Libya marks 40 years of revolution

TRIPOLI: Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi marked the 40th anniversary of the bloodless coup that brought him to power, with celebrations attended by African, Arab and Latin American leaders.
Kadhafi's party kicked off around midnight on Monday at the former US military base of Matega near Tripoli with a two-hour spectacle that paid homage to the leader himself and featured music, illuminations and dance.
Guests included Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, African leaders who had earlier attended an African Union summit in Libya, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, his Dominican counterpart Leonel Fernandez, Serbian leader Boris Tadic and Philippine President Gloria Arroyo.
Later on Tuesday, there was a military parade of detachments from African, Arab and eastern European armed forces, while dozens of aircraft, including French and Italian jets, flew overhead.

Suicide bomber kills Afghan intelligence deputy

AFGHANISTAN: A suicide car bomber struck a funeral in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, and a police source said senior officials were among the dead and wounded.
A spokesman for the governor of Laghman province, where the attack took place, said there were casualties in the blast but he was not able to confirm whether officials were among them.
The police source, who declined to be identified, said the deputy head of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security Intelligence agency, Abdullah Laghmani, had been killed by the bomb, at a funeral in the provincial capital Mehtar Lam.
Laghman governor Lutfullah Mashal was also wounded in the blast, the police source said.
A witness in the provincial capital saw a pick-up truck carrying wounded people covered in blood.

Murder attempt: Kazmi hurt, driver killed

ISLAMABAD: Federal Religious Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi has been injured in a firing incident in Islamabad on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani directed an inquiry into the murder attempt at the federal minister.
The federal religious minister was attacked when he was passing through Melody Market after he left his office.
Eyewitnesses said the assailants were two motorists riding a bike, who attacked at the minister with gunshots from left side, killing the driver, Muhammed Younis on the spot, who a bullet hit at his eye.
The vehicle bumped into a tree after the firing was over.
The attackers resorted to reckless indiscriminate fire, injuring the gunman of the minister.
The injured have been immediately shifted to Poly Clinic Hospital. The hospital sources said Hamid Saeed Kazmi received a bullet on his left leg and his knee bone is broken which being operated upon.
However, the doctors clarified that his condition is out of danger.

Picture of the Day

Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a OBN.One of the schemes involves injecting particles into the air to simulate the effects of volcanic eruptions

Sex scandal hits Australian Labor minister

Australia: A SEX scandal yesterday rocked Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's troubled Labor Party in the state of New South Wales - a state vital to Rudd's re-election hopes.
New South Wales Labor Health Minister John Della Bosca, a factional state heavyweight, quit his job on Monday amid newspaper revelations that he had a extramarital affair with a 26-year-old woman.
"I made some poor decisions. You have to take your medicine if you make bad decisions," Della Bosca told reporters yesterday.
The state Labor government is deeply unpopular with voters, and opinion polls point to it being thrown out of office in 2011 over a string of scandals and its inability to improve services such as roads, hospitals and schools.
But New South Wales is also a national keystone and with Rudd weighing the possibility of a snap election early next year to overcome an obstructive upper house, Labor's woes there are of deep concern to Rudd and party strategists.
"I don't think there's anyone in the federal government who's going to want to be distracted by anything like this," said Agriculture Minister Tony Burke.
Rudd's government, riding high in opinion polls, controls 83 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament.
NSW has 13 seats in the national parliament held by tight margins of less than 5 percent, many in Sydney's suburbs and fringes.
It is also home to almost a third of Australia's 21 million people and a third of national gross domestic product, valued at A$360 billion (US$303.8 billion), despite the highest unemployment record of Australia's six states.
The resignation and lurid details of sex in Della Bosca's ministerial office could cement anti-Labor sentiment, leaving Rudd vulnerable to a backlash from frustrated voters in the state in national elections, say political analysts.
"Della Bosca's spectacular fall confirms the standing of the NSW Labor government as a cross between the last days of Rome, and Melrose Place," wrote political columnist David Penberthy on the Punch news Website, referring to a popular US television soap opera.