Australia PM Julia Gillard to form minority government‎

Julia Gillard will stay as Australia's prime minister after winning the backing of two key independent MPs.

Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott held the balance of power in parliament after a fellow independent MP, Bob Katter, backed opposition leader Tony Abbott.

The dramatic announcement ended more than two weeks of political deadlock following indecisive elections.

It gives Ms Gillard's Labor Party the backing of one more MP in the lower house than the Liberal-led coalition.

The minority government is Australia's first since World War II.

"The events of the past fortnight show us unequivocally that our democracy is very, very strong indeed," Ms Gillard told a news conference in Canberra.

"With today's agreement... Labor is prepared to deliver stable, effective and secure government for the next three years. Ours will be a government with just one purpose - to serve the Australian people."

"We will be held more accountable than ever before, and more than any government in modern memory," she added.

Mr Abbott told reporters he would respect the outcome, despite his alliance having won one more seat than Ms Gillard's party on 21 August.

"The Coalition won more votes and more seats than our opponents, but sadly, we did not get the opportunity to form a government," he said. "Obviously I'm disappointed about that, but that's our system."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11209560

Key Australia MP backs opposition

Bob Katter, one of three independent Australian MPs who hold the balance of power in parliament has said he will support opposition leader Tony Abbott.

The two other MPs - Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott - are due to reveal their decision soon.

There has been political deadlock in Australia since last month's inconclusive election.

The Labor Party, led by caretaker Prime Minister Julia Gillard, has 74 seats to the conservative opposition's 73.

Mr Katter's support for Mr Abbott evens them up.

Both leaders now need the support of Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott to gain a majority of 76 seats.

If they split, it is a dead heat and Australians face a return to the polls.

Mr Katter said he had not spoken to the party leaders before announcing his decision.

"I haven't told anybody at all," he said, adding that his move would not have any bearing on the decision of the other two.

"I said 'That's my decision, fellas. I'm really sorry, I'm locked in'."

The BBC's Nick Bryant, in Sydney, says that with negotiations over the formation of the next government now in their third week, there has been growing public impatience with the time it has taken the rural-based MPs - dubbed the three amigos - to reach their decision.

The elections on 21 August produced Australia's first hung parliament in 70 years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11209560

Bahrain accuses Shia activists of 'terror campaign'

Prosecutors in Bahrain have accused 23 Shia activists of planning to overthrow the state's Sunni-dominated government.

The men, arrested since mid-August, belonged to a "sophisticated terrorist network" that was planning and executing a "campaign of violence and subversion", an official said.

There has been a series of Shia-led protests in the Gulf state ahead of October's parliamentary election.

Bahrain's majority Shia community has long complained of discrimination.

"This sophisticated terrorist network with operations inside and outside Bahrain has undertaken and planned a systematic and layered campaign of violence and subversion aimed squarely at undermining the national security of Bahrain," public prosecution official Abdulrahman al-Sayed said in a statement.

"The leaders of the network have been accused of several crimes including the planning and instigation of violence, conducting a wide-ranging propaganda campaign against the Kingdom and seeking to overthrow the regime by force," his statement continued.

Bahrain is unique in all the states of the Arabian Peninsula in that it has a Shia majority, roughly 65% of the population.

However, the ruling elite is Sunni. Shia Bahrainis say they have been discriminated against for years.

Among those being charged is Abd al-Jalil Singace, head of the Shia-dominated Haq Movement for Liberty and Democracy.

He was arrested in August on his return from London where he had been giving a lecture on human rights in Bahrain.

The secretary general of the Haq Movement, Husain Mshaim, is also being charged.

Mr Singace was arrested with four other activists in 2009 and held for several months on charges of plotting to overthrow the government.

He later received a royal pardon after weeks of protests.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11190726

Egypt's Mohamed ElBaradei alleges 'smear campaign'

Former UN chief nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei has accused Egypt's government of being behind a smear campaign targeting his family.

A government-run newspaper had said the ElBaradeis were accused of being atheists and having a daughter married to a non-Muslim.

Mr ElBaradei said this was how "the regime" responded to reformers.

He has been seen as a potential presidential candidate in Egypt, a Muslim-majority state.

Speculation is high about who may replace Hosni Mubarak, the country's 82-year-old president, who is known to be unwell but has no obvious successor after nearly 30 years in office.

'Grave mistake'

Mr ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner as well as former head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, was quoted in independent newspaper Al-Dustour as saying the government was "waging a campaign of sheer lies" against himself and his family.

He also condemned a "smear campaign" allegedly being waged on the social networking site Facebook.

"This just shows how desperate the forces against change have become by resorting to a smear campaign based on lies and fabrication," he told the Associated Press news agency through a spokeswoman.

