Ian Bell's century steers England to tour win
An unbeaten century from opener Ian Bell led England to a seven-wicket win in a rain-affected tour match against the Prime Minister's XI in Canberra.
Bell continued his superb Ashes form with 124 off 102 balls as England eased to a revised total of 223, after the home side had posted 254-9.
Jonathan Trott, batting at number three, added a useful 48.
Earlier, Michael Yardy and Ajmal Shazhad were the pick of the England bowlers, taking three wickets each.
The match enabled a number of players to stake their claim for selection for the first Twenty20 international against Australia, which takes place on Wednesday in Adelaide.
And Warwickshire right-hander Bell, who has not played a Twenty20 for his country since June 2008, impressed in an unfamiliar opening role in the absence of the rested Andrew Strauss.
Bell's typically fluent and attractive innings ensured England remained above the required run-rate, as they chased down their revised target.
"I feel in good form," said Bell. "I just want to keep working hard now.
"It's not a matter of I've done it and I just want to sit back. There's a lot of hard work to do.
"I want to be part of this team - test cricket and one-day cricket - for a long time."
Bell was ably assisted by Steven Davies (24) in an opening stand of 82 and, more significantly Trott, with whom he added 98.
Bell offered only one real chance to the home side during his innings but Callum Ferguson spilled the catch off the bowling of Trent Copeland.
Not even a 30-minute rain delay, shortly after Bell had reached 50, could halt his momentum and he brought his century up from 89 balls.
Bell and Trott were two of four players retained from the Ashes Test side, along with stand-in skipper Paul Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen.
Pietersen - another player hoping for a recall in the short-form of the game, after he was dropped for the recent one-day series with Pakistan - added 13 late on, before he was out lbw to Brett Lee, leaving Bell to fittingly strike the winning boundary.
Earlier, there was a somewhat rusty display from the England bowling attack, which included new arrivals Chris Woakes, Luke Wright, James Tredwell and Yardy.
It was the latter who emerged with the best figures of 3-33 in an innings that began almost an hour late because of rain.
Initially, Shazhad and Woakes struggled for rhythm and were wayward as captain Tim Paine and Usman Khawaja amassed an opening stand of 75 before the latter was caught and bowled by Tredwell for 22.
Yardy then came to the fore with a double breakthrough as he claimed the key wicket of Paine (50) and Alex Keath (15) with almost identical lbw decisions.
Shazhad bowled Ferguson - who made 39 - before Yardy claimed a third wicket when Tom Thornton offered a return catch, as the hosts stumbled to 179 for five.
However, some clean hitting from Dan Christian got the innings back on track before he was caught by Pietersen off Shazhad for 53.
Woakes returned and claimed two wickets - Sam Miller caught by Collingwood and James Pattinson caught by Wright - and Shazhad bowled Xavier Doherty, but Brett Lee's unbeaten 26 ensured a competitive total.
China sees trade surplus narrow as imports rise
China's trade surplus shrank to an eight month low in December, official figures show.
Imports increased by 25.6% on the same month a year earlier, leaving China with a surplus of $13.1bn ($8.4bn).
Exports were up 17.9%, much slower than November's 34.9% rise.
Analysts said the data may give Beijing grounds to fend off US pressure for faster currency appreciation ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States next week.
"Imports are much stronger than we have expected, indicating that the domestic investment and internal demand are mainly pushing up domestic consumption," said Wang Han, an economist at advisory firm CEBM in Shanghai.
Figures showed that the surplus for 2010 as a whole had fallen for a second consecutive year, down 7% on 2009 levels to $183.1bn.
Many US politicians and economists accuse China of manipulating the value of the yuan in order to boost its net exports at the expense of its trading partners.
A bill is set to go before the Senate that would call for retaliatory trade sanctions against countries such as China that intervene to weaken their currencies.
China relaxed the yuan's fixed exchange rate against the dollar in June, but since then it has been allowed to appreciate by less than 3%.
