Abbott to reveal red tape reduction plan

EDS: Not for use until 0001, Monday, July 8.

SYDNEY, July 8 AAP - Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will flesh out the coalition's plans to cut $1 billion worth of red and green tape from the Australian economy.

Mr Abbott and Senator Arthur Sinodinos will unveil the coalition's policy to boost productivity and reduce regulation at a function in Sydney on Monday.

The coalition says the plan will reduce Australia's regulatory burden by $1 billion a year.

Central to the policy are promises to repeal the carbon price and mining tax and streamline environmental regulation.

The coalition will also establish an overall deregulation unit within the Department of Finance and link senior public servants' bonuses to cuts to red tape.

Mr Abbott said the changes would create a more productive government and more efficient businesses.

"The Coalition will cut the regulatory burden by $1 billion a year and curtail the growth of regulation that is impeding the capacity of Australia to grow and succeed," he said.

"This policy will lower business costs and strengthen the economy."

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Israeli cabinet OKs army draft rejig bill

ISRAEL'S cabinet has approved a plan that would gradually end a contentious system that has granted automatic draft exemptions to Jewish ultra-Orthodox seminary students.

Under a longstanding system, thousands of young men are allowed to skip compulsory military service to pursue religious studies.

This has caused widespread resentment among secular Jewish Israelis.

The new system, which needs parliamentary approval, would reduce the number of exemptions and require ultra-Orthodox men to register for service.

It would go into effect in three years.

In cabinet fourteen ministers voted in favour of the legislation, four ministers abstained and none voted against.

The draft was a central issue in January elections and propelled Yesh Atid, the secular rights party behind the new regulations, into the government.

Finance Minister and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid called it "a historic day".

"After 65 years, we finally end this distortion. We are all very excited," he told reporters.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday the law will be implemented "gradually".

Ultra-Orthodox religious leaders and MPs spoke of a "sad day" for Judaism.

Many strictly religious Jews believe that by studying the Torah and serving God they are defending Israelis.

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Venezuela says no contact yet with Snowden

VENEZUELA'S foreign minister says his country has not yet been in contact with US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, despite its offer of asylum.

Elias Jaua says he expects to consult on Monday with Russian officials.

Snowden is believed to be in the transit area of a Moscow airport.

Jaua's comments came on Saturday during a Caribbean summit in Trinidad and Tobago.

They were distributed by his office.

President Nicolas Maduro announced on Friday that he would grant asylum to Snowden, and he repeated the offer on Twitter on Saturday, saying Venezuela is ready to protect Snowden "from the global persecution of the empire".

Bolivia and Nicaragua have also offered asylum but it is not clear if any of them have provided him the documents he would need to travel.

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Four hurt on first day of Spanish bull run

Kids learn to avoid dog danger

KINDERGARTEN and primary school children and parents are being schooled on dog safety in a bid to reduce the growing number of serious dog attacks.

Surfer knocked out by whale at Bondi

TALK about a sting in the tail. Surfer Bishan Rajapakse was lucky to be pulled from the waves alive after he was knocked unconscious by a whale yesterday.

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Peak bodies want education cap dropped

MORE than 20 professional bodies are demanding the federal government scrap its planned cap on tax deductions for self-education expenses, fearing it will hurt the economy.

The government announced in April that from July 2014 it will set a $2000 cap on how much people can claim on work-related expenses for education.

A communique released on Monday from 22 professional bodies, including health, law, accountancy, engineering and education groups, calls for an end to this budget measure.

Universities Australia chief executive Belinda Robinson says it will have a "debilitating effect" on the capacity for equipping Australia's workforce with the skills needed to remain competitive and build a diversified economy.

"As global economic threats continue to mount, the government should be creating incentives for workers to lift their skills and upgrade their qualifications to meet the rapidly changing needs of our labour market," she said in a separate statement.

The group says the Australian Workforce Productivity Agency has warned that industry demand for people with higher education qualifications is set to soar by between three and four per cent every year to 2025.

