Blast heard at Beijing airport terminal

CHINESE state media say that a man set off a homemade bomb in Terminal 3 of the Beijing International Airport, but that no one besides the man was injured and order has been restored.

The official Xinhua News Agency cited witnesses in reporting that the explosion was heard at 6.24pm local time on Saturday, but gave no further details.

State-run China Central Television said on its microblog that the man was injured and sent to a hospital after setting off the bomb.

It says no one else was injured, no flights were affected and order has been restored at the airport.

Reached over the phone, the airport's news office said it was not aware of the explosion, and airport police declined to answer questions.

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Silliness reigns as UK awaits royal baby

FROM royal baby name generators to interminably dull live-feeds of a hospital door - the longer Britain waits for Prince William's wife Catherine to give birth, the more nonsense the internet provides.

Bored web users can while away hours creating ghastly photomontages of what the little heir will look like - taking Kate's hair, for example, adding William's nose and the ears of grandfather Prince Charles.

Elsewhere, a slew of royal baby name generators offer the chance to create an unlikely monicker for the newborn.

"Avoid pointless, time-wasting speculation over the name of the new royal baby, by using this handy name generator!" suggests satirical website The Poke, inviting users to create "aristocratic" monickers by adding their birthplace to the name of their pet.

With the world's media camped outside Kate's London hospital in preparation for the birth, several broadcasters are now offering riveting dawn-til-dusk online coverage of the "Great Kate Wait".

Occasionally there is a ripple of excitement when a pedestrian walks past the cameras trained on the doors of the Lindo Wing at St Mary's hospital.

Dozens of royal-themed smartphone apps are also available - including ones that allow you to transform photographs of your own children into little princes and princesses.

There are also plenty of smartphone games inspired by the future monarch, including "Royal Baby Slot Machine" and "Royal Baby Run".

"Select your royal and run as far as you can!" says the latter. Players must prevent a tiny figure of Prince William, with his baby in his arms, from falling in a ditch.

Skilled players can win credits that "unlock" other royals - Charles being the cheapest character, followed by Kate, William's brother Prince Harry and even Queen Elizabeth II herself.

Savvy advertisers, meanwhile, have also jumped on the royal baby bandwagon.

One bookmaker - taking bets on everything from the future monarch's name to its possible hair colour - dressed four men as grotesque "adult babies" and sent them onto London's underground train network, where they drew shudders from commuters.

Meanwhile The Sun, Britain's top-selling newspaper, decided on Friday to play a trick on the bored photographers camped outside the hospital.

It sent two passable royal lookalikes to the Lindo Wing, where they were frantically snapped as they walked up the steps -- only to turn around and reveal that they were actors wearing Sun t-shirts.

The burst of creativity was perhaps inspired by antics on the previous day, when a feminist activist briefly took the Sun's hospital livecam "hostage" to protest against the tabloid's use of topless models.

As the first royal baby born into the social media era, there is of course a daily avalanche of tweets on its impending arrival - including several accounts dedicated to royal baby news, or indeed the lack of it.

"Do we have a #RoyalBaby yet? Follow for frequent updates!" says the @RoyalBabyYet account. Scintillating posts include: "Not just yet, no."

Rumours that Kate may have gone into labour cause regular flurries of excitement on Twitter, but all have proved to be false alarms so far.

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Thistlethwaite snags Peter Garrett's seat

LABOR senator Matt Thistlethwaite will soon be door-knocking after winning a resounding preselection vote for the NSW seat held by retiring federal MP Peter Garrett.

The 40-year-old beat Randwick Mayor Tony Bowen on Saturday by a branch vote of 136 to 105 for the marginal Sydney seat of Kingsford Smith, a Labor head office spokeswoman told AAP.

"We're very happy to have Matt on board," she said about the vote that had a higher than usual turnout.

Senator Thistlethwaite thanked the branch in a letter, saying he was going to hit the ground running and start door-knocking on Sunday.

On Tuesday, he rejected claims he was involved in branch-stacking.

It came after News Limited reported that about 58 people in Senator Thistlethwaite's local branch of Malabar paid their membership fees on March 31, which was the cut-off date to be eligible to vote in the preselection ballot.

Senator Thistlethwaite denied this was evidence of branch-stacking.

"I didn't recruit people to join on the same day," he told Sky News.

He said many Labor members renewed their memberships on that day because it was the deadline for fee payment.

The seat of Kingsford Smith has been held by the ALP since it was created in 1949.

