$40,000 gold prize to those who enrol

ACTIVIST group GetUp! will give away $40,000 in gold in a bid to encourage people to enrol to vote in the upcoming federal election.

GetUp! National Director Sam McLean said 1.4 million people eligible to vote weren't on the electoral role, with 493,000 under 24.

"A huge number of young Australians aren't enrolled to vote and we want to give them every reason to," Mr McLean said in a statement.

"If they win, they can pay off part of their HECS debt, buy a car, go on a holiday or give it to charity - we don't mind.

"The most important thing is that people realise that once the election is called they only have seven days to get themselves enrolled to vote."

Those who enrol and register with GetUp! will go into a draw, with one winner from each state and territory getting $5,000 worth of gold.

The gold will be delivered the Sunday after the election, which has yet to be called by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

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Pioneering journalist Helen Thomas dies

HELEN Thomas, a long-time White House correspondent and a pioneer for women in journalism, has died aged 92.

A friend, Muriel Dobbin, says Thomas died at her apartment in Washington on Saturday morning. Dobbin says Thomas had been ill for a long time, had been in and out of the hospital, and had come home on Thursday.

Thomas made her name as a bulldog for United Press International (UPI) in the great wire-service rivalries of old. She used her seat in the front row of history to grill nine presidents - often to their discomfort and was not shy about sharing her opinions.

She was persistent to the point of badgering; one White House press secretary described her questioning as "torture" - and he was one of her fans.

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Comedian Mel Smith dies in London

TRIBUTES have been paid to comedian Mel Smith after his death at the age of 60, with his sidekick Griff Rhys Jones describing him as someone who "inspired love and utter loyalty".

The star of Alas Smith and Jones and Not the Nine O'Clock News had a heart attack at his home in northwest London on Friday.

Jones, who had been friends with Smith for 35 years, said: "I still can't believe this has happened. To everybody who ever met him, Mel was a force for life. He had a relish for it that seemed utterly inexhaustible.

"He inspired love and utter loyalty and he gave it in return. I will look back on the days working with him as some of the funniest times that I have ever spent.

"We probably enjoyed ourselves far too much, but we had a rollercoaster of a ride along the way. Terrific business. Fantastic fun, making shows. Huge parties and crazy times. And Mel was always ready to be supportive. Nobody could have been easier to work with.

"He was a gentleman and a scholar, a gambler and a wit. And he was a brilliant actor. But he never took himself or the business too seriously. We are all in a state of shock. We have lost a very, very dear friend."

Smith attended Oxford University while Jones was at Cambridge and the pair became known to each other while performing at the Edinburgh fringe.

They became friends working on Not the Nine O'Clock News and then went on to make Alas Smith and Jones, which lasted for 10 series over 16 years.

BBC director general Tony Hall said: "Mel Smith's contribution to British comedy cannot be overstated. On screen he helped to define a new style of comedy from the late 1970s that continues to influence people to this day.

"And his pioneering TV production work with Griff Rhys Jones through their company Talkback has created many of the defining comedy shows of recent decades."

Comedian and broadcaster Stephen Fry wrote on Twitter: "Terrible news about my old friend Mel Smith, dead today from a heart attack. Mel lived a full life, but was kind, funny & wonderful to know."

Rowan Atkinson, who worked with Smith on both Not the Nine O'Clock News and Bean, the first Mr Bean film, said he was "truly sad" to hear about his death.

In a statement, he said: "Mel Smith - a lovely man of whom I saw too little in his later years. I loved the sketches that we did together on Not the Nine O'Clock News.

"He was the cast member with whom I felt the most natural performing empathy.

"He had a wonderfully generous and sympathetic presence both on and off screen.

"He was also an excellent theatre and movie director, doing a wonderful job on the first Mr Bean movie.

"I feel truly sad at his parting."

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G20 sets growth and jobs priorities

THE G20 has agreed to make boosting growth and jobs, rather than deficit reduction, the short-term priority for the global economy as it battles to consolidate a "fragile and uneven" recovery.

Finance chiefs from the G20 group of advanced and emerging nations, after meeting in Moscow, also on Saturday backed an action plan drawn up by the OECD to crack down on tax avoidance by multinationals to help replenish budgets diminished by the slowdown.

The finance ministers and central bank governors agreed that the Saint Petersburg summit in September of G20 heads of state -- the culmination of Russia's presidency of the group -- should produce an action plan to improve productivity and employment.

"We agreed that our near-term priority is to boost jobs and growth," said their final communique.

