," but urged Nigeria "to take responsibility for its own failings" in its campaign against the insurgents, who have said they want to create an Islamic state in the north.

President Goodluck Jonathan has faced intense criticism over what some term his failure to stop the killings.

Oil-rich Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is roughly divided between a mainly north and mostly Christian south.

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4 wounded in campus Halloween shooting

AUTHORITIES say four people were shot and wounded during a Halloween party on the University of Southern California campus and two suspects are in custody.

It happened around 11.45pm local time on Wednesday outside the Ronald Tutor Campus Centre, where about 100 people had gathered for a party hosted by a student organisation.

USC Department of Public Safety Capt David Carlisle says an argument between two men not tied to the school led to one of them pulling out a gun and shooting another person.

That victim was critically wounded. Three bystanders were taken to the hospital with less serious injuries.

The Los Angeles Times reports USC sent a text alert telling students to stay inside. Hours later, another text said the threat was over and classes would go on as scheduled.

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Cyclone barrels towards south Indian coast

SCHOOLS and ports have shut down in southeast India as a cyclone heads towards the coast, with forecasters predicting it could make a direct hit on Chennai later in the day.

Cyclone Nilam was likely to do extensive damage to thatched roofs and huts and also uproot trees, causing power blackouts and communication problems across Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh states, officials said on Wednesday.

A bulletin from the India Meteorological Department warned of winds gusting up to 110 kilometres an hour and flooding of low-lying areas because of a sea surge and heavy rain.

It advised residents living in huts along the coast to move to safer areas and ordered fishermen not to go out to sea.

The cyclone was expected to make landfall on Wednesday evening at some point along a 350-kilometre stretch of coast. Chennai, the state capital of Tamil Nadu, is in the middle of the affected zone.

"We have advised all the schools and colleges to remain close for the day," Jayraman, a government administrator in Chennai who uses only one name, told AFP.

"All maritime activities have been suspended and the government is monitoring the situation closely," he added. "So far, no evacuation process has started."

Local authorities said they were preparing helicopters and boats for any emergency. Existing cyclone shelters, schools and community halls have also been identified to serve as potential relief camps.

Neighbouring Sri Lanka on Tuesday allowed thousands of people who had been evacuated to return to their homes after the storm, which had been expected to hit the island, changed course and moved towards India.

The last cyclone in India struck in the same southeast region in January, claiming 42 lives and leaving a trail of destruction across Tamil Nadu.

India and Bangladesh are hit regularly by cyclones that develop in the Bay of Bengal between April and November, causing widespread damage to homes, livestock and crops.

India's Andhra Pradesh state saw its worst cyclone in 1977 when more than 10,000 people were killed.

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Russian upper house passes treason bill

RUSSIA'S upper house of parliament has passed a hugely controversial bill broadening the definition of high treason to include passing NGOs harmful information.

The Federation Council passed the bill on Wednesday with 138 senators in favour, none against and one abstention, clearing the final legislative hurdle before President Vladimir Putin, as expected, signs the bill into law, state media said.

The bill lists as high treason not only passing secret information to foreign governments, but also giving out consultations or financial help, including to international organisations, if they are engaged in "activities directed against the security of Russia".

The current treason law does not mention international organisations and applies only to activities hurting "foreign security."

The bill also creates a new criminal charge, punishable by up to four years in prison, for people who receive state secrets through illegal means defined as kidnapping, bribery or blackmail.

Rights activists and lawyers have said that the broader definitions could criminalise sharing information with international organisations such as Amnesty International or even appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.

The bill follows the passing of laws that have branded rights groups with foreign funding as "foreign agents", criminalised slander and blacklisted websites unfavourable to the government.

Activists say all the legislation is part of a broad crackdown against the opposition in revenge for the unprecedented protests that erupted as Putin returned to the Kremlin in May for a third presidential term.

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US air travel resumes after Sandy

SUPERSTORM Sandy grounded more than 18,000 flights across the US northeast and the globe, and it will take days before travel gets back to normal.

More than 7000 flights were cancelled on Tuesday alone, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware,

Delays rippled across the US, affecting travellers in cities from San Francisco to Atlanta. Some passengers attempting to fly out of Europe and Asia also were stuck.

Authorities closed the three big New York airports because of the storm. New York has the nation's busiest airspace, so cancellations there can dramatically affect travel in other cities.