Senator Thistlethwaite was Labor general secretary from 2008 until 2010 and currently holds the positions of parliamentary secretary for infrastructure, transport, Pacific Island affairs and multicultural affairs.

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HK opens exhibit to honour Bruce Lee

THE late superstar Bruce Lee is best-known for the kung fu skills he displayed in his movies, but his daughter hopes that more people take the effort to understand his teachings and life philosophy.

Marking his death 40 years ago on Saturday, the Hong Kong government has teamed up with the Bruce Lee Foundation to put together an exhibition to showcase the late star's life, from his famous yellow tracksuit he wore in the movie Game of Death, to his writings and drawings.

The exhibition that opened on Saturday, Bruce Lee: Kung fu. Art. Life, has more than 600 items on display, including photos, costumes, videos and even a 3.5-metre statue.

Lee, who was born in San Francisco but raised in Hong Kong, died at the height of his fame due to an allergic reaction to painkillers at the age of 32. His last film, Enter the Dragon, was released six days after his death and became his most popular movie.

Shannon Lee, who was four when her father died, said he was still such a strong influence that many make assumptions about her.

"People immediately assume that I am some amazingly skilled and deadly martial artist," said Lee, who added she has studied martial arts but is a 44-year-old businesswomen with a 10-year-old child.

Lee, who is also the president of the Bruce Lee Foundation, said not many people know the depth of her father as a man, with most appreciating only his martial arts skills.

"Hopefully this exhibition will help show a more complete picture" by showing Lee's family side, the hard work he put into making his movies and other aspects of his life such as the poetry he wrote, she said.

"I think a lot of people see the final product up on screen and they go, 'Oh, there's a talented guy,' but they don't see all the effort that went into it," she said.

Lee said working to promote her father's legacy was inspiring because she gets to see "how many lives he's touched in such a positive way, and if I can keep that going, that's meaningful."

AP

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Thyroid cancer risk for Fukushima workers

AROUND 2000 people who have worked at Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant face a heightened risk of thyroid cancer, its operator says.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said on Friday that 1973 people - around 10 per cent of those employed in emergency crews involved in the clean-up since the meltdowns - were believed to have been exposed to enough radiation to cause potential problems.

The figure is a 10-fold increase on TEPCO's previous estimate of the number of possible thyroid cancer victims and comes after the utility was told its figures were too conservative.

Each worker in this group was exposed to at least 100 millisieverts of radiation, projections show.

Although little is known about the exact health effects of radiation on the human body, the level is considered by doctors to be a possible threshold for increased cancer risk.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant became the site of the worst nuclear disaster in a generation after the massive tsunami of March 2011 destroyed its cooling systems.

The plant's reactors went through meltdowns that caused explosions in the buildings housing them, spewing radioactive materials into the air, sea and soil.

Tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes in a large area around the plant, where crews continue to clear debris and cool the reactors.

The fragility of the wrecked plant was brought into sharp relief again on Thursday with the discovery of steam in the roofless building around Reactor 3.

TEPCO said on Friday it still did not know exactly where the steam was coming from, although readings showed it was no more radioactive than expected and suggested it could have been accumulated rainwater.

The huge utility, which has faced frequent criticism for downplaying dangers and not being forthcoming about problems at the site, revised its method of estimating the level of radiation exposure among workers earlier this month.

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France drops terror charges against rocker

French prosecutors have dropped terror charges against Norwegian neo-Nazi musician Varg Vikernes. Source: AAP

FRENCH prosecutors say they have dropped terror charges against a Norwegian musician and freed him from custody, but still want him to go to court for allegedly inciting racial hatred.

The prosecutor's office said on Friday that Varg Vikernes was freed on Thursday night after three days of questioning by police in the central French city of Brive-la-Gaillarde, near his farmhouse.

His French wife was freed on Wednesday. Her recent purchase of four firearms raised suspicions of French authorities although she had a permit.

Vikernes, a neo-Nazi black metal rocker, gained notoriety in the 1990s after being convicted in Norway of manslaughter in the stabbing death of a fellow band member and for arson attacks on three churches.

Prosecutors say they still want him to answer in court for his alleged anti-Semitic and xenophobic messages.

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Iran's Ahmadinejad visits Iraq

IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in southern Iraq to visit two of the holiest cities for Shi'ite Muslims amid tight security on the second day of his two-day visit to the country.

The outgoing Iranian president waved to worshippers and smiled on Friday morning as he entered the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, a city 160km south of Baghdad.

Security forces were deployed along the route from Najaf airport to the gold-domed shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shi'ite Islam.

