Gunfights rock suburb of Melbourne (AFP)

MELBOURNE (AFP)-police flooded the streets in a suburb of Melbourne, after shots were fired for the sixth time in two weeks in an escalating violent feud between two warring families.

Shots were sprayed on houses, cars and even a playground in the Northwest of the city, and while no one was injured, police fear it is only a matter of time before bystanders are injured.

"We never had more police out in those areas that we currently have for the next few days," Assistant Commissioner Graham Ashton said efforts in Perth and nearby suburbs.

"Our main concern is that it escalated to where someone is hurt.

"The kind of people out there conducting themselves in this way need to get the strong message of Victoria Police that cannot be tolerated."

Police said the incidents were related to a clan war involving narcotics, centering on a House that has been targeted repeatedly, even by a homemade bomb thrown through the window in front.

The Herald Sun said the battle was between families, Tiba and Kassab.

Police said he had spoken to members of both clans, but they were not cooperating.

"The questions go back some time between these two families, but also involve, we believe, criminal activity, said Ashton.

"Certainly drug-related Activities, we believe, is probably behind it".

The head of a household, Abdul Tiba, whose home was hit by bullets, told the Melbourne age newspaper that he was sick of living in Australia.

"I have had enough of this stress," he said.

"No one helps in this country. No police, no community, no one.

"I tell them that I want to return (Lebanon)."

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The pictures show Chavez standing after the intervention of Cuba (AP)

CARACAS, Venezuela – new videos and photos of President Hugo Chavez appeared on State television Tuesday night, showing him on his feet and speaking with Fidel Castro more than two weeks after undergoing urgent surgery in Cuba.

An aide to the Venezuelan leader said that the meeting in Cuba took place earlier in the day.

"We see him recovery," Information Minister Andres Izarra said on State television as short video clips and photographs were shown of Chavez standing and speaking with Castro.

Cuban State television also broadcast pictures of staying together.

They were the first images of Chavez to be released since it appeared with Fidel and Raul Castro in photographs taken in 11 days earlier and published in Cuban media.

But neither the new nor government officials provided details on the health of Chavez. Despite assurances that he is doing well, lack of information, since the Government announced on June 10 that Chavez had undergone pelvic surgery stimulated conversation among Venezuelans who might be very sick.

Officials haven't said when Chavez might return to Venezuela, which next week will celebrate the 200th anniversary of independence from Spain.

Chavez appeared healthy and animated as he spoke and smiled alongside Castro in a courtyard, surrounded by trees and even sit indoors. Chavez wore a jacket with the colors of the flag of Venezuela, while Castro sported a red baseball cap and a blue and white track suit.

"We are witnessing very dynamic, Commander Chavez" Izarra said, describing the images and adding that he spoke with Chavez on Tuesday earlier problems with the Government.

At some point in the video, Chavez and Castro watch a copy of the edition of the newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba Granma Tuesday, and are apparently talking about it.

"We have seen the President share a moment with Fidel," said Izarra. "They discussed several current events".

The words of Chavez and Castro were inaudible and Venezuelan folk music played during the brief presentation of video clips and photos.

Some political opponents of Chavez were not convinced that Chavez looked healthy in video broadcast Tuesday.

"I saw him looking very thin. His face seemed very slim, "Gustavo Azocar, an opposition politician, said after seeing the report.

"I find it odd that the television show President talking with Fidel Castro, but not sent him to speak to the country," Azocar added in a telephone interview.

Opposition politicians have complained that the Government has not provided adequate information on the health of Chavez, and some have suggested that the President should temporarily ceded his duties to the vice President.

The usually loquacious Chavez that Venezuelans are used to seeing in near daily television appearances since the unusually quiet surgery more than two weeks ago. In his comments that were heard only returned home, said Venezuelan State TV to 12 June operation removed a pelvic abscess.

His silence and loneliness they have stimulated the growing speculation that it might be seriously ill. Left-wing political allies of President insisted and is improving and is firmly in control of affairs in Venezuela.

State television, Izarra held on a document that said that Chavez had signed the previous approval Tuesday for a Government housing project.

Twitter Account of Izarra bore a message earlier in the day, suggesting Chavez vigorously tends to daily tasks, but it did not provide details of his health.