It was possible that John F. Kennedy airport would reopen for flights on Wednesday, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It wasn't known when the LaGuardia and Newark airports would reopen.

Flying began to resume at other airports. Delta restarted flying from Boston and Washington Dulles and Reagan on Tuesday. Airline spokesman Morgan Durrant said it would resume domestic flights from JFK on Wednesday.

Service was slowly returning to Philadelphia International Airport on Tuesday afternoon.

Traffic from Asia to the east coast was beginning to resume, with flights from Tokyo's Narita International Airport to New York and to Washington, DC resuming as of Wednesday morning.

From Tokyo's Haneda airport, the JAL/American Airlines flight to and from New York was cancelled.

Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific, which cancelled seven flights to Kennedy airport through Wednesday, said service would resume on Thursday.

South Korean airlines Korean Air and Asiana Airlines said they would resume normal service to east coast cities starting late Wednesday or Thursday.

The number of cancellations caused by Sandy was roughly on par with other major storms that airlines dealt with. A major winter storm in early 2011 caused 14,000 cancellations over four days.

The airlines are facing a large task in getting things back to normal.

Workers had to clear garbage and downed tree limbs from runways at JFK. Water was on the runway at LaGuardia. At one point, some airlines hoped to restart some New York flights by late Tuesday, but that idea was abandoned.

Flooded roads and closed subways kept some workers from the airport. Reservations workers at other airports and at call centres were busy dealing with stranded passengers.

Some travellers hunkered down and waited, while others looked for a new way home.

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Afghan roadside bombs kill 11 civilians

TWO roadside bombings in southern Afghanistan have killed a total of 11 civilians, including seven women and three children, officials say.

The interior ministry and local officials said the attacks on Wednesday, both in Musa Qala district of Helmand province, wounded six others, also mostly women and children, and blamed the Taliban.

"Today at around 9.00am (1530 AEDT), a roadside bomb blew up a civilian truck in Musa Qala that killed 10, including seven young women and three children." provincial spokesman Farid Ahmad Farhang told AFP.

Hours later, a second device destroyed a civilian motorcycle, killing a man and wounding a woman and three children - all members of the same family - Farhang said.

A statement from the Helmand governor's office confirmed the toll and blamed the "enemies of Afghanistan", a term used by officials to refer to Taliban insurgents waging an 11-year war against the Kabul government and its NATO supporters.

Roadside bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), are the deadliest insurgent weapon in Afghanistan both for the military fighting the Taliban and civilians.

The crude devices, often built on old ammunition, are planted by the side of roads to target NATO and Afghan troops but they also kill civilians travelling on the same roads.

The United Nations says 1145 civilians were killed in the war in the first six months of this year, blaming 80 per cent of the deaths on insurgents, with more than half caused by roadside bombs.

Last year, a record 3021 civilians died in the war, the UN has said, and this year around 30 per cent of casualties have been women and children. Most of them were victims of roadside bombs.

On October 19 a bomb ripped through a minibus carrying guests to a wedding in the northern province of Balkh, killing 19 people.

A day after the Balkh blast, the UN urged the Taliban leadership to enforce their ban on IEDs, announced by the militants' one-eyed leader Mullah Omar in 1998.

Foreign combat troops are due to withdraw by the end of 2014 and there are fears that the Taliban will extend their activities across wider swathes of the country against ill-prepared Afghan forces.

On Friday, a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform killed 42 people, including five children, and wounded 50 more at a mosque in northern Faryab province after prayers for the festival of Eid-ul-Adha.

It was the worst death toll in a single attack in Afghanistan since 80 died on December 6 last year in a suicide blast at a shrine in Kabul on the Shi'ite holy day of Ashura.

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NBN on track to meet 2013 plan

NBN Co boss Mike Quigley says the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) remains on schedule as it gathers speed in new housing estates.

Mr Quigley says the builder of the $37.4 billion high-speed network is on track to pass 286,000 homes and businesses by June 2013 as stated in its corporate plan released in August.

"The committee can be assured that we're on track to hit the corporate plan number, I'm prepared to back that," Mr Quigley told a joint parliamentary hearing in Canberra on Tuesday.

NBN Co chief operating officer Ralph Steffens said the NBN's designs had been slowed down as it had to update inaccurate data on pits and ducts in the Telstra network.