Ahmadinejad's convoy then plans to head to the city of Karbala, home to the shrine of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

This is Ahmadinejad's second visit to Iraq while in office. On Thursday, he met Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other officials.

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Suicide bomber kills 20 in Iraq mosque

A SUICIDE bomber has struck a crowded Sunni mosque north of Baghdad, killing 20 people, police say, as Iraq struggles to contain the worst violence since 2008.

The bomber detonated explosives in the Abu Bakr al-Sadiq Mosque as the imam gave the Friday sermon in the town of Al-Wajihiyah, east of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, a police colonel said.

The attack also wounded 40 people. A doctor confirmed the toll.

Areas near Baquba have been hit by a number of attacks in recent days, including a bombing on Tuesday that targeted worshippers leaving a Sunni mosque in Muqdadiyah, northeast of the city, killing four people and wounding 15.

The latest unrest brings the number of people killed in attacks in July to more than 450, and upwards of 2700 since the beginning of the year.

Iraq has faced years of attacks by militants, but analysts say widespread discontent among members of its Sunni Arab minority, which the Shi'ite-led government has failed to address, has fuelled this year's surge in unrest.

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Qld to crack down on removal of trackers

TOUGHER penalties for Queensland sex offenders who damage or remove their GPS trackers are on the cards.

Since GPS electronic monitoring was introduced in November 2011, five offenders have deliberately removed their devices.

This resulted in an arrest and a return to the Supreme Court for judgment, Police Minister Jack Dempsey told Queensland parliament's budget estimates hearing on Thursday night.

Cutting the straps of the unit triggers an immediate alert to a central monitoring station.

Mr Dempsey says a specialist surveillance team monitors the devices around the clock.

While he says the tracking system is among the best, he admits penalties for tampering or removing the devices are insufficient.

"We have legislation coming forward in relation to the wilful damage of these GPS devices," Mr Dempsey told the hearing.

"Presently, they may be fined for wilful damage, the same as scratching a park bench.

"Stronger penalties for these offences are necessary to protect the community."

He said new laws are expected within the next 12 months.

In June, 87 sex offenders living in the community were tracked by a team of 49 specialists.

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Elvis heirs win German court case

THE heirs of Elvis Presley have won a tactical court case in Germany, where they are campaigning to claw back lost royalties for radio replays of the King of Rock's greatest hits.

A Munich appeal court on Thursday ordered a company controlled by Sony to disclose how many times the songs had been played in Germany since April 2008.

Europe's most populous nation and its "golden oldie" stations are still in love with Elvis, who died in 1977.

The ruling raises the odds that Elvis Presley Enterprises, which has the King's daughter Lisa-Marie Presley as a 15-per-cent shareholder, can circumvent a 1973 contract in which he sold many of his future royalties for a lump sum to RCA Records, now part of Sony.

The heirs are appealing a decision against them in a lower German court.

Appeal judges ruled that 3.34 million euros ($A4.78 million) are at stake in the case. They set no date for their final decision on the merits of the claim.

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Putin critic sentenced to five years' jail

Anti-Putin protest leader Alexei Navalny (C) has been convicted of embezzlement by a Russian court. Source: AAP

A COURT in Russia's northern Kirov region has sentenced protest leader Alexei Navalny to five years in a penal colony after finding him guilty of embezzlement in a timber deal.

"Navalny... committed a grave crime," said Judge Sergei Blinov as he delivered the sentence on Thursday.

Navalny hugged his wife and mother and was then handcuffed by court bailiffs who led him away, an AFP correspondent in court reported.

Blinov earlier on Thursday found Navalny guilty of colluding to steal money in a timber deal while acting as an unpaid advisor to the local government in the Kirov region.

His co-accused, Pyotr Ofitserov, was also found guilty and sentenced to four years imprisonment.

Navalny, 37, who emerged as a powerful new political force in mass anti-Putin protests that broke out in December 2011, has dismissed the charges against him as absurd and a set-up to end his budding political career.

Prosecutors in the regional capital of Kirov, a sleepy city 900 kilometres north of Moscow, were seeking a six-year prison colony sentence.

But the conviction alone will remove Navalny from politics once the appeals process is over.

Navalny had bluntly predicted on his blog ahead of his trial that he would be found guilty and that Putin would be behind the decision.

The verdict and sentence come a day after Navalny was accepted as a candidate for the high-profile Moscow mayoral race in September.

But his election chief Leonid Volkov said after the sentencing that Navalny was pulling out of the mayoral race and calling on his supporters to boycott the vote.

