UK government wins Snowden case

A BRITISH court has ruled the UK government may look through items seized from the partner of a journalist who has written stories about documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Lawyers for David Miranda, the partner of Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, said the seized items contain confidential information. It asked the High Court to prevent the government from "inspecting, copying or sharing" the data.

Instead, the court will allow the government to view the items on the condition the material is being examined on "national security" grounds. The injunction runs until August 30.

It was not immediately clear whether the court or the government would be authorised to decide what is in the interests of national security.

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Brooks' phone hacking trial delayed in UK

THE trial of former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks over allegations of phone hacking at the News of the World has been delayed for legal reasons.

The trial of Brooks and seven other defendants, including Prime Minister David Cameron's former spin doctor Andy Coulson, was due to start at the Old Bailey on September 9 but is now expected to begin on October 28.

Brooks, 45, denies a total of five charges, including conspiracy to hack phones, conspiracy to pay public officials and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by allegedly trying to hide evidence.

Former Sun and NotW editor Brooks, former managing editor Stuart Kuttner, 73, and former news editor Ian Edmondson, 44, also deny conspiracy to intercept mobile phone voicemails between October 3, 2000, and August 9, 2006.

Coulson, 45, who previously edited the now-defunct NotW, denies the same charge.

He and NotW former royal editor Clive Goodman, 55, are also accused of two charges of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office.

Brooks denies two counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.

In the same trial, she and former personal assistant Cheryl Carter, 49, are charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice by allegedly trying to hide material from the News International archive between July 6 and 9, 2011.

Brooks' racehorse trainer husband, Charlie Brooks, 50, and News International head of security Mark Hanna, 50, will also appear in the same trial over a charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, by allegedly hiding documents and computer equipment from police between July 15 and 19 2011, a charge also faced by Brooks.

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Fund for slain Aussie nears $US100,000

AN online fund set up by a mate of murdered Australian Chris Lane to help pay for funeral expenses has been deluged with almost $US100,000 ($A112,000) in donations from people around the world.

When Marshall Veal, who played baseball with Mr Lane in Oklahoma, set up the fund, the goal was to raise $US15,000.

The money was to be used to pay for the cost of Mr Lane's parents, Peter and Donna, to fly to Oklahoma, pick up his body and take it back to Melbourne for the funeral.

However, the generosity will likely make it possible to set up a Christopher Lane Foundation.

As of Thursday morning (Friday AEST), the fund, launched just two days ago, has raised $US91,500.

More than 2200 people have donated as little as $US5 to the fund and the messages left run the gamut of emotions, with some angry while others are heartbroken at the tragic way Mr Lane, 22, was shot in the back last Friday in Duncan, Oklahoma, and left to die.

"My sincerest regrets that Christopher was taken from you by these three vivid examples of America's trash," Jeff Simon wrote in a message following his $US5 donation.

"Don't judge us too harshly by the dregs of our society."

James Edwards, 15, and Chancey Luna, 16, have been charged with first degree murder.

It is alleged Luna fired the shot into Mr Lane's back as he jogged along a Duncan road.

Michael Jones, 17, was the alleged driver of the car and is charged with being an accessory to murder.

Oklahoma police allege the three boys randomly targeted Mr Lane because they were bored and thought it would be fun to kill him.

The online fund can be found at: www.gofundme.com/3zktjc

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Kenya jails Chinese ivory smuggler

A KENYAN court has sentenced a Chinese ivory smuggler to 31 months in prison, signalling harsher penalties for wildlife crimes.

Chen Biemei was arrested on August 14 at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in the capital Nairobi with 6.9kg of ivory.

She pleaded guilty after initially denying the charges.

The sentence, delivered on Thursday, sends "a signal to people wishing to commit wildlife crimes to think twice", Kenya Wildlife Society spokesperson Paul Mbugua told DPA.