"Telstra is well under way in remediating the infrastructure to make it usable for us," Mr Steffens said.

Mr Steffens said he was confident NBN Co's construction partners would have accurate information to ensure the 286,000 premises would be passed by June 2013, with 43,000 homes and businesses connected to the network by then.

Mr Quigley said connections in two of the first trial sites, Kiama in NSW and Willunga in South Australia, were ahead of original forecasts.

"Kiama is now very close to 44 per cent uptake and Willunga not far behind it," Mr Quigley said.

"We are seeing some quite substantial take ups without any steps being taken yet to shut down the copper (line)."

The government-owned enterprise said its backlog of providing fixed fibre cable connections in new housing estates had fallen from 3800 premises at the end of September to 3200 a month later.

Mr Quigley said the number of lots passed in new housing estates had basically doubled from 10,054 at June 30 to 19,730 three months later.

Premises connected to the NBN in new housing estates had risen from around 500 at June 30 to 1824 to the end of September while the forecast for October 31 was 2500, he said.

"We are now really starting to ramp up," Mr Quigley said.

"It's a huge job but we are getting on top of it."

NBN Co is to deliver fibre-optic high-speed broadband cable to 93 per cent of homes, schools and businesses across Australia by 2021, with the rest to be provided by fixed-wireless and satellite services.

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Love is in the air for Peter Andre

THREE months into his latest relationship Aussie pop star Peter Andre has spoken of marriage and more children.

The 39-year old who calls Britain home has told The Sun newspaper that medical student girlfriend Emily MacDonagh, 23, is his "breath of fresh air".

"Before I was dating and going out and having fun, but I felt empty. Very early on in our relationship I felt that gap had been filled - this is the happiest I have been in years," Andre told the British tabloid.

"And I've always wanted to remarry, settle down and have more kids."

The Mysterious Girl singer has two children with Katie Price, to whom he was married for four years until 2009.

He met MacDonagh through her urology consultant father who performed emergency surgery on the star to remove kidney stones.

Love life and family aside, Andre is releasing a new album, Angels and Demons, and has an upcoming tour of the UK.

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Organised criminals to face tougher laws

CHANGES to existing laws to crack down on organised criminals, including those who fly under false names, have passed the lower house.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon earlier this month introduced a legislative package to ensure commonwealth criminal law remained up to date and effective.

Organised criminals often fly under false names.

The bill will make it a crime to use a false identity to book a flight over the internet or to take commercial flights.

It will also be a crime to use a false identity when identifying oneself for a flight.

Other measures in the package include allowing illicit drugs to be listed by regulation.

The move is aimed at preventing criminals exploiting loopholes created when lists of controlled drugs don't keep pace with the market for illicit substances.

The bill also expands laws against identity theft by making it a crime to use a carriage service like the internet or a mobile phone to obtain identity information with the intention of committing another offence.

It increases the commonwealth's penalty unit scheme by raising the value of a single unit from $110 to $170.

The maximum fine for obtaining a financial advantage by deception would jump from $66,000 to $102,000 for an individual under the changes.

The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Serious Drugs, Identity Crime and Other Measures) Bill 2012 passed the lower house on Tuesday.

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'Tsunami money spent on unrelated jobs'

ABOUT a quarter of the $US148 billion ($A143.91 billion) budget for reconstruction after the March 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster has been spent on unrelated projects, including subsidies for a contact lens factory and research whaling, a Japanese government accounting shows.

The audit documents released last week buttressed complaints over shortcomings in the reconstruction effort. More than half the Y11.7 trillion ($A142.67 billion) budget is yet to be disbursed, stalled by indecision and bureaucracy, while nearly all of the 340,000 people evacuated from the disaster zone remain uncertain whether, when and how they will ever resettle.

Many of the non-reconstruction-related projects loaded into the budget were included on the pretext they might contribute to Japan's economic revival, a strategy that the government now acknowledges was a mistake.

"It is true that the government has not done enough and has not done it adequately. We must listen to those who say the reconstruction should be the first priority," Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in a speech to parliament on Monday.

He vowed that unrelated projects will be "strictly wrung out" of the budget.

But ensuring that funds go to their intended purpose might require an explicit change in the reconstruction spending law, which authorises spending on such ambiguous purposes as creating eco-towns and supporting "employment measures."

