The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences in New Zealand says there has been a major earthquake in the city of Christchurch.

The institute is still trying to confirm the magnitude.

All phone lines to the city are down.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/22/3145320.htm?section=justin

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Nick Xenophon is refusing to be treated the government's fool a second time as the independent senator continues to hold out on the controversial flood levy.

Labor needs the senator's vote if it wants parliament to approve its $1.8 million taxpayer impost. [note the SMH editor missed a few zeros... it's 1.8 BILLION]

But Senator Xenophon is not prepared to back the levy on a promise state governments, especially Queensland, will consider taking out disaster insurance.

"A few months ago I may have been happy with that approach," he told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

Security forces and protesters have clashed in Libya's capital for a second night, after the government announced a new crackdown.

Witnesses say warplanes have fired on protesters in Tripoli.

To the west of the city, sources say the army is fighting forces loyal to ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi, who appears to be struggling to hold on to power.

Libya's deputy envoy to the UN has called on Col Gaddafi to step down, and accused his government of genocide.

Ibrahim Dabbashi said that if Col Gaddafi did not relinquish power, "the Libyan people will get rid of him".

The University of Arizona — whose Tucson campus President Obama used for his nationwide address on civility after the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords last month — will announce on Monday that it is establishing an institute to promote compromise among opposing political parties and views, the organization’s director said on Sunday.

On a night in late January when he should have been in the Swiss village of Davos, James Murdoch went to dinner here with his father, Rupert, and several journalists from The Sun, the tabloid that the Murdochs have owned since 1969.

In the private room at Wheeler’s of St. James’s, father and son politely argued about the lesser of the public controversies swirling around the Murdoch empire: the firing of Andy Gray, the chief soccer pundit for their Sky Sports network, for making sexist comments.

“Can we stop firing people for making a joke?” Rupert Murdoch asked.

Abbott faces battle telling NSW Liberals what to do

PHILLIP COOREY

Tony Abbott will have no quibble with a finding in part two of Labor's post-election review, the unreleased section that deals with the election campaign.

In the words of a member of the ALP national executive who read the review on Friday, a key reason Labor fell over the line on August 21 last year was because the NSW division of the Liberal Party ''fluffed it''.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/abbott-faces-battle-telling-nsw-liberals-what-to-do-20110220-1b0xr.html

... when asked if he was comfortable with the Government's decision, Mr Hockey said he understood why asylum seekers would want to attend.

"I would never seek to deny a parent or a child from saying goodbye to their relative."

"No matter what the colour of your skin, no matter what the nature of your faith, if your child has died or a father has died, you want to be there for the ceremony to say goodbye," Mr Hockey told reporters in Sydney.

"I totally understand the importance of this to those families.

Cuba has welcomed the arrival of an undersea fibre-optic cable linking it to Venezuela as a blow to the US economic embargo.

The cable will transform communications in Cuba, which has among the slowest internet speeds in the world.

The new connection will make download speeds 3,000 times faster - at least for the small minority of Cubans who have internet access.

The head of the Federal Government's new Climate Change Commission says he is saddened by the Opposition's response to the body.

Scientist Tim Flannery has been chosen to chair the commission, which will help build community support for putting a price on carbon.

The Opposition says the Government is using the body to justify its plans to push up power prices.

Coalition climate action spokesman Greg Hunt says the public will question what value for money they will get from the $5.6 million body.

"The Climate Commission is just another piece in Labor's jigsaw puzzle to try to justify their plan for an electricity tax," he said in a statement.

It took just two days for the price of bananas to jump in supermarkets after Cyclone Yasi hit, but the early price rise is the result of a gesture from the major chains to help farmers recover.

Coles and Woolworths have back-paid farmers for bananas picked before the cyclone in anticipation of crop damage.

Banana Growers chief executive Jonathan Eccles says it is a positive move on behalf of the supermarket chains.

"What both supermarkets have done - the fruit that's already in their warehouses - they have backdated payments to the growers at well above what was the normal price they were paying," he said.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has announced $2 billion of cuts that he says the Government should make instead of imposing a flood levy.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard proposes to raise money for flood reconstruction through a mix of the levy and spending cuts.

But Mr Abbott says there is enough room in the budget to find the money without the levy.

"I think Australians have suffered enough without having to suffer through a new tax," he said.

Mr Abbott says a Coalition government would save $600 million by deferring water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin.

NSW Labor will put the cost of living at the heart of its re-election campaign, promising to ease the impact of surging electricity prices with a $250 rebate on power bills and restrict increases in public transport fares and government charges.

The Premier, Kristina Keneally, has also promised to legislate to keep Sydney Water, Hunter Water and the desalination plant at Kurnell in public hands, prompting the Coalition to rule out privatising Sydney Water and Hunter Water if it wins on March 26.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/labors-900m-pitch-20110206-1aiey.html