Chinese officials punished for demolition

CHINESE state media say 17 officials and workers have been punished after two people died during the forced demolition of a building.

The official Xinhua News Agency says a cement board fell from the illegally constructed building as it was being demolished on Friday in Renhuai city in southwest China's Guizhou province, killing two workers and injuring three others.

Xinhua said on Saturday that local residents carried the bodies to the city government building, causing a disturbance.

It said three officials were criminally detained for dereliction of duty, five others were suspended, and nine workers involved in the demolition were detained.

Forced demolition is common in China, as local governments try to remake their cities, but it is rare for officials or demolition workers to be punished.

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Attack planned in Pakistan: Karzai

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai says a suicide attack that wounded the country's spy chief was planned in neighbouring Pakistan.

Asadullah Khalid, who heads the National Directorate of Security (NDS), was targeted by an attacker with a bomb hidden in his underwear posing as a Taliban peace envoy in Kabul on Thursday.

Karzai said he believed the attacker had come from Pakistan, but he did not blame the Pakistani government over the bombing.

"We know that this man who came in the name of a guest to meet with Asadullah Khalid came from Pakistan. We know that for a fact. That is clear," Karzai told reporters.

"This attack was plotted... from the (southwestern) city of Quetta in Pakistan."

"I will raise this issue with Pakistan," he added.

Khalid was attacked at a spy agency guesthouse and is now being treated at a US-run military hospital outside Kabul where he is in a stable condition, security sources have said.

On Friday, the NDS said that he was "recovering" and in a "satisfactory" condition.

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Gazans mass for Hamas anniversary

MORE than 100,000 Palestinians have gathered in Gaza for a rally marking the 25th anniversary of Hamas to be addressed by the ruling Islamist movement's leader in exile.

Politburo chief Khaled Meshaal crossed from Egypt on Friday on his first ever visit to Gaza and his first to the Palestinian territories since 1975.

His speech was set to be the headline event of the rally.

Meshaal arrived at the main stage in the al-Qitaba complex west of Gaza City which was transformed into a sea of green Hamas flags.

He was accompanied by his deputy Mussa Abu Marzuk and Gaza's Hamas premier Ismail Haniya.

The celebrations come just over two weeks after an Egyptian-brokered truce ended eight days of bloodshed with Israel which left 174 Palestinians dead.

"We used only 10 per cent of our capacity in the fighting," a masked spokesman for Hamas military wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades told the crowd.

"If you had escalated (your attacks), so would we have," he told Israel.

"We will cut the hand that extends in aggression against our people and leaders."

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ofir Gendelman, retorted on Twitter that Hamas was celebrating "25 years of murdering Israelis by rockets & suicide bombings, as well as executing Fatah members & violating Pal human rights".

Fatah is the rival Palestinian faction of president Mahmud Abbas and his West Bank-based administration.

Around the rally venue, security forces were out in strength, closing off nearby roads from the early hours.

Dozens of masked members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades kept watch from surrounding rooftops.

Huge portraits of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, assassinated by Israel in 2004, and Hamas military commander Ahmed Jaabari, assassinated by Israel on November 14 this year, were on the main stage.

Between the portraits was a model of an M75 rocket of the sort fired at Israeli cities during last month's conflict that began with Jaabari's assassination.

On the backdrop was a model of Jerusalem's golden-domed al-Aqsa mosque, which appears on the Hamas emblem.

Head of Hamas public activity Ashraf Abu Zaed said he expected more than 200,000 people to participate in the anniversary celebrations, which were also being held in other Gaza towns.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said that at least 3000 people from Arab and Muslim states had arrived in Gaza in recent days to attend the events.

Founded in 1987 shortly after the start of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, Hamas was inspired by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

Its charter calls for the eventual destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state on the pre-1948 borders of the British Palestine Mandate.

In 2006, Hamas won a landslide general election victory, routing Abbas' long-dominant Fatah.

Some 18 months later, Hamas ousted Fatah forces from Gaza after several weeks of running street battles.

Speaking in Gaza on Friday, Meshaal promised to "walk down the route of reconciliation, bury the division (with Fatah) and empower unity in order to be aligned as one in the face of the Zionist entity," Israel.