Spain's Basque rebels Eta call 'permanent truce'
The Basque separatist group Eta has announced a permanent ceasefire in its fight for independence from Spain.
In a video statement sent to the media, the group said the truce would be "internationally verifiable".
But the Spanish government has rejected Eta's statement, saying it contained nothing new.
Eta's campaign for independence for the Basque region has cost more than 800 lives since 1968 but it called a halt to armed attacks last year.
As in previous filmed statements, the video showed three Eta militants in white hoods. They said it was "time to act with historical responsibility".
It said it was declaring "a permanent and general ceasefire which will be verifiable by the international community".
"This is Eta's firm commitment towards a process to achieve a lasting resolution and towards an end to the armed confrontation," said the statement.
'Arrogant' But it said it would continue its "indefatigable struggle" for a "truly
There was no explicit reference to the group giving up its arms, which has been a key demand of the government.
The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Madrid says the strong language in the statement goes further than Eta has before, particularly the claim that the truce would be "verifiable", which could indicate a willingness to disarm.
But speaking a few hours after the statement was released, Spain's Interior Ninister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Eta had again failed to declare a definitive and irreversible end to violence.
He said the statement was not bad news but was not what the country had been hoping for.
Eta was not abandoning its demands and remained "as arrogant as ever", he said.
Spain's socialist government has been wary of Eta's claims since the last truce was broken by a bomb attack at Madrid's Barajas airport in December 2006, says our correspondent.
That attack resulted in peace talks being called off.
In September last year, Eta announced an end to its armed offensive but the government said the move was too weak for negotiations to restart.
The government argues that the militant group has been seriously weakened by the arrest of most of its key leadership in recent years.
It has also come under pressure from its political wing, Batasuna, which has been outlawed because of its connections to Eta but wants to be able to take part in local elections later this year.
Iran holds 'Israel-linked spies behind nuclear killing'
The Iranian authorities have arrested a "network of spies" which they say was behind the assassination of a nuclear scientist a year ago, state TV reports.
In a brief statement, the authorities said the network was linked to Israel's Mossad secret service.
Iran blamed US and Israeli agents for the killing at the time.
Separately, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said international sanctions have slowed Iran's progress towards developing nuclear weapons.
Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a 50-year-old university lecturer at Tehran University, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb on 12 January 2010 as he left his home in Tehran.
Iran's intelligence ministry said Mossad had used bases in certain European and non-European countries as well as Iran's neighbouring states for the purpose of the assassination, as well as other activities, Fars news agency reported.
The ministry said months of complicated measures and access to sources in the Israeli regime led to the finding of "very important and sensitive" information about Mossad spy teams, which inflicted heavy damage on Israel's information and security structures, Fars reported.
Iran has blamed the intelligence services of Israel, the US and the UK over bomb attacks against two top nuclear scientists in November last year, Majid Shahriari, who died, and Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, another top nuclear expert who was wounded in a similar attack.
At the time, Iran's state media said Mr Mohammadi had been assassinated by counter-revolutionaries, Zionists and agents of the "global arrogance".
Washington later dismissed the accusation as "absurd".
Although described by the Iranian media as a nuclear scientist, scientists in the UK and the US said, from his substantial body of published research, Mr Mohammadi was unlikely to have been working on Iran's nuclear programme.
They said his expertise was in another field of physics altogether - quantum mechanics.
Sanctions delay
Speaking in Abu Dhabi as part of a tour of the Gulf, Mrs Clinton said sanctions had made it much more difficult for Tehran to pursue its nuclear ambitions.
She said Tehran had also been facing technical problems, but she did not get drawn into discussing a timeline.
She called for international pressure to be maintained, and urged caution about a recent Israeli government assessment that Iran was still three years away from being able to build a nuclear weapon.
It is the first time the Obama administration has so openly and publicly claimed that Iran's nuclear programme is facing difficulties, says BBC state department correspondent Kim Ghattas, who is travelling with Mrs Clinton.