Among the unrelated projects benefiting from the reconstruction budgets are: road building in distant Okinawa; prison vocational training in other parts of Japan; subsidies for a contact lens factory in central Japan; renovations of government offices in Tokyo; aircraft and fighter pilot training, research and production of rare earths minerals, a semiconductor research project and even funding to support whaling, ostensibly for research.

Some 30 million yen ($380,000) went to promoting the Tokyo Sky Tree, a transmission tower that is the world's tallest freestanding broadcast structure. Another 2.8 billion yen ($35 million) was requested by the Justice Ministry for a publicity campaign to "reassure the public" about the risks of big disasters.

Masahiro Matsumura, a politics professor at St. Andrews University in Osaka, Japan, said justifying such misuse by suggesting the benefits would "trickle down" to the disaster zone is typical of the political dysfunction that has hindered Japan's efforts to break out of two decades of debilitating economic slump.

"This is a manifestation of government indifference to rehabilitation. They are very good at making excuses," Matsumura told The Associated Press.

Near the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, which suffered the additional blow from the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, recovery work has barely begun.

More than 325,000 of the 340,000 people evacuated from the disaster zone or forced to flee the areas around the nuclear plant after the March 11, 2011 disaster remain homeless or away from their homes, according to the most recent figures available.

In Rikuzentakata, a fishing enclave where 1,800 people were killed or went missing as the tsunami scoured the harbour, rebuilding has yet to begin in earnest, says Takashi Kubota, who left a government job in Tokyo in May 2011 to become the town's deputy mayor.

The tsunami destroyed 3,800 of Rikuzentakata's 9,000 homes. The first priority, he says, has been finding land for rebuilding homes - on higher ground. For now, most evacuees are housed, generally unhappily, in temporary shelters in school playgrounds and sports fields.

"I can sum it up in two words - speed and flexibility - that are lacking," Kubota said. Showing a photo of the now non-existent downtown area, he said, "In 19 months, there have basically been no major changes. There is not one single new building yet."

The government has pledged to spend 23 trillion yen ($295 billion) over this decade on reconstruction and disaster prevention, 19 trillion yen ($245 billion) of it within five years.

But more than half the reconstruction budget remains unspent, according to the government's audit report.

The dithering is preventing the government, whose debt is already twice the size of the country's GDP, from getting the most bang for every buck.

"You've got economic malaise and political as well. That's just a recipe for disaster," said Matthew Circosta, an economist with Moody's Analytics in Sydney.

Part of the problem is the central government's strategy of managing the reconstruction from Tokyo instead of delegating it to provincial governments. At the same time, the local governments lack the staff and expertise for such major rebuilding.

The government "thinks it has to be in the driver's seat," Jun Iio, a government adviser and professor at Tokyo University told a conference in Sendai. "Unfortunately the reconstruction process is long and only if the local residents can agree on a plan will they move ahead on reconstruction."

"It is in this stage that creativity is needed for rebuilding," he said.

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Two dead as Typhoon Son-Tinh hits Vietnam

TWO people have been killed and thousands of homes damaged as Vietnam's coast was lashed by Typhoon Son-Tinh, authorities say, after the storm caused deadly landslides and floods in the Philippines.

Strong winds destroyed large tracts of crops, brought down power lines and ripped the roofs off houses after Son-Tinh, which has been downgraded to a tropical depression, made landfall in the north of the country late Sunday.

Two people were confirmed killed, while two others were missing, an official from the National Committee on Flood and Storm Control in Hanoi told AFP on Monday, adding that it was the biggest typhoon to hit Vietnam since the start of the storm season, with wind speeds of up to 140 kilometres per hour.

The wind also felled a 180-metre television tower, the tallest in northern Vietnam, in Nam Dinh City, according to state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper.

Vietnam is hit by an average of eight to 10 tropical storms every year, often causing heavy material and human losses.

More than 50,000 people were evacuated in preparation for the bad weather, while authorities imposed a sea ban in some areas and dozens of domestic flights were cancelled.

Son Tinh left a total of 27 people dead and nine missing in the Philippines, according to figures from the government's civil defence office on Monday, after it tore down trees and caused flash floods and landslides.

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Greek journalist in court over bank data

A GREEK investigative journalist has appeared in court after publishing names from an alleged list of Swiss bank accounts that the Athens government has been accused of trying to cover up.