Tweet information Minister says Chavez is "like a Dynamo" following the operation.

Cuban State television also aired a one-minute segment on the meeting showing the same images, including some with Chavez's daughter Rose sat down with the two men. It is said that the two longtime friends, "recalled the past" in the company of family members.

Report of Cuba also gave no details about the health of Chavez, but the newscast said Wednesday afternoon would provide more information about the meeting.

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Associated press writers Peter Bears in Havana and Ian James and Jorge Rueda Caracas has contributed to this report.

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Pay $ 12 M to Nissan CEO gets shareholder ballot (AP)

YOKOHAMA, Japan-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn fielded some tough questions from shareholders about his salary 982 million yen (12 million dollars) Wednesday, but won approval without problems for another two years as head of the Japanese automaker.

Ghosn, who is also head of partner of Nissan Motor Co. Alliance Renault SA of France, told an annual meeting of shareholders that his pay was based on global standards. He said that the average compensation for executives comparable car industry is a $ 15.3 million.

"Nissan is a Japanese company with global management," he said at a hotel in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo.

Brazilian-born Ghosn, who has French citizenship, has observed that the multicultural management talent could easily find work elsewhere, and that the rivals were trying to recruit from the ranks of Nissan.

Ghosn came from Renault to drive a recovery at Nissan near-bankrupt in 1999 and oversaw the painful cost cuts that now they put the carmaker's no. 2 of Japan on a solid growth track.

It targets a 8 percent of global auto market share within a six-year strategy, announced last week. Nissan now has 5.8 percent global market share.

Americans can be used to hear about high pay of managers in their country, but individual compensation began to be published more regularly in Japan last year alone, under a new rule requiring the disclosure of remuneration for executives receiving 100 million yen ($ 1 million) or more. Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Alan Mulally is paid $ 26.5 million.

Ghosn earned 891 million yen last year — already between higher salaries for a head of a Japanese company.

Most Japanese top executives are paid salaries far lower, in part because their roles tend to be different, especially in the past.

That does not have the power management of a European or American company Chief, acting more as what is known as a "Salaryman President" in Japan, gradually rising up the ranks to become a cheerleader symbolic, while key decisions are still made by a larger team.

Nissan, which makes the leaf electric vehicle, the March subcompact and Infiniti luxury model, is among the handful of Japanese companies that have a foreigner.

Japanese electronics and Entertainment Sony Corp. reported Tuesday that the Chief Executive Howard Stringer, an American born in Welsh, received 345 million yen (4.3 million), with stock options worth 518 million yen ($ 6.4 million).

Ghosn has emerged as a rare example of charismatic administration in a nation that promotes teamwork on individuals standing outside.

At the meeting on Wednesday, an investor, who didn't give his name, asked riches of Ghosn Ghosn, noting that it also has 3 million shares of Nissan.

"It should be reassuring for shareholders who have a lot of actions," Ghosn said, noting that meant has a stake in the automaker's success.

Other shareholders were impressed with the leadership of Ghosn. One woman said that she had no questions, but wanted to give Ghosn a book as a gift. He accepted, waving his hand from the stage.

Yoshinobu Ota, 74, a retired trust banker, said he is invigorated by the momentum that has found for Nissan's Ghosn.

"I could feel the passion by Nissan under Mr. Ghnosn I am so grateful to him, "he said after the shareholders ' meeting.

"Some may argue that his pay is too, but that kind of ability," he said.

___

Yuri Kageyama can be achieved http://twitter.com/yurikageyamato

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Government of Ontario optimistic spending plans: auditor (Reuters)

TORONTO (Reuters)-Ontario's latest spending forecasts are optimistic and aggressive, the province's Auditor General said on Tuesday, which can make it difficult for the Government to achieve its fiscal targets.

The auditor's report comes just three months before an election in October. The Liberal Government are final the main opposition Progressive Conservatives in recent surveys.

Under the legislation introduced in 2004, the Government of Ontario is required to release a pre-election report on the finances of the province, including revenue and expense projections for three years. It is also necessary that the tax plan should be based on assumptions.

"He's going to be very challenging ... This is a set of assumptions quite upbeat and aggressive. Really, things must go right, "Auditor General Jim McCarter told reporters.

