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Emergency workers are flying to a remote location in Western Australia's Gascoyne region, following an emergency call which reported a fatal mid-air crash.

WA Police's Inspector Paul Zegir said the rescue helicopter was not expected to reach the site, in the Kennedy Ranges, until about 7am (WDT).

"The rescue helicopter is just about there by now, it has to refuel and ... in another three hours it should be there," Insp Zegir said early today.

Carnarvon police received the call about 7.50pm yesterday.

The caller reported two people were dead, and a third was seriously injured, after a helicopter and a light plane collided.

"The call fell out before further information could be received," Insp Zegir said.

"Carnarvon police and other emergency authorities are currently working on the recovery and rescue, but they will be hampered by the rough terrain.

"The location is north of Gascoyne Junction ... it is believed that there is no vehicle access to the area."

Gascoyne Junction is about two hours east of Carnarvon.

AAP

[JohnCenaFan28]

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[JohnCenaFan28]

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[JohnCenaFan28]

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[JohnCenaFan28]

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[JohnCenaFan28]

One million people a year will die from tobacco smoking in India during the 2010s, research predicts.

The New England Journal of Medicine study found smoking already accounts for 900,000 deaths a year in India.

The study warns that without action, the death toll from smoking will climb still further.

It predicts smoking could soon account for 20% of all male deaths and 5% of all female deaths between the ages of 30 and 69.

The researchers have calculated that on average, men who smoke bidi - small hand-rolled cigarettes common in India - lose about six years of life.

Men who smoke full-size cigarettes shorten their lives by about ten years.


It is truly remarkable that one single factor, namely smoking, which is entirely preventable, accounts for nearly one in 10 of all deaths in India
Professor Amartya Sen
Harvard University

And for women bidi smokers the figure is about eight years.

The figures are based on a survey of deaths among a sample of 1.1 million homes in all parts of India carried out by about 900 field workers.

Among men who died between the ages of 30 and 69, smoking caused about 38% of deaths from tuberculosis, 32% of deaths from cancer and 20% of deaths from vascular disease.

Surprising findings

Lead researcher Professor Prabhat Jha, of the University of Toronto, said: "The extreme risks from smoking that we found surprised us, as smokers in India start at a later age than those in Europe or America and smoke less."

It is estimated that there are about 120 million smokers in India.

The study found that, among men, about 61% of those who smoke can expect to die at ages 30-69 compared with only 41% of otherwise similar non-smokers.

Among women, 62% of those who smoke can expect to die at ages 30-69 compared with only 38% of non-smokers.

Professor Amartya Sen, of Harvard University, said: "It is truly remarkable that one single factor, namely smoking, which is entirely preventable, accounts for nearly one in 10 of all deaths in India.

"The study brings out forcefully the need for immediate public action in this much-neglected field."

Dr Abumani Ramadoss, India's health minister, said: "I am alarmed by the results of this study.

"The government of India is trying to take all steps to control tobacco use - in particular by informing the many poor and illiterate of smoke risks."

Jean King, director of tobacco control at Cancer Research UK, said India could learn from the UK, where falling smoking rates over the last 30 years have coincided with the world's biggest drop in deaths from lung cancer, particularly among men.

BBC NEWS

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A French court has sentenced a former military commander of Basque separatist group Eta to 30 years in prison for the attempted murder of a French policeman.

Ibon Fernandez Iradi shot the police officer eight times in the city of Bayonne in 2001, leaving him with near-fatal injuries.

Doctors told the court it was a miracle the officer had survived.

Iradi, known also as "Susper", escaped from custody a year after the shooting, before being re-arrested.

Spanish authorities say he was the head of recruitment for Eta, before becoming its military leader.

An accomplice, Antonio Agustin Figal Arranz, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

BBC NEWS

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A psychiatric hospital official has been detained in Baghdad in connection with bombings by two allegedly mentally disabled women, says the US military.

The man is suspected of supplying patient information to al-Qaeda in Iraq, spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith told a news conference.

Twin bombings of crowded pet markets on 1 February killed at least 98 people.

Officials later said the explosives had been attached to two mentally disabled women and were remotely detonated.

'Exploitation'

Rear Adm Smith identified the suspect, who was detained on Sunday, as an acting administrator at Rashad hospital in the capital.

Rashad psychiatric hospital in Baghdad in 2004
The detainee is said to work in Rashad psychiatric hospital

"Coalition forces detained a hospital administrator in connection with the possible exploitation of mentally impaired women by al-Qaeda," he said.

"The administrator remains in coalition force detention and is being questioned to determine what role if any [he played] in supplying al-Qaeda with information regarding patients at the al-Rashad psychiatric hospital or from other medical facilities in Baghdad," he added.

US troops had carried out a "thorough" search of the hospital, he said.

The toll of the twin attacks on 1 February was the highest seen for months in Baghdad, where a fragile sense of security had begun to emerge as the bloodshed apparently diminished.

US and Iraqi officials blamed the bombings on al-Qaeda, saying they were a reflection of its "twisted" ideology.

BBC NEWS

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The US has said it welcomes the killing of a top Hezbollah commander implicated in numerous bomb attacks and a wave of hostage-taking in Lebanon in the 1980s.

