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[OMEN]

WE HAVE TOUCHDOWN: The space shuttle Endeavour lands at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida
The US space shuttle Endeavour has returned to Florida, capping a milestone flight that brought Japan fully into the International Space Station partnership with the delivery of the first part of its research laboratory.
Space shuttle lands in Florida

Unexpected clouds at the Kennedy Space Center prompted Nasa to skip Endeavour's first landing opportunity and delay touchdown, ending the 122nd shuttle mission in darkness, just as it began 16 days ago.

The shuttle dropped off at the space station a storage room for Japan's elaborate Kibo laboratory, as well as a Canadian robot to help astronauts maintain the $US100 billion outpost.

Endeavour brought back space station flight engineer Leopold Eyharts, who spend seven weeks aloft to set up a European laboratory, called Columbus, which was delivered on the last shuttle mission in February.

Nasa hopes to complete three more missions to the space station this year and a servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope, as it whittles down an 11-flight manifest that must be finished by the time the shuttles are retired in 2010.

Endeavour stayed at the station for 12 days, longer than any previous mission, and its astronauts conducted five spacewalks to install Kibo's storage room, assemble the massive Dextre maintenance robot and prepare the complex for the next wave of construction.

Nasa astronaut Garrett Reisman replaced Eyharts during the mission and will stay on the station until the shuttle Discovery visits in late May, carrying the main section of the Kibo lab.

Reuters

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Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders has posted a controversial film critical of Islam's holy book, the Koran, on the internet.

The opening scenes show a copy of the Koran, followed by footage of the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001.

The 15-minute film was posted on video-sharing website LiveLeak.

Its planned release had sparked angry protests in Muslim countries. The Dutch government has distanced itself from the views of Mr Wilders.

The film is called "Fitna", a Koranic term sometimes translated as "strife". Dutch broadcasters have declined to show it.

'Spiteful'

Graphic images from the bomb attacks on London in July 2005 and Madrid in March 2004 are also shown.

Scenes from a beheading and pictures of the Dutch director Theo van Gogh, who was murdered by a radical Islamist in 2004, are also included.

The film ends with someone turning pages of a Koran, followed by a tearing sound.

A text that appears on the screen says: "The sound you heard was from a page (being torn from a) phone book.

"It is not up to me, but up to the Muslims themselves to tear the spiteful verses from the Koran."

The film concludes: "Stop Islamisation. Defend our freedom."

Two years ago the publication in Denmark of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad sparked protests across the Muslim world.

BBC News

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Police have fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators in the Comoran capital, Moroni.

Crowds chanted anti-French slogans near France's embassy after a renegade leader, Colonel Mohammed Bacar, fled to the French-run island of Mayotte.

Col Bacar fled the island of Anjouan after government troops and an African Union force invaded the island.

He has asked France for asylum, but the Comoran government and the AU have asked France to extradite him.

The African Union's special representative for the Comoros, Francesco Maedeira, has called on France to recognise that Col Bacar is a political criminal and to hand him over to the Comoran authorities.

French officials have said he could be charged with illegally entering France's territory and weapons possession after he is transferred to the island of Reunion, reports the AFP news agency.

The operation against Col Bacar was launched after he refused to step down as president of Anjouan, and accept the authority of the federal government after a disputed election last year.

The BBC's Jonny Hogg in Moroni says the embassy is being protected by armed Comorian police, keeping the crowd some 200m away.

Anyone who appears to be French is being targeted with one group of young men making throat slitting gestures as they march past whilst others threw stones, our reporter says.

One government official told the BBC "if France is seen to be protecting Mohamed Bacar, God knows what will happen to their representatives here ''.

Amphibious assault

The island of Mayotte is the only one of the Comoros islands to have opted to remain French when the other islands gained independence in 1975 - but it remains a source of contention with both countries claiming sovereignty.

The BBC's Jonny Hogg says Col Bacar's arrival on the island follows reports last week that he had received backing from individuals on Mayotte during the eight-month political stand-off.

The government in the Comoros has expressed disappointment that he was able to flee to Mayotte.

A government spokesman warned that if Col Bacar was not returned to face justice it could cause a diplomatic crisis.

"We have notified France that we want Colonel Mohamed Bacar and all the fugitive rebels to be extradited to Comoros," acting Foreign Affairs Minister Houmadi Abdallah told reporters.

"We reminded the French authorities ... that the international arrest warrants against them are still in effect."

