Interpol elects French woman as president

INTERPOL has elected a French police commissioner known for her drive against organised crime in Bordeaux and Corsica as its first female president at its general assembly in Rome.

"Mireille Balestrazzi of France becomes the first woman to be elected president of Interpol," the world's top association of crime-fighters said on Twitter.

Balestrazzi, 58, became a police commissioner in France in 1975 and was already vice-president for Europe on Interpol's executive committee.

She is particularly well known for her time as director of judicial police in Corsica in the 1990s at a time of fierce turf wars on the island.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who attended the Interpol assembly earlier this week, said Balestrazzi was "a great police woman".

"She is one of the women who are the pride of the French police," he said.

Valls said her experience with organised crime would serve her well in fighting drug trafficking, mafias from southern and eastern Europe as well as growing political violence that requires a coordinated international response.

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26 dead in Syria clashes near border

AT LEAST 16 Syrian soldiers and 10 rebels were killed on Thursday in heavy clashes in the northwestern town of Ras al-Ain near the Turkish border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"Ten rebels and 16 soldiers have been killed so far in fighting for the majority Kurdish border town of Ras al-Ain," its head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, after Turkish media said two Turks were wounded by bullets from the Syrian side.

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Ambos on amber alert over staff numbers

PARAMEDICS across NSW will don yellow vests on Friday to draw attention to what they call dangerous and chronic under-staffing.

The Health Services Union (HSU) claims the state's Ambulance Service is running with 770 fewer full-time positions than necessary.

Staff numbers have remained at a standstill for a decade despite a workload increase of four per cent each year, the union says, and changes to rural rosters have left some paramedics on call for 160 hours straight.

The HSU's acting industrial manager, Tom Stevanja, said existing staffing and roster arrangements left paramedics vulnerable to fatigue and put patients at risk.

"Response times are blowing out and patients are suffering for it," Mr Stevanja said in a statement.

"We've got crews from Singleton responding to emergencies in Muswellbrook because there's no local crew available.

"One officer recently had to respond on lights and sirens 85 kilometres from Macksville to Woolgoolga. In Sydney, the Hunter and the Illawarra there's no cover for paramedics tied up for hours at hospitals."

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Royals kick off Sydney visit

AFTER mingling at the Melbourne Cup, enjoying an outback Queensland barbie and sampling South Australian wine, Charles and Camilla will begin the Sydney leg of their whirlwind Australian tour on Friday.

After arriving at Kingsford Smith Airport on Thursday night, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall will make their first stop at Garden Island in Sydney Harbour, where they will meet Australian Defence Force personnel and their families.

From there, Charles is to attend a Campaign for Wool event at Circular Quay, before heading to Bondi for an emergency services reception hosted by NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell.

The Prince will then attend a corporate social responsibility function put on by the National Rugby League and Community One, also at Bondi.

Meanwhile, Camilla will be appointed colonel-in-chief of the Royal Australian Corps of Military Police at Government House.

In the early evening, the royal couple are due to cross the harbour by barge to the Sydney Opera House for a reception with NSW Governor Marie Bashir.

The royal couple's busy day will conclude with a reception at Kirribilli House with Governor-General Quentin Bryce.

Charles and Camilla will fly out of Sydney for Canberra on Saturday morning.

The royals are on a 13-day tour of the southern hemisphere and are in Australia for six days as part of the Queen's diamond jubilee celebrations.

On the tour they have already met World War II veterans of the Kokoda Campaign in Papua New Guinea, sampled an "Aussie" barbecue in Longreach, Queensland, and attended the Melbourne Cup.

On Wednesday, they enjoyed South Australian wine and cheese in Adelaide, before flying to Tasmania for a five-hour stopover on Thursday.

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Sandy cuts United October revenue by $87m

UNITED Airlines, the world's largest airline, says superstorm Sandy cut its October revenue by about $US90 million ($A87 million) as it was forced to cancel almost 5300 flights.

That's nearly an entire day's worth of United's schedule lost.

It runs about 5500 flights a day throughout the world.

United said late on Wednesday that last week's storm in the US Northeast shaved about $US35 million off its profit in October.

But the hurricane-driven storm boosted its per-passenger revenue by about one per cent. That's because some stranded travellers were moved onto other flights, allowing the airline to improve efficiency.

Delta said last week Sandy cut its October revenue by $US45 million and profit by $US20 million.

United parent United Continental Holdings Inc is based in Chicago.

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US weekly jobless claims improve

US weekly jobless claims fell modestly last week for the third straight week, showing no immediate impact from Hurricane Sandy, the Labor Department says.

New claims for unemployment insurance, a signal of the pace of layoffs, fell to 355,000 in the week to November 2 from 363,000 the prior week, despite the massive storm which shut down much of New Jersey and the New York City area for the period.

A Labor Department analyst said on Thursday the effect of the storm, which left more than 100 people dead in the US and Canada, would not show up in the data for several weeks.

The four-week moving average of claims moved higher to 370,500, still largely in the range where the data has been since the beginning of 2012.

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WikiLeaks suspect offers guilty plea

US Army Private Bradley Manning has offered to plead guilty to some of the charges of passing government information to WikiLeaks. Source: Getty Images

A US soldier accused of leaking a trove of secret files to WikiLeaks has offered to plead guilty to some but not all of the charges he faces in a pending court-martial, his defence lawyer said.

Bradley Manning, 24, "is not pleading guilty to the specifications as charged by the Government," his attorney, David Coombs wrote on his blog.

"Rather, PFC (Private First Class) Manning is attempting to accept responsibility for offenses that are encapsulated within, or are a subset of, the charged offenses," he wrote.

It was up to a military court to rule whether his plea was "legally permissible," and then government prosecutors would have to decide if they would continue to pursue all the charges against Pte Manning, he said.

"PFC Manning is not submitting a plea as part of an agreement or deal with the Government," Mr Coombs added.

The defence relayed the offer to a military judge at pre-trial hearings being held at Fort Meade, Maryland on Wednesday and Thursday.

By making the offer, Pte Manning indicated he was ready to plead guilty to passing government information to WikiLeaks, though it was unclear if he would admit to passing all the files cited by prosecutors.

If the plea is deemed legal by the court, it could potentially simplify the trial, which is due to start on February 4, 2013, and possibly shield Pte Manning from being convicted on more serious federal offenses related to computer fraud and the Espionage Act.

Pte Manning had the option of being tried by a military jury but he informed the court he preferred to be tried by a judge only, according to Mr Coombs.

Arrested in May 2010 while serving as an army intelligence analyst near Baghdad, Iraq, Pte Manning is charged with leaking classified military intelligence files on Iraq and Afghanistan and about 260,000 cables from the US State Department.

The publication of the sensitive files by the secret-spilling WikiLeaks website, founded by Australian Julian Assange, caused huge embarrassment to Washington and angered US allies.
 

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