Costas Vaxevanis, a veteran television journalist who is editor of the Hot Doc magazine, published the list in its inaugural issue on Saturday.

It included more than 2000 names, allegedly from a controversial list of HSBC account holders that was originally leaked by a bank employee and passed to Greece in 2010 by France's then finance minister Christine Lagarde.

Vaxevanis says he received the information in an anonymous letter whose sender claimed to have received it from a politician.

He has been charged with breach of privacy and faces a maximum three-year jail sentence if convicted.

"Instead of arresting thieves and ministers breaking the law they want to arrest the truth," Vaxevanis commented on his Twitter account on Saturday.

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Pearson, Bertelsmann confirm tie-up

PEARSON Plc will merge its Penguin Books division with Random House, which is owned by German media company Bertelsmann, in an all-share deal that will create the world's largest publisher of consumer books.

The planned joint venture brings together classic and best-selling names. As well as publishing books from authors such as John Grisham, Random House scored a major hit this year with Fifty Shades of Grey. Penguin has a strong backlist, including George Orwell, Jack Kerouac and John Le Carre.

The two companies said on Monday that Bertelsmann would own a controlling 53 per cent share of the joint venture, which will be known as Penguin Random House.

Bertelsmann would keep full control of Verlagsgruppe Random House, its trade publishing business in Germany, and Pearson would retain the right to use the Penguin brand in education.

The announcement appears to put paid to any hopes that News Corp may have had in netting Penguin. Reports over the past couple of days have indicated that News Corp had expressed an interest in buying Penguin for STG1 billion ($A1.56 billion) in cash.

Pearson declined to comment on the possible interest of News Corp.

News Corp owns HarperCollins, another big publishing house.

Under the terms of the deal, Random House worldwide chief executive Markus Dohle will be CEO of the new group while Penguin's CEO John Makinson will be the chairman of its board of directors.

"Together, the two publishers will be able to share a large part of their costs, to invest more for their author and reader constituencies and to be more adventurous in trying new models in this exciting, fast-moving world of digital books and digital readers," said Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson.

Bertelsmann's Dohle said the link-up will "create a publishing home that gives employees, authors, agents, and booksellers access to unprecedented resources."

The closing of the deal is scheduled to take place in the second half of 2013 following regulatory approval.

Pearson said the deal does not require approval by shareholders; Bertelsmann is privately-owned.

Pearson shares were down one per cent at 1209 pence in midmorning trading in London.

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Aust, US defence treaty bill passes Senate

AUSTRALIA and the United States will be able to trade arms and defence technology more freely under legislation passed by the Senate.

The Defence Trade Controls Bill 2011 implements a treaty Australia signed with the US in 2007 to co-operate on the trade of defence and dual-use items.

The agreement means companies won't have to get an individual export licence for every application to the US.

It also allows some items to be exported from America without a licence.

The federal government says the bill will help deliver equipment to Australian troops faster.

It will also provide opportunities for the Australian defence industry to win contracts in the US defence market.

About half of Australia's war-fighting equipment comes from the US.

Australia's defence force will replace or upgrade about 85 per cent of its equipment during the next 10 to 15 years.

The US passed legislation to implement the treaty in September 2010.

But Australian Greens senator Scott Ludlam told parliament his party was opposed to the bill as it facilitated weapons trade.

Senator Ludlum suggested the bill was being rushed through the Senate to provide a positive photo opportunity for Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Defence Minister Stephen Smith when they greet visiting senior US officials in Perth next month.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Leon Panetta are scheduled to attend the annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) there on November 14.

Liberal senator Ian McDonald earlier urged the government to allow more time for the bill to be scrutinised.

He said rushing it through without proper consideration could cause "irreparable harm" to Australia's research departments and defence industries.

"This is just symptomatic, emblematic of what this government is all about," the senator said.

The Senate also passed the Customs Amendment (Military End-Use) Bill 2011, which will enable the defence minister to block certain goods from being exported if it was deemed to endanger Australia's security, defence or international relations.

The bills, which passed with amendments from the government, opposition and Greens, now return to the lower house for a final tick of approval.

University of Sydney vice-chancellor Professor Jill Trewhella praised the amendments to the legislation saying they ensured that Australian researchers will not be disadvantaged against their American counterparts.

