China Accused of aiding in North Korea's missile project

China has provided some assistance to North Korea's missile programme, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday, a week after the hermit state's failed rocket launch triggered international condemnation.

Under United Nations Security Council resolutions from 2006 and 2009, states, including China, are banned from helping North Korea with its ballistic missile programme, its nuclear activities as well as supplying heavy weapons.

Beijing has denied it has broken any rules, although a modern missile transporter seen in Sunday's military parade to celebrate the founder of North Korea was said by some western military experts to be of Chinese design and possibly origin.

Australia pressing US on Assange

Australia yesterday said it was making representations to the United States about the potential prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his treatment there.
"The only channels that Australia currently has available are diplomatic channels and those channels are being used," Roxon told Assange's lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, during an open session at a legal conference in Sydney.
Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said Canberra was asking "plenty of questions" about Assange, an Australian citizen, though it could not interfere in European proceedings involving the WikiLeaks chief.
Assange is under house arrest in Britain awaiting judgment from the Supreme Court in London on whether he can be extradited to Sweden for questioning over allegations of rape and sexual assault.

South Sudan withdraws troops

Sudanese troops recaptured the Heglig oil field yesterday after battling forces from South Sudan, whose President Salva Kiir ordered an immediate withdrawal, inching the foes back from wider war.

Heavy casualties were reported by both sides as Khartoum's forces retook Heglig ten days after Southern troops seized it, in a move that had raised concern the former civil war foes were returning to fully-fledged conflict.

"Our troops were able to liberate Heglig town by force," Sudanese Defence Minister Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein announced on state television. "Our enemy suffered heavy losses in people and equipment."

Indian Maoists free Italian hostage

Maoist rebels freed Italian tour guide Paolo Bosusco yesterday, almost a month after kidnapping him in a remote part of Orissa in what was believed to be the first seizure of a foreigner by the leftist guerrillas.

Also known as Naxals, the rebels have fought for decades in a swathe of central and eastern India, including many resource-rich regions, where tension runs high between poor farmers and industrial developers.

Television footage showed Bosusco, in a pink T-shirt and beige trousers torn at the knees, carrying a black rucksack on his shoulders as he walked through villages. He later arrived in Bhubaneshwar.

Algeria's first president is no more

Ahmed Ben Bella, the first president of independent Algeria and one of the 20th century's most vocal anti-imperialists, died Wednesday at the age of 95.

Ben Bella, who had recently been released from a hospital stay for respiratory problems, died at his family home in Algiers, state news agency APS reported.

"Today we lost one of modern Algeria's bravest leaders," said current President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in a message of condolence read on national television.