In June, US army colonel David McNevin was caught at Nairobi airport with about 1kg of ivory and fined $US340 ($A380), which caused a public outcry against weak penalties for traffickers.

Elephant ivory can sell for as much as $US1000 per kg.

This year alone, about 200 elephants were slaughtered in Kenya for their tusks.

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German neo-Nazi probe finds errors

A GERMAN parliamentary investigation into a far-right murder spree that went undetected for years has found that security services made scores of errors, partially because of institutional bias against immigrants.

The nearly 1400-page report, released Thursday, follows a 19-month review of how police and intelligence agencies failed to stop the National Socialist Underground group killing eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman between 2000 and 2007.

The group was only linked to the killings after two main members died in a murder-suicide after a botched 2011 bank robbery. The third suspected main member is now on trial.

Committee members said police and domestic intelligence agencies were quick to attribute the slayings to organised crime by immigrant groups - never properly considering the possibility that the killings could have been racially motivated and linked.

"The overarching theme is racism," committee member Petra Pau said of the review.

"The NSU crimes were racist and the investigations had racist traits."

As one of 47 recommendations, the committee said German police and prosecutors should now be required to consider the possibility of a killing being a hate crime in every incident where the perpetrator is unknown.

It recommended further that more minorities be hired to serve in police and intelligence services.

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Strong earthquake shakes central Mexico

A MAGNITUDE-6.0 earthquake has rattled southern and central areas of Mexic, the US Geological Survey (USGS) reported, but there were no initial reports of damage or injuries.

Its epicentre was located 13km northwest of San Marcos, near the Pacific Coast resort of Acapulco, at a depth of 20km.

The quake shook buildings in the capital, Mexico City, some 400km away. A magnitude-5.3 aftershock struck some 25 minutes later.

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said no damage or injuries were reported after authorities surveyed the megalopolis.

The capital can sense distant earthquake as it lies on muddy soil from drained lakes. An 8.1-magnitude earthquake in 1985 left 3700 people dead in the city, according to official figures.

Mexico is one of the world's most seismically active regions, according to the USGS, with the movement of three large tectonic plates causing frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

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Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison

A JUDGE has sentenced Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for providing a trove of classified documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

The judge convicted the 25-year-old in July of 20 offences, including six violations of the Espionage Act.

Prosecutors had asked for at least 60 years in prison. Manning's lawyer suggested no more than 25 because by then, some of the documents Manning leaked will be declassified.

Last week, Manning apologised for hurting the US and for "the unexpected results" of his actions.

He will receive credit for three-and-a-half years, but be dishonourably discharged from the US Army.

Manning leaked more than 700,000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department diplomatic cables in 2010 while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq.

He was convicted last month of 20 offences, including six Espionage Act violations, five theft counts and computer fraud. Prosecutors were unable to prove that he aided the enemy, a crime punishable by life in prison.

Manning has apologised and said he wanted to provoke a debate on the country's military and diplomatic actions.

"I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people," he said last week.

His defence team said he was under severe mental pressure as a young man struggling with gender identity issues at a time when openly gay people were not allowed to serve in the US military.

Prosecutors said the leaks endangered the lives of US intelligence sources and prompted several ambassadors to be recalled, reassigned or expelled.

Prosecutors requested a far longer prison term than other soldiers have received in recent decades for sharing government secrets.

Albert T. Sombolay got a 34-year-sentence in 1991 for giving a Jordanian intelligence agent information on the buildup for the first Iraq war, plus other documents and samples of US Army chemical protection equipment. Clayton Lonetree, the only Marine ever convicted of espionage, was given a 30-year sentence, later reduced to 15 years, for giving the Soviet KGB the identities of US CIA agents and the floor plans of the embassies in Moscow and Vienna in the early 1980s.

Amnesty International and the Bradley Manning Support Network have announced an online petition asking US President Barack Obama to pardon Manning.

Military prisoners can earn up to 120 days a year off their sentence for good behaviour and job performance, but they must serve at least one-third of any prison sentence before they can become eligible for parole.