A US state department spokesman said the world would be a "better place" without Imad Mughniyeh, whom he called a "mass murderer and a terrorist".

But Sean McCormack said he did not know who was responsible for the car bombing overnight in Damascus that killed him.

Hezbollah and Iran have blamed Israel, but it has denied any involvement.

The Syrian government also condemned the "cowardly terrorist act" and said investigations were still underway to find the perpetrators.

Mughniyeh, in his late 40s, had been variously described as special operations or intelligence chief of Hezbollah's secretive military wing, the Islamic Resistance.

Correspondents say his death will be a significant blow to Hezbollah, which battled Israel in the 2006 Lebanon war, with help from its Iranian and Syrian backers.

'Cold-blooded killer'

Mughniyeh had been top of the US Most Wanted list until he was replaced by Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders following the 11 September 2001 attacks.


One way or another he was brought to justice
Sean McCormack
US State Department Spokesman

Notorious 'terror mastermind'
Who are Hezbollah?

He was alleged to have been involved in the killings of more Americans than anyone else in the world, including the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut and the UN compound, in which 241 US Marines and 58 French paratroopers died.

The US government also placed a $5m bounty on his head after he was indicted for his alleged role in planning and participating in the hijacking of a TWA commercial airliner in 1985, during which a US navy diver was murdered.

After the confirmation of Mughniyeh's death on Wednesday morning, state department spokesman Sean McCormack said the US did not know who had been responsible for the bombing, but applauded it nonetheless.

"The world is a better place without this man in it," he told reporters.


IMAD MUGHNIYEH
Born southern Lebanon 1962
Indicted for 1985 hijack of TWA airliner
Accused of involvement in 1990s Buenos Aires bombings
On FBI Most Wanted list since 2001

"He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost," he added. "One way or another he was brought to justice."

Mr McCormack said list of other nationalities who had been affected by Mughniyeh's "acts of terror" went "on and on and on".

Israel believes he was involved in planning the 1992 bombing of its embassy in Argentina in which 29 people were killed, and the blast at a Buenos Aires Jewish centre two years later that killed 95.

'State terrorism'

Syrian police kept media and other onlookers well away from the scene of the overnight blast in the well-to-do Kafar Soussa district.

Witnesses saw security officers hauling the body away from a burnt-out vehicle.


Syrian security and rescue personnel inspect the site of the car bombing in Damascus (12 February 2008)
With all pride we declare a great jihadist leader of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon joining the martyrs
Hezbollah's Manar TV

On Wednesday morning, Hezbollah-owned Manar TV announced that one of the group's senior commanders had been killed.

"With all pride we declare a great jihadist leader of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon joining the martyrs... the brother commander hajj Imad Mughniyeh".

"After a life full of jihad, sacrifices and accomplishments... he died a martyr at the hands of the Israeli Zionists," a Hezbollah statement said.

Later, the Syrian government confirmed Mughniyeh had been killed and said investigations were still underway to find the perpetrators.

"Syria, which condemns this cowardly terrorist act, expresses condolences to the martyr family and to the Lebanese people," Interior Minister Bassam Abdul-Majeed said in a statement.

Iran also condemned the killing, praising Mughniyeh as a martyr and describing the attack as "yet another brazen example of organised state terrorism by the Zionist regime".

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The Israeli government, which has been accused of a series of assassinations of its enemies in various countries over the years, stopped short of an outright denial that it had killed Mughniyeh.

"Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement.

Hezbollah said a funeral service would be held in its stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday.

The city has been tense ahead of a mass rally also on Thursday to commemorate three years since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Hezbollah was founded in 1982 by a group of Shia Muslim clerics after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. It has emerged in recent years as a major political and military force in Lebanon, after military successes against Israel.

BBC NEWS

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China has had its first defeat at the World Trade Organization (WTO), in a case centred on restrictions on the importation of foreign-made car parts.

Upholding a complaint from the European Union, Canada and US, the preliminary WTO finding agrees that current Chinese practice is protectionist.

Under existing Chinese rules, its carmakers must use 60% Chinese-made parts - or pay higher taxes.

The ruling says China must end this policy to meet its WTO obligations.

'Less favourable'

"We can confirm that, in all major respects, the panel has agreed with the United States that China has acted inconsistently with its WTO commitments," a US trade official told the Reuters news agency.

The WTO report says that foreign-made car parts are currently in a "less favourable" position than their Chinese-made alternatives.

"The dispute settlement body requests China to bring these inconsistent measures as listed above into conformity with its obligations," says the ruling.

The WTO is now due to make its final report later this year, when the Chinese government will have the opportunity to appeal.

Western complaints

Based in Switzerland, the WTO is tasked with increasing global free trade, and rules on such disputes between countries.

China first joined the organisation in 2001, pledging to open up its domestic market to overseas firms and abide by WTO rules for international trade.

However, Western governments have repeatedly complained that China is not moving quickly enough.

The US announced last year that it was seeking a WTO inquiry over whether Chinese limits on imports of copyrighted US goods broke trade rules.

America has also complained against continuing high levels of music and film piracy in China.

Separately, the EU said earlier this month that it was considering launching WTO action against Chinese restrictions on foreign financial news groups.

China in return has complained about EU limits on Chinese shoe exports.

BBC NEWS