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Taiwan finance 'titan' Koo dies at 79

TAIWANESE tycoon Jeffrey L.S. Koo, head of a leading financial group and one of the island's richest men, has died at the age of 79, his company says.

Koo, chairman of Chinatrust Financial Holding Co, died at a hospital in New York on Thursday, his company said without identifying the cause of death.

"Chairman Koo was a titan in Taiwan's economy, trade and diplomacy," President Ma Ying-jeou's office said in a statement.

"Koo had countless friends in the United States, Japan and other Asian countries and he effectively helped the government promote trade and diplomacy... President Ma was deeply saddened by his death."

An influential business leader fluent in English and Japanese, Koo was appointed a presidential adviser in 1996 and an ambassador-at-large in 1998 by former president Lee Teng-hui to help promote Taiwan internationally.

Koo, from one of Taiwan's most prominent and richest families, was credited with helping stabilise ties with Washington when it switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

Koo's late uncle Koo Chen-fu had served as Taiwan's top negotiator with China while he accompanied former vice president Lien Chan on a landmark visit to China in 2005 to promote peace with the mainland.

Koo's business empire included petrochemicals, cement, construction and telecommunications.

Koo is survived by his wife Koo Lin Jui-hui, three sons and a daughter.

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Pakistani Taliban recruits via Facebook

THE Pakistani Taliban has set up a page on Facebook to recruit enthusiasts to write for a quarterly magazine and to edit video, a spokesman confirmed.

The Umar Media TTP page, which has more than 270 likes, appears to have been created in September and has just a handful of messages written in English.

"Umar Media is proud to announce online jobs oppertunities (sic)," says the first post on the networking website, written on October 25.

"Job discription (sic) is video editing, translations, sharing, uploading, downloading and collection of required data," it says, giving an email address and asking readers to "plz spread it. This fb account ma be deleted."

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan confirmed to AFP by telephone on Friday that the faction was "temporarily" using the page "to fulfil its requirements" before launching its own website.

US-based organisation SITE Intelligence Group says the TTP uses Facebook as "a recruitment centre".

"Through its official media arm, Umar Media, the TTP has taken to Facebook to recruit contributors for their media work and the group's forthcoming publication 'Ayah-E-Khilafat' (Sign of the Caliphate)," it said in a statement.

The TTP Facebook page describes the publication as its "official quarterly magazine" and asks writers to submit articles "on (a) topic of your choice", or on jihadi current affairs, history, Islamic movements or the plight of Muslims.

Last month, the TTP claimed responsibility for planting a bomb under the car of a prominent Pakistani journalist and TV anchorman, Hamid Mir.

Mir had been criticised by the Taliban after the faction claimed responsibility for shooting teenage activist Malala Yousafzai in October.

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Man arrested after Vic stabbing and siege

A MAN who fled during the 10 minutes it took police to cordon off a Melbourne home following a stabbing will face court on Monday.

Police were preparing to storm a house in St Albans where another man, 52, was believed to have been stabbed in the neck.

Inspector Mick Grainger said police had been negotiating with the man, but he was gone when they entered the house in Grant Street.

Insp Grainger said the man may have given police the slip during the 10 minutes it took to cordon off the scene.

"I believe there's a chance he may have left before we managed to put our cordon in place," he told reporters.

"If he did leave in that time, it was in that 10 minutes prior to having that full cordon established."

Police were called to the house about 7.30am (AEDT) on Friday.

A 34-year-old Murrumbeena man was arrested in Sunshine at 4.30pm (AEDT) and later charged with offences including intentionally causing serious injury and possessing a drug of dependence.

He was remanded to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Monday.

The injured man was taken to Sunshine Hospital in a serious but non-life threatening condition.

Police said the stabbing happened after a domestic dispute.

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Obama aide shaves mustache for charity

SENIOR adviser to US President Barack Obama David Axelrod shaved his trademark mustache - a rarity in official Washington - live on TV Friday after raising $US1 million for epilepsy research.

"We're cutting it off because there are people who have lost a lot more than a mustache to epilepsy," said Mr Axelrod, as he prepared to loose his lip hair live on the MSNBC news show Morning Joe.

Mr Axelrod, 57, who has had a mustache for 40 years, was saved from a hack job when the TV hosts stepped aside and let a professional barber with a straight razor do the job.

