China sees inflation jump to 5.1%, a 28-month high

Stallholder in Beijing, file pic The government has taken a number of measures to boost the supply of key goods
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Inflation in China has risen to a 28-month high, sparking warnings of new interest rate rises.
The inflation rate, measured by the consumer price index, rose 5.1% year-on-year in November, an increase that was above market expectations.
On Friday, China had reported much stronger than expected export growth in November, adding to inflation fears.
Inflation has in the past caused unrest in China, where poor families spend up to half their incomes on food.
The government has said it will take strong action against anyone found to be manipulating food prices.
It has taken a number of measures to try to tighten its monetary policy and boost the supply of key goods.
Beyond expectations In October, the central bank announced the first interest rate rise in nearly three years and analysts say another may be needed.
Shen Jianguang, an economist with Mizuho Securities, told Reuters news agency: "At least one interest rate rise is needed for this year... if you see inflation but no rate hike, people will doubt the determination to fight inflation".
The 5.1% November rise was the biggest since June 2008, and follows a sharp hike on the October rate of 4.4%.
The government's full-year target is 3%.
NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun told the AFP agency: "Price rises in November are beyond many people's expectations. It will take some time for the [anti-inflationary] policies to be implemented and show clear effects."
China implemented a $586bn stimulus package two years ago which many analysts believe was the catalyst for the inflation rises.

Jordan probe as football stampede and clash injures 250

Fans injured in the Amman stadium, 10 Dec Most of those hurt were injured when a rail collapsed
An investigation has been launched in Jordan after violence at a football match left 250 people injured.
Police said some fans were hit by stones as they tried to leave the Qawasmeh stadium in the capital, Amman, sparking a stampede that caused a metal rail to collapse.
The match was between fierce rivals al-Wehdat and al-Feisali.
Supporters of the latter mainly come from Bedouin clans, while the former is backed by Palestinian refugees.
Most of those hurt were injured when the metal fence separating them from the playing field collapsed.
Dozens of police were among the injured.
Fans at the Amman stadium The fans are said to have a fierce rivalry
Eleven people were treated in hospital.
Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Safadi said: "The government will monitor the results of the investigation and any legal action will be taken against those who broke the law and caused these unfortunate events."
One witness told Agence France-Presse news agency that police "intervened violently when some people threw stones at the stadium. They started to beat people left and right. Also some of the angry fans threw stones at cars and shops outside the stadium".
Wehdat had beaten Feisali 1-0.
Some Jordanians feel Palestinian refugees have little allegiance to the nation.
Last year, Feisali fans chanted slogans attacking Queen Rania, who is of Palestinian origin.
Many refugees complain they are barred from leading positions in the security forces and government.

