Reporter detained in China live on TV

A journalist and his camera operator have been detained in Tiananmen Square live on British television.

British reporter Mark Stone and his Sky News camera operator have been detained in Tiananmen Square. Source: AAP

A JOURNALIST and his camera operator have been detained in Tiananmen Square live on British television, in what he described as a surreal but telling episode about reporting in China.

Viewers of the 24-hour British channel Sky News on Friday were treated to the bizarre sight of reporter Mark Stone being directed into a police van live from Beijing.

He reported live from inside the van, admitting that the Chinese officials with him - one them filming Stone herself - probably did not realise he was speaking directly to London.

"Still in the police van, should be leaving in just a second for this rather surreal experience, which gives you a little insight into what can happen sometimes" in China, Stone said.

The team were then taken into a room where they were told to await questioning.

"We were here in Tiananmen Square filming, doing lives (live reports) through the day; now they've stopped us because of one word. We were talking about the 1989 protest, they didn't like that," Stone said.

The square is a popular tourist site near the regime's nerve centre and the scene of 1989 democracy protests that were crushed by the Chinese authorities.

A police officer was filmed asking the Sky team to switch off their camera, saying they were now inside the Forbidden City and did not have permission to film there.

Stone, who was in Beijing reporting on China's leadership transition, said the police had been "utterly civil" throughout the incident.

While they had permission to film in the square, Stone said police told him the team were not displaying their passes correctly, and noted he was not carrying his passport as required.

China's foreign ministry insists that press censorship does not exist in the country, but journalists report the constant threat of interference from government officials.

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Three astronauts return to Earth from ISS

A SPACE crew of three has returned to earth from the International Space Station in a Russian capsule which landed on the freezing steppe of Kazakhstan.

"There is landing!" flashed a Russian mission control centre message transmitted by NASA.

Rescue teams rushed to recover the capsule carrying NASA US astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian flight engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin.

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Pope will give priority to victims: Pell

George Pell (pic) says newly-appointed Pope Francis will give priority to sexual abuse victims. Source: AAP

AUSTRALIA'S most senior Catholic, George Pell, says Pope Francis will support national church leaders in the struggle against sexual abuse and give priority to victims.

In a statement issued early on Friday (AEDT), Cardinal Pell said he warmly welcomed Pope Francis and was delighted by his election as the church's new father.

Cardinal Pell describes as "happy omens" the fact the new pope is the first non-European pope since the eighth century, the first Jesuit and the first to take the name Francis.

"These are all happy omens which were reflected in the enthusiasm of the immense crowd of people in St Peter's Square for the announcement of the news," Cardinal Pell said.

He said Pope Francis was a man of "acknowledged piety and proven orthodoxy" who had lived through very difficult times in Argentina and had shown an ability to take hard decisions.

"He will support national hierarchies in the struggle against sexual abuse, giving priority to victims, and one of his first tasks will be to examine the 300-page report on the workings of the Vatican by the three cardinals," he said.

"God has blessed the church and I am sure that all Australian Catholics will continue in their loyalty to the papacy and to the new pope."

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WA gets GST revenue cut in 2013/14

WESTERN Australia should receive half a billion dollars less in GST revenue in the next financial year because of its booming mining sector, the Commonwealth Grants Commission says.

However, in its annual advice on how the GST revenue pie should be carved up in 2013/14 the commission awarded Queensland nearly $700 million more to counter the impact of lower coal prices.

The commission's advice goes to the federal government each year before a final decision is made.

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Labor attacks Sinodinos over company ties

LIBERAL senator Arthur Sinodinos has been accused of failing to reveal all the details when confessing he had not properly updated his personal interests.

Senator Sinodinos admitted a fortnight ago he'd been forced to update his pecuniary interests register with six directorships, following inquiries from the media.

Speaking under parliamentary privilege at the time, he also confirmed he'd abandoned a five per cent stake in Australian Water Holdings (AWH), a company linked to disgraced former NSW Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid.

He said he apologised unreservedly to the Senate for the oversights.

But Labor senator Jacinta Collins on Wednesday said Senator Sinodinos's "late-night mea culpa" had "robbed" the upper house of its chance to ask some serious questions related to his statement.