On Wednesday, the Comoros authorities appointed a new transitional leader for Anjouan - the vice-president of the Comoros, Ikililou Dhoinine.

"Ikililou Dhoinine will be the political authority in Anjouan until a transitional government is set up," a government spokesman told the AFP news agency.

Mohammed Desara, the Comoran chief of defence staff, said troops were continuing to pursue elements loyal to Col Bacar and secure the island fully.

It is not known how many people died in the fighting but Mr Desara said it was certain that at least some of Col Bacar's fighters had been killed.

About 600 Comoran and AU troops landed in an amphibious assault as dawn broke on Tuesday.

Residents of the island were pictured greeting the government forces with jubilation as they patrolled the streets.

The Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean has had a fractious history since independence from France, experiencing more than 20 coups or attempted coups.

The three main islands of the archipelago - Grand Comore, Moheli and Anjouan - lie 300km (186 miles) off Africa's east coast, north of Madagascar.

BBC News

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North Korea has expelled most of the South Korean managers from a joint industrial park on the border which has been a key symbol of reconciliation.

South Korea's unification ministry said 11 of the 13 managers at the Kaesong complex had been pulled out.

Production will go on at the 70-factory zone, just north of the border.

No reason was given for the expulsion, but it came after Seoul said it would link progress at the park with progress on the North's denuclearisation effort.

The US and South Korea earlier warned Pyongyang that time was running out for it to declare the full extent of its nuclear capabilities.

'Sunshine policy'

For the past four years, the Kaesong industrial park has been matching cheap North Korean labour with South Korean capital and management expertise.

It was set up under the so-called "sunshine policy", whereby previous South Korean governments tried to win concessions through engagement with the North.

Rail links

Kaesong, just north of the demilitarised zone between the rival states, employs more than 23,000 North Koreans and hundreds of South Korean managers and technicians.

But now South Korea has a new conservative government, led by President Lee Myung-bak, which has demanded more in return for the aid and assistance provided to its communist neighbour.

The South's unification minister, Kim Ha-joong, said last week that the expansion of the complex was dependent on progress towards North Korea's denuclearisation.

The BBC's John Sudworth, in Seoul, says it would seem to be in reaction to this comment that North Korea has demanded the withdrawal of the government officials from Kaesong.

But despite this latest setback to the spirit of co-operation, production will continue, he adds.

The South Korean unification ministry expressed its "deep regret" at the expulsions and urged Pyongyang to normalise economic exchanges as soon as possible.

BBC News

[OMEN]

Tibetan monks have stormed a news briefing at a temple in Lhasa, accusing Chinese authorities of lying about recent unrest and saying the Dalai Lama had nothing to do with the violence, foreign reporters said.

The incident was an embarrassment to the Chinese government, which brought a select group of foreign reporters to Lhasa for a stage-managed tour of the city, where authorities say stability has been restored since violence broke out on March 14.

The government has also been saying security forces acted with restraint in response to international concern over the unrest ahead of the Olympics in August.

A group of uninvited young monks at the Jokhang Temple, one of the most sacred in Tibet and a top tourist stop in central Lhasa, stormed into a briefing by a temple administrator.

"About 30 young monks burst into the official briefing, shouting: 'Don't believe them. They are tricking you. They are telling lies'," USA Today Beijing-based reporter Callum MacLeod said by telephone from Lhasa.

Hong Kong's TVB aired television footage of the bold outburst in front of the first foreign journalists allowed into Tibet since the violence, showing the monks in crimson robes, some weeping, crowded around cameras.

The monks said they had been unable to leave the temple since March 10, when demonstrations erupted in Lhasa on the 49th anniversary of an abortive uprising against Chinese rule that saw Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, flee to exile in India.

"They just don't believe us. They think we will come out and cause havoc – smash, destroy, rob, burn. We didn't do anything like that – they're falsely accusing us," said one monk. "We want freedom. They have detained lamas and normal people."

Wang Che-nan, a cameraman for Taiwan's ETTV, said the incident lasted about 15 minutes, after which unarmed police took the monks elsewhere in the temple, away from the journalists.

"They said: 'Your time is up, time to go to the next place'," Wang said.

Reuters was not invited on the government-organised trip.

Chhime Chhoekyapa, secretary to the Dalai Lama, said the incident made clear "that brute force alone cannot suppress the long simmering resentment that exists in Tibet".

"We are deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of the monks and appeal to the international community to ensure their protection," he said.

