The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 14

WORLD THE AGE MONDAY NOVEMBER 13, 2(jfo Mori's blundering leads to open revolt in party BRIEFS leadership but was widely tipped to hold off until after next year's upper house election. However, Mr Kato is now trying to 'capitalise on the fears of LDP backbenchers and strategists working for the two smaller parties in the coalition that Mr Mori is leading the government to electoral disaster. Many of the party's younger MPs desperate to get rid of Mr Mori and are prepared to say it publicly. Mr Mori's poll ratings have plummeted below 20 per cent, but the challenger is. detested by party powerbrokers.

After weekend meetings, the powerbrokers declared they would stick by the Prime Minister, using a major cabinet reshuffle next month to shore up his position. Some of Mr Kato's supporters are now talking about walking out of the cabinet in protest. mounted no-confidence motion In parliament later this month. The factions have said they would abstain from any vote and other LDP dissenters could follow. Mr Mori is the 12th Japanese prime minister in 10 years.

He took the job only in April. Despite his background as a factional heavy, Mr Mori has proved even more ineffectual than his predecessors in trying to avoid becom newsreader also interprets the news in terms of lucky numbers. Hawking believed victim of bashings LONDON. British police have investigated claims that wheelchair-bound scientist Stephen Hawking, below, was repeatedly assaulted, The Mail on Sunday reported. The newspaper said the allegations were made after Professor Hawking, physicist and author of A Brief History ing a plaything of the LDP figures whd really control the office.

It is generally conceded around Tokyo's political establishment that he is being kept in the job only for lack of a viable alternative. But former LDP secretary general Koichi Kato has broken ranks, demanding Mr Mori's job. Mr Kato, who runs one of the smaller factions, has long been positioning for a tilt at the party on the tarmac at the Uvda army By MICHAEL MILLETT TOKYO The Japanese Government is in disarray, with key members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party openly plotting to unseat Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori. The revolt by two of the LDP's internal factions means the error-prone Mr Mori is now in grave danger of losing an opposition- Bid to dump Taiwan's president By JOHN SCHAUBLE CHINA CORRESPONDENT BEIJING The future of Taiwan's President, Chen Shul-bian, remains In the balance after main opposition party leaders met at the weekend to discuss measures to oust him. The Kuomlntang Party, the People First Party and the New Party leaders agreed to support a campaign to dump Mr Chen after a two-hour meeting In Taipei.

But they gave no Indication of when such a move might be made and even left open the possibility that Mr Chen might be allowed to continue In office. Instead, party leaders have left the decision to the legislators who have spearheaded the attack on the directly elected president Mr Chen, who came to office less" than six months ago, leads a government with minority support In Taiwan's Legislative Yuan (parliament). Any move to "recall" (Impeach) the president would have to be ratified by a popular referendum under Taiwan's electoral laws. The crisis was brought about when Mr Chen decided to bypass the legislature and stop construction of a partly built SUS5.5 billion nuclear power station. The opposition parties have claimed that the power plant issue Is only one of "10 examples of which have triggered the campaign for Mr Chen's sacking.

base in the Negev region of southern Israel. drama ends 1 'Hv rb Picture: REUTERS safely supported the Palestinians. But General Kitrey later said this information was incorrect and the hijacking was part of the conflict between Chechnya and Russia. The drama came during a period of intense conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. During the past six weeks, nearly 200 people, most of them Palestinians, have died in clashes with Israeli security forces.

The hijacking began early yesterday morning when the aircraft was seized shortly after take-off from Makhachkala, in the southern Russian region of Dagestan. OPINION 16: Editorial ton to meet US President Bill Clinton. He initially decided to fly back home but reportedly then ordered the plane to turn around and resumed his trip to the United States. The Russian airliner was allowed to land at a military base in Uvda in the Negev, Israel's southern desert, The head of Israel's Army, Lieutenant General Shaul Mofaz, said the hijacker had given himself up and handed over his weapons. He said all the passengers which were said to number up to 50 were accounted for and had left the plane "safe and General Mofaz said there was Ml The hijacked Russian airliner A terrorist who took a plane to Israel has given himself up.

By ROSS DUNN JERUSALEM All passengers and crew of a hijacked Russian airliner that landed in Israel last night left the plane safely, ending a crisis that threatened to postpone the Middle East peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was on his way to Washing Hijack Estrada faces impeachment MANILA. Joseph Estrada appears almost certain to become the first Philippines president to be impeached when Congress today debates charges that he took bribes from gambling syndicates. The 218-member House of Representatives is expected to vote to impeach the former actor and send the case to the Senate for trial, which could begin later this month. London bomb plot foiled LONDON.

Security services have foiled a plot by a dissident Irish republican guerrilla group to explode a huge bomb in central London, the Sunday Telegraph reported. The paper quoted a -security official as saying: "We received reliable intelligence that a horsebox would be used to ferry a large bomb to London. A few days later we received intelligence that a horsebox was being loaded with explosives at a Belfast location." The horse box was seized and a device double the size of the bomb that killed 29 people in the Northern Irish town of Omagh in 1998 was found. Four die in new Solomons violence GIZO, WESTERN SOLOMONS. Four people were shot dead in Gizo yesterday.

Two of the dead were members of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. The other two were Solomons nationals. Church and Mafia battle the nudes ROME. The Catholic Church and the Sicilian Mafia are campaigning against an Italian TV news program that uses nudity to attract male viewers. Video Golfo, a private channel in southern Sicily, has three voluptuous women stripping off in front of the camera while the news is being read.

The 4fc ft 1 1 1 iews Tj Tmewho is paralysed by motor neurone disease, suffered a series of mysterious injuries that he had refused to explain. Professor Hawking, who speaks through a computerised voice box, needed hospital treatment several times for a broken arm and wrist, a gashed face, black eyes and a torn lip, the paper said. A police spokesman refused to confirm that Professor Hawking, 58, had been assaulted. Fiji army chief firm on rebel's death SUVA. Fiji's military commander Frank Bainimarama is unapologetic over the way a soldier involved in the recent military mutiny was hunted down and beaten to death, an interview in the Fiji Times indicates.

Members of the Counter Revolutionary Warfare unit tried to overthrow Commodore Bainimarama in an attack on the Queen Elizabeth Barracks on November 2. Five members of the unit and three loyal soldiers died in the mutiny. A number of other rebels said to ha ve been indirectly involved were seized and beaten. One such soldier died. Commodore Bainimarama did not deny the action.

"They all had a role to play," he told the Times. "These men knew about the mutiny." rft, r. ii'w 111 IMIr lI'OI i II' il bill W.A li. lb llll'l WTT38312 i ill Earn up to in your retirement 7L SI. only one hijacker, whom he described as a "strange An Israeli army commander later said the man was "unbalanced" and had a fake bomb which he threatened to use to blow up the airliner.

At first, Israeli officials said the hijacker was a Muslim rebel from Russia's Chechnya region, who seized the aircraft in support of the Palestinian uprising against Israel. Israeli Army spokesman Ron Kitrey and Mr Barak's top security adviser, Danny Yatom, had initially reported there was more than one hijacker and they belonged to a group that I No tax. No worries. YouVe worked hard all your life and this is your rewanLUmterauT legislation a couple can earn up to in retirement before paying a cent in tax. A Bank of Melbourne Financial Adviser can show you how to: Step 1.

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