Japan's SoftBank today unveiled what it billed as an "emotional" humanoid robot that will entertain customers at the mobile carrier's phone outlets -- and maybe become a member of their family.
	Company president Masayoshi Son joked around with the talking, dancing and singing humanoid named Pepper at an event just outside Tokyo.
	The bug-eyed 120-centimetre (3.9-feet) tall robot may eventually take on a customer-service agent role at Softbank's stores, Son said, adding that its "human emotions" made it a perfect fit for families in a rapidly ageing society where labour shortages loom.
	"Pepper is not yet perfect, but he can already understand about 70 to 80 per cent of spontaneous conversations," Son told reporters.
	The robot can learn and "understand" human facial expressions and emotions, making it a perfect party companion, babysitter or even caretaker for seniors, said the flamboyant chief executive, who led SoftBank's $22 billion purchase of US-based Sprint last year.
	"Pepper .

Japan's SoftBank unveils 'family member' robot

PTI Automatic

With a week to go before the World Cup kicks off, Brazilian authorities are bracing for waves of public protests over the cost of staging the event.
	Caught out by the scale of demonstrations which accompanied last year's Confederations Cup dress rehearsal event, authorities have made detailed plans to counter anything from street protests to full-blown terrorist attacks.
	"We have defined 15 areas of intervention over the past year and a half and have drawn up protocols on how to respond in each case, based on repeated testing.
	"We are ready," government state secretary for major events Andrei Rodrigues told AFP. "When it comes to security one can never let one's guard down."
	Around 157,000 troops and police will be deployed across the 12 host venues for the Cup, running from June 12-July 13.
	Some 20,000 private security agents will also be on hand in the stadiums -- some 1,800 per venue in an USD 860 million operation.
	In addition, 120 police officers from 40 countries will ...

Brazil braces for waves of Cup protests

A Nigerian man who allegedly conned an Australian pensioner out of USD 90,000 in an online dating scam has appeared in court charged with deception, the country's anti-graft agency said today.
	"The man was brought to court in Ibadan yesterday for conspiracy and obtaining the sum of USD 90,000 from an Australian woman under false pretence," Wilson Uwujaren, of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), told AFP.
	He said Orowo Jesse Omokoh had met 67-year-old Jette Jacobs, a grandmother from Western Australia who lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the Internet in 2012 with a promise to marry her.
	But the accused and others still at large then fraudulently obtained the money from the woman to prepare for the wedding in Nigeria which never took place.
	"Jesse left Nigeria to meet the woman on February 4, 2013 and five days later, Jacobs was found dead in her apartment in Johannesburg," he added.
	Jesse returned to Nigeria two days after the discovery of Jacobs' body but .

Nigerian in court over fake wedding scam with Aussie

Seizing on World Environment Day they said the islands were threatened by rising seas drought and floods

UN demands action to protect small island states

Press Trust of India

Western leaders come face-to-face with President Vladimir Putin in Paris today for the first time since Russia seized Crimea, after a blunt G7 warning that Moscow must stop destabilising Ukraine or face further sanctions.
	Most of the leaders gathered for this week's Group of Seven summit in Brussels will be heading to Paris ahead of Friday's D-Day commemorations in Normandy, where they will rub shoulders with the Russian president.
	Excluded from the G7 talks over Crimea, Putin on Wednesday reached out to the West saying he was ready to meet Ukraine's president-elect, Petro Poroshenko.
	"I don't plan to avoid anyone," Putin said.
	The Russian president also signalled his willingness to sit down with US President Barack Obama, but scathingly dismissed claims of military intervention in Ukraine.
	"It is his choice, I am ready for dialogue," Putin said, before launching into a jibe about the US invasion of Iraq.
	"Proof? Let's see it!" he said. "The entire world remembers the US ...

Leaders to meet Putin after G7 sanctions warning

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev today accused the Group of Seven of "cynicism" for backing Ukraine's military operation against armed pro-Russian insurgents.
	"The so-called G7 even talks about the measured actions of the Ukrainian army against its own people," Medvedev told ministers, quoted by the Interfax news agency.
	"This is cynicism without limit."
	In a joint communique released at a G7 summit in Brussels yesterday, world leaders encouraged Ukraine to "maintain a measured approach in pursuing operations to restore law and order."
	Leaders at the summit, from which President Vladimir Putin was excluded after the annexation of Crimea, condemned Russia for "continuing violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine."
	They called for Russia to "stop the flow of weapons and militants across the border and to exercise its influence among armed separatists to lay down their weapons and renounce violence.