"The cap puts at risk the ability to fill this demand for a skilled labour force. Skill shortages do nothing to increase productivity. This measure impacts on efforts to expand the economy," their communique says.

At the same time, many professional bodies require ongoing education to ensure their members' qualifications and knowledge are up to date.

The planned cap will escalate the cost of eduction to individuals to meet these professional obligations.

"If unable to be met by the individual, it will create an unaffordable impost on small business," it says.

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Russian train derails, 80 injured: reports

AT least 80 people have been injured after a Russian passenger train travelling from Siberia derailed near the Black Sea, the emergency situations ministry says.

Six people were admitted to hospital with substantial injuries while the rest were only slightly hurt, the ministry said, according to Russian news agencies.

The locomotive and first five cars of the train, which connects Novosibirsk in Siberia to Adler on the shores of the Black Sea, went off the rails and slid sideways.

The driver braked sharply after noticing that part of the tracks in Russia's Krasnodar region was deformed by the heat, according to a security source quoted by the Itar-Tass agency.

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Russian train derails, 80 injured: reports

AT least 80 people have been injured after a Russian passenger train travelling from Siberia derailed near the Black Sea, the emergency situations ministry says.

Six people were admitted to hospital with substantial injuries while the rest were only slightly hurt, the ministry said, according to Russian news agencies.

The locomotive and first five cars of the train, which connects Novosibirsk in Siberia to Adler on the shores of the Black Sea, went off the rails and slid sideways.

The driver braked sharply after noticing that part of the tracks in Russia's Krasnodar region was deformed by the heat, according to a security source quoted by the Itar-Tass agency.

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Germany blocks carbon cap for automakers

THE German government says it blocked a European Union agreement on capping carbon emissions from cars because the deal would have harmed its domestic auto industry.

Environmental campaigners had lobbied to limit emissions from passenger cars to 95 grams of CO2 per kilometer within seven years.

But Germany wants to allow automakers such as BMW, Daimler and Audi to collect "credits" they can use to offset higher pollution levels beyond 2020.

Government spokesman Georg Streiter says Germany asked for a decision on the issue to be postponed Thursday because "a fair solution also has to take account of the particularities of the German auto industry" whose emissions are above EU average.

Streiter said on Friday that Germany "wouldn't be doing so well today if the auto industry were doing badly".

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Egypt army says it is ready to intervene

EGYPT'S army chief has warned that the military is ready to intervene to stop the country from entering a "dark tunnel" of internal conflict.

General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, also the defence minister, spoke on Sunday, a week ahead of mass protests planned by opponents of President Mohamed Morsi.

"The armed forces have the obligation to intervene to stop Egypt from plunging into a dark tunnel of conflict and infighting," el-Sissi said.

Egyptians fear the demonstrations calling for Morsi's ouster will descend into violence after some of the president's hardline supporters vowed to "smash" them.

El-Sissi's comments make clear that the military is willing to intervene on the side of the protesters if attacked by the president's Islamist backers.

He urged all parties to use the week leading up to the June 30 protests to reach a "genuine" understanding to defuse the crisis.

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Saudi govt adopts Friday-Saturday weekend

OIL powerhouse Saudi Arabia is switching its weekend to Friday-Saturday to better serve its economy and "international commitments," the official SPA news agency reports, quoting a royal decree.

Saudi Arabia becomes the last of the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council - which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - to abandon the Thursday-Friday weekend to be closer to the world's Saturday-Sunday weekend.

The decision takes effect in ministries and government departments from next week, while it will be implemented by schools and universities from the start of the next academic year.

According to the decree the change was made to better serve "the Saudi economy and its international commitments" and co-ordinate with the working days in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world.

It will "reduce the negative repercussions on economic and financial activity in the kingdom and make up for lost economic opportunities," said the decree.

Riyadh's stock exchange, the biggest in the Arab world, is open for five days a week, but until now only three of these coincided with the working week in the world's major financial centres.

Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter and a member of the G20 group of the globe's biggest economies.

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