Mrs Clinton is in the Gulf partly to urge Washington's allies in the region not to let up the pressure on the Iranian leadership and to continue enforcing UN sanctions, our correspondent adds.
There has been much controversy over Iran's nuclear activities.
Tehran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes, but the US and other Western nations suspect it of seeking to build nuclear weapons.
Source:BBC
US court demands WikiLeaks' Twitter account info
US investigators have gone to court to demand details about WikiLeaks' Twitter account, according to documents obtained yesterday -- the first revelation about the criminal case Washington is trying to build against those who leaked classified US documents.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he believed other American Internet companies such as Facebook and Google may also have been ordered to divulge information on himself and colleagues.
The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a subpoena ordering Twitter Inc to hand over private messages, billing information, telephone numbers, connection records and other information about accounts run by Assange and others.
The subpoena also targeted Pfc Bradley Manning, the US Army intelligence analyst suspected of supplying the site with classified information; Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic parliamentarian and one-time WikiLeaks collaborator; and Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp and US programmer Jacob Appelbaum, both of whom have worked with WikiLeaks in the past.
The subpoena, dated December 14, asked for information dating back to November 1, 2009.
Assange blasted the US move, saying it amounted to harassment, and vowed to fight it.
"If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out," he said in a statement.
A copy of the subpoena, sent to The Associated Press by Jonsdottir, said that the information sought was "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation" and ordered Twitter not to disclose its existence to Assange or any of the others targeted.
But a second document, dated January 5, unsealed the court order. Although the reason wasn't made explicit in the document, WikiLeaks said it had been unsealed "thanks to legal action by Twitter".
The micro-blogging site Twitter declined to comment on the topic, saying only that its policy is to notify its users, where possible, of government requests for information.
Neither Facebook Inc nor Google Inc immediately returned messages yesterday seeking comment on possible subpoenas.
In Washington yesterday, the US government volunteered little new information about its ongoing criminal investigation against Assange and WikiLeaks after news of its subpoena leaked. Under rules governing grand jury investigations -- in which US prosecutors present evidence and testimony to selected private citizens behind closed doors to seek their approval to formally file charges -- government lawyers are not allowed to discuss the case until charges are announced publicly.
It was not immediately clear how the data being requested would be useful to investigators, but Twitter's logs could reveal the Internet addresses that Assange and WikiLeaks supporters have been using, which could help track their locations as they travelled around the world. The information also might identify others with official access to WikiLeaks' account on Twitter who so far have escaped scrutiny.
Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, said targeting Twitter showed how desperate US officials were to pin a crime on the WikiLeaks founder.
"(This is an attempt to) shake the electronic tree in the hope some kind of criminal charge drops out the bottom of it," Stephens told the BBC yesterday.
Jonsdottir said in a Twitter message that she had "no intention to hand my information over willingly." Appelbaum, whose Twitter feed suggested he was travelling in Iceland, said he was apprehensive about returning to the US.
"Time to try to enjoy the last of my vacation, I suppose," he tweeted.
Gonggrijp expressed annoyance that officials had misspelled his last name in the subpoena -- and praised Twitter for notifying him.
News of the subpoena follows months of angry back and forth between US officials and WikiLeaks, which has released thousands of secret US military documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and more recently, thousands of classified US diplomatic cables.
US officials say posting the military documents put informers' lives at risk, and that revealing diplomatic cables has made other countries reluctant to deal with American officials.
WikiLeaks denies that its postings put any lives at risk, saying that Washington merely is acting out of embarrassment over the revelations contained in the cables.
Assange is currently out on bail in Britain, where he is fighting extradition to Sweden on sex crimes allegations. His next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.
Source:AP
Turks and Caicos civil service election prompts concerns
Civil servants in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) have elected Dr Rufus Ewing as president of the newly reformed Civil Service Association (CSA).
Ewing, who is the director of Medical Services in the TCI, reportedly received about 220 votes. There are between 2,200 and 3,000 civil servants on staff in the TCI.