Russian PM says G7 support for Ukraine 'cynicism'

Yemeni forces have killed 500 suspected Al-Qaeda militants in an all-out offensive against them in their southern strongholds that began on April 29, the army spokesman said today.
	Forty soldiers were killed and another 100 wounded in the operation in the provinces of Shabwa and Abyan, in which 39 militants were captured, Colonel Saeed al-Fakeih told reporters.
	"We will press on with our war against Al-Qaeda, especially in the regions that (militants) fled to," he said.
	The army launched the offensive against Al-Qaeda in Shabwa and neighbouring Abyan in a bid to expel its forces from smaller towns and villages that escaped a previous sweep in 2012.
	Troops and militia have entered a series of towns, but analysts say their advances could be the result of a tactical retreat by the militants in coordination with local tribes.
	Taking advantage of a collapse of central authority during a 2011 uprising that forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power, Al-Qaeda seized large ...

Yemen says 500 Qaeda militants killed in 5-week offensive

Australia will send its biggest-ever track and field team to a championships outside its shores at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games next month.
	The 103-strong squad, headlined by Olympic and world 100m hurdles champion Sally Pearson, includes 44 athletes making their major championships debut and 12 para-athletes.
	The team is second only in size to the 120 athletes who competed at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006.
	The Glasgow team easily outnumbers the 86 that travelled in the squad to the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland.
	Pearson will contest the 100m flat and hurdles and the 4x100m relay at the Glasgow Games.
	Among those added to the squad on Thursday were US collegiate stars Steve Solomon (400m and 4x400m relay) and discus thrower Julian Wruck.
	"It's fantastic to see such large numbers and that comes first from the sport giving the athletes the opportunity and second from the athletes taking advantage of the opportunity," Australian team chef de mission and former ...

Australia sends biggest track team to Glasgow

Australia-born Sam Robson was in line to make his England debut after the Middlesex opener was named today in the squad to play Sri Lanka in next week's first Test at his Lord's 'home' ground.
     Robson was one of three uncapped players named by national selector James Whitaker in a 12-man group along with all-rounder Chris Jordan, who impressed during the recent one-day series, and Moeen Ali, who provides England with their lone spin option.
     Meanwhile, Yorkshire seamer Liam Plunkett was recalled having last played Test cricket seven years ago.
     Matt Prior, who has been struggling with an Achilles injury, was passed fit to keep wicket.
     And that meant there was no place for Jos Buttler, who made a blistering century for England against Sri Lanka in the fourth one-day international at Lord's on Saturday or Jonny Bairstow, the man who replaced Prior during England's 5-0 Ashes series loss in Australia.
     England, with pace bowling all-rounder Ben Stokes deemed not to ...

Robson set for England debut against Sri Lanka

Militants launched a major attack on the Iraqi city of Samarra today, killing six people and occupying multiple neighbourhoods, police, a doctor and witnesses said.
	The militants, travelling in dozens of vehicles, some mounted with anti-aircraft guns, attacked a major checkpoint on the southeast side of Samarra, killing the security forces guarding it and burning their vehicles, witnesses said.
	They then took control of several areas of the city, north of Baghdad, according to witnesses, who reported seeing the bodies of both security forces and gunmen in the streets.
	An AFP journalist saw helicopters firing into the city.
	A police major and a doctor said six police had been killed and 24 people wounded in the fighting.
	The police officer said security forces withdrew from other areas to defend a revered Shiite shrine in central Samarra, which was bombed in February 2006, sparking a brutal Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict that killed tens of thousands.
	The assault comes as a ...

Six killed as militants assault Iraq's Samarra

North Korea has increased economic linkages with a prison camp where inmates are working by hand in agriculture, according to satellite imagery released today by a human rights group.
	The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a Washington-based group that is trying to shed light on the secretive state's record, said that Camp Number 25 near the northeastern city of Chongjin had about 75 acres (79 hectares) of cultivated farmland including fields for grain crops, orchards and greenhouses.
	Satellite imagery from the company AllSource Analysis shows three bridges that connect the camp to a neighbouring village as well as new work over the past year that includes the construction of retaining walls and the grading of land along the banks of a stream.
	Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the committee, said that prisoners were known to have been "subjected to torture, induced malnutrition and forced labour," but that it has proven difficult to assess the exact economic ...