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Nine charged in UK hacking probe

A SENIOR Sun journalist, a former Daily Mirror journalist, a police officer and a prison officer are among nine people to be charged as part of an ongoing probe into British media wrongdoing.

Graham Dudman, former managing editor of The Sun; John Troup, a former journalist at The Sun; Greig Box Turnbull, a former journalist at the Daily Mirror; Marc Alexander, formerly a prison officer at HMP Holloway in London; and Darren Jennings, an officer with Wiltshire Police, are to be charged under Operation Elveden.

Sun journalist Vince Soodin; Alan Ostler, who was formerly an assistant technical instructor at Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire; Grant Pizzey, a prison officer at HMP Belmarsh in south east London; and his partner Desra Reilly, will also be charged, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Tuesday.

All nine will appear before London's Westminster Magistrates' Court on September 5.

The CPS said it is alleged that, between September 5 and 27, 2002, Dudman requested the authorisation of payments of 3000 to one or more police officers in exchange for information relating to investigations.

It is also claimed that between June 2002 and December 2007, he authorised payments to public officials relating to the health of a patient at Broadmoor, details of an incident at a hospital and details of an incident relating to army combat.

It is further alleged that Dudman, now editorial director of Newsroom 360 at News UK, approved a payment requested by Troup for information relating to the death of a prison inmate.

The CPS said Dudman should be charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office, one reflecting conspiracy with Troup, who should also be charged as a co-conspirator.

So far more than 30 people have been charged in the media wrongdoing scandal, including journalists, police officers and former newspaper executives.

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Crime novelist Elmore Leonard dies at 87

ELMORE Leonard, a former adman who later in life became one of America's foremost crime writers, has died. He was 87.

His researcher, Gregg Sutter, says Elmore passed away on Tuesday morning from complications from a stroke.

Leonard's books were populated by pathetic schemers, clever con men and casual killers. And many of the novels - notably Out of Sight, Get Shorty and Be Cool - were made into films. Critics adored his simple, direct language.

More recently, he served as executive producer of the FX drama, Justified, which featured as its centerpiece US Marshal Raylan Givens, a recurring Leonard character.

Earlier in his career, the man known to friends as "Dutch" wrote Western novels and stories, but his major commercial success didn't come until the 1980s.

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Six killed in attacks in northern Iraq

SIX people have been killed in attacks in Iraq, as gunmen defy massive government operations to stem the violence.

Security forces have mounted some of the biggest operations targeting militants since the 2011 withdrawal of American troops, but analysts and diplomats say Iraq is not tackling the root causes of the unrest.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has nevertheless vowed to press on with the campaign to combat the country's worst bloodshed since 2008, with more than 3500 people killed since the start of this year.

Monday's attacks were concentrated in Mosul, a predominantly Sunni Arab city in northern Iraq that has long been one of the country's most violent areas.

Three workers in a carpentry shop were shot dead by militants, while two policemen were gunned down in a pre-dawn attack on a checkpoint.

Gunmen also killed a man from the small Kurdish sect known as Shabak outside his house in Mosul.

The 30,000-strong Shabak community is present in 35 villages in Nineveh province near the border with Turkey, with many members wanting to join the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

The Shabak people speak a distinct language and largely follow a faith that is a blend of Shi'ite Islam and local beliefs.

Violence has markedly increased in 2013.

Analysts and diplomats link the upsurge of attack to anger among Sunni Arabs over their alleged ill-treatment at the hands of the Shi'ite-led authorities, which they say has given Sunni militant groups more room to recruit and carry out attacks.

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Trio set to face court over Lane death

THE three boys who allegedly shot dead Australian baseballer Chris Lane are expected to appear in an Oklahoma court.

Prosecutors will announce if the boys - aged 15, 16 and 17 - will be charged with first degree murder and be tried as adults.

If so, the boys could be sentenced to life in jail if convicted.

