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