Amanda Knox speaks at Meredith Kercher murder appeal

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The BBC's Duncan Kennedy said Amanda Knox's defence team will attempt to challenge the DNA evidence and introduce new witness testimony
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Amanda Knox has told an Italian appeal court her conviction for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher was an "enormous mistake".
The 23-year-old American is trying to overturn her conviction after being jailed last year for 26 years for the killing in Perugia in 2007.
In an emotional address to a court in Perugia, Knox said her life had been "broken" by three years in jail.
Miss Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon, south London, was found with her throat cut.
The Leeds University student's semi-naked body was found partially covered by a duvet in her bedroom in the house she shared in the Italian city.
Knox's former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, was jailed for 25 years for the murder.
Italian notes During her address to the appeal court, Knox said she is not the "dangerous, diabolical" person described by the prosecution. She became tearful as she told how she thinks of Miss Kercher as someone she was "grateful and honoured" to have met.
Reading in Italian from handwritten notes, she said: "I am unjustly convicted.
"I will never get used to this broken life. To Meredith's family and loved ones, I would like to say that I am sorry that Meredith is not here.
"What you're going through and what Meredith went through is incomprehensible and unacceptable."
She also apologised to Patrice Lumumba, the man she indicated as the possible culprit during police questioning after the killing.
"I should have withstood the pressures that made me do you wrong," she said.
Knox was charged last month with slander for claiming police beat her during questioning.
DNA dispute The original trial heard the pair had cornered Miss Kercher after starting a sex game with Ivorian drug dealer Rudy Guede, who was jailed for 30 years for the killing, although that was reduced to 16 years on appeal.
Italian Sollecito was convicted after a trial heard how he held down Miss Kercher while Knox attacked her with a knife.
The appeal had previously been adjourned because one of the lawyers is five months pregnant and has been advised not to travel to the court from Rome.
Knox's defence team maintains that the DNA evidence in the case was inconclusive and has argued it may have been contaminated when analysed.
It particularly focuses on disputed traces of DNA found on the knife the prosecution said was used in the murder, and on the clasp of Miss Kercher's bra.
In their appeal motion, defence lawyers were sharply critical of the verdict, maintaining it was based on mere hypotheses and saying that the motive was absent. Knox's parents, from Seattle, have said they are hopeful their daughter will be released once judges in Italy have re-examined the evidence.
However, if her conviction is upheld, her sentence could be increased.
The result of the appeal is not likely to come before the new year. As in the original trial, the verdict will be decided by the judge, a fellow magistrate and six jurors.

Hillary Clinton 'frustrated' at Middle East deadlock

But earlier this week the US abandoned efforts to persuade Israel to stop new construction of Jewish settlements.
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resumed in September after a break of almost two years.
But they were suspended within weeks when Israel decided not to extend the 10-month freeze on settlement building in the West Bank.
Ms Clinton said the time had come to "grapple with the core issues of this conflict: on borders and security, settlements, water and refugees and on Jerusalem itself."
She was making her first comments on the deadlock since Washington said it had abandoned efforts to persuade Israel to stop the construction of new Jewish settlements - something which the Palestinians are insisting on before direct talks can progress.
'Pushing core issues'
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Start Quote

There is no viable alternative to reaching mutual agreement. The stakes are too high, the pain too deep, and the issues too complex”
End Quote Hillary Clinton US Secretary of State
Ms Clinton repeated the US commitment to Israel's security, even as she explained why the US viewed Israel's construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land as illegitimate.
"Like many of you, I am frustrated that we have not gotten farther, faster," Ms Clinton said in a speech at the Saban Forum, a Middle East policy seminar sponsored by the Brookings Institution think tank.
Stressing that a negotiated solution remained the only way forward, she said the US would resume the role of broker, opening talks with both parties on vital issues
"We will push the parties to lay out their positions on the core issues without delay, in good faith, and with real specificity," she said.
Ms Clinton's speech was the first Middle East policy address following the US's abandoning its efforts to persuade Israel to halt construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
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Analysis

Ms Clinton's speech laid bare the frustrations of the Obama administration about peace making in the Middle East.
In September, Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton said a solution to the core problems could be found within a year. Mrs Clinton made no mention of that timeline.
Clearly, Washington has given up on trying to get somewhere fast but Mrs Clinton insisted the US had not given up completely.
She said America was serious about peace and both sides wanted the US to be involved. She said the last two rounds of direct talks had produced some progress which could be built on in the next phase.
US officials will now be shuttling between the two sides for indirect talks about substance - despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's preference for direct talks. Clinton also said the US would help bridge the gaps "when appropriate" - in other words the US is hinting the time may come when it'll put its own plan on the table, but not just yet.
Using plain language and a sometimes stern tone, she said America was "serious about peace" and would be "persistent" in its search for a solution.
Two years of preaching about the need for negotiations had not changed anything, Mrs Clinton said: "There is no viable alternative to reaching mutual agreement. The stakes are too high, the pain too deep, and the issues too complex for any other approach."
Both Israel and the Palestinians had clear motives for seeking peace, she said, explaining that without a resolution to the conflict, Israelis could become a minority within their current borders and Palestinians would be unable to sustain "the lack of peace and the occupation that began in 1967".
But she had some stark words for political leaders on both sides.
The land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was "finite", she said, and the people who live there need a clear border to map out their futures.
"Palestinians must appreciate Israel's legitimate security concerns. And Israelis must accept the legitimate territorial aspirations of the Palestinian people. Ignoring the other side's needs is in the end self-defeating."
Mr Obama has identified continued US engagement in peace talks as a key policy goal.
But the Palestinians have vowed not to return to the negotiating table while Israel continues building on West Bank settlements.
Last month the Obama administration offered Israel a sizeable package of incentives, including jet fighters and security guarantees, in return for a 90-day extension of a previous moratorium on settlement-building.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to renew the freeze if the Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state, but the Palestinian Authority dismissed the idea.