The trial is seen by the opposition as part of a wider crackdown on activists who took to the streets to demand an end to Putin's rule in the run-up to his return to the Kremlin in May 2012 for a third term.

Many have spent months in cells awaiting trial and face long jail terms for crowd violence.

With his streetwise rhetoric and charisma, Navalny emerged as the most effective of the opposition leaders who led the unprecedented protests against Putin.

Navalny has said he wants to challenge Putin in the next presidential elections in 2018.

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Man missing in NSW Blue Mountains

THERE is no sign of a man missing in the NSW Blue Mountains after he disappeared from a work conference at a popular retreat three days ago.

Police say they have growing fears for 23-year-old Gary Tweddle, who was last seen leaving the Fairmont Resort at Leura early on Tuesday.

The Cremorne man had spoken to a friend shortly after midnight (AEST) and told him he was in bushland near a main road.

Police have been advised Mr Tweddle appeared in good spirits at the time but he hasn't been seen or heard from since.

The Rural Fire Service, State Emergency Service and 75 police officers searched for Mr Tweddle on Thursday, with the search focusing on bushland along Sublime Point Road at Leura.

At the time of his disappearance, Mr Tweddle was wearing blue jeans, a checked shirt and a black jacket.

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FBT changes dominate climate debate

Labor minister Mark Butler (C) says legislation will be drafted for the ETS before the election. Source: AAP

LABOR'S crackdown on work-related benefits to help pay for a shift to an emissions trading scheme (ETS) continues to anger the motor industry after the government said it would mainly impact luxury car owners.

Changes to fringe benefit tax (FBT) arrangements on car leasing and salary sacrifice packaging aim to raise $1.8 billion of the $3.8 billion needed for an early shift from a fixed carbon pricing regime to an ETS in 2014.

The move, which will impact about 320,000 people, has angered automotive groups and the opposition, but the government is determined to push through the measure, even if it means recalling parliament.

"In the event that parliament were to resume before the election, I could take draft legislation to the parliament," Climate Change Minister Mark Butler said on Wednesday.

If rejected, Labor would take it to the election and seek a mandate from voters, he added.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said the surprise change was like taking a baseball bat to an already ailing motor vehicle industry.

"This is poorly thought out, there was no consultation with any stakeholders," he told reporters after meeting with car salesmen in western Sydney.

However, Mr Hockey stopped short of committing the coalition to block the measure, saying "we would not start from yesterday" when asked if he would back the change.

The senior Liberal agreed with car retailers who say they rely on the FBT scheme to keep up sales in an already cut-throat sector.

But Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said people were "fiddling the system" by buying expensive luxury cars and claiming personal travel as a work-related expense.

"The chances are it's not a Holden Commodore, it's a BMW," he said.

Treasurer Chris Bowen tried to soften the blow, adding that people entitled to dispensation would still be able to get it as long as they could justify their claims.

"If you are not using your car for business, then you don't need a business-use deduction," he said.

The savings from the FBT measure form the single biggest plank of Labor's push to an ETS next year, and neutralise lingering voter antipathy toward imposition of the $24 a tonne carbon tax.

Other savings will come from public service job cuts and the scrapping or winding back of some clean energy programs.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the ETS push is in line with a promise he made to Australians in 2007 during his first leadership term, and will save the average Australian household $380 in 2014/15.

But industry says changes to the FBT scheme will hit middle-income earners hardest.

"Motorists ... should not be targeted to help minimise the budget impact of other policy decisions," Australian Automobile Association director Andrew McKellar said.

The Australian Greens, who are critical of cuts to environmental programs, are promising to stall any government legislation related to the earlier ETS move in the upper house.

"We won't be moving to the ETS in 2014," said Greens leader Christine Milne.

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Rudd close to boat policy announcement

THE Rudd government is closer to laying out changes to its strategy on asylum seeker boat arrivals as Opposition Leader Tony Abbott declared Australia was facing a national emergency.

After moving to neutralise the carbon tax as an election issue by "terminating" it on Tuesday, federal Labor now plans to address its biggest policy weakness.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday outlined his three-pronged approach to the vexed policy area covering action at the global, regional and national level.

"That's the correct response to a problem which is not uniquely Australia's - it is a problem right around the world," he told reporters in Gladstone.

The prime minister's comments came as a search and rescue operation began off Christmas Island after an asylum seeker boat carrying 80 people issued a distress call.