Images show farm work at N Korea prison camp

Suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen killed 14 Yemeni soldiers and a civilian today in a southern province where troops have been battling the jihadists since late April, a security official said.
	The militants attacked a checkpoint near the Shabwa province village of Bayhan with automatic rifles, also wounding a number of soldiers, the official said.
	The assault came hours after a drone strike killed three Al-Qaeda suspects yesterday as they were travelling in a vehicle in the Wadi Abida area, east of Sanaa, tribal sources said.
	The United States is the only country operating drones over Yemen, but US officials rarely acknowledge the covert operations.
	The drone programme has been defended by both the White House and Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, in the face of protests by human rights groups over the civilian death toll.
	Washington regards the jihadist network's Yemen affiliate,  Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as its most dangerous and has stepped up drone strikes ...

'Qaeda' gunmen kill 14 Yemen soldiers, civilian: security

Australians lose more than USD 100 million worth of coins down the back of sofas and car seats each year, the Royal Australian Mint said.
	Mint chief executive Ross MacDiarmid told a government hearing that 255 million coins disappear annually and are replaced.
	"Most of the coins that we provide are against coins that disappear down the back of chairs, down the back of car seats, into rubbish dumps and, in some cases, are taken overseas," he told a Senate committee Tuesday night.
	"We are talking about USD 102 million worth of coins."
	MacDiarmid said some of the coins the Mint replaced each year were those "sitting in people's drawers for long periods of time or in jars".
	The coin manufacturer was not able to reveal how much it costs to produce the 255 million pieces each year.
	There are about five billion coins - made from copper and nickel and stamped with images of the native echidna or spiny anteater - in circulation in Australia.
	The government is considering whether the ...

Australians lose USD 100 million in coins each year

The Palestinians demanded today that Washington take "serious steps" against Israeli settlement building, after the Jewish state announced plans to build 1,500 new settler homes.
	"It is time for the American administration to take serious steps against what the government of Israel is doing," Nimr Hammad, an adviser to president Mahmud Abbas, told AFP.
	Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel has invited bids for 1,500 new homes in Jewish settlements in retaliation for a new Palestinian government backed by Hamas, his office said earlier today.
	Of the new homes, 400 will be in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem with the rest elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, the ministry said.
	"We strongly condemn this decision which affirms that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a liar and is not interested in the two-state solution," Hammad said.
	Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina warned the Palestinians would "respond in an unprecedented way to this step," but did not elaborate.
	"These tenders ...

Palestinians demand US response to Israel settlement move

Two Indonesian nationals were sentenced to six and nine years in jail in Australia for people-smuggling, after a doomed venture in which more than 100 people drowned.
	The men were not charged with organising the people-smuggling venture or with the deaths of any passengers who perished when the boat sank off Christmas Island in June 2012.
	Boy Djara, thought to be aged 26 or 27, was effectively second in charge on the boat which was crammed with more than 200 asylum-seekers mostly from Pakistan and Afghanistan when it sank.
	He was found guilty of six counts of people-smuggling in Perth District Court and sentenced to nine years in jail, with a non-parole period of six years, a court official confirmed.
	His co-accused Justhen, 44, who was a deckhand on the ill-fated voyage and goes by one name, was found guilty of trying to assist illegal non-citizens into Australia and sentenced to six years' jail.
	He will be eligible for parole after four years.
	Scores of asylum-seekers have ...

Indonesians jailed in Australia over deadly boat voyage

Suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen killed 12 Yemeni soldiers and a civilian today in a southern province where troops have been battling the jihadists since late April, a security official said.
	The militants attacked a checkpoint near the Shabwa province village of Bayhan with automatic rifles, also wounding a number of soldiers, the official said.
	The army has been engaged in a major ground offensive against Al-Qaeda in Shabwa and neighbouring Abyan province in a bid to expel it from smaller towns and villages that escaped a previous sweep in 2012.
	Troops have entered a series of towns but analysts say the advances could be the result of a tactical retreat by militants in coordination with local tribes.
	The army has attempted to recruit its own militia allies among the tribes but has struggled to assert control over the countryside.
	Al-Qaeda took advantage of the collapse of central authority during a 2011 uprising that forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power to seize ...

