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The perpetrators of the 2014 cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment were not activists or disgruntled employees, and likely had attacked other targets in China, India, Japan and Taiwan, according to a coalition of security companies that jointly investigated the Sony case for more than a year.

The coalition, organized by security analytics company Novetta, concluded in a report released on Wednesday that the hackers were government-backed but it stopped short of endorsing the official U.S. view that North Korea was to blame.

The Obama administration has tied the attack on Sony Corp's film studio to its release of "The Interview," a comedy that depicted the fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Novetta said the breach "was not the work of insiders or hacktivists."

Novetta worked with the largest U.S. security software vendor Symantec Corp, top Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab and at least 10 other institutions on the investigation, a rare collaboration involving so many companies.

They determined that the unidentified hackers had been at work since at least 2009, five years before the Sony breach. The hackers were able to achieve many of their goals despite modest skills because of the inherent difficulty in establishing an inclusive cyber security defense, the Novetta group said.

LaMontagne said the report was the first to tie the Sony hack to breaches at South Korean facilities including a power plant. The FBI and others had previously said the Sony attackers reused code that had been used in destructive attacks on South Korean targets in 2013.

The Novetta group said the hackers were likely also responsible for denial-of-service attacks that disrupted U.S. and South Korean websites on July 24, 2009. The group said it found overlaps in code, tactics and infrastructure between the attacks.

Symantec researcher Val Saengphaibul said his company connected the hackers to attacks late last year, suggesting the exposure of the Sony breach and the threat of retaliation by the United States had not silenced the gang.

The coalition of security companies distributed technical indicators to help others determine if they had been targeted by the same hackers, which Novetta dubbed the Lazarus Group.

Sony Pictures hackers linked to breaches in China, India, Japan-report

"This is very much supportive of the theory that this is nation-state," Novetta Chief Executive Peter LaMontagne told Reuters. "This group was more active, going farther back, and had greater capabilities and reach than we thought."

Hackers linked to breaches in China, India, Japan-report

A panel of British lawmakers criticised a back-tax deal between Google and UK tax authorities on Wednesday, calling it "disproportionately small" and branding the company's explanation of its tax planning "disingenuous".

The Public Accounts Committee, which scrutinises public spending, also criticised the tax authority, saying it appeared "to have settled for less corporation tax from Google than other countries are willing to accept".

It was "not possible to judge whether a 130 million-pound ($180 million) tax settlement agreed between Google and HMRC is fair to taxpayers," the Committee said in its report.

Google, now a unit of holding group Alphabet Inc, was not immediately available for comment.

The internet search giant prompted a political storm last month when it announced the settlement, which was hailed by British finance minister George Osborne as a "great success".

The Opposition Labour party described it as "derisory" and said it showed the government's failure to act against corporate tax avoidance, a hot topic for austerity-weary Britons.

Google has said it follows the tax rules in every country in which it operates. But the committee questioned this.

"Google told us that international tax rules are complex and that it just follows them. This is disingenuous. There is nothing in the rules that says you must set up two companies in Ireland and send large royalty payments, via the Netherlands, to a company that is tax resident in Bermuda," the report said.

Google generated around 24 billion pounds of revenue in Britain between 2005 and 2015 -- the period covered by the settlement.

The back tax deal brought its total tax bill for the period to less than 180 million pounds.

The Committee said reports that tax authorities in France and Italy were seeking much larger sums from Google, raised questions about whether Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) was being too soft on big companies like Google.

HMRC was not immediately available for comment. ($1 = 0.7193 pounds)

UK lawmakers dismiss Google tax deal as too small

"The sum paid by Google seems disproportionately small when compared with the size of Google's business in the UK," the committee said.

UK lawmakers dismiss tax deal as too small

Business

Facebook said on Wednesday that "Reactions", an extension of the "Like" button, has now been rolled out worldwide.

The social network launched a pilot of "Reactions" - which allows users to select from seven emotions including "Angry", "Sad" and "Wow" - in Ireland and Spain in October.

The "Yay" emoticon, which was present in the pilot launch, was not seen in Wednesday's video.

"We will initially use any Reaction similar to a Like to infer that you want to see more of that type of content," Facebook said in separate blog post.

The company said that over time it hoped to learn how different "Reactions" should be weighted differently by the Facebook News Feed to customize it for individual users.