"The risk would be basically you have a much greater risk of not meeting your goals tax if the things I hope they are going to happen does not happen," he added.

McCarter has ascertained that the Government's plan is largely tied to its ability to freeze public sector salaries, constituting half of public spending.

However, since government announcement to freeze salaries in 2010, he noted that about 60 percent of compensation agreements with the public sector have led to pay raises.

The forecasts were in line with estimates the budget in March, when the Government has predicted would be needed until 2017-18 to eliminate its deficit c 16.3 billion (16.6 billion dollars).

McCarter has concluded that the estimates of revenues and costs of interest on the debt of the province were in fact "prudent and cautious".

Expenses thus-the other half of the equation that the Government has actually control against economically driven-revenues were seen with more skepticism.

The auditor's report notes that the Government says it will spend an average of only 1.8% more in each of the next three years, although its annual spending growth over the past eight years, after adjusting for one-time expenses, an average of almost 7 percent.

Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said in response to the report which he has characterized the spending assumptions as aggressive, adding that the province's deficit targets are not at risk.

"In fact, we overachieved and he doesn't say that. I think what he says is that he speaks, he speaks of contingency. "He talks about the conservative nature of our revenue projections, Duncan told reporters.

"On balance, I thought that his report was right ... I think we're on target moving forward. "

($ 1 = $ 0.98 Canadian)

(Reporting by Claire Sibonney; editing by Rob Wilson)

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Iran missile test-fire, secret shows silos

Tehran — the Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran is conducting a series of 10 days of tests of missiles, including launching medium-range missiles on targets in the sea, and revealed a previously secret network of underground missile silos, Iranian State media reported Tuesday.

The test are a part of maneuvers scheduled to strengthen Iran's military doctrine of "asymmetric warfare", in which revolutionary guards would counterstrikes in case of an attack against Iran by the United States and Israel. The exercise is intended to send a message of "peace and friendship" in regional countries, State media reported.

However, commanders of the Revolutionary Guard said that if "caused", Iran could hit Israel, as well as U.S. bases and warships, with missiles fired from deep inside the country.

"America made things easier for us to locate its garrisons and camps in neighbouring countries," Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, Commander aerospace forces the guards, said the Islamic Republic News Agency. "We can attack all Americans in the region of these missiles."

In addition to bases in neighboring Afghanistan and in Iraq, the US Army has a presence in Bahrain and Qatar, and a group of carriers regularly plies the waters of the Persian Gulf.

But Iran has no plans to attack anyone, commanders told reporters.

"Of course not begin any operation, but our reactions will be exclusively defensive," Brigadier General Hossein Salami, Deputy Commander of the Revolutionary Guard, says the semiofficial news agency Fars. "My fingers are still triggers. Only the number of triggers is increased. "

Salami said that Iran is tracking and observing the movements of his "enemies" of the region. "We have the power to execute the budget and swift retaliatory mass missions on all enemy targets," salame said.

On Monday, State television aired a report on a visit to an underground missile site containing Iran's most powerful rocket, the Shahab-3. The crew was flying in a private jet to an unknown destination in Iran, then headed to the site for hours in a windowless van, according to the report.

State television cited unidentified colonels as saying that Iran began construction of a network of these silos across the nation 15 years ago.

"All the silos of launching missiles are programmed and ready to launch against pre-programmed targets," one of the colonels said, stressing that the sites could not be detected by satellites.

During the missile tests are similar in 2008, the revolutionary guards doctored images more of a missile launch when one of the rockets proved to be a real disaster.

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Lessons from Gates war room

At a time when Washington is increasingly disparaged, Secretary of Defense Robert m. Gates is the last man in Washington.

It manifests in his appearance: he favors dark suits, white shirts and neatly combed gray hair.

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In his last official speech as head of the Pentagon, Secretary Robert Gates has warned of a future ' dim ', if not sad for the American-European military alliance and the precautions of the drift of continents. (10 June)

His background: he has spent four decades serving eight Presidents.

And how he works: he is careful, conservative and consensus-oriented.

In his four years at the Pentagon, Gates became a vital force in the debate on the deeply unpopular wars. He was a manager of the Pentagon bureaucracy expert and earned a reputation as the Secretary of Defense more ruthlessly efficient in decades.