It also came a day after four people died when a boat capsized while under the escort of two navy vessels en route to Christmas Island.

The bodies of two men and two women, all thought to be in their 20s and 30s, were recovered from the water and a further 144 people were rescued.

Last weekend a baby boy, who was on a vessel swamped by high seas as it struggled toward the Australian coastline, was drowned.

Mr Rudd indicated Labor was looking at the effectiveness of the United Nations Refugee Convention.

While there's no suggestion Australia will withdraw from the convention, his comments imply the government might push for the 60-year-old agreement to be changed to reflect current movements of displaced people.

This could make it easier for Australia to reject refugee applications for people it deems to be economic migrants and not persons fleeing persecution or war.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr has already expressed concerns there were more economic migrants, particularly from Iran, coming to Australia on boats provided by people smugglers in Indonesia.

Iran currently refuses to accept people who don't want to be returned.

Mr Rudd, who recently visited Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, said on Wednesday he was looking at strengthening co-operation with nations in southeast Asia and the southwest Pacific.

The government was also looking at reforming Australia's domestic refugee determination process.

As part of the process, the foreign affairs department is updating advisory information provided to refugee tribunals and courts on asylum seeker source countries.

The government wants to change a review process that overturns the overwhelming majority of failed asylum seekers.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare has also called on all sides of politics to work together to "fix this God-awful problem".

"This is a wretchedly difficult area and it's been poisoned by politics," he said in Sydney.

Mr Abbott said he was more than happy to put partisanship aside and support Labor in making the changes needed to stop the boats.

"Bring back the parliament, let's debate this issue and let's make the changes now to stop the boats," he said in Mackay, Queensland.

"This is a national emergency, it's got to be addressed now."

Australia's border protection commander Rear Admiral David Johnston said his staff had suffered psychologically.

"It is a dreadful feeling in the stomach when we hear that a vessel has capsized or that it's in some difficulty," he told reporters.

Recently retired navy Lieutenant Commander Barry Learoyd, commander of the patrol boat HMAS Albany in the 2009 SIEV-36 incident when an intercepted vessel exploded with the loss of five asylum seekers, said boat turnbacks could be done.

"If the government says yes we are to turn the vessel around, then there would be procedures in place to make sure that happens as safely as we can," he told ABC television.

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European stocks climb at open

EUROPE'S main stock markets rose at the start of trading on Wednesday, with London's benchmark FTSE 100 index up 0.26 per cent to 6,573.30 points.

In Frankfurt, the DAX 30 gained 0.19 per cent to 8,216.70 points and in Paris the CAC 40 advanced 0.21 per cent to 3,859.20 compared with Tuesday's closing values.

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22 Indian children dead from school meal

Eight children died and 80 were hospitalised after eating lunch served at their school in India. Source: AAP

TWENTY-TWO children have died after eating a free lunch feared to contain poisonous chemicals at a school in eastern India, as angry protests erupted over the tragedy.

Thirty more children remain ill in hospital after consuming lunch cooked at a village primary school in the impoverished state of Bihar, state education minister P K Shahi said.

"After 21 deaths, we have just heard that one more child has died while undergoing treatment," the state's health secretary, Vyas Ji, told AFP, as suspicion focused on the possible presence of insecticide in the food.

There were emotional scenes as children, their limbs dangling and heads lolling to one side, were brought to a hospital in the Bihar city of Chhapra.

Other children, lying listless on stretchers, were placed on intravenous drips amid chaotic scenes at the hospital. Outside, inconsolable relatives wept.

"My children had gone to school to study. They came back home crying, and said it hurts," one distraught father told the NDTV network.

"I took them into my arms, but they kept crying, saying their stomach hurt very badly."

Running to the school to find out what had happened, the father said he saw "many bodies of children lying on the ground".

Bihar education minister P K Shahi said the midday meal "appears to be poisonous".

Twenty of the children, all aged under 10, were buried near the school in the village of Masrakh on Wednesday morning as angry residents armed with poles and sticks took to the streets of Chhapra.

The mob smashed windows of police buses and other vehicles and turned over a police booth in Chhapra, the main city of Saran district where the school is located.

"Hundreds of angry people staged a protest in Saran since late Tuesday night, demanding stern action against government officials responsible for this shocking incident," said district government official S K Mall.

A preliminary investigation has shown the meal may have contained traces of phosphate from insecticide in the vegetables, Sinha from the local government told AFP.

He said doctors were treating victims with atropine, which is effective against organophosphate poisoning.