"The global economy remains too weak and its recovery is still fragile and uneven," the statement said.

"We are fully committed to taking decisive actions to return to a robust, job-rich growth path."

The G20 said that while the United States and Japan showed signs of strengthening activity, the recession in the euro area was continuing and growth in many emerging markets was slowing.

The statement said jobs could be boosted by reducing financial market fragmentation, rebalancing global demand, and taking measures to support growth.

All G20 governments are acutely aware of the fragility of their recoveries from the global slowdown, with some eurozone countries now battling youth unemployment of 60 per cent.

The IMF earlier this month cut its forecast for global growth to 3.1 per cent in 2013, down from its April estimate of 3.3 per cent, and warned that emerging markets like China face new risks.

The US has emerged in better shape than other key economies, and the US Federal Reserve is already considering cutting its quantitative easing program -- which injects some $US85 billion a month into the economy via bond purchases -- later this year and end the program by mid-2014.

However this has concerned several big economies, including Russia and Brazil, which fear their own fragile recoveries could be hit by any sudden about-turn in US policy.

In response to these concerns, the statement vowed that any changes to monetary stimulus packages would be "carefully calibrated and clearly communicated".

The US made clear that the fight against unemployment should be at the top of the agenda although other states, like Germany, are known for wanting to keep a strict eye on fiscal discipline.

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said: "It's clearly on the mind of everybody to restore confidence and to create the conditions for growth and for employment."

The economic fragility appears to have also helped unite the G20 in a fight against tax avoidance -- technically legal schemes which allow multinationals to pay very low tax -- as well as illegal tax evasion.

Companies like Amazon and Starbucks have been in the spotlight in recent months over tax avoidance.

The G20 said they had "fully endorsed" the action plan delivered earlier in the two-day meeting by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to clamp down on tax avoidance.

"We encourage all interested countries to participate," it said.

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Storms in China traps tourists, kill 69

AT least 100 tourists have been left trapped after a landslide cut off a road amid storms that have flooded rivers and triggered mudslides, killing at least 69 people in China.

The tourists became trapped on Friday night in the northwest province of Gansu after a landslide cut off traffic, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

They were en route to a nature reserve in Sichuan province, which has been hit hardest by the week-long series of storms, and road repair work was under way in an effort to free them.

Sichuan has reported at least 31 storm-related deaths.

A massive mudslide that struck a scenic resort outside the city of Dujiangyan in Sichuan killed 26 people and left 123 people missing, according to Xinhua.

An entire hillside collapsed onto clusters of holiday cottages where city dwellers escape summer heat, a survivor told the news agency.

Flooding in Sichuan was the worst in 50 years for some areas, with more than 220,000 people forced to evacuate.

Mudslides and flooding are common in China's mountainous areas, killing hundreds of people every year but in some areas the current floods are already the worst in half a century.

In the northwest province of Shaanxi, 23 people died in landslides or house collapses.

At least 12 workers were killed in the northern province of Shanxi when a violent rainstorm collapsed an unfinished coal mine workshop.

Another three people were drowned in a car in Hebei province outside Beijing.

AP j

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Two dead, 100 hurt as Soulik hits Taiwan

TYPHOON Soulik is battering Taiwan with torrential rain and powerful winds which have so far left two people dead and at least 100 injured.

Roofs have been ripped from homes, debris and fallen trees litter streets and some areas are submerged by flood waters.

One town in central Taiwan reported on Saturday widespread landslides and water levels a storey high.

Around 8000 people were evacuated from homes before the typhoon struck, with hundreds of soldiers deployed to high-risk areas and the whole island declared an "alert zone" by authorities.

In the capital Taipei, a 50-year-old police officer died after being hit by bricks loosened during the typhoon, the Central Emergency Operation Centre said.

A 54-year-old woman from central Miaoli county died after falling from the roof of her home.

In Taichung city, a man was missing after falling into a river.

104 people were reported injured, mostly by trees or flying debris, with the majority recorded in Taichung.

Soulik made landfall on the northeast coast around 3am local time on Saturday, packing winds of up to 190 kilometres an hour, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said.

Strong winds battered the island for much of the day but by late afternoon the CWB downgraded Soulik to a tropical storm and lifted the land warning as it churned towards mainland China.

Nine people were rescued from flooded homes in the Shiangshan area of Puli, a town in central Nantou county, which was also hit by landslides.