"He is an extremely bureaucratic effectiveness, and I mean that in a good way," said Eliot a. Cohen, a senior official in the Bush administration and Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. "He is simple, levelheaded and disciplined ... a judicious guy at a time when we needed sensible."

Gates prepares to leave office this week, the criticism of him is that he was more of an implementer of policies of its leaders in a bold visionary intent to change the military.

Gates bristles at criticism in a recent interview: "We didn't exactly have time to be a bold visionary in the midst of two wars".

His legacy as Secretary of Defense probably will be defined not by grand ideas but by his stewardship pragmatic of the two wars, and as the Washington insiders have long exercised the power.

Here are a few lessons:

A lesson: time to buy

Shortly after he took over as Defense Secretary in 2006, Gates said Gen. David Petraeus h., then Commander of Iraq, as he wanted to operate. "You have your space battle, and I have mine," Gates said.

Fight of Petraeus centered on insurgents and death squads in the streets of Baghdad. Fight of Gates was to buy more time in Washington for President and Petraeus war strategy to show the results.

His main weapon was the review of the Department of Defense. In January 2007, as the first of 30,000 surge troops were heading towards Iraq, Gates has planned a revision of September to assess if the new strategy of war and the reinforcements made tangible progress.

He employed the same tactic three years later in Afghanistan when President Obama sent 33,000 troops in Afghanistan.

The customer has helped Bush and Obama administrations to determine whether the military was making progress, and helped to reassure Congress. "They give people a sense that you actually have got hands on the wheel and are not just coasting along," said Gates.

The customer serve another purpose: they put out critical critical agitating for immediate troop reductions and greater reduction of U.S. goals. In short, they bought commanders of Gates some precious time.

"I consciously I used them for this purpose," said Gates.

Lesson 2: let them see you cry

Gates had earned a reputation for toughness after firing or replaced at least seven top officials during his term. But it also wasn't afraid to show a softer side.

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In South Korea, equity is the new ideal

SEOUL — With its rapid economic rise, South Korea has earned a reputation as a ruthless, competitive society, go-go. But now the equity has become chic.

Students protest for it; Ministries of the Government promise to support the newspaper's editorial said that the President has been too slow to deliver it. Experts say that the establishment of equity reflects dismay in which rapid change won: a widening gap between rich and poor and residue of corruption.

 

For the President, Lee Myung-bak, this is more of a problem, because a string of fraud, scandals and bourgeois economic worries have convinced the Koreans that their is anything that the company "fair" that he has promoted.

Some Koreans, Lee included, describing fairness as a prerequisite for achieving democratic maturity. But the value also contradicts the winner-takes-all ethos which drove the postwar boom of the South Korea, with the emergence of dominant conglomerates, an ultra-competitive education system and social safety nets to help the non-elite.

In a fair society, Lee said, "the winner takes all."

The Boost for fairness has created some unconventional test cases. Several months ago, Lotte Mart, a conglomerate department store began selling buckets of fried chicken — so cheap that they sold within hours every day. But small and medium-sized chicken shacks could not compete with the prices and protested the injustice of it all. After five days, that lotte Mart surrendered, saying that would fry chicken cheap is no longer, in deference to the ideals of the society.

But a year from the speech of Lee's Fair society, Koreans came to see fairness as elusive ideal. While the increase in food prices and contributions of the University, the 20 percent of the Fund has seen his income Plummet 35 percent over the last decade. As arms Seoul, distant provinces complain of neglect and struggle to attract businesses. Although the country's growth has been fueled by Tiger-strong "chaebol" — subsidiaries family as Hyundai and Samsung — these companies now squeeze the middle and small companies that they subcontract.

"In Korea, people get all strong," said Kwak Seung-jun, President of a Council that advises the President. "We are used to competition. ... Right now, large companies are eating small businesses. "

Lee's advisers predict a growth process of cooperation: the elite gives more and earn social responsibility, benefits trickle down and South Korea becomes a nation. But all the time, Lee's administration was distressed by corruption, with illicit favors Incall and corruption, undermining the judicial system, the financial regulation and big business.