Media reports quoted villagers as saying the use of contaminated, foul-smelling mustard oil for cooking at the school could also have caused the deaths.

"Investigators are examining midday meal samples and samples of victims' vomit. Only the final report of inquiry will reveal the real cause," Sinha said.

State chief minister Nitish Kumar has announced compensation of 200,000 rupees ($A3670) for bereaved families.

Free lunches are offered to impoverished students in state-run schools as part of government welfare measures in many of India's 29 states.

Bihar is one of the country's poorest and most densely-populated states.

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Yahoo wins ruling in data collection case

YAHOO has won a court fight that could help the public learn more about the US government's efforts to obtain data from internet users.

The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews government requests to spy on individuals, ruled on Monday that information should be made public about a 2008 case that ordered Yahoo Inc to turn over customer data.

The order requires the government to review which portions of the opinion, briefs and arguments can be declassified and report back to the court by July 29.

The government sought the information from Yahoo under the National Security Agency's PRISM data-gathering program. Details of the secret program were disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has fled the US.

The program came to light in early June after The Washington Post and Guardian newspapers published documents provided by Snowden. It allows the NSA to reach into the data streams of US companies such as Yahoo, Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp, Google Inc and others, and grab emails, video chats, pictures and more. US officials have said the program is narrowly focused on foreign targets, and technology companies say they turn over information only if required by court order.

Yahoo requested in court papers filed June 14 to have the information about the 2008 case unsealed. A Yahoo spokeswoman hailed Monday's decision and said the company believes it will help inform public discussion about the US government's surveillance programs.

The government hasn't taken a position on whether details of the case should be published as long as it's allowed to review the documents before publication in order to redact classified information, according to the court order.

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German TV set maker files for protection

LOEWE, the German manufacturer of television sets, has filed for protection from creditors so as to accelerate a restructuring.

The board said on Tuesday it had taken the action "to assist the company in implementing its restructuring program and its new corporate strategy more quickly".

It said in a statement: "After receiving approval for the proceedings, Loewe will continue to be managed by its executive board and can use the opportunities offered to restructure the company."

Business at its main Kronach site "will continue without any restrictions," Loewe added.

The applications was made to under the so-called Schutzschirmverfahren, an instrument available under German law since March 2012 aimed at making it easier for indebted but nonetheless viable businesses to restructure themselves.

Businesses which apply for it are still technically bankrupt, but they are given three months to restructure, while for the most part still maintaining control of their business.

The management board's aim "is to restructure Loewe in co-operation with strategic partners and investors," the company insisted.

Loewe shares nosedived on the news and were showing a loss of 18.2 per cent on the Frankfurt stock exchange.

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Chance of Qld ratings downgrade: Nicholls

Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls says there is a one-in-three chance of a credit ratings downgrade. Source: AAP

QUEENSLAND Treasurer Tim Nicholls says there is a one-in-three chance the state's credit rating will be downgraded.

Queensland lost its prized AAA rating in 2009 as the global financial crisis shook world markets.

Moody's in November downgraded its AA1 outlook from stable to negative only two months after 14,000 public sector jobs were slashed in the budget.

Mr Nicholls fronted a budget estimates hearing on Tuesday and was asked whether the job losses and increased taxes hurt Queensland's economy don't help a return to a triple A credit rating.

"(They) are actually absolutely essential to ensuring that Queensland does not receive a further downgrade," he said.

"With a negative watch from Moody's, we have a one in three chance of a downgrade.

"We have to continue to monitor our expenses to ensure that our expenses growth does not exceed over the cycle our revenue growth.

"And that's exactly what we are delivering."

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UN court not a medieval inquisition: Japan

TOKYO has told the UN's top judicial body it is a court of law, not a "medieval inquisition" as proceedings wrapped up in the whaling dispute between Australian and Japan.

Japan used the final day of the three-week hearing to argue the International Court of Justice (ICJ) didn't have the authority to decide what was or wasn't science.

Canberra wants the 16-judge panel to ban Japan's annual hunt on the basis it's not "for purposes of scientific research" as allowed under Article 8 of the 1946 whaling convention.

Australia argues the Southern Ocean JARPA program is actually a commercial operation.

But Japan insists lethal research is both lawful and necessary.

Deputy foreign affairs minister Koji Tsuruoka on Tuesday said Tokyo was seeking "scientific information on the basis of which Japan might be able to ask for the moratorium (on commercial whaling) to be lifted".

"This court is a court of law not a court of scientific truth," Mr Tsuruoka said in The Hague.

