Suicide Bombers Attack US Base In Afghanistan

Taliban suicide bombers have attacked a US base in Afghanistan with explosives and gunfire, sparking a two-hour battle with American forces.

Militants detonated a car bomb at the gate of Jalalabad Airfield before American helicopters opened fire on the militants.

Local police officials said a dozen bodies in Afghan police and military uniforms were around the entrance.

It was not immediately clear whether the dead were Afghan security forces or militants dressed in uniforms, a tactic the Taliban sometimes deploys during its attacks.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed the militants stormed the base, but a spokesman for the Afghan Defence Ministry, General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, said none of the militants had been able to enter.

The Nato military coalition also described it as a failed attack.

Lieutenant Colonel Hagen Messer, a spokesman for the international military coalition, said: "We can confirm insurgents, including multiple suicide bombers, attacked Jalalabad Airfield this morning.

"None of the attackers succeeded in breaching the perimeter."

He said the fighting had ended by mid-morning, and one member of the Afghan security forces had been killed.

Several foreign troops were wounded, but Lt Col Messer did not give any numbers or details.

"The final assessment of what happened this morning is not yet complete, but initial reports indicate there were three suicide bombers," he added.

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NFL Player Shoots Girlfriend Then Himself

An American football player with the Kansas City Chiefs has shot himself dead after reportedly killing his girlfriend.

Javon Belcher, 25, drove to the team's practice facility near Arrowhead Stadium and turned the gun on himself as two team officials were confronting him.

Police spokesman Darin Snapp said authorities received a call from a woman who said her daughter had been shot multiple times at a home around five miles from the stadium in Kansas City.

The call actually came from Belcher's mother, who referred to the victim as her daughter, leading to some initial confusion, police said.

She said her son and his girlfriend, who has been named as 22-year-old Kasandra M Perkins, had been arguing recently. The couple had a three-month-old baby.

Mr Snapp said when police arrived at the practice facility they saw a black male in a car with a handgun to his head talking to two Chiefs officials.

He said the linebacker - who was in his fourth season with the American football franchise - thanked general manager Scott Pioli and head coach Romeo Crennel for all they had done for him, before shooting himself.

He said: "When we arrived (at the house), a lady informed us that her daughter had been shot multiple times by her boyfriend. She identified him as a Chiefs player."

After officers arrived at the training facility, the coaches told them they never felt in danger.

Mr Snapp added: "They were just talking to him and he was thanking them and everything.

"The suspect began to walk in the opposite direction of the coaches and the officers and that's when they heard the gunshot. It appears he took his own life."

Belcher, from West Babylon, New York, played college football at Maine.

"The entire Chiefs family is deeply saddened by today's events, and our collective hearts are heavy with sympathy, thoughts and prayers for the families and friends affected by this unthinkable tragedy," Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said in a statement.

The Chiefs are due to play the Carolina Panthers at Arrowhead on Sunday. The game is expected go ahead as scheduled.

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Japan Tunnel Collapse: Five People Dead

By Mark Stone, Asia Correspondent

Police say at least five people have died after being trapped inside their burning vehicle in a highway tunnel that collapsed in Japan.

The Sasago tunnel on the busy Chuo Expressway, about 50 miles (80 km) west of Tokyo, caved in just after 8am local time.

CCTV footage from inside the tunnel shows large sections of the roof lying across the road. 

Several cars are understood to have been crushed and a fire in the tunnel has complicated the rescue effort.

Motorists described narrow escapes from falling debris, and a long walk through the darkness after abandoning their cars.

"When I was driving in the tunnel, concrete pieces fell down suddenly from the ceiling," a man in his 30s told public broadcaster NHK.

"I saw a crushed car catching fire. I left my car and walked for about an hour to get out of the tunnel."

Aerial footage showed black smoke billowing from the 2.8-mile (4.7-km) tunnel in Yamanashi prefecture.

CCTV footage shows inside the tunnel

The fire was extinguished about 11am local time but the rescue and recovery operation has been delayed by concerns that there could be further collapses.

The cause of the collapse is not yet clear. There are no reports of earthquakes in the region though there is a suggestion that a landslide could have contributed to the incident.

Given the frequency of earthquakes in the region, the authorities will have access to rescue equipment which will prove useful for this sort of operation.

NHK reporter Yoshio Goto, caught in Sunday's accident, hit the accelerator and managed to drive out.

"But it was a bit too late and pieces of ceiling fell on my car. I kept pressing the pedal and managed to get out," he said.

"Then when I looked around, I saw half of the car ceiling was crushed."

It was the worst such accident in Japan since 1996, when a tunnel collapsed and falling rocks crushed cars and a bus, killing 20 people.