Iran state TV broadcasts new stoning woman 'confession

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The BBC's James Reynolds reports on Iran's state-run Press TV's filming of the woman's ''confession''
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Iran's state-run English language TV channel has shown a documentary on Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.
In a 25-minute programme, Ms Ashtiani confessed to and re-enacted her alleged part in the murder of her husband.
She was shown with a needle, indicating where she gave him an injection.
The documentary, broadcast on Press TV, followed foreign media reports that Ms Ashtiani had been freed. She was originally sentenced to death in 2006.
Her plight came to international prominence earlier in 2010 when it emerged that she was to be executed by stoning as punishment for adultery, after appeals for clemency were denied.
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Analysis

It looks like the authorities want to convey three basic points: Ms Ashtiani is guilty; the campaign to free her is masterminded by a well-known anti-Iran activist; Iran's judicial system is not barbaric.
Human rights groups counter that her confession and the reconstructions are meaningless because they were done under duress.
The report accuses Mina Ahadi, an activist based in Germany, of organising much of the campaign to free Ms Ashtiani. Iran often accuses groups based abroad of plots to destabilise the state.
Iran also wants to show that judicial system is not barbaric. The programme says the stoning verdict is only symboilc - a by-law stops it from being carried out.
But the programme does not fully resolve the most simple question of all: Will Sakineh Ashtiani be executed?
Campaigners in many countries have called on Iran's authorities not to carry out the sentence.
They stress she remains in prison, and that her fate is still unknown. Both her son, Sajad Ghaderzadeh, and her lawyer, Houtan Kian, are under house arrest.
In the face of strong international pressure Iran said the stoning sentence had been suspended, but said Ms Ashtiani still faced a death sentence for the murder of her husband.
Deflecting pressure In what Press TV described as an investigative report, Ms Ashtiani was shown supposedly confessing how she first drugged her husband by injecting him with a needle at their home in the small town of Oskou in north-west Iran. When the husband was unconscious, she said, her alleged lover, Isa Taheri, electrocuted him.
"My husband had been unconscious for about 20 minutes when Isa called and asked me whether he was conscious or not," said the 43-year-old mother-of-two.
"First he tied a wire to his foot and another one to his waist. When Isa connected the wire to the socket, the electricity went out.
"Isa electrocuted my husband six times but he hadn't died because he still moved. But the seventh time he didn't move."
Correspondents say Iranian media have been portraying Ms Ashtiani as a common murderer, rather than an adulterer, as a way of trying to deflect international pressure over the stoning sentence.
Press TV's programme did not fully answer the question about whether she would be executed.
It repeated the current government position that Ms Ashtiani's case was still going through Iran's legal system and that there was a good chance her life may be saved.
Reports in international media that she had been freed followed a statement on Thursday from The International Committee Against Stoning that it had "received reports of the release of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani and her son".
The Germany-based campaign group said it was awaiting confirmation from Iranian authorities.

Wikileaks: Pope's conversion offer damaged relations

Pope Benedict XVI The ambassador believed the Pope had put the Archbishop in an "impossible position".