On Wednesday, President George W Bush encouraged Chinese President Hu Jintao to hold talks with the Dalai Lama.

Hu said China was willing to continue engaging in "contact and discussions" with the Dalai Lama, but he must renounce support for independence of the Himalayan region and Taiwan, and "stop inciting and planning violent and criminal activities and sabotaging the Beijing Olympics", newspapers said.

RIOTS, PROTESTS

China has blamed the "Dalai clique" for the unrest and called him a separatist. The Dalai Lama denies he wants anything more than autonomy for his homeland and has criticised the violence.

The protesting monks at the Jokhang Temple also said the Nobel Peace Prize winning lama was not behind the violence, Japan's Kyodo news agency, which has a journalist on the scene, reported.

"The Dalai Lama is unrelated," it quoted them as shouting.

In a recent interview, the Dalai Lama said the Olympics were a chance for the world to remind China of its rights record.

"In order to be a good host to the Olympic Games, China must improve its record in the field of human rights and religious freedom," the Tibetan spiritual leader told India's NDTV news channel in an interview to be aired today.

Marches by monks in Lhasa turned within days into rioting in which non-Tibetan Chinese migrants were attacked and their property burned until security forces filled the streets.

Protests have spread to parts of Chinese provinces that border Tibet and have large ethnic Tibetan populations.

China says 19 people were killed at the hands of Tibetan mobs. The Tibetan government-in-exile says 140 died in Lhasa and elsewhere, most of them Tibetan victims of security forces.

China has poured troops into the region to keep order.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Thursday again called for people involved in the Lhasa violence to turn themselves in.

"We urge those lawbreakers involved in burning, smashing and looting who are still at large to hand themselves in," he said.

Human Rights Watch said the United Nations human rights council should address the crisis in Tibet.

The rights watchdog said Australia, the European Union, Switzerland and the United States raised human rights abuses in Tibet during a session of the UN Human Rights Council, but China blocked debate, backed by Algeria, Cuba, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

Reuters

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As Tania Burgess lay dying in a car park after being stabbed 48 times, the Australian schoolgirl managed to utter her attacker's first name, his school and his class.

In the NSW Supreme Court yesterday, the "gentle" 18-year-old youth who matched those details was found guilty of her brutal murder on the state's central coast.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, briefly looked over at his parents, who had sat in the front row of the public gallery every day of his three week trial.

On the other side of the public gallery sat the victim's parents, Mandy and Chris Burgess, who later told reporters they were "really happy" with the result.

The jury of seven women and five men only took 90 minutes to find the teenager guilty of murdering the 15-year-old schoolgirl in July 2005.

Tania was repeatedly stabbed on her way home from school, while walking through the car park of the Forresters Beach Resort.

As people rushed to help the dying girl, a resort worker asked if she knew her attacker.

Four witnesses said the girl then gave a boy's first name, a class and a high school – details that matched the accused teenager.

DNA in blood stains on clothing found at the boy's home matched the profile of the schoolgirl.

After his arrest – when he was found to have a cut on his palm – the teenager was sent to a detention centre which also housed an inmate who gave evidence at the trial.

"He told me that he stabbed a little girl. . . because he was jealous," the witness said.

"He got rejected. . . (by) the girl he stabbed.

"He was waiting behind the bushes and she got off the bus and he stabbed her."

The fellow inmate also told of another conversation in which he said the teenager spoke of seeing a girl being stabbed and trying to stop the attack.

Defence barrister Philip Hogan told the jury the details uttered by the dying girl could have referred to the person she believed had attacked her mother one month earlier.

While the jurors heard no evidence of this attack, Mrs Burgess told them of being confronted in her home by a young boy, dressed in a school uniform, in June 2005.

"I asked him what did he want," she said. "He said he was looking for somebody. He kept staring at me and walking around the house".

She then told Mr Hogan: "I did not know who attacked me".

While the jury was not present, Justice Robert Hulme was told that after Tania's death, Mrs Burgess identified the accused teenager as being her own attacker.

Five witnesses called by the defence described the teenager as being "gentle, non-violent and caring" and spoke of their shock at his being accused of the murder.

Mr Hogan contended this supported an innocent explanation of him having tried to intervene as another person attacked the schoolgirl.

But Margaret Cunneen, SC, for the crown, noted if that was so, he did not then try to get assistance from anyone else.

The judge will hear sentencing submissions on June 6.

AAP

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