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Australia foils 'imminent' terror attack

Australia has thwarted an "imminent" terror attack, arresting two men and seizing an Islamic State flag, a machete and a video detailing the alleged plot during a raid in Sydney, police said Wednesday. New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said the planned attack was "consistent with the messaging coming out of IS", while New South Wales state Premier Mike Baird described it as "beyond disturbing". Asked whether it involved a beheading, Burn said police were as yet unsure, but that it had been due to happen Tuesday in Sydney, and would likely have involved a knife. The men, Omar Al-Kutobi, 24, and Mohammad Kiad, 25, were arrested in a raid on a property in Sydney's western suburbs by the Joint Counter Terrorism Taskforce on Tuesday after a tip-off, and charged with making preparations for a terrorist act.

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China January inflation plunges to five-year-low 0.8%

China's inflation plunged to 0.8 percent in January, its lowest level for more than five years, official data showed on Tuesday, fuelling fears the world's second-largest economy is on the brink of a deflationary spiral. The rise in the consumer price index (CPI) was sharply down from the 1.5 percent recorded in December, and was the weakest since 0.6 percent recorded in November 2009, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Moderate inflation can be a boon to consumption as it encourages consumers to buy before prices go up, while falling prices encourage shoppers to delay purchases and companies to put off investment, both of which can hurt growth. The drop in CPI was driven by tumbling international crude prices and warmer January temperatures than average, causing vegetable, fruit and fish prices to fall, senior NBS analyst Yu Qiumei said in a statement.

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HIV-positive migrants denied care at Thai public hospitals

By Alisa Tang BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Zaw, an illegal Burmese migrant dying of AIDS-related illnesses, spent a weekend hunched over in waiting rooms at three Thai hospitals near Bangkok – each denying him care as he gasped for breath, his lungs full of fluid. Zaw died 40 days later - a death the Bangkok-based HIV Foundation that was helping him says could have been prevented with timely care. "That's the story we have once every six to eight weeks: people in this situation, and we can't get them the care they need in time," Scott Berry, an Australian adviser for the HIV Foundation, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The country has had a health package for migrants for more than 10 years, officials say, but an August 2013 policy expanded the migrant health insurance benefits – at a cost of 2,100 baht ($64) per person – to include HIV prevention, care and antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.

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Indonesia police chief row sparks crisis for Widodo

A feud between Indonesia's law enforcement and its corruption watchdog over the nomination of a police chief has escalated into a full-blown crisis for Joko Widodo, testing the new president's pledge to usher in cleaner governance. Barely 100 days into his term, Widodo sparked an outcry last month when he nominated Budi Gunawan, a politically-connected figure with a murky financial record, to be head of the national police. The situation snowballed several days later when the anti-corruption agency, known as the KPK, named Gunawan as the subject of a bribery investigation, prompting Widodo to postpone -- but not cancel -- his appointment as police chief. The notoriously corrupt police -- who have in the past clashed with the hugely popular KPK -- retaliated by arresting the agency's deputy chairman on years-old perjury allegations, triggering angry protests.

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RadioShack files for bankruptcy; Sprint to take over some stores

Electronics retailer RadioShack Corp filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on Thursday and said it had a deal in place to sell as many as 2,400 stores to an affiliate of hedge fund Standard General, its lender and largest shareholder. Wireless company Sprint Corp would operate as many as 1,750 of those stores under an agreement with Standard General, Sprint said separately. RadioShack's bankruptcy, which has been expected for months, follows 11 consecutive unprofitable quarters as the company has failed to transform itself into a destination for mobile phone buyers. RadioShack said in a statement that the Standard General affiliate, called General Wireless, would acquire between 1,500 and 2,400 of its 4,100 stores.

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Egyptian court sends activist Ahmed Douma to jail for life

An Egyptian court sentenced prominent activist Ahmed Douma to life in prison on Wednesday, judicial sources said, part of a sustained crackdown on Islamist and liberal government opponents. Douma, a leading figure in the pro-democracy revolt that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, was convicted of rioting, inciting violence and attacking security forces in late 2011. In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that the United States was "deeply troubled" by the life sentences. "It simply seems impossible that a fair review of evidence and testimony could be achieved under these circumstances." Last year in a case that provoked international outcry, the judge, Mohamed Nagi Shehata, jailed three Al Jazeera journalists, including Australian Peter Greste, and he has sentenced hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death.

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'Arabian Ark' helps save wildlife from extinction

Oryx, giraffes and cheetahs roam an "Arabian Ark" nature reserve on a desert Gulf island where species once facing extinction in the region are making a comeback. Since animals were first brought to Sir Bani Yas off the coast of Abu Dhabi more than four decades ago, their total population has soared to more than 13,000. Twenty-five species of mammals and 170 types of birds are found in a nature reserve covering an area of 1,400 hectares (3,500 acres). Some species are, or were, endangered in the region, or even extinct in the wild.

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Lenovo quarterly revenue jumps 31 percent, tops expectations

By Gerry Shih BEIJING (Reuters) - Lenovo Group Ltd, the world's leading PC maker, said on Tuesday its third-quarter revenue rose 31 percent to $14.1 billion, beating investor expectations, as its mobile division sales more than doubled following its acquisition of Motorola. The results, released before the Hong Kong Stock Exchange opened Tuesday, sent Lenovo shares 5.7 percent higher in morning trade to HK$10.76, compared with a 0.36 percent fall on the broader Hang Seng index. Lenovo paid $2.91 billion for Motorola, the U.S. handset brand with a long sales history in the United States and Europe, as part of an effort to diversify away from the shrinking PC market. Lenovo's results took into account two months of Motorola's performance - the acquisition closed Oct 31 - and the company said Motorola sold more than 10 million handsets during the quarter for the first time.

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China says 90 pct of cities failed to meet air standards in 2014

Nearly 90 percent of China's big cities failed to meet air quality standards in 2014, but that was still an improvement on 2013 as the country's "war on pollution" began to take effect, the environment ministry said on Monday. The Ministry of Environmental Protection said on its website (www.mep.gov.cn) that only eight of the 74 cities it monitors managed to meet national standards in 2014 on a series of pollution measures such as PM2.5, which is a reading of particles found in the air, carbon monoxide and ozone. Amid growing public disquiet about smog and other environmental risks, China said last year it would "declare war on pollution" and it has started to eliminate substandard industrial capacity and reduce coal consumption. Of the 10 worst-performing cities in 2014, seven were located in the heavy industrial province of Hebei, which surrounds the capital, Beijing, the ministry said.

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Gas-filled balloon completes record-breaking Pacific flight

A gas-filled balloon co-piloted by an American and a Russian touched down safely in the waters off Mexico on Saturday, completing a week-long trans-Pacific flight that unofficially broke two world records, a spokeswoman said. The balloon carrying Troy Bradley of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and his Russian co-pilot Leonid Tiukhtyaev, landed near La Poza Grande in the Mexican State of Baja California Sur after a flight that lasted six days, 16 hours and 38 minutes and covered 6,646 miles (10,696 km), organizers of the mission said in a statement. Bradley and Tiukhtyaev, known as the Two Eagles, left Saga in southern Japan on Jan. 25 in their attempt to surpass the world distance record for flying a gas-filled balloon, as well as the record for time in flight for that type of aircraft. "The pilots made a controlled descent to a gentle water landing about four miles off the Baja coast," said Kim Vesely, a spokeswoman for the ballooning mission.

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