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The Pope's invitation to Anglicans to convert to Roman Catholicism pushed relations between the churches to their lowest point in 150 years, Britain's ambassador to the Vatican warned.
Francis Campbell also feared a backlash against UK Catholics after the offer to those opposed to women bishops.
His fears are detailed in the latest US embassy cables released by Wikileaks.
The comments were made after Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams met Vatican officials last year.
A cable from US ambassador Miguel Diaz, published in the Guardian newspaper, said Mr Campbell believed Pope Benedict XVI had put the Archbishop in an "impossible position" with his conversion invitation.
It said: "The Vatican decision seems to have been aimed primarily at Anglicans in the US and Australia, with little thought given to how it would affect the centre of Anglicanism, England, or the Archbishop of Canterbury.
"Benedict XVI, Campbell said, had put Williams in an impossible situation. If Williams reacted more forcefully, he would destroy decades of work on ecumenical dialogue; by not reacting more harshly, he has lost support among angry Anglicans."
The cable revealed that Mr Campbell felt "Anglican-Vatican relations were facing their worst crisis in 150 years as a result of the Pope's decision" and it had shifted the goal of the Catholic-Anglican ecumenical dialogue "from true unity to mere co-operation".
'Anti-Catholicism' Mr Campbell also said the situation was "worrisome" for England's small, mostly Irish-origin, Catholic minority, according to the cable.
"There is still latent anti-Catholicism in some parts of England and it may not take much to set it off. The outcome could be discrimination or, in isolated cases, even violence against this minority."
Other cables released by the whistle-blowing site reveal that the Vatican was angered by requests for its officials to testify about the clerical abuse of children in the Irish Republic.
A cable said requests by the country's Murphy commission in 2009 "offended many in the Vatican". The Holy See refused to allow its officials to testify.
Despite this, the commission later substantiated many claims of abuse in the Dublin diocese between 1975 and 2004.
It said that some Roman Catholic bishops had tried to cover up abuse.
One of the cables - sent from the US embassy in the Vatican in February 2010 - says that "the Vatican believes the Irish government failed to respect and protect Vatican sovereignty during the investigations".
Vatican and Iran Meanwhile, it is also suggested that the Pope intervened to help gain the release of 15 British sailors captured by Iran three years ago.
A briefing prepared for President Obama in 2009 by Julieta Noyes, deputy chief of mission to the Vatican, explains the Vatican claims "an ability to act as an intermediary" in international crises involving Iran.
She says: "It is unclear how much clout the Vatican really has with Iran."
But she states: "The Vatican helped secure the release of British sailors detained in Iranian waters in April 2007."
However, it is unclear exactly how influential the Vatican was in securing the release of the British military crew, who had been accused of straying into Iranian waters.
Details of the cables are the latest in a series released by Wikileaks to appear in the Guardian and several other newspapers around the world.
The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, is currently being held in the UK and facing extradition to Sweden.
Mr Assange denies sexually assaulting two women in Sweden and has been remanded in custody pending a hearing next week.
Mr Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, has claimed the charges against the Australian are "politically motivated".

Student protests: Radio failure claims rejected

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Police have rejected suggestions that a communication breakdown led to the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall being caught up in student protests.
It has been reported that police guarding the couple were using a different radio frequency to those policing the London demonstrations.
Scotland Yard insisted the two teams were in contact and may have used mobile phones or e-mail.
A major inquiry into the student disorder of recent weeks has begun.
'Intent on violence' The prince's and the Duchess of Cornwall's car was daubed with paint and had a window smashed during tuition fee protests on Thursday.
The royal couple were being escorted by outriders and Royalty Protection Officers to a theatre in central London when their car was attacked.
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A police spokesman said the route along Regent Street had been checked minutes before the incident and was deemed to be safe.
Ex-home secretary Alan Johnson said he was "amazed" by newspaper claims that teams were not fully in touch because protection officers had been so "meticulous" whilst protecting him.
And former Met firearms officer Roger Gray said it may have been more confusing if officers shared the same radio frequency, because there was a risk they could start interrupting each other.
Clarence House, meanwhile, has refused to comment on reports the Duchess was poked with a stick.
The police blame a fast-moving situation on the ground for the security breach, as protesters had been roaming through the West End in small groups, away from the larger protest in Parliament Square.
There were violent clashes on Thursday as MPs voted to allow university tuition fees to rise to up to £9,000 per year in England.
Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the disturbances and Scotland Yard said it had launched a "major criminal investigation" into student disorder between 10 November and 10 December.