The ability to have an organised approach to issues affecting what is perceived or actual unfair treatment of civil servants is being viewed by government employees as a positive move.
It has also been revealed there is a plan to collect dues from the members, which could be used to build a fund to assist civil servants in need of financial support. It is unclear if the dues will be used to compensate CSA officers in any way.
Five candidates for the presidency were nominated but all but Ewing declined the nomination. It is unclear why these other nominated parties did not go forward. Some say it was intimidation of having to confront the interim government. Others are saying Ewing was preselected.
Two top belonger members of the interim government, who asked to remain anonymous, both suggested that Ewing has his eye on a political career and this is his first step.
Both agreed that the medical issues facing the country, including the unsettled administrative condition of the medical sector, should have excluded Doctor Ewing from this new endeavour, which they both felt would tend to further diminish his ability to address his basic responsibilities.
This opinion was echoed somewhat by another report by Providenciales (Provo)-based WIV TV channel 4, which reported that at least some of the 122 Haitians on board a sloop that ran aground in West Caicos within the past week have not been checked for cholera. Another source said the Haitians are being shipped home with dispatch, some already having left.
Ewing issued an early statement reporting that checks had been performed and no danger was present. WIV reported they were unable to reach Ewing for comment. It is unknown which report is correct.
In related news, a Haitian national, who spent the Christmas/New Year holidays in Haiti, on returning to the TCI was detained along with fellow passengers at the Provo Airport while blood tests were performed. Out of approximately 20 passengers, 5 tested positive and were returned to Haiti. Reportedly these were all from Port au Prince. Others with proper documentation were released after they were cleared.
Also reported was that some fellow travelers presenting travel visas were returned to Haiti. Recently the use of visas to clear immigration has been suspended. It appears these visa documents may have been forged.
Immigration officers are now checking documentation of passengers traveling from Provo to North Caicos at the ferry dock and ticket counter.
Revolt within Trinidad coalition member threatens government
Moves are reportedly afoot to remove Finance Minister Winston Dookeran as political leader of the Congress of the People (COP) which is one of the partners in the People's Partnership government in Trinidad and Tobago.
Sources say the man in the challenger's corner is Sports Minister Anil Roberts.
The Trinidad Express reported that Dookeran says he is not bothered by reports of such moves.
"I will not engage in such frivolities. There are major issues to deal with in the country," he responded when asked to comment on the reports on Saturday.
Pressed for a further comment, Dookeran said, "You remember when Gandhi was spat on in the train in South Africa and the people asked him ‘aren't you bothered about that?’ His response was ‘I don't have to be bothered, he (the man who spat on him) has to be bothered because he's the one who has done something wrong.’"
Sources said that there was strong support for Roberts to put himself up for the leadership position come March.
When contacted, Roberts said that if the people want him to serve he would willingly do so.
Ousted chairman of Antigua-Barbuda Electoral Commission warns of legal action
Former chairman of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission (ABEC), Sir Gerald Watt QC, has announced that he will challenge his removal as head of the commission in the courts.
The Observer newspaper reported that, in a press release, Watt said he received two letters within minutes of each other from Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer and Governor General Dame Louise Lake-Tack respectively.
He said the prime minister indicated that Watt was being replaced as chairman because the former attorney general no longer enjoyed the people's confidence.
The governor general's letter, according to Watt, quoted verbatim from a letter that Spencer wrote to the head of state on the matter.
Lake-Tack's letter also informed him that the revocation of his appointment as chairman would not affect his position as a member or ordinary commissioner of the ABEC, Watt said.
He described the prime minister and the governor general's actions in this regard as "unlawful and contrary to the specific provisions of the Representation of the People Amendment Act.”
Watt said what he found most objectionable was that the prime minister had taken action to remove him as chairman of ABEC right on the heels of him being completely exonerated and vindicated by a judicial tribunal, which the prime minister had asked to be set up with the specific purpose of determining whether or not he should be removed.