Some ministries have lately tried to cut away the corruption, limiting or banning expensive dinners or golf rounds with associates. In a radio address this month, Lee said that corruption in many parts of the company remained "rampant". Some experts suggest that such corruption is the legacy of rapid political change of Korea, as the country rose to power as an authoritarian State in the 1960s and 1970s, then the transition to democracy in 1987.

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Shareholders Assembly, Tepco rejects the proposal to abandon the nuclear

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TOKYO — At the downtown hotel where Tokyo Electric Power Co. executives met Tuesday with thousands of shareholders, some 250 riot police were called in to provide extra security. Anti-nuclear protestors crowded the sidewalks. The meeting lasted for six hours, a go-round of apologies and jeers.

Facing shareholders for the first time since the onset of a nuclear crisis with no endpoint, Japan’s largest utility company on Tuesday reappointed its chairman and rejected a motion calling for the company to abandon nuclear energy.

For some in the raucous audience, those status quo actions reinforced the image of a company that is tone-deaf to the despair it has caused. But the decisions, more tellingly, also signaled why Japan’s national debate over nuclear energy remains a stalemate of painful options.

The nuclear catastrophe at its Fukushima Daiichi plant has driven some 85,000 Japanese from their homes and driven Tepco toward financial ruin. But a reliance on nuclear energy underpins the economy of this resource-poor country, which in the wake of the crisis has even less capacity to shoulder the economic hardship that nuclear abandonment would require.

More than 9,000 shareholders attended Tuesday’s annual meeting, triple the record set last year. Some interrupted the meeting with yelling, and were ushered out by security.

Facing executives seated at the front of the room, one shareholder screamed that the company leaders deserved ritual disembowelment. Another said the executives should “jump into the reactors and die.”

“On behalf of all of the executives I want to apologize to investors and local people for all the trouble caused by the Fukushima Daiichi accident,” the chairman, Tsunehisa Katsumata said.

Briefly, Katsumata faced a motion calling for his own dismissal, submitted by a shareholder who said, nearly in tears, “If you are really feeling responsible, how dare you serve as chairman.”

Some applauded the statement. But the motion was defeated.

Many in attendance were elderly investors who once viewed Tepco a safe place to put their money. Since the March 11 disaster, Tepco shares have lost nearly 85-percent of their value. One month ago Tepco announced that the company had lost $15 billion for the latest fiscal year, which ended in March. The rating agency Moody’s this month cut Tepco’s credit rating to junk status.

Some experts have warned that Tepco, which faces at least $136 billion in compensation pay-outs, could face shortages as soon as this fall.

To help itself meet the compensation claims, Tepco has secured massive emergency loans, and it intends to sell off many of its non-essential assets. It is also considering plans for layoffs and cuts to employee salaries, while asking executives to return bonus payments.

The extent to which Tepco can pay the compensation claims, though, will be largely dictated by a contentious plan currently under debate in parliament. The bill calls for the creation of a new agency — a de factor fundraiser for Tepco — that could draw money from Japan’s major power companies, as well as from special-issue government bonds. Such a rescue plan has already been approved by Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s cabinet, but it so far has gotten little cooperation from the major opposition party.

At the shareholders meeting, Katsumata, the chairman, promised that Tepco would pay out the compensation claims as soon as possible. He added that the company was trying its best to stabilize Fukushima Daiichi’s crippled reactors, three of which suffered meltdowns when an earthquake-tsunami combo knocked out the plant’s cooling systems.

The company’s president, Masataka Shimizu, who has already signaled his intention to resign, added that radiation leaks could be under control by mid-July.

The motion to abandon nuclear energy was submitted by a bloc of 402 shareholders. The group has submitted such a proposal every year for two decades, spurred by a lesser nuclear plant malfunction in 1989.

This year, like usual, the motion was roundly defeated, as the bulk of Tepco’s shareholders submitted their votes over the Internet.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is Tepco’s fifth-largest shareholder. The four largest are banks and insurance firms.

Prior to the March 11 disaster, nuclear energy accounted for one-third of Tepco’s power-generating capacity, according to company data. Tepco has about 30 million customers, supplying power to the Tokyo region.

It is the largest of Japan’s major power companies — and politically powerful as well, with historical ties to the government’s economy and trade ministry, responsible for promoting nuclear power and nuclear safety.

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