Jailed politician Anwar ordered to pay legal costs: The High
Jailed politician Anwar ordered to pay legal costs: The High Court on Wednesday ordered jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim to pay 15,000 ringgit (US$3,950) in legal costs to Malaysia's ex-prisons chief following a failed court application. The court order adds to Anwar's mounting legal debts. Anwar owes Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad 35,381 ringgit (US$9,310) in legal costs for a failed defamation suit and has been threatened with bankruptcy proceedings because he refuses to pay. --AP
Canberra issues warrant for arrest of people-smuggler: Australia has issued international warrants for the arrest of a suspected people-smuggler ahead of his release Jan. 1 from an Indonesian jail where he is serving a sentence for a minor immigration offense, the country's federal police chief said on Wednesday. Commissioner Mick Keelty told a Senate Committee that Australia has issued three warrants - in Indonesia, Hong Kong and Thailand - for the arrest of Abu Quassey on charges of people smuggling. --AP
Kyrgyz head warns of bloody clashes, won't resign: Kyrgyzstan's embattled President Askar Akayev, facing mounting calls from opposition protesters to resign, warned on Wednesday of renewed bloody clashes and indicated he had no intention of stepping down. Last week hundreds of opposition members arrived in the capital Bishkek to stage a "kurultai", or popular congress, to demand Akayev's resignation and the punishment of officials responsible for the March deaths of five protesters. -- Reuters
Ruddock accuses E. Timorese refugees of deception: Australian Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock on Wednesday accused some 1,500 East Timorese asylum seekers facing deportation of lying to get into the country and labeled them "unlawful non-citizens". Ruddock's stance was immediately condemned by a Catholic order of nuns which has spent decades working in the former Indonesian province as "an exercise in cynicism" aimed at stirring antipathy towards refugees. -- AFP
Mind your own business, Iran tells U.S. over protests: A U.S. call for the Iranian government to listen to pro-reform demonstrators' demands for changes was greeted in Tehran on Wednesday by a retort that Washington should mind its own business. "For domestic affairs, it is up to us to decide," said government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh. "We do not accept that a third party intervenes in our internal affairs." -- AFP