Australia condemns bomb attacks on Lebanon

Australia has condemned bomb attacks on mosques in Lebanon that killed more than 40 people. Source: AAP

AUSTRALIA has condemned overnight bomb attacks on mosques in northern Lebanon that killed more than 40 people and injured 400.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr said the attacks in Lebanon followed Beirut car bombings on July 9 and August 15 and a rocket attack on May 26.

"The Australian government again offers condolences to the people of Lebanon for the horrific death and injury toll from these attacks on civilian communities," Senator Carr said in a statement on Saturday.

"We join with other Security Council members in strongly condemning these attacks."

Senator Carr has warned Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Lebanon and to avoid any travel to southern Beirut where most of the recent attacks have occurred.

Australians have also been advised not to travel to Tripoli in northern Lebanon, where the mosque bombings occurred.

"They should also register their presence with the Australian Embassy," he said.

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Bob Jane says son reunion not on

Tyre king Bob Jane says he won't reconcile with his son after a bitter legal fight over his fortune. Source: AAP

TYRE tycoon Bob Jane says there is no chance of reconciling with his son Rodney following a bitter legal battle over his empire.

"I can say to you emphatically there is no going back," Bob Jane has told Fairfax Media's Good Weekend, of his relationship with his son.

The 83-year-old has accused Rodney Jane of robbing him of his tyre fortune and leaving him with only the roof over his head.

"My son doesn't love me," he says.

"Love is love: you don't take advantage of someone who is sick.

"I had 29 companies and trusts and a whole bunch of properties. The only property I have now is the one we are on today. Everything else is gone."

Bob's feud with his son played out in a Victorian Supreme Court civil case, where Rodney Jane claimed he saved the company from the brink of collapse at the request of his father.

The younger Jane won the battle this month when a judge ruled that Bob Jane Corporation had already paid the $2.4 million loan Bob Jane claimed he was owed and that $500,000 given by Bob to Rodney was a gift.

Rodney Jane tells the magazine his father, on his good side, is a "dear soul" but adds: "I've seen the brutality of him but, until now, never between us."

"His love is either amazing and right there with you, or it's not," he says.

"And if it's not, it's on the far side of love, it's hate. There's no grey bit in the middle.

"It's hard-wired into you. Parents are the most precious thing you've got.

"So you're torn between having to fight with a monster, but the monster is the person you love."

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Tourists, residents flee huge US wildfire

A out-of-control wildfire forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes inside Yosemite National Park. Source: AAP

A WILDFIRE in northern California has grown to more than three times the size of San Francisco as it spreads inside the border of Yosemite National Park.

The out-of-control flames have caused tourists to flee and forced the evacuation of hundreds from homes.

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Daniel Berlant said on Friday the blaze had grown to more than 427 square kilometres and was only 2 per cent contained.

Berlant said the fire threatens about 4500 residences.

While Yosemite remains open, the wildfire has caused the closure of one of three entrances on the west side, devastating areas that rely on tourism.

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Facebook aims to get more people online

Facebook has announced a partnership aimed at connecting four billion people still not online. Source: AAP

FACEBOOK wants to get more of the world's 7 billion people online through a partnership with Samsung, Nokia and other large mobile technology companies.

Facebook Inc. announced a partnership called internet.org on Wednesday. The company says its goal is to "make internet access available to the two-thirds of the world who are not yet connected."

"By reducing the cost and amount of data required for most apps and enabling new business models, internet.org is focused on enabling the next four onlinebillion people to come online," Facebook said in a statement.

The group's plans include developing cheaper smartphones and using mobile data more efficiently.

Javier Olivan, vice-president of growth and analytics at Facebook, said the move continues what the company has already been doing to get more people online. This includes "Facebook For Every Phone," an app that launched in 2011 to let people with simple, non-smartphones use Facebook

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ACCI tells Rudd, Abbott to lift their game

AS the election campaign passes the halfway mark, a leading business group has told both major political leaders to lift their game on the economy.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) says both Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott promised the economy would be at the heart of their election pitches.

"I'm looking for a coherent set of policies, not just an announcement of some spending initiatives here and there," chief executive Peter Anderson told reporters in Canberra.

The chamber has proposed a priority reform agenda for the next federal government.