A spokesman for President Mubarak's National Democratic Party, Ali Eddin Helal, said it had had no connection to the alleged Facebook campaign, which he called an attempt at "character assassination".

"I think this is a very grave mistake, violating the privacy of others," the party spokesman said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11190341

UPS cargo plane crashes in Dubai, killing two

A cargo plane has crashed at an air force base shortly after take-off from Dubai airport, killing two crew members on board, officials say.

There were no injuries on the ground and commercial air traffic was not affected, they added.

The aircraft was a Boeing 747 belonging to US company United Parcel Service.

A UAE official told local media the plane was diverted to the base after reporting trouble. It hit a covered car park then bounced and crashed, he said.

Smoke was seen billowing from inside the walled compound.

Continue reading the main story

“

Start Quote

There was a big fireball that lit up the full sky in orange”

End Quote

Tony Meechan

Dubai resident

'Smoke and smell'

Some reports said a fire had broken out in the plane just after it took off from Dubai international airport.

The plane flew near a residential area popular with expatriates where residents saw its last desperate moments.

"I saw the explosion from my balcony and felt the blast," said Tony Meechan, a British expatriate living in Silicon Oasis, a technology park on the Emirates Road.

"There was a big fireball that lit up the full sky in orange. After that there was smoke and the smell of burning plastic.

"I'm still feeling a bit shaken up."

The plane was on its way to the company's European hub in Cologne, a spokeswoman for UPS said.

Initial reports from al-Arabiya television said the plane had hit the busy Emirates Road motorway, but later reports indicated it had not.

The United Arab Emirates civil aviation authority said the bodies of the two crew members were recovered.

UPS, the world's largest courier service, said it would "do everything" to find the cause of the crash.

In 2009 a Sudanese cargo plane crashed in the Dubai desert, killing six crew.

The company was subsequently barred from operating in the Emirates.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11183476

World News: Radical Islam is world's greatest threat - Tony Blair

World News: Radical Islam is world's greatest threat - Tony Blair

World News: Radical Islam is world's greatest threat - Tony Blair

World News: Radical Islam is world's greatest threat - Tony Blair

Radical Islam is world's greatest threat - Tony Blair

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has described radical Islam as the greatest threat facing the world today.

He made the remark in a BBC interview marking the publication of his memoirs.

Mr Blair said radical Islamists believed that whatever was done in the name of their cause was justified - including the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Mr Blair, who led Britain into war in Afghanistan and Iraq, denied that his own policies had fuelled radicalism.

Asked about the argument that Chechens, Kashmiris, Palestinians, Iraqis and Afghans were resisting foreign occupation, he said Western polices were designed to confront radical Islamists because they were "regressive, wicked and backward-looking".

The aim of al-Qaeda in Iraq was "not to get American troops out of Baghdad [but] to destabilise a government the people of Iraq have voted for", he told the BBC's Owen Bennett Jones in a World Service interview.

The former British leader - who now acts as the Middle East envoy for the international Quartet - said that Iran was one of the biggest state sponsors of radical Islam, and it was necessary to prevent it by any means from developing a nuclear weapon."We need to give a message to Iran that is very clear - that they cannot have nuclear weapons capability, and we will stop them," he said.

Mr Blair said he was not advocating military action, but simply saying no option could be taken off the table.

Iran denies pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, and insists its atomic work is for civilian purposes.

Mr Blair told the BBC his view of foreign policy had changed as a result of the 9/11 attacks: "After 11 September, rightly or wrongly, I felt the calculus of risk had changed.

"There is the most enormous threat from the combination of this radical extreme movement and the fact that, if they could, they would use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

"You can't take a risk with that happening."

Mr Blair said he agonised over how to respond to radical Islam and still had doubts that he was right.

These are really difficult issues, he said, but added: "This extremism is so deep that in the end they have to know that they're facing a stronger will than theirs."

Mr Blair has also expressed optimism about the prospect of peace in the Middle East. Direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians began in Washington on Thursday.

Speaking in Dublin, on the prime-time entertainment programme The Late Late Show, Mr Blair said he believed the Middle East peace process was similar to Northern Ireland - and would be successful.

He said: "I feel it can be settled. You just have to carry on."

There was a small anti-war protest outside the Dublin studio where the interview took place.

Mr Blair also told the Late Late Show that his successor as prime minister, Gordon Brown, remained a friend.

In his autobiography, Mr Blair said Mr Brown was "maddening", had "zero" emotional intelligence and sought to frustrate key reforms.

However, Mr Blair said there were many things he admired about Mr Brown and would "probably" still go for a drink with him.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11182225