One of the first donations in the challenge came from a surprising source: real estate mogul Donald Trump, a fierce Obama critic.

"We agree this is a good cause," Mr Trump said in a phone call to the show.

Other donors included actors George Clooney, Tom Hanks and millionaire and basketball team owner Mark Cuban.

Just days before the election Axelrod appeared on the Morning Joe show and vowed to shave his iconic mustache if Mr Obama lost the key states of Michigan, Minnesota or Pennsylvania in the November 6 vote.

Mr Obama carried the states, so he later promised to shave for charity.

The money goes to the Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE), a group headed by Axelrod's wife Susan Landau. Axelrod also has a daughter who suffers from epilepsy.

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US unemployment rate falls to 7.7 pc

THE US economy added a solid 146,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 per cent, the lowest since December 2008.

The US government said Superstorm Sandy had only a minimal effect on the figures.

The US Labour Department report offered a mixed picture for the economy.

Hiring remained steady during the storm and in the face of looming tax increases.

But the government said employers added 49,000 fewer jobs in October and September than initially estimated. And the unemployment rate fell from 7.9 per cent in October mostly because more people stopped looking for work and weren't counted as unemployed.

Still, there were signs that the storm disrupted economic activity. Construction employment dropped 20,000. And weather prevented 369,000 people from getting to work. They were still counted as employed.

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ECB holds rates, holds off on more easing

THE European Central Bank (ECB) has left its key interest rate unchanged at a record low, holding off on further stimulus even as the economy across the 17 European Union countries that use the euro limps through a recession.

The bank's 22-member governing council on Thursday kept the refinancing rate unchanged at 0.75 per cent. The rate determines what private-sector banks are charged for borrowing from the ECB, and through that what rate the banks set for their businesses and consumer clients.

Markets are now waiting for a news conference by President Mario Draghi, who is expected to announce the bank is cutting its growth forecast for next year.

A rate reduction in theory could stimulate the eurozone's economy by making it easier to borrow, spend and invest. But rates are already low, and borrowing remains weak. There are only a few early signs that previous rate cuts and stimulus measures are finally trickling through to the wider economy.

The eurozone economy shrank 0.1 per cent in the third quarter and is expected to fall further in the last three months of the year. Market analysts expect the ECB to cut its growth forecast for next year to around zero from 0.5 per cent in September, bringing its outlook in line with 0.1 per cent predicted by the European Union's executive arm, the Commission.

Some analysts think the bank may now consider it has done enough to help the economy after a year of drastic measures. The most important was an offer to buy unlimited amounts of bonds issued by of Europe's heavily indebted countries.

The bond purchase plan announced in September has helped stabilise the eurozone debt crisis. The purchases would aim to drive down bond interest rates, which would lower borrowing costs for indebted countries such as Spain and Italy and make it easier for them to carry their debt loads.

Although no bonds have been bought, the mere possibility has influenced the bond market and for now pushed borrowing costs back to sustainable levels for those two countries.

But while governments are breathing easier, that hasn't restarted growth. While some business confidence indicators are beginning to rise and the supply of money in the economy is increasing, consumer spending sagged 1.2 per cent in October.

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Hugh Jackman still eyes 007 role

HUGH Jackman is ready to don a tux and sip a martini with the Aussie screen star joking that he is willing to wait for his chance to play famous fictitious British spy James Bond.

Jackman, 44, said he was too busy playing Wolverine in the X-Men series in 2006 when he was approached to take on the 007 part.

Instead Briton Daniel Craig, 44, got the gun and has now made three Bond films.

"At the time it was wrong for me, but when I saw Daniel in the movie I thought maybe I should have been more interested, because it was great," Jackman told British newspaper The Sun.

"But I am great mates with Daniel. When he was in Australia we caught up and, you know, no one could have played Bond better."

But the Sydneysider has not given up on the chance to serve Her Majesty's secret service and took a swipe at his mate's unflattering physique.

"I will just wait," he quipped. "The good thing about Daniel is he's, what, 62 now, isn't he? He's falling apart at the seams. So I just keep telling him, 'I'm ready, whenever you want to let him (Bond) go, I'm ready.'

"The good thing is I have also got a British passport."

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