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West Bank Settlement Plan Blow To Peace Hopes

By Dominic Waghorn, US Correspondent

Palestinians say the two-state solution to the Middle East conflict is at death's door after Israel announced it is reviving plans to build on occupied land in a controversial area of East Jerusalem.

The US government is also criticising Israel for the move.

"This administration - like previous administrations - has been very clear with Israel that these activities set back the cause of a negotiated peace," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Washington.

E1 is the only large area of empty land left between East Jerusalem and the West Bank, sandwiched between Israeli settlements.

Reviving plans to build a settlement there could be fatal for the peace process, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told Sky News in Washington.

"It would kill it. This would be the last nail in the coffin of the peace process a process that fulfils that which has been and has become a matter of international consensus. The two state solution to this conflict. It simply cannot happen if E1 is implemented."

Palestinians say they cannot sign any peace deal that does not have at least a part of Jerusalem as their capital, for religious and political reasons.

An Israeli settlement on E1 would make a land corridor between that capital and the rest of a Palestinian state impossible.

That makes building on E1 a very different proposition to other Israeli settlement plans. For that reason former US President George Bush made then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promise not to build on E1 and put construction plans there on ice.

Danny Seidemann, from Jerusalem NGO Ir Amim, told Sky News: "E1 is the fatal heart attack of the two-state solution.

"If E1 is built there is no possibility of a contiguous viable Palestinian state and no possibility of connecting East Jerusalem and its hinterland on the West Bank."

An Israeli government spokesman told Sky News those plans are now being unfrozen.

"Planning is now going ahead," he said.

No decision to build has yet been taken but extensive plans are known to already exist.

Israel is responding to a vote in the United Nations General Assembly to recognise Palestine as a non-member state. Some 138 countries voted in favour of the move, only eight supported Israel in opposing it.

Israel has also said it will build 3,000 new units in existing settlements.

Under all interpretations of international law, Israel's settlements on occupied land are illegal.

Israel agreed to freeze settlement construction under the Roadmap for Peace plan in 2002 but has failed to comply with that commitment.

A European diplomatic source told Sky News: "If Israel officially confirms plans to expedite settlement building in E1 area, it will elicit a 'strong response' from European states."

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UK Eyes Oz's Tough Anti-Smoking Laws

By Jonathan Samuels, Australia Correspondent

The British Government is considering following Australia's lead by stripping all branding and logos from tobacco packaging.

From today, Australia becomes the first country in the world to put all tobacco products in standardised packs which are a drab olive colour and have the manufacturer's brand in a simple uniform font.

The packs are covered in graphic health warnings portraying dying cancer sufferers, diseased feet and ill babies.

The law bans the use of logos, brand imagery, symbols, other images, colours and promotional text.

Australia's plain packaging laws are a potential watershed for the global industry, which serves one billion regular smokers, according to World Health Organisation statistics.

Australia's government says the aim is to deter young people from smoking by stripping the habit of glamour.

It is relying on studies showing that if people have not started smoking by the age of 26, there is a 99% chance they will never take it up.

The potential hitch, experts say, is the popularity of social media amongst the very demographic the plan is targeting.

After a series of Australian laws banning TV advertising and sports sponsorship and requiring most sellers to hide cigarettes from view, online is the final frontier for tobacco marketing.

"If you are a tobacco marketer and you've only got this small window left to promote your products, online is the compelling place for you to be in," said Becky Freeman, a public health researcher at Sydney University.

Australia has become the first country to introduce plain cigarette packs

The tobacco industry recently lost a High Court bid to have the legislation stopped.

Scott McIntyre of British American Tobacco Australia, the maker of Winfield cigarettes, says the new packs are easier to fake and will boost black market trade, leading to cheaper, more accessible cigarettes.

"There will be serious unintended consequences from the legislation," he said. "Counterfeiters from China and Indonesia will bring lots more of these products down to sell on the streets of Australia."

The industry has shifted its focus to potential copycat legislation elsewhere. Ukraine, Honduras and the Dominican Republic have filed complaints with the World Trade Organisation, funded by the tobacco industry, claiming the laws unfairly restrict trade, although their trade with Australia is minimal.

Many smokers in Australia say the new packs won't change their habit. "As a 14-year veteran smoker the packets make no difference to me," one man told Sky News.

Another smoker said she may be more inclined to keep the packet, with its gruesome health warnings, hidden from view, but that it wouldn't stop her smoking.

Earlier this year, the British Government launched a consultation on plans to introduce similar standardised packaging. Information generated by the consultation, which closed in August, is still being analysed by health officials.

Dr Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK's chief executive, said: "The Australian Government is to be applauded. Today marks the day when tobacco companies are further stymied in their efforts to recruit Australian children into a lethal addiction.