The arraignment at the Stephens County Courthouse in Duncan is expected to be held about 1.30pm local time (0430 Wednesday AEST).

The random drive-by shooting has shocked locals.

Police allege the 17-year-old has confessed to being the driver and explained they randomly targeted Mr Lane because they were bored.

Mr Lane, 22, who had a scholarship at an Oklahoma college to play baseball and major in finance, was jogging on a Duncan street on Friday when he was shot in the back.

Richard Rhodes, a builder who heard the shot, told AAP he performed CPR on Mr Lane but was unable to revive him.

Mr Lane's longtime American girlfriend, Sarah Harper, has described his killers as "evil".

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Czech Republic to hold snap election

POLITICIANS have voted to dissolve parliament's lower house and hold an early election in the Czech Republic, following a coalition government's collapse over scandals.

On Tuesday all but seven of the 147 legislators present approved the early ballot, 20 more than the required three-fifths majority in the 200-seat lower house.

Czech President Milos Zeman has proposed calling the early vote for October 25-26.

The opposition left-wing Social Democrats stand a good chance of winning the election.

The vote was widely expected after several major coalition and opposition parties agreed that an early election would be the best way out of the crisis. It was triggered by June's collapse of the centre-right coalition government of Prime Minister Petr Necas in a whirlwind of corruption allegations and marital infidelity.

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Mexico kids learning with flawed textbooks

MEXICAN children are trooping back into their classrooms on Monday, and they're going to have a quick lesson: Not just school kids make mistakes.

Their brand new textbooks have the kinds of errors that they are supposed to be learning not to make: words written with a "c" instead of an "s", too many commas, not enough accents and at least one city located in the wrong state.

The foul-up is becoming a national embarrassment in the midst of a planned government overhaul of Mexico's much criticised school system.

Teachers are being given a list of the errors so they can try to manually correct at least 117 mistakes that the Education Department has acknowledged it found only after 235 million primary textbooks had been being printed.

"It's unfortunate these things happen with the children's textbooks," said Consuelo Mendoza, president of the national parent teachers association. "We are talking about the education of millions of children."

Education Secretary Emilio Chuayffet has called the errors "unforgivable", but he blames Mexico's previous administration for the stumble.

He says he was faced with the predicament of choosing between stopping the printing of flawed textbooks so they could be corrected and making sure the country's 26 million school children had textbooks at the start of classes.

The news blog Animal Politico did an independent review and found that words are misspelled in the Spanish textbook and accents forgotten or misplaced.

A geography text wrongly puts the Caribbean resort city of Tulum in the state of Yucatan instead of Quintana Roo, it said.

Freelance editors who get paid less than $US250 a month missed the errors in the new texts, commission head Joaquin Diez-Canedo said.

"The telephone rings, you have to go to the bathroom. You get distracted. You miss a word," he told the newspaper Milenio.

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China floods toll passes 100

DEVASTATING floods at opposite ends of China have left 105 people dead and another 115 missing in recent days.

Flooding in the northeast that left 72 people dead was described as "the worst in decades" by state news agency Xinhua, while another 33 people died in the south as a result of the weather, it said citing the ministry of civil affairs.

Liaoning, the worst-hit province, had 54 fatalities and another 97 people missing, Xinhua said.

President Xi Jingping "has demanded all-out efforts in putting people's lives first", the agency said on Monday.

The worst-hit province in the south, battered by Typhoon Utor last week, was Guangdong where 22 people were dead and eight missing, it added.

Transport links were severely crippled, affecting tens of thousands of travellers.

Some services from Guangzhou railway station, Guangdong's most important transport hub, were suspended due to rain and landslides.

State media said 80,000 passengers were stranded over the weekend because of the disruption.

Services were beginning to return to normal from Monday, the station said in a statement on its website.

More than 2800 soldiers have been drafted in to help with the relief efforts, Xinhua reported earlier.

