World News joined 2

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the story.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the story.

[OMEN]

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED: Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has been made an honorary member of the Crow Nation and given the name Barak Black Eagle.
Democrat Barack Obama became an honorary member of an American Indian tribe and promised a proactive policy to help tribal people if he wins the White House in November.

The Illinois senator who is leading rival Hillary Clinton in their race for the party's presidential nomination, joined the Crow Nation, a tribe of some 12,100 members in Montana, taking on a native name and honorary parents in a traditional ceremony.

Obama, who would be the first black US president, was "adopted" by Hartford and Mary Black Eagle and given a name which means "one who helps all people of this land."

"I was just adopted into the tribe, so I'm still working on my pronunciation," Obama told a crowd after stumbling over some of the native names.

"I like my new name, Barack Black Eagle," he said. "That is a good name."

Many in the audience wore traditional feather headdresses and some banged drums ahead of Obama's visit, the first by a presidential candidate to the Crow Nation.

Obama held rallies throughout Montana, which holds its primary election on June 3.

The state is home to some 60,000 American Indians, making them a key swing vote, according to Dale Old Horn, 62, a spokesman for the Crow Nation.

Obama said he would appoint a Native American adviser to his senior White House staff if he wins and would work on providing better health care and education to reservations across the country.

"Few have been ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans, the first Americans," Obama said.

Old Horn said the tribal members related to Obama because of his background.

"His heritage of being poor, of being an outsider, you know those two things are the commonalities that he has with us," he said. "We've always been treated like outsiders when it comes to government policy. In addition to that, we all grew up poor.

Reuters

[OMEN]

An angry Duchess of York has slammed sections of the British media for criticising her daughter Beatrice's body shape, describing some comments as "extremely rude".

The 19-year-old princess was photographed in a bikini during a Caribbean holiday earlier this year.

One commentator in the Daily Mail said: "Can't someone buy that girl a sarong?"

Sarah Ferguson has told BBC Radio that the critical comments are potentially damaging.

"The press has been absolutely outrageous, and really being very mean about the size of her figure, calling her such horrible names," she said.

"I just think they ought to take more responsibility.

"I think her (Beatrice's) comment was, 'Will they be happy if I get anorexia because then they could write about that, wouldn't they?"'

The Duchess said Beatrice was a regular size 10 and fit and healthy.

"I understand freedom of the press but what I don't understand is when it takes a regular, completely healthy girl and tries to completely obliterate her confidence and I think they ought to be accountable."

Reuters

[OMEN]

FACE THE NATION: Elisabeth Fritzl is set to appear on Austrian television to reveal details of her imprisonment at the hands of her father.
The Austrian incest victim Elisabeth Fritzl is to emerge from the shadows of her cellar nightmare to give a world exclusive interview to a television station next week.

Ms Fritzl, 42, has reportedly chosen the same channel and the same interviewer who coaxed a previous Austrian dungeon captive, Natascha Kampusch, to tell her story.

Ms Kampusch, now 20, broke free from an 8½-year hell in August 2006 and told the world of her ordeal on ORF TV. Austrian media say Ms Fritzl is prepared to do the same after marathon negotiations between the television station and her lawyer.

Like Ms Kampusch, Ms Fritzl will reportedly receive no money for her appearance but could make millions of dollars in syndicated rights as upwards of 300 TV stations around the world will pay handsomely to broadcast the program live, or gain the resale rights.

Media in Austria said none of her children - neither the three who lived upstairs with their grandparents, nor the three children forced to endure her captivity - will be in the studio with her.

Ms Fritzl is expected to talk about the first time she was raped by her father, Josef, 73; how she coped with giving birth in the squalid, damp cellar; what she felt when her stillborn child was cremated in a stove by her father; how she thought she would never see sunlight again, and her hopes for a more normal future with the children who adore her.

The interview has been organised in part to reduce the pressure on the family by media camped at the hospital door.

There is increasing tension between authorities and paparazzi who know that a picture of Ms Fritzl or her children would be worth a fortune. Already a security guard at the hospital has been injured after he fell from a balcony while tackling a photographer.

Hospital officials confirmed that 17 photographers have been caught trying to get into the Amstetten Mauer hospital. One photographer was disguised as a policeman; another pretended to be a birdwatcher.

Austrian media also reported on Sunday that a hospital worker had taken secret photographs of the family and was offering them for sale for €300,000 ($NZ603,000).

Officials have sent a letter to staff warning them that there will be legal consequences and a claim for damages that would "far exceed any profit made from the sale of such photos".

Seven members of the Fritzl family are staying at the clinic, including Ms Fritzl and two of her children from the cellar, Stefan, 18, and Felix, 6, and her three children that lived in freedom - Alexander 12, Monika, 14, and Lisa, 15.

Her mother, Rosemarie, is also in the hospital. Another daughter, Kerstin, 19, the third cellar captive, is still in a coma in hospital.

ORF TV will not deny or confirm the interview, saying only that it has been in "strong negotiations" with Ms Fritzl's lawyer. It is understood that the family thought that the first interview should go to a domestic television station.

According to media reports it is scheduled to be screened next Monday night.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that Josef Fritzl is to undergo new DNA testing to see if he is the killer of three women whose murders - in 1966, 1986 and last year - have gone unsolved in Austria.

"Is Austria the heart of darkness?" a newspaper headline asked on Sunday.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Security will be stepped up at the Australian High Commission in Fiji and families will be brought home following serious threats to the diplomatic mission, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says.

The decision had been made following Fiji's refusal to allow greater protection for Australia's High Commissioner to Fiji, James Batley, who had received two death threats, Mr Smith told reporters in Canberra today.

"A number of additional steps will now be taken, by the high commission itself, to further strengthen the security of our staff, their families and our premises," Mr Smith said.

"The government has decided to offer spouses, partners and dependent children of high commission staff in Suva the option of `voluntary return' to Australia, with reasonable costs met by the Australian government in the usual way.

"Families may choose to stay. It will be entirely a matter for them."

Mr Smith said it was regrettable that Fiji's interim government had advised it was not prepared to agree to close personal protection for Mr Batley.

"As of this morning, I'm still awaiting a response on additional Fiji police measures," he said.

"As a consequence of the refusal to date of the interim Fiji government to agree to close personal protection provided by Australian Federal Police, and to date a failure to respond to further requests for Fiji police assistance, the Australian government has today decided to allow the families of Australian officials in our commission in Fiji to voluntarily return to Australia if that is their wish."

AAP

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.