US tax cuts: Bill Clinton backs Obama deal

Former US President Bill Clinton has urged Democrats to support a deal President Obama negotiated with Republicans on tax cuts.
"I don't believe there is a better deal out there," Mr Clinton said following a private meeting with President Obama.
Mr Obama said earlier he is confident that the tax cut deal will pass.
The White House is working to persuade reluctant Democrats to back the tax plan, which would extend Bush-era tax cuts, as well as unemployment pay.
Mr Obama and Mr Clinton made an unexpected appearance in the White House press briefing room on Friday afternoon after a private meeting that Mr Obama described as "terrific."
Mr Obama left before the news conference concluded, leaving Mr Clinton to field questions on partisanship, the deficit and political compromise.
Mr Clinton has experience of the need to work with Republican opponents: following mid-term election losses after his first two years in office, he faced a hostile Congress similar to the one Mr Obama will have to deal with from 2011.
He warned that the US cannot afford a long-standing stalemate like the one that shut down the federal government during his presidency in 1995.
"Both sides are going to have to eat some things they don't like," Mr Clinton said. "We don't want to slip back into a recession. We've got to keep this thing going and accelerate its pace. I think this is the best available option."
Mr Clinton also voiced unequivocal support for the New Start nuclear weapons treaty with Russia, which would reduce both countries' nuclear arsenals and allow each to inspect the other's facilities.
The deal has run into congressional opposition, with some Republicans pledging to block ratification.
Confident Obama
President Barack Obama Barack Obama said Republicans would scrap the deal if tax cuts for the rich were excluded
In the House of Representatives, Democrats voted on Thursday to reject the initial tax cut deal but Mr Obama said negotiations would continue.
"Here's what I'm confident about: that nobody - Democrat or Republican - wants to see people's pay cheques smaller on 1 January because Congress didn't act," Mr Obama told US broadcaster National Public Radio in an interview aired on Friday.
But Mr Obama is facing a revolt within his own party. Several left-leaning senators, led by Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders, are threatening to filibuster the bill when it comes to the Senate.
A filibuster is a procedural tactic that allows senators to talk non-stop in order to prevent a vote. Senators routinely threaten to filibuster, but they rarely actually carry one out.
Mr Sanders hinted at his seriousness on Friday, passionately railing against the tax cuts on the Senate floor for hours.
'Broad reform' needed Under a proposal the White House crafted with Republicans and announced this week, tax cuts enacted by President George W Bush in 2001 and 2003 and set to expire this year would be extended at all levels - including for the wealthiest Americans.
Some unemployment benefits would also continue, and the estate tax would be lowered.
Mr Obama and his Democratic allies had vigorously opposed allowing low tax rates for wealthy Americans to continue at a time of massive budget deficits, but Senate Republicans rejected Mr Obama's preferred approach and the president said he saw no option other than compromise.
In the NPR interview on Friday morning Mr Obama called for a broad reform of the US tax system, which he said would include broadening the tax base, closing loopholes available to "well-connected folks or people who have good accountants", and lowering rates.
"We've got to start that conversation next year," he said.
"I think we can get some broad bipartisan agreement that it needs to be done. But it's going to require a lot of hard work to actually make it happen."