A UK Department of Health spokesman said: "We have received many thousands of responses to the tobacco packaging consultation. We are currently in the process of carefully collating and analysing all the responses received.

"The Government has an open mind on this issue and any decisions to take further action will be taken only after full consideration of the consultation responses, evidence and other relevant information."

Australia aims to cut the number of people smoking from 15% of the population to just 10% in six years' time.

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North Korea Unveils New Rocket Launch Plan

North Korea says it is to launch a long-range rocket later this month.

The launch, planned for between between December 10 and December 22, will heighten already strained tensions with South Korea ahead of its presidential election on December 19.

North Korea tried in April to launch a long-range rocket but it broke apart shortly after lift off.

The North's Korean Committee for Space Technology said that it had looked at the mistakes made in the April launch and had improved the rocket.

"Scientists and technicians of the DPRK analysed the mistakes that were made during the previous April launch and deepened the work of improving the reliability and precision of the satellite and carrier rocket, thereby rounding off the preparations for launch," it said.
                 
The rocket was intended to put a polar-orbiting earth observation satellite into orbit, it said.
                 
In April, North Korea failed with a much-hyped launch of an Unha-3 rocket that Pyongyang also said was aimed at placing a satellite in orbit.
                 
The US and United Nations insisted it was a disguised ballistic missile test using a three-stage variant of the Taepodong-2 inter-continental ballistic missile.
                 
The April test put a halt to the latest international effort to engage with North Korea, with the US calling off plans to deliver badly needed food assistance.
                 
The UN Security Council has warned North Korea against carrying out another launch bid after intense speculation that it was preparing for a new missile test.
                 
"We all agree it would be extremely inadvisable to proceed with the test," the head of the North Korea sanctions committee at the council, Portuguese ambassador Jose Filipe Moraes Cabral said.

 

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Palestinian Status Upgraded After UN Vote

The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in favour of upgrading the Palestinians' status to a non-member observer state, defying the wishes of Israel and the US.

It marks a major diplomatic triumph for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who had met fierce opposition from the US and Israel over the vote.

The resolution was approved by a vote of 138-9, with 41 abstentions. It gives the Palestinian Authority the same status as the Vatican and enables it to join UN agencies, sign international treaties and access bodies such as the International Criminal Court (ICC).

A Palestinian flag was quickly unfurled on the floor of the General Assembly, behind the Palestinian delegation.

Thousands of Palestinians who had gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah celebrated the news by firing shots into the air, embracing each other and chanting "God is greatest".

In his speech to the General Assembly before the vote, Mr Abbas said the assembly was "being asked ... to issue the birth certificate of Palestine".

His speech angered the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mr Abbas celebrates the result of the vote

"The world watched a defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda against the IDF (army) and the citizens of Israel," he said in a statement.

Mr Netanyahu said the UN move violated past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians and that Israel would act accordingly, without elaborating what steps it might take.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dubbed the vote as "unfortunate and counterproductive", saying it would "place further obstacles in the path to peace".

She said: "Only through direct negotiations between the parties can the Palestinians and Israelis achieve the peace that both deserve: two states for two people, with a sovereign, viable and independent Palestine living side-by-side in peace and security with a Jewish and democratic Israel."

The UK abstained in the vote after Foreign Secretary William Hague said he could only back the move if the Palestinians gave a commitment to an immediate and unconditional return to the negotiating table with Israel.

He said he respected the decision but added: "We continue to believe that the prospects for a swift return to negotiations on a two state solution - the only way to create a Palestinian state on the ground - would be greater ... if President (Mahmoud) Abbas had been able to give the assurances we suggested, and without which we were unable to vote in favour of the resolution."

The vote had been certain to succeed, with most of the member states sympathetic to the Palestinians.

Several key countries, including France, this week announced they would support the move to elevate the status of the Palestinians.

Some countries fear the Palestinians' new access to the ICC could become a springboard for pursuing Israel for alleged war crimes or its ongoing settlement building on war-won land.

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Egypt: New Constitution Is Finalised

An Islamist-led assembly has finalised a controversial new constitution aimed at transforming Egypt.

It could pave the way for an end to a crisis which erupted when President Mohamed Morsi gave himself sweeping new powers last week.

Mr Morsi said his decree halting court challenges to his decisions, which provoked protests and violence from Egyptians, was "for an exceptional stage".

"It will end as soon as the people vote on a constitution," Mr Morsi told state television on Thursday night. "There is no place for dictatorship."

Mr Morsi's decree provoked protests and violence from Egyptians

Some Egyptians had feared a new dictator was emerging less than two years after they ousted Hosni Mubarak, triggering protests in the country.

At one point 200,000 people packed Cairo's Tahrir Square to protest against Mr Morsi's 'pharoah' powers.