Lawyer Alain Pellet, who teaches International Economic Law at the University Paris Ouest, made a similar point on Tuesday.

"The court ... has the greatest possible authority to settle the legal disputes which it is seized of," he said through a translator.

"But it can not decide between opposing scientific assessments."

Prof Pellet said Australia was promoting "an elitist, metaphysical and sectarian view of science" whereas Japan was conducting "applied science".

"It is not up to us as legal persons to determine the validity on the merits of one or the other scientific view.

"We are not a medieval inquisition."

Australia has argued Japan's research is not science but rather "a heap of body parts taken from a large number of dead whales".

JARPA lacked defined and achievable objectives, appropriate methods, peer review and unnecessarily killed the stock being studied, Canberra has told the court.

But Mr Tsuruoka on Tuesday said the ICJ hearing had allowed Japan to finally show the world the truth about its whale research.

"We can thank Australia for this," he said.

Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus last week claimed Tokyo had resorted to "untrue and offensive" statements during The Hague hearing.

But Japan itself had reason to be offended by Australia's "factual misrepresentations and ... misleading use of selective references and quotes", Mr Tsuruoka said.

Japan claims it doesn't want to quit the International Whaling Commission.

But the deputy foreign minister on Tuesday concluded by asking what would happen "when one morning suddenly you find your state bound by the policy of the majority and the only way out is to leave".

After the hearing government spokesman Noriyuki Shikata told AAP Japan was content with its "powerful case".

Mr Dreyfus last week told the court the fact Tokyo had resorted to emotive rhetoric spoke "volumes for the weakness of the Japanese case".

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Aust woman gored by bull in Pamplona

AN Australian Department of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman has confirmed a 23-year-old woman from NSW is in hospital after being injured in the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona, Spain.

Officers from the Australian embassy in Madrid are providing the woman with consular assistance, the spokeswoman says.

The woman was seriously injured after being gored during the final bull run of this year's annual San Fermin festival in Spain on Sunday. Four other runners were also hospitalised after sustaining cuts and bruises.

The woman was gored in the back and is undergoing surgery, a regional government statement said.

Earlier reports said she had been wounded in the chest.

The woman was struck by a massive Miura bull as she clung to wooden barriers outside the bullring entrance, regional health authority spokesman Javier Sesma said.

It is very rare for women to be gored since most of the runners are men. Javier Solano, a San Fermin expert working for national broadcaster TVE, said records showed only two other women had been injured by gorings in the recent history of the fiesta.

Other runners got tossed by the bulls or fell as they ran. The other injured were a 39-year-old man from California, a 23-year-old man from Madrid and two other men from Navarra, according to a statement from the regional government, which organises the festivities. None of those injuries were classified as serious, the statement said.

Miura bulls are renowned as Spain's largest and fastest fighting bulls, and Sunday's run was quick, taking 2 minutes, 16 seconds to cover 850 metres from stables just outside Pamplona's medieval stone wall to the central bullring.

Despite the animals' size and muscle-bound appearance, experts admire Miuras for their explosive acceleration, stamina and grace, characteristics that inspired legendary Italian car maker, the late Ferruccio Lamborghini, to name one of his iconic sports cars after the breed.

The San Fermin festival, which honours the patron saint of this northern city, dates back to the late 16th century and is also known for its all-night street parties where copious quantities of red wine from Navarra and Rioja are consumed and sprinkled around.

The festivities were made famous by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.

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Britain's royal baby bides its time

LONDON July 14 AFP - The hospital is ready, the Wikipedia page and Twitter accounts are up and Britain's famously creative press are running out of ideas. But Sunday arrived with no sign of the royal baby.

Prince William is filling the time until his wife Catherine goes into labour playing polo, taking part in charity matches on Saturday and Sunday with his younger brother Harry.

He has taken a couple of days off from his work as a search and rescue helicopter pilot in Wales, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said, although he refused to say when the prince might be going back.

The palace has stayed tight-lipped about the birth of the new third in line to the throne, saying nothing for days other than to reiterate that Catherine is due some time in mid-July.

The press had pencilled in Saturday as the day, but bookmakers William Hill tipped Sunday as the likely due date, with Paddy Power offering equal odds on Sunday and Monday.

The only thing that is certain is that babies rarely come on time and that when this new heir to the Windsor dynasty arrives, the world will be ready.

In keeping with the digital age, the newborn already has its own page on Wikipedia, entitled "Child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge", to use William and Kate's formal titles.