"The amendments to the bill... will mean that Australian research will continue to have its maximum impact on health, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, engineering, communications, and more," Prof Trewhella told AAP.

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Three marines killed in Philippine clash

THREE Philippine marines have been killed and 10 wounded in a clash with al-Qaeda-linked militants who are holding several foreign hostages.

The troops from the Marine Battalion Landing Team 6 were deployed to a remote village on the southern island of Jolo to check intelligence reports about the presence there of Abu Sayyaf gunmen and their captives.

"The troops conducted a combat patrol to verify the reported presence of the kidnap victims in the area when they caught up with the Abu Sayyaf group, resulting in the encounter," said a regional military spokesman.

Three were killed and military helicopters evacuated the 10 injured, he said.

The marines reported having killed two Abu Sayyaf militants, although none of the hostages was sighted or recovered.

The Abu Sayyaf, whose followers number in the low hundreds, is blamed for the country's worst terrorist attacks including a ferry bombing in 2004 that killed more than 100.

The group is also behind a series of high-profile kidnappings of foreign and local tourists as well as businessmen.

It is on the US government's list of foreign terrorist organisations, and a number of American advisers have been rotating in the southern Philippines for the past decade helping local counterparts to try to crush the group.

A number of foreign hostages are believed held by the Abu Sayyaf in its Jolo stronghold or elsewhere, including two European bird-watchers seized in February and an Australian abducted last December.

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22,000 displaced by Burma unrest: UN

MORE than 22,000 people from mainly Muslim communities have been displaced in western Burma after a fresh wave of violence and arson that has left dozens dead.

Whole neighbourhoods were razed in unrest in Rakhine state during the past week, the United Nations has reported.

The violence has cast a shadow over the country's reforms and put further strain on relief efforts in the region, where some 75,000 people are already crammed into overcrowded camps following clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in June.

The UN chief in Rangoon, Ashok Nigam, said government estimates provided early on Sunday were that 22,587 people had been displaced and 4665 houses set ablaze in the latest bloodshed.

"We have to say that this is a current estimate and we suspect there may be additional numbers," Nigam told AFP, adding that 21,700 of those made homeless were Muslims.

"These are people whose houses have been burnt, they are still in the same locality," he said, indicating that thousands more who had surged towards the state capital Sittwe may not be included in that estimate.

The latest fighting has killed more than 80 people, according to a government official, bringing the total toll since June to above 170.

In Minbya, one of about eight townships affected by the fighting, a senior police official told AFP that more than 4000 people, mainly Muslims, had been made homeless after hundreds of properties in six villages were torched.

"Some victims are staying at their relatives' houses, some are in temporary relief camps, they are staying near those burnt areas," he said, adding that a heightened security presence had prevented further clashes.

"They are staying between Muslims and Rakhine people."

Nigam, who has just returned from a visit to the region, said the UN was concerned both about the potential of a further spread of violence and that it would be "more challenging" to reach the displaced in some of the remote affected areas.

The UN had already started mobilising to take food and shelter to displaced communities, "but we will quickly need more resources", he said.

Boatloads of people have arrived in Sittwe seeking shelter in camps on the outskirts of the city that are already packed with Muslim minority Rohingya following June's unrest.

Festering animosity between Buddhists and Muslims has continued to simmer in Rakhine since the outbreak of violence in June.

Burma's 800,000 Rohingya are seen by the government as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh and many Burmese call them "Bengalis". They face discrimination that activists say has led to a deepening alienation from Buddhists.

Human Rights Watch on Saturday released satellite images showing "extensive destruction of homes and other property in a predominantly Rohingya Muslim area" of Kyaukpyu, where a major pipeline to transport Burma's gas to China begins.

The images show a stark contrast between the coastal area as seen in March this year, packed with hundreds of dwellings and fringed with boats, and in the aftermath of the latest violence, where virtually all structures appear to have been wiped from the landscape.

The stateless Rohingya, speaking a Bengali dialect similar to one in neighbouring Bangladesh, have long been considered by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.

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Indian PM revamps cabinet for 2014 poll

INDIAN Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government had had a major reshuffle in what analysts said was an attempt at an image makeover ahead of general elections scheduled for 2014.

Salman Khursheed, 59, a lawyer and career politician who has held varied ministerial portfolios including law and commerce, was appointed foreign minister.