Whoever wins on September 7, the goal must be to get the budget back under control and spell out a clear pathway back to surplus, alongside a root and branch review of government spending.

Taxation reform should also include the GST, although Mr Anderson said this was not a "green light" to either to increase the rate of the impost or broaden its base.

"We are actually looking at the Australian government to repair its finances so that taxes in Australia can be lower," he said.

Treasurer Chris Bowen insists Labor already has a pathway to restore the budget surplus.

"By returning to surplus in 2016/17 against declining terms of trade, declining growth in government revenue, that's an improvement in the structure of the budget," he told reporters in Melbourne.

Mr Abbott also believes the coalition has the policies to build a stronger economy.

"If we get the economic fundamentals right, then we give our businesses generally, including our manufacturers, the best opportunity to invest, to employ, to compete to innovate and to succeed," he told reporters in Brisbane.

However, Mr Anderson is not impressed with Mr Abbott's $5.5 billion a year paid parental leave scheme, describing it as "excessive".

"We do think that Mr Abbott ought to have taken the opportunity of the deteriorating budget position, which has alarmingly deteriorated over recent months, to pare back what is an excessive scheme," he added.

New data suggests the winning political party will face a slowing economy.

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute leading index of economic activity indicates the likely pace of economic growth in three to nine months time.

The June reading points to an annualised growth rate of 3.6 per cent - a seven-month low.

While this is above the index's long-term trend of 2.9 per cent, it's below a recent peak of 5.3 per cent.

Furthermore, Westpac chief economist Bill Evans expects the June quarter national accounts on September 4 won't be overly positive.

There was brighter news on the employment front, with job advertisements on the internet rising by a seasonally adjusted 5.4 per cent in July.

However, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations warned this could be the impact of the MyCareer website moving to free job advertising from July 1.

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NSW MPs block govt super regulation

CROSSBENCH MPs in the NSW upper house have sided with Labor to pass a motion aimed at putting more money in public sector workers' pockets.

The opposition's disallowance motion blocks a June regulation that allowed the government to count superannuation rises towards a promised 2.5 per cent wage increase for nurses, teachers and other public sector workers.

The motion passed 21-16 with the help of the Greens and Shooters and Fishers Party.

Treasurer Mike Baird, whose government wanted a compulsory 0.25 per cent super increase to be absorbed in pay rises, said the action on Wednesday would lead to job losses.

"If the current superannuation increase is not absorbed into the existing wages policy, the cost will be an extra $800 million over the forward estimates, which is the equivalent of 8000 public sector jobs," Mr Baird said.

"The former Labor government left this state in a fiscal hole and now it is attempting to do the same thing from beyond the grave - we will not allow this to happen."

Mr Baird said the government was keeping its options open in response to Labor's move, including legal action or requiring further savings by departments under the labour expense cap introduced in the 2012-13 budget.

Opposition industrial relations spokesman Adam Searle told AAP the government could not back up its $800 million figure and was now being forced to stick to a promise to public sector workers.

"They've been sprung," he said.

"They've now been forced to abide by their own original policy."

He said the motion passed in the Legislative Council would translate to a 0.23 per cent boost in wages for affected workers.

Unions NSW Secretary Mark Lennon slammed the treasurer for threatening to axe 8000 public sector workers.

"To try and deny public sector workers the modest commonwealth super increase in the first place is wrong," he said.

"But to then angrily threaten their jobs when his plan fails is, frankly, disgraceful."

Mr Lennon said axing thousands of jobs would leave the public with highly compromised services in hospitals, schools, police and fire stations.

"Mr Baird has completely lost his moral compass on this issue," he added.

Mr Lennon said the move had already been denied by the Industrial Relations Commission - "and now by the NSW parliament. He should take the hint."

Mr Lennon praised Labor, the Shooters and Fishers Party and the Greens for supporting the motion and "sticking up for decency".

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Kiwi slips with limits to go on bank loans

THE New Zealand dollar fell to a week-low after Reserve Bank governor Graeme Wheeler imposed restrictions on home lending from October in an effort to cool a bubbling property market without hiking interest rates.

The kiwi fell as low as 79.73 US cents and traded at 79.87 cents at 5pm in Wellington from 80.64 cents at 8am and 81.18 cents on Monday.