His "feigned ignorance" around the rules of declaring private interests, particularly as a seasoned corporate and political figure, was worthy of scrutiny, Senator Collins said.

"I seriously question whether Senator Sinodinos's assertions pass the person-in-the-street tests," she said.

"I question whether it is plausible that an experienced corporate executive would simply forget several company directorships."

Her claims drew heated fire from her Liberal counterparts, in particular Senator George Brandis, who rose several times in the chamber to interject on points of order.

But Senator Collins went further, saying there were "unanswered questions" about Senator Sinodinos's directorship at the company Move to Live.

She said Senator Sinodinos "did not volunteer" two weeks ago that he had sat on that company's board with Santo Santoro, a former Liberal Party senator who resigned in 2007 after failing to declare shares.

"Was Senator Sinodinos concerned that revelation of his involvement with Mr Santoro would raise damaging questions about his own political judgment?" she asked.

"Was Senator Sinodinos trying to hide something?"

She said it wasn't the first time Senator Sinodinos, who is also parliamentary secretary to the opposition leader, had been caught out "exercising poor judgment and establishing murky associations".

"Yet this is the man Tony Abbott trusts for advice," she said.

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Vaccine cuts chickenpox admissions

THE introduction of a chickenpox vaccine in Australia in 2006 has dramatically cut the number of children being hospitalised with the disease, new research has revealed.

A national study has examined the number of chickenpox admissions at four hospitals and has found a 68 per cent fall since the vaccine was introduced.

The study also found that of those children needing to be hospitalised because of severe chickenpox, 80 per cent had not been immunised.

"These results are a very strong endorsement of the impact of the chickenpox vaccine," the study's lead author Helen Marshall from the University of Adelaide said.

Before the vaccine was introduced Australia had an estimated 240,000 chickenpox cases each year, with 1500 hospitalisations and up to 16 deaths.

Based on the study, the number of hospitalisations could now be under 500.

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Falkland Islanders vote to stay British

Falkland Islanders voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining a British oversees territory. Source: AAP

FALKLAND Islanders have voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining a British oversees territory in a referendum designed to send a strong message to Argentina, which earlier derided the poll as illegal.

Some 92 per cent of the islands' 1,672 eligible voters turned out to deliver a 98.8 per cent "yes" vote in favour of staying an internally self-governing British territory, election officials in the capital Port Stanley announced.

Only three votes out of 1,517 were cast against the islands remaining British.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague welcomed the result, saying it "demonstrates more clearly than ever the Falkland Islanders' wish to remain an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom.

"We have always been clear that we believe in the rights of the Falklands people to determine their own futures and to decide on the path they wish to take," he said in a statement on Tuesday.

"It is only right that, in the twenty-first century, these rights are respected.

"All countries should accept the results of this referendum and support the Falkland Islanders as they continue to develop their home and their economy."

International observers - from Canada, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, Paraguay, the United States and Uruguay - monitored the polling stations.

The resounding "yes" result, delivered at around 10:30pm on the remote South Atlantic archipelago sparked unprecedented celebrations.

"There's so much noise here, it's huge," Legislative Assembly member Barry Elsby told AFP.

"There are hundreds of people outside the cathedral, celebrating, singing and waving flags.

Elsby called it a "tremendous point in time" for the islands which "sends a message around the world".

He said that Argentina would be "very frightened" because "this process was democratic".

"They can't dismiss it," he added.

Argentina, which invaded the islands in 1982 before its troops were ousted by a British task force after a short but bloody war, maintained its dismissive line on the vote.

"It's a manoeuvre with no legal value, which has neither been convened nor supervised by the United Nations," said Alicia Castro, Argentina's ambassador to London.

"We respect their way of life, their identity. We respect that they want to continue being British, but the territory they inhabit is not British," she told Buenos Aires radio station La Red.

Buenos Aires has stepped up its sovereignty claims against the backdrop of the discovery of potentially valuable oil reserves in the territorial waters of the islands it calls "Las Malvinas", some 400km away from the Argentine coast.

Britain has held the Falklands since 1833 but Buenos Aires maintains that the barren islands are occupied Argentinian territory.

Buenos Aires claims the islanders are an "implanted" colonial population and thus do not have the right to self-determination.

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