Several spoof Twitter accounts have also been set up, with one, @RoyalFoetus, already claiming 5500 followers. On June 19, it declared: "One is done with gestating."

International media are camped outside St Mary's Hospital in London where Catherine is due to give birth, and a row of parking spaces have been reserved by the royals outside the private Lindo Wing until the end of the month.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that the 31-year-old's gynaecologist, Marcus Setchell, will be given a police escort to hospital when she goes into labour.

It has previously been reported that Setchell had given up alcohol for several weeks in preparation for the birth.

In the absence of any proper news about the baby, such tidbits formed the bulk of the royal coverage in Britain's normally hard-hitting Sunday newspapers.

The Sunday Express reported exclusively that Catherine had spent the weekend at her parents' home in Berkshire, about 65km west of London.

Meanwhile the Mail on Sunday published a poll revealing that 53 per cent of Britons think William and Catherine should not hire a nanny.

A further 56 per cent think she should cut back significantly on her royal duties after the birth.

The paper said that palace officials expected Catherine to resume some public engagements in the autumn - provided of course, that the baby ever arrives.

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ElBaradei sworn in as Egypt VP

PROMINENT liberal Egyptian leader Mohamed ElBaradei has been sworn in as Egypt's interim vice president for foreign relations, the presidency says.

Sunday's appointment of ElBaradei, a former head of the UN nuclear watchdog and a Nobel peace laureate, follows the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on July 3.

He was initially tipped to lead the cabinet, but his nomination was rejected by the ultra-conservative Salafist party Al-Nur.

ElBaradei was late last year named head of the National Salvation Front, a coalition of leftist and liberal groups, formed in the wake of a power grab by Morsi in November.

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Angry protests in US at Zimmerman verdict

AMERICANS angry at the acquittal of George Zimmerman over the death of black teenager Trayvon Martin have marched in US cities, with reports of sporadic acts of violence.

Spontaneous marches of varying sizes erupted in cities throughout Saturday night including San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, Atlanta and Philadelphia.

A jury in Sanford, Florida late Saturday found Zimmerman, a volunteer neighbourhood watchman, not guilty of shooting dead Martin, a 17 year-old unarmed teen on the night of February 26, 2012.

The trial has riveted the nation for weeks, and emotions came to a boiling point as news of the verdict spread.

Prominent rights activists like Jesse Jackson appealed for calm.

"Avoid violence, it will lead to more tragedies. Find a way for self construction not deconstruction in this time of despair," he wrote on Twitter.

Martin's parents have long called for non-violent demonstrations, quoting civil rights icon Martin Luther King and the Bible.

Several hundred demonstrators marched peacefully amid a heavy police presence in downtown San Francisco soon after the verdict. Many carried signs with slogans such as "The people say guilty".

Hours later angry protesters marching through Oakland - just across the bay from San Francisco - spray-painted cars and smashed windows, helicopter video footage posted by the Oakland Tribune showed. One vandalised vehicle was a police cruiser.

In Chicago, to the cry of "No justice, no peace! No racist police!" a crowd of activists held a noisy downtown rally, the Chicago Tribune reported, while protesters gathered at Times Square in New York City to vent their anger.

Los Angeles police declared a "citywide tactical alert" when some 200 demonstrators gathered at a park in a historical black neighbourhood to demonstrate, but police later told local media that it was as a precaution, and that there had been no acts of violence.

In Washington, dozens of mostly African-American youths marched chanting slogans in a city neighbourhood. They were followed closely by patrol vehicles, an AFP journalist reported.

A crowd of several hundred gathered all day Saturday outside the courthouse in Sanford, Florida - and many were outraged when the verdict was read.

"It's the end of our justice system," said Ashton Summer, a 20 year-old Puerto Rican. "Justice is not equal for everyone."

The ANSWER coalition, which helped organise large protest rallies during the Iraq war, said it would hold marches Sunday in seven US cities, as well as three separate ones in New York.

"We are very saddened by the jury's verdict," said Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump after the verdict was read. "The family is heartbroken."

Rights activist Al Sharpton posted a statement on Facebook describing Zimmerman's acquittal as "a slap in the face to the American people".

"We intend to ask the Department of Justice to move forward as they did in the Rodney King case and we will closely monitor the civil case against Mr. Zimmerman," said Sharpton.

Rodney King was an African-American man who was beaten by Los Angeles police following a car chase in April 1991. The beating was videotaped and aired on television, sparking widespread outrage.

Days of violent rioting and looting broke out in Los Angeles when the police officers involved in the beating were acquitted in April 1992.

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