He warned that the dictatorial and despotic action by the prime minister cannot and will not stand.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Lester Bird has criticized Lake-Tack and Spencer for removing Watt.
In his Sunday broadcast, Bird said, "It is a violation of a most important part of the law whose purpose to protect you, the citizens and residents of our country, from having your right to elect a government of your choice stolen by the authoritarian prime minister.”
He added, “To give you the protection to stop any prime minister from appointing a political hatchet man to the chairmanship or membership of the Commission, the prime minister is required by the law to consult with the leader of the opposition before recommending any such appointments.”
“In other words,” the Opposition leader said, “these positions are so sensitive to the maintenance of democracy in our country and to protect you from dictatorship, that the law requires consultation between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition.”
“By secretly appointing Juno Samuel -- a known political activist, and a notorious opponent of the Labour Party and its supporters -- without consulting the leader of the opposition, Spencer has not only flouted the law, but he has scorned your democratic rights,” Bird told listeners.
The former prime minister, who is also an attorney, added that there is no legal basis for Sir Gerald's removal and both the governor general and the prime minister are aware of this.
Rihanna makes history in UK chart
Rihanna has set a new record as the first female solo artist in UK chart history to achieve number one singles in five consecutive years.
The Official Charts Company announced her record after What's My Name? rose from number two to the top spot.
The last solo artist to achieve the feat was Elvis Presley, who had number ones in each year from 1957 to 1963.
Rihanna's album Loud also holds on to its number one slot, giving her the second UK chart double of her career.
In 2007, her album Good Girl Gone Bad and single Umbrella topped both charts simultaneously.
Loud has now sold nearly 900,000 copies since its release in November last year.
As well as her number one, Rihanna, who is 22 and from Barbados, also appears on two other songs in the top 10 - Only Girl (In The World) and Who's That Chick.
Only Girl (In The World) was a number one last year and followed other number ones for Run This Town (2009), Take A Bow (2008) and Umbrella (2007).
Other albums which have re-entered the top 10 are Plan B's The Defamation of Strickland Banks, Rumer's Seasons Of My Soul and Cee Lo Green's The Lady Killer which climbs to its highest chart position yet at number four.
In the singles chart, the BBC's Sound Of 2011 winner, Jessie J, climbs to number five from last week's 18 with Do It Like A Dude.
Source:BBC
The Social Network wins National Critics award
The Social Network has moved a step closer to Oscar success after bagging four awards from the National Society of Film Critics in the US.
The film, about the origins of Facebook, was named best picture while David Fincher was named best director and writer Aaron Sorkin claimed best screenplay.
Jessie Eisenberg was named best actor as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
British actress Olivia Williams picked up best supporting actress.
She played the wife of a former Prime Minister in Roman Polanski's The Ghost.
The Social Network is widely considered one of the front-runners for the Oscar nominations, which are announced on 25 January.
Eisenberg beat off competition from Colin Firth for The King's Speech in the acting category but Firth's co-star Geoffrey Rush was named best supporting actor for playing a speech therapist who helped King George VI overcome a stammer.
The National Society of Film Critics, which includes members from newspapers in Los Angeles, Boston, New York and Chicago criticised the US Classification & Ratings Administration for placing an R-rating on The King's Speech for the use of strong language in the film.
The rating requires under-17s to be accompanied by an adult.
The British Board of Film Classification lowered the rating of the film from 15 to 12A, after its UK distributors launched an appeal against the decision.
Italian actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno won an award as Mussolini's secret lover in Vincere while the award for best foreign language film was won by Carlos - about the life of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the jailed terrorist also known as the Jackal.
Boyle honour
The cast of The Social Network was also given the ensemble performance award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Natalie Portman was named best actress for her role as a ballerina in the forthcoming Black Swan, while British actress Carey Mulligan's roles in Never Let Me Go and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps landed her the award for breakthrough performance.
Danny Boyle, the director of 127 Hours and the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire was presented with a visionary award and Javier Bardem collected the international star honour.
Source:BBC