World Briefs: Petition urges probe into News Corp

MELBOURNE • Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has called for a major government inquiry into the tight ownership of Australian media by Mr Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, securing more than 46,000 signatures on a petition after just two days.

Mr Rudd's petition called on Parliament to investigate what he criticised as the "abuse of media monopoly in Australia in particular by the Murdoch media".

"The truth is Murdoch has become a cancer, an arrogant cancer on our democracy," Mr Rudd said in a video on Twitter on Saturday, which also called for recommendations to boost media diversity.

The newspapers owned by Mr Murdoch's News Corp include The Australian, the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, and the Courier Mail. Overseas, it owns publications such as The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in the United States, and The Sun and The Times in Britain.

Mr Murdoch also controls Fox Corp.

REUTERS

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Iraqi militias halt anti-US attacks

BAGHDAD • An array of Iran-backed Iraqi militia groups have suspended rocket attacks on US forces on condition that Iraq presents a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops, one of the groups said yesterday.

Kataib Hizbollah, one of the most powerful Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq, said the groups were not presenting a set deadline, but that if US troops "insisted on staying", they would resume fighting and unleash much more violent attacks.

Washington, which is slowly reducing its 5,000 troops in Iraq, threatened last month to shut its embassy unless the Iraqi government reins in Iran-aligned militias that have attacked US interests with rockets and roadside bombs.

The US warning caused alarm in Baghdad, where it was seen as a step towards air strikes that could turn Iraq into a battleground in a proxy war between America and Iran.

REUTERS

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40 people attack Paris police station

PARIS • About 40 unidentified people armed with metal bars and using fireworks as projectiles tried to storm a police station in the Paris suburbs on Saturday night.

"Violent attack last night on the police station of Champigny with mortar shots and various projectiles. No police officer was injured," the Paris police headquarters said on Twitter yesterday.

A video showed a barrage of fireworks going off in the direction of the police station. The assailants failed to force their way into the station.

No one was arrested, but images showed smashed windows at the station and damaged cars.

The motive for the attack, the third on this police station in two years, was not immediately clear.

REUTERS