The assembly finished approving the draft constitution on Friday. It will be sent to Mr Morsi for ratification, before being put to a popular referendum.

The poll could be held as soon as mid-December on the text, which Islamists say reflects Egypt's new freedoms.

Mr Morsi's critics argue the draft was rushed through, having been hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood which backed Mr Morsi for president in June elections.

Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in the protests since last Thursday's decree, which deepened the divide between the newly-empowered Islamists and their opponents.

Setting the stage for more tension, the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies have called for pro-Morsi rallies on Saturday.

But officials from the Brotherhood's party changed the venue and said they would avoid Tahrir Square, where a sit-in by the president's opponents entered an eighth day on Friday.

Seeking to calm protesters, Mr Morsi said he welcomed opposition but it should not divide Egyptians and there was no place for violence. "I am very happy that Egypt has real political opposition," he said.

He stressed the need to attract investors and tourists to Egypt, where the crisis threatens to derail some early signs of an economic recovery after two years of turmoil.

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Weapons Stolen In Raid On Australia Navy Base

By Jonathan Samuels, Australia Correspondent

A cache of weapons has been stolen from an Australian navy vessel after at least one intruder overpowered military personnel on guard.

The Australian Department of Defence said the infiltrator "overwhelmed a duty member onboard a patrol boat" which was moored at HMAS Coonawarra, a naval base in the northern city of Darwin.

In a statement, it said: "The intruder overpowered the duty member, accessed the vessel's armoury and removed a number of weapons.

"The person then departed the vessel with the weapons."

The Australian newspaper said an Armidale-class patrol boat would be expected to carry a stock of machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, 9mm pistols and ammunition in its armoury.

The attack happened on the Larrakeyah Naval Base which is now in lock-down. It was unclear whether the intruder accessed the boat from land or sea and the types of weapons taken have not been revealed.

Vice Admiral Ray Griggs told the Australian Broadcasting Association the intruder was "armed", adding that the young sailor who was on guard is safe but very shaken by the incident.

He said: "Clearly his life was threatened, he is quite shaken but otherwise okay."

Earlier reports suggested the sailor had been tied up.

The incident is being investigated by Northern Territory police and Australian Federal Police in conjunction with defence personnel.

Tropical Darwin is a key defence hub for Australia, with US Marines based in a barracks outside the city since April this year as Washington looks to deepen its presence in Asia.

Almost 600 Navy personnel are based in the area.

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Palestinian Vote At UN May See UK Abstain

The UK will abstain from a UN vote granting recognition to a Palestinian state if a commitment to talk with Israel is not made.

The Foreign Secretary said the UK would only vote in favour of an upgrade in the Palestinians' diplomatic status at the UN General Assembly in New York later if they gave an immediate commitment to return to negotiations with Israel.

William Hague said the UK would also require an assurance that the Palestinians would not seek to extend the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the Occupied Territories.

"Up until the time of the vote itself, we will remain open to voting in favour of the resolution if we see public assurances by the Palestinians on these points," he said in a statement to the House of Commons.

"However, in the absence of these assurances, the United Kingdom would abstain on the vote."

His comments drew a dismissive response from shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander who urged him to stop dithering and come out firmly in favour of Palestinian statehood.

He warned it was unreasonable to expect the Palestinians to make an unconditional commitment to return to talks while the Israelis were continuing settlement building on Palestinian territory.

"Statehood for the Palestinians is not a gift to be given but a right to be acknowledged. Abstention tomorrow would be an abdication of Britain's responsibilities," he said.

Hillary Clinton with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat

The calls came after France announced it was ready to support the resolution to upgrade the Palestinians' status at the UN from observer to non-member observer state, with other European states expected to follow suit.

With the General Assembly dominated by countries sympathetic to the Palestinian cause - and no veto for members of the Security Council - the resolution looks set to be passed, despite the opposition of both Israel and the United States.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned the vote "will not produce the outcome" that many desire.

"The only way to get a lasting solution is to commence direct negotiations," she said.

"And we need an environment conducive to that, and we urge both parties to refrain from actions that might, in any way, make a return to meaningful negotiations that focus on getting to a resolution more difficult."

Israel had already said it would not return to negotiations following the vote, arguing it would undermine efforts to secure a Middle East peace settlement.

Mr Hague told MPs that he, like Mrs Clinton, had appealed to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas not to move the resolution at the General Assembly, but to give the newly re-elected US administration of Barack Obama the chance to launch a fresh peace initiative.

"We pointed out that a UN resolution would be depicted by some as a move away from bilateral negotiations with Israel," he said.

"We were also concerned about the considerable financial risks to the Palestinian Authority, at a time when their situation is already precarious, if a vote led to a strong backlash from Israel and within the US political system," he added.

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