'Qaeda' gunmen kill 12 Yemen soldiers, civilian: security

US computer chip giant Intel said its gesture-controlled technology could soon become part of everyday life as it showed its vision of a no-touch lifestyle in Taiwan today.
	Its stand at Computex, Asia's largest technology trade show, recreates a living space centred around a kitchen, illustrating how sticky fingers on screens and recipe books could be a thing of the past.
	An actress with messy hands from cooking clicked through icons and apps and scrolled through cookery pages on a large monitor using just hand motions from around 12 inches (30 centimetres) away.
	"This is a good example of the home usage of gesture," Intel's Jon Marshall told AFP, adding the technology harnesses voice recognition as well.
	"We're trying to get a hands-free environment. Most people when they speak are animated -- it's a natural way to communicate. We're trying to take that to the next level in computing.
	"It's going to mean more cameras, microphones -- the platform you're working with is going to ..

Intel's gesture control promises hands-free life

Explosive former Australian T20 batsman Luke Pomersbach announced his retirement from professional cricket on Thursday to deal with depression.
	Pomersbach only played one T20 for Australia in 2007 but his hard-hitting exploits earned him contracts with the Kings XI Punjab and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League.
     He has most recently been playing for the Queensland Bulls and Brisbane Heat.
     "We appreciate the difficulties and challenges that Luke faces with his illness," said Queensland Cricket chief Geoff Cockerill.
	"The most important thing is that Luke continues to receive the necessary treatment and has the best possible support available to him.
	"To this end, Queensland Cricket has put into place a number of measures to assist Luke to fund the additional medical and other expenses associated with his ongoing treatment and recovery."
	Pomersbach, 29, had a history of off-field misdemeanours. He said he appreciated the support he had been given by ...

Australian cricketer Pomersbach retires due to depression

Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel has invited bids for 1,500 new homes in Jewish settlements in retaliation for a new Palestinian government backed by Hamas, reports said today.
	Of the new homes, 400 will be in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem with the rest elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, the online edition of Haaretz newspaper reported.
	"I congratulate the decision to give a proper Zionist response to the establishment of the Palestinian terror cabinet," the paper quoted Ariel as saying.
	"The right and duty of the state of Israel to build across the country to lower the housing prices is unquestionable, and I believe these tenders are just the beginning," said the minister, who is a member of the far-right Jewish Home party which opposes a Palestinian state.
	The announcement comes amid Israeli anger at its US ally's decision to work with the new merged administration for the West Bank and Gaza formed by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Monday with the support of Israeli .

Israel to build 1,500 more homes in settlements: reports

Andy Murray will on Friday attempt to become the first British man in 77 years to reach the French Open final but eight-time champion Rafael Nadal is standing in his way.
     Bunny Austin was the last Briton to get to the men's championship match in 1937 while Fred Perry was the country's last winner in Paris two years earlier.
     But Murray is making a habit out of shredding the history books -- his Wimbledon triumph last year ended Britain's 77-year wait for a men's title winner.
     The 27-year-old lost to Nadal at the same stage in Paris in 2011 without winning a set. In fact, Murray, who has 5-14 career record against Nadal, has lost all of his five meetings on clay with the Spaniard.
     Nadal, in turn, has eight titles in Paris, has won 64 matches against just one defeat and is attempting to become the first man to win five Roland Garros crowns in succession.
     Despite the facts and figures stacking up against him, Murray believes he has the mental and physical weapons .

Mission impossible? Murray targets Nadal Paris rule

Cristiano Ronaldo continued his special training regimen aimed at getting over leg injuries that threaten his participation in Portugal's World Cup opener.
     As on Tuesday, the Portuguese superstar and injured teammate Raul Meireles, continued to work separately from the bulk of the squad training at the New York Jets' facility in Florham Park near New York.
     Ronaldo looked relaxed and smiled for the cameras at the state-of-the-at training center of the NFL's Jets, where he jogged around a playing field.
     Defender Pepe, Ronaldo's Real Madrid teammate who is also injured, did not attend the training session but remained at the team hotel pursuing his rehabilitation program, officials said.
     "Cristiano Ronaldo and Raul Meireles carried out the programs pre-established by the medical department for their injuries, specific treatments and rehabilitation exercises on the field," the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) said on it's website.
     On Tuesday, the federation ...

AFP

AFP

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