The trade-weighted index dropped to 75.21 from 76.22 on Monday.

Mr Wheeler on Tuesday announced restrictions on low-equity home loans in an effort to cool housing markets in Auckland and Christchurch, the country's two biggest cities.

He has been reluctant to hike interest rates in response to the rising house prices, as doing so would lift the appeal of an already overvalued kiwi dollar.

By using the macro-prudential tools, the Reserve Bank has "greater flexibility in considering the timing and magnitude of any future increases in the OCR" which is sitting at a record-low 2.5 per cent, he said.

"They were a bit more restrictive than people thought they were going to be, and they're going to slow things down a bit to take pressure off interest rates," said Michael Johnston, a senior trader at HiFX in Auckland.

"He won't raise the OCR any time soon as they're scared of pushing the kiwi up sharply."

The kiwi was little changed at 88.08 Australian cents from 88.11 cents on Monday, and fell to 77.91 yen at 5pm from 79.20 yen and to 59.83 euro cents from 60.92 cents.

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Milne labels parental scheme too generous

GREENS leader Christine Milne has joined the growing chorus of people labelling the coalition's "fully costed" paid parental leave scheme too generous.

Ms Milne made the comment at her party's WA campaign launch in Perth on Tuesday, calling on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to release costings for the $5.5 billion-a-year scheme.

"Tony Abbott must now come clean with what he is going to cut or where he is going to get the money to be able to do this," she said.

Ms Milne also denounced Mr Abbott's policy of giving states and territories more power over the environmental approval processes, citing the Supreme Court ruling on Monday that declared the WA government's nod for Woodside's Browse gas project unlawful.

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Bolivian may be world's oldest person

COULD this be the world's oldest person?

Carmelo Flores Laura lives high in the Bolivian mountains, chews coca leaves, cooks on open fires and says he's 123 years old.

He was born on July 16, 1890, according to his government identification card. Bolivia's Electoral Tribunal has confirmed his identity and his age.

"His residence is in Frasquia, and as a profession he is a farmer," the office says.

According to the document, the Bolivian Methuselah was born the same year as Charles de Gaulle and Ho Chi Mihn, and 13 years before the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk.

According to the Guinness World Records, the world's oldest person whose age could be verified was a French woman, Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at 122.

The official world's oldest man is 112 year-old Salustiano Sanchez Blazquez, a Spaniard living in New York.

Government officials in La Paz say they will approach Guinness to update their records with information on their aged compatriot.

Flores Laura speaks only speaks Aymara, the language of the Andean natives of Peru and Bolivia.

He is 1.6 metres tall, has no teeth and walks with some difficulty but without a cane. He does not wear glasses.

When outside he wears a wool cap known as a chullo that covers his ears under his broad-brimmed hat - protection from both the bitter cold and bright sunlight of the Bolivian altiplano.

Frasquia is a quiet cluster of adobe-brick buildings 4050 metres above sea level and about 100 kilometres northwest of La Paz.

The hamlet is near Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake, and at the foot of the snow-capped Mount Illampu.

There is a school, a small clinic and access to electricity, but the nearest grocery is a three-hour walk away in the town of Arista. Onions, potato and broad beans are grown, watered by runoff from Illampu's snow.

Flores Laura arrived in Frasquia as a young man from a nearby village searching for work, and fell in love with a local widow. The couple married and had three children.

"She died a long time ago," Flores Laura said, speaking through an interpreter.

His wife was 107 years old when she died, according to Flores Laura's 27-year-old grandson.

Two of the old man's children have also died.

"I only have one surviving son, Cecilio," Flores Laura said. He lives in the working class town of El Alto, just outside of the capital La Paz.

Flores Laura also has 14 grandchildren, and 39 great-grandchildren.

With a mouth full of coca leaves, Carmelo Flores Laura recounts passages of his long life in short bursts, speaking slowly and with difficulty.

When he was young he worked as a farmhand for a wealthy landowner named Mollinedo.

Later he fought in the 1932 to 1935 Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay.

He also recalls participating in many of the uprisings and coups that shook Bolivia in the 20th century.

However, his memory has faded and he doesn't remember any of the causes or leaders he fought for.

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