He replaces SM Krishna, 80, who resigned on Saturday saying he was making way for younger faces.

Shashi Tharoor, a former United Nations undersecretary-general who resigned in 2010 after a brief stint as junior minister for external affairs, and Manish Tiwari, a prominent spokesman of the Indian National Congress party, were among the new ministers.

Chiranjeevi, a popular film actor from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, whose party merged with Congress in 2011, was appointed junior minister with independent charge of the tourism ministry.

Andhra Pradesh is one of the 17 states where elections to legislative assemblies are due in 2013 and 2014.

A total of 22 ministers, including 17 new inductees, were sworn in at a ceremony on Sunday at the presidential palace.

Two new ministers were appointed to the cabinet and five ministers elevated to cabinet rank. The rest were sworn in as junior ministers.

"It (the ministry) is a combination of youth and experience," Singh told reporters after the ceremony. Singh also hoped it would be the last reshuffle before the 2014 general election.

Singh's Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance government has been mired in financial scandals over the past two years and has also been accused of failing to take correct policy decisions to speed up a slowing economy.

The prime minister said he was disappointed that Rahul Gandhi, a general secretary of the Congress Party and son of party president Sonia Gandhi, had once again turned down the offer of a cabinet position.

Rahul Gandhi - whose father, grandmother and great grandfather were all prime ministers of India - is widely seen as a future candidate of the Congress Party for the top job.

He has, however, said that for now he wishes to focus on reorganising and revitalising the Congress Party.

A major overhaul of the Congress Party organisational structure is also expected soon in view of the upcoming state assembly and general elections.

Several of the seven senior ministers who resigned on Saturday to make for the new ministers had said they were resigning to work for the party.

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Troika seeks 150 new Greek reforms

INTERNATIONAL auditors will demand Greece carry out a further 150 reforms to its recession-battered economy and suggest holders of Greek debt take a further hit, German newsweekly Spiegel has reported.

Citing an interim version of the findings of the troika of creditors, Spiegel said Athens would get an extra two years to carry out the reforms in its program but this delay would cost billions of euros.

Greece has completed 60 per cent of the reforms already demanded of it, the report says, according to Spiegel. A further 20 per cent are being debated by the Greek government, while the rest are outstanding.

Among the additional reforms demanded are a loosening of the hiring-and-firing laws, changes to the minimum-wage rules and a lifting of certain professional privileges, Spiegel said.

The report also suggests that creditors including other eurozone countries take a "haircut", or write-off, on some of their holdings of Greek debt, meaning taxpayers would be funding the bailout.

The European Central Bank (ECB) would not write off its holding of Greek debt because this would amount to financing Greece, which is strictly forbidden, Spiegel reported.

But the ECB - which is part of the troika along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union - is prepared to forgo profits on its Greek debt holding, the weekly said.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble dismissed the idea of a further haircut for Greece as unrealistic.

"That is a discussion which has little to do with the reality in the member states of the eurozone," he told German radio station Deutschlandfunk.

However, he suggested that Greece could buy back some of its debt at lower prices from bond holders.

Private investors in Greek debt accepted to write off almost all of the value of their holdings as part of the second Greek bailout package negotiated this year.

But so-called "official sector" bondholders, including other eurozone governments, have until now been spared such a write-off.

Greece is striving to persuade the troika it has made enough progress in reforms and painful austerity cuts to unlock a 31.5 billion euros ($A39.73 billion) slice of aid needed to stave off bankruptcy.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has said Greece's coffers will be empty in mid-November. Spiegel said the long-awaited report would be published on November 12 at the latest.

Creditors differ on how much the two-year delay would cost, with the EU and ECB estimating 30 billion euros and the IMF 38 billion euros, Spiegel said.

In order to ensure reforms are carried out, further tranches should be stored in a frozen account and released when changes have been implemented, Spiegel said.

Changes would also be made to the budgetary laws in Greece, meaning, for example, that taxes would automatically rise if reforms are not implemented when required, the newsweekly reported.

Without referring to the specific measures outlined in the Spiegel report, Schaeuble said such a control mechanism could "perhaps create the credibility that we have not had in Greece programs until now".

The interim report was presented on Thursday to officials in Brussels, who are preparing the next meeting of eurozone finance ministers, expected to take place by teleconference on Wednesday.

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