"The water came very fast, catching residents totally unprepared - in some areas, it was one-storey deep," township official Wu Yuan-ming told AFP.

The nine were rescued by firefighters in rubber boats after the river broke its banks, Wu said.

"Flooding and landslides were widespread in the town, especially in the areas near mountains," he added, calling the effects of the typhoon "more serious than we predicted".

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Russia awaits Snowden asylum request

RUSSIA is waiting on a promised request for asylum from fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden that risks straining relations with Washington.

Snowden on Friday dramatically summoned activists to the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport where he has been marooned without a passport for three weeks after arriving on a flight from Hong Kong.

But a day after saying he would immediately request asylum from Russia, officials in Moscow say they are not aware of any approach by the former National Security Agency contractor.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared on Saturday to want to distance himself from the controversy, insisting the government was "not contacting" Snowden and that he had found out about the details of his meeting with activists through the media.

"Russian laws specify a procedure for obtaining political asylum and the first step is approaching the Federal Migration Service," he added, quoted by Russian news agencies.

The United States has told Moscow Snowden must be extradited home to face justice over his leaking of sensational details about US surveillance activities, a demand President Vladimir Putin has rejected.

Snowden, 30, making his first publicised appearance since arriving in Moscow, told the activists he wanted to claim asylum in Russia until he could safely travel to Latin America for a permanent sanctuary.

He had said he would make the asylum request on Friday evening.

The head of Russia's Federal Migration Service Konstantin Romodanovsky said on Saturday "there is for the moment no application from E. Snowden".

If one was made, it would be examined "according to normal legal procedures", he added.

Curiously, Snowden had last week withdrawn a request for asylum in Russia after Putin insisted he could stay only if he stopped releasing information that harmed the United States.

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Islamists kill 42 in Nigeria school attack

GUNMEN believed to be Islamists from Nigeria's Boko Haram insurgent group killed 42 people, mostly students, in an attack on a secondary school in restive Yobe state, officials say.

Eyewitnesses said some of the victims were burned alive in the attack, in Mamudo town.

"We received 42 dead bodies of students and other staff of Government Secondary School (in) Mamudo last night. Some of them had gunshot wounds while many of them had burns and ruptured tissues," Haliru Aliyu of the Potiskum General Hospital told AFP.

Mamudo is some five kilometres from Potiskum, the commercial hub of Yobe which has been a flashpoint in the Boko Haram insurgency in recent months.

"From accounts of teachers and other students who escaped the attack, the gunmen gathered their victims in a hostel and threw explosives and opened fire, leading to the death of 42," Aliyu said.

He said security personnel were combing the bushes around the school in search of students who were believed to have escaped with gunshot wounds.

"So far six students have been found and are now in the hospital being treated for gunshot wounds."

A local resident who did not want to be named confirmed Saturday's attack.

"It was a gory sight. People who went to the hospital and saw the bodies shed tears. There were 42 bodies, most of them were students. Some of them had parts of their bodies blown off and badly burnt while others had gunshot wounds," he said.

He said the attack was believed to be a reprisal by the Boko Haram Islamists for the killing of 22 sect members during a military raid in the town of Dogon Kuka on Thursday.

Nigeria declared a state of emergency in three flashpoint states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe in mid-May as it launched a major offensive to end the insurgency.

Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency has left some 3600 people dead since 2009, including killings by the security forces.

Boko Haram which means "western education is evil" has killed hundreds of students in attacks on schools in the tense region in recent months

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Retrial of Mubarak adjourned to August 17

A CAIRO court has adjourned to August 17 the retrial of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak over charges of corruption and involvement in the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ousted him.

Mubarak and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, who are on trial for corruption, appeared at the court session on Saturday.

Mubarak is charged with both corruption and responsibility for the deaths of some 850 protesters during the early days of the 2011 revolt.

The former leader was convicted in 2012 of the charges, but an appeals court granted a retrial.

Mubarak's democratically elected successor, Mohamed Morsi, was overthrown by the military on Wednesday and replaced with an interim president as part of what the army says is a roadmap to new elections.

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Bus plunge from bridge kills 10 in Nepal

TEN people have been killed in central Nepal when a passenger bus plunged into a river.

A child was among those killed when the bus skidded off a bridge into the Madhi River in Damauli, 150 kilometres west of Kathmandu.

Police said 10 people were rescued with injuries and the remaining 15 on board were missing.

Security personnel with the help of local residents were conducting rescue operations, but they said darkness and rising water level due to rainfall made the search difficult.

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