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Saudi man forklifted to hospital

A SAUDI man weighing 610kg was forklifted to hospital on Monday for medical treatment at the expense of the monarch to reduce his weight.

Khaled Mohsin Shairi was flown from his southwestern hometown of Jizan to Riyadh on a specially-equipped plane , SPA state news agency reported.

It posted a picture of overweight Shairi being lifted on a forklift out of the plane on arrival in the capital.

Acting on orders of King Abdullah, the health ministry had to acquire a specially-made bed and a crane to transfer Shairi from his second-floor apartment, SPA said.

The bed was specially made for Shairi in the United States, Sabq news website said.

The ministry did not specify the nature of treatment that the young man will undergo and his age has not been disclosed.

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Deadly attack on police as Egypt escalates

MILITANTS have killed 25 Egyptian policemen in the deadliest attack of its kind in years.

It comes as the army-installed rulers escalate a campaign to crush ousted president Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.

The assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at two buses carrying police in the Sinai Peninsula, sources said on Monday, just hours after 37 Brotherhood prisoners died in police custody.

The incidents came after Egypt's military chief vowed a "forceful" response to violence roiling the Arab world's most populous nation.

The Sinai attack raised fears of a return to the wave of deadly Islamist violence that swept the country in the 1990s.

Egypt is struggling to put a lid on a deep political crisis and violence that has killed almost 800 people in several days of clashes between Islamist protesters and security forces across the country.

Western countries have condemned the violence and are threatening to cut off billions of dollars in aid to Egypt in response, but Saudi Arabia said on Monday that Arab nations are ready to step in to fill the financial void.

The developments come as judicial sources say former autocratic president Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in a popular uprising in 2011, has been granted conditional release in one case against him, but that he will remain in custody in an additional case.

Morsi loyalists vowed new demonstrations on Monday, although a day earlier they had cancelled some marches citing security concerns.

The interior ministry said 25 policeman were killed and two injured in the Sinai attack, which it on "armed terrorist groups".

A border official said afterwards that the Rafah crossing with the Palestinian Gaza Strip, near where the attack occurred, would be closed.

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British warship docks in Gibraltar

A BRITISH warship docked has Gibraltar in a pre-planned naval exercise as European leaders worked to calm a row between Britain and Spain over sovereignty and fishing rights.

The Type 23 frigate, equipped with a weapons system including a torpedo launcher, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Sea Wolf surface-to-air missiles and helicopter, arrived under the gaze of onlookers on Monday, some of them waving British flags.

The naval visit to the territory bordering the tip of Spain was planned well before the recent rise in tensions, but was seen as symbolic amid the row, which has led EU authorities to weigh in.

It came a day after dozens of Spanish fishing boats sailed to waters around Gibraltar in a protest to demand it remove 70 concrete blocks it has dropped in their fishing grounds.

The Gibraltar government says the concrete reef will regenerate marine life and argues that the Spanish raked for shellfish there illegally.

The Spaniards say they have been cut off from rich fishing grounds, hurting the livelihoods of fishermen in the poor southern region of Andalusia.

It is the latest in a string of diplomatic rows over the self-governing British overseas territory, which measures just 6.8 square kilometres and is home to about 30,000 people.

Amid the row, Spain has imposed intense customs checks at the land border to Gibraltar, leading to daily hours-long queues of cars.

Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo suggested in a press interview in early August that a 50 euro tax could be levied for travellers entering Spain from Gibraltar.

Imposing taxes or toll fees at EU member-state borders would be "illegal under EU law," European Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly told a news briefing in Brussels on Monday.

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy spoke by telephone with the Commission's President Jose Manuel Barroso, officials said. Barroso held a similar conversation with Cameron on Friday.

Speaking to Barroso, Rajoy invited EU experts to come to Spain and Gibraltar to assess the situation, a Spanish government statement said.

Bailly said that visit was planned for September and that the EU may consider whether the reef meets the bloc's environmental regulations.

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