Julia Gillard has become Australia's first woman prime minister after Kevin Rudd stood down from the position during a Labor Party leadership spill.
Ms Gillard has been elected unopposed to the position and Wayne Swan will become deputy prime minister.
At a media conference in Parliament House, Ms Gillard told the media she was "truly honoured" to become prime minister, after Kevin Rudd stood aside on Thursday.
"Can I say Australians one and all, it's with the greatest, humility, resolve and enthusiasm that I sought the endorsement of my colleagues to be the Labor leader and to be the prime minister for this country," she said.
The spill came after a newspaper report claiming Mr Rudd had instructed his chief of staff Alister Jordan to ring around the caucus to see whether MPs were still behind him.
Ms Gillard was reportedly furious at Mr Rudd's actions and is believed to have told her colleagues that Mr Jordan's sounding out of MPs was disrespectful and disloyal.
At every press conference in recent weeks Ms Gillard reiterated her support of Mr Rudd and last month said there was more chance she would line up at full forward for AFL team the Western Bulldogs than topple the PM.
However, discussions to unseat Kevin Rudd started tentatively about a fortnight ago.
NSW Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib despatched an emissary to see Victorian Senator David Feeney in Melbourne to sound out his thoughts about Julia Gillard as leader.
The discussions started within the Labor Right to swing behind Ms Gillard of the Left.
They thought the Prime Minister had become a liability to Labor's re-election strategy.
The Rudd brand had gone toxic in Western Australia and Queensland and the polls showed immense damage to Labor, with the Nielsen poll showing the party had fallen to a 33 per cent primary vote.
Last night Mr Rudd said he was elected by the people of Australia as prime minister of Australia.
"I was elected to do a job," he said.
After Mr Rudd's 2007 election victory, Ms Gillard was appointed Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Education Minister, leading to her being dubbed the "minister for everything".
She is credited for putting an end to the infamous Australian workplace agreements under the former Coalition government's WorkChoices laws.
But Ms Gillard has also faced criticism over the Rudd Government's Building the Education Revolution schools building program, with allegations that contractors were seriously overcharging schools for work done and that some projects were wasteful and unnecessary.
She also came under fire for the Government's My School website, which many teachers and principals said failed to give an accurate indication of schools' performances.
Share Motorcycle-riding robbers brazenly struck in broad daylight, holding up and shooting a businessman near a hotel in Manila's Ermita district on Monday afternoon.
Radio dzRH reported the robbers struck shortly after their target got off a sport-utility vehicle at the corner of A. Mabini and Pedro Gil Streets.
"Kumakain dito ng banana cue, pagparada ng Pajero bumaba ang lalaki at ang sabi, holdup (The gunmen bought banana cue from me and were eating it when they saw the sport-utility vehicle park. They then shouted 'Holdup' when the passenger got off)," a banana cue vendor said.
She said the suspects waited for about 30 minutes before striking.
The victim, who was not immediately identified, tried to run towards a nearby hotel but was shot at least four times. The sport-utility vehicle was also hit.
The dzRH report said the suspects took the victim's clutch bag and fled onboard a motorcycle.
Shells recovered from the crime scene indicated the suspects used caliber .45 pistols.
Bystanders rushed the victim to the Manila Doctors' Hospital for treatment. - RJAB Jr/KBK, GMANews.TV
JAKARTA (AFP) - – Three Indonesian celebrities who allegedly appeared in sex videos posted on the Internet will be questioned for possible breaches of a new anti-pornography law, police said Wednesday.
Two explicit clips widely circulated online this week appear to show popular singer Nazril Ariel having sex with models and television presenters Luna Maya, his current girlfriend, and Cut Tari, his ex-girlfriend.
Chief police detective Ito Sumardi said the celebrities would be questioned about how the clips had appeared on the Internet.
"We will question them to find out about the clips and how the videos were circulated in public," Sumardi told reporters.
Maya is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations World Food Programme and has appeared in advertisements with Ariel for a soap made by Anglo-Dutch food and cosmetics giant Unilever.
Tari meanwhile endorses Sharp air conditioners.
A spokesman for Unilever said the soap ads had been cancelled this week but denied the move was connected to the sex tapes.
Producing or distributing sexually explicit material carries a maximum penalty of 12 years' jail under the tough anti-pornography law passed in the mainly Muslim country in 2008.
Muslim lawmakers have said the videos underline the need for tighter controls of the Internet in the country of 240 million people.
"There should be a heavy punishment for this crime," Communication and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring said on his Twitter micro-blog account.
A spokesman said Vice President Boediono was concerned about the effect the videos would have on young people.
"He is deeply concerned about the negative impact these porn videos could have on our children," Boediono's spokesman, Yopie Hidayat, told ElShinta radio.
The scandal has been among the top worldwide trending topics on Twitter under the "Peterporn" tag, a reference to Ariel's band, Peterpan. Several pages supporting Ariel have also appeared on social networking site Facebook.
By Angela Lim - Yahoo
Meet Debrahlee Lorenzana, the woman claiming to be “too hot” for Citibank.
The stunning 33-year-old New York banker is suing the U.S banking giant, claiming she was harrassed and then fired for being “too sexy”.
The tall, buxom brunette claims in the lawsuit that her manager told her to “refrain from wearing certain items of clothing, in particular, turtleneck tops, pencil skirts, fitted business suits, or other properly tailored clothing”.
It appears the stunner’s killer bod was deemed a huge distraction by her hot-blooded male colleagues as soon as she sashayed into Citibank’s Chrysler Building branch in September 2008.
Bank supervisors reportedly told Lorenzana, who stands 1.70 metre-tall and weighs 56 kilos, that she should also refrain from wearing classic high-heeled business pumps as they drew attention to her curves.
But the Latina businesswoman claims it was not her wardrobe that was inappropriate; she says she shops at the same stores as her colleagues, citing Zara as an example. It was just the way her body looked in them.
When she protested that her female colleagues were dressed far more provocatively than she was, the bank allegedly told her those women were different because they were ”not as attractive”.
The single mother’s complaints of harrassment to Citibank’s Human Resources department resulted in a transfer to another branch where her circumstances worsened. She was eventually fired by the bank last year on grounds that she failed to recruit new customers.
The lawsuit is making headlines around the world and has catapulted Lorenzana to instant superstardom. Her claims have now also triggered the fierce age-old debate on gender discrimination at the workplace.
After all, according to reports, Lorenzana had won praise and a few customer service awards from her previous employers including Bank of America and Metropolitan Hospital in Queens.
“She was punished because her male colleagues couldn’t handle their libidos,” her New York City lawyer, Jack Tuckner, told The New York Post.
Citibank responded by telling the New York press, ”We believe the lawsuit is without merit and will defend against it vigorously.”
The bank insists that the her dismissal was purely “performance-based”.
If the banker beauty is telling the truth and those outfits really were what she wore to work, her office style is impeccable.
But the lawsuit raises an interesting question – should a woman be fired for being too attractive?
Timothy, 27, an accountant, told Yahoo! Singapore, “If she’s wearing clothes that are too revealing, of course it can be very distracting. But as long as she’s dressed appropriately for work, I don’t see what the big deal is.”
Another 22-year-old female Citibank employee who declined to be named, added, “If she’s not violating the dress code, any distraction caused to the men in the office is really not her problem.”
Valid concerns or outright discrimination? You decide.