Facebook said "Reactions" would have the same impact on ad delivery as "likes".

In a video accompanying a blog post, the five new buttons appear as animated emoticons that pop up when the "Like" button is held down on mobile devices. The buttons appear on desktops when users hover over the "Like" button.

Social media site launches "Reactions" worldwide

An Ohio man convicted 15 years ago of stalking Oscar-winning screen star Gwyneth Paltrow was found not guilty of that charge on Wednesday in a more recent case brought against him, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

Dante Michael Soiu, 67, was acquitted of felony stalking and a lesser charge of attempted stalking by a Los Angeles Superior Court jury after a trial capped by the testimony of Paltrow herself last week.

But Soiu testified on his own behalf that he meant no harm to Paltrow and that his letters were "a matter of seeking forgiveness" for the trouble he previously had caused her.

Soiu was convicted in a December 2000 jury trial of stalking Paltrow after sending her sexually graphic letters and packages and showing up twice outside her parents' home.

But the judge in that case subsequently declared Soiu to be legally insane and ordered him confined at the time to a psychiatric facility until he had been judged to have recovered.

The previous case unfolded in the wake of Paltrow's Academy Award-winning performance in the 1998 film "Shakespeare in Love."

Soiu's lawyer in the latest case, Lynda Westlund, said after the not-guilty verdict, "I do believe that this jury did the right thing in this case."

She said Soiu would likely be released from jail later on Wednesday evening.

"He just needed the right medication. He is completely lucid," she said of her client, whom she also described as being "a little different."

"He's unique. He's special. But ... he's very cogent," she said.

L.A. jury acquits man accused of stalking Gwyneth Paltrow

The 43-year-old actress tearfully told jurors she feared for her safety and that of her family after receiving dozens of letters from the onetime pizza deliveryman, and she read some of them in court, according to media accounts of the trial.

LA jury acquits man accused of stalking actress

The president of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center said on Wednesday that his hospital paid hackers a ransom of $17,000 in bitcoins to regain control of their computer systems after a cyber attack.

Allen Stefanek said in a statement that paying the ransom was the "quickest and most efficient way" of regaining access to the affected systems, which were crippled on Feb. 5 and interfered with hospital staff's ability to communicate electronically.

"Patient care has not been compromised in any way," Stefanek said.

Stefanek said the attack locked them out of their systems by encrypting files for which only the hackers had the decryption key. He said the hospital notified law enforcement and computer experts worked feverishly to restore system access and uncover the source.

The origin of the computer network intrusion remains unknown but it bogged down communications between physicians and medical staff who suddenly became had to rely on paper records and doctors' notoriously messy handwriting, according to doctors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Although the cyber attack snarled the hospital's patient database, doctors managed to relay necessary medical records the old-fashioned way through phone lines and fax machines, said Dr. Rangasamy Ramanathan, a neonatal-perinatal specialist affiliated with the 434-bed facility.

The FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department are working to pinpoint the hacker or hackers responsible for the intrusion, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said on Wednesday.

Los Angeles hospital paid hackers $17,000 ransom in bitcoins

Stefanek said there was no evidence that any patient or employee information was accessed in the so-called malware attack, and that the hospital fully restored access to its electronic medical record system this Monday.

The Islamic State's English-language reach on Twitter has stalled in recent months amid a stepped-up crackdown against the extremist group's army of digital proselytizers, who have long relied on the site to recruit and radicalize new adherents, according to a study being released on Thursday.

Suspensions of English-speaking users affiliated with Islamic State from June to October 2015 have limited the group's growth and in some cases devastated the viral reach of specific users, according to the report from George Washington University's Program on Extremism, which analyzed a list of accounts promoted by the militant group.

The report found that easily discoverable English accounts sympathetic to Islamic State was usually under 1,000, and that those users' activity was mostly insular, limited to interacting with each other. Islamic State has seized control of wide swaths of Iraq and Syria and claimed credit for attacks in Paris in November that killed 130. The U.S. and other governments consider it a terrorist organization.

Twitter Inc has long been criticized by government officials for its relatively lax approach to policing content, even as other Silicon Valley companies like Facebook Inc began to more actively police their platforms.

Under intensified pressure from the White House, presidential candidates and some civil society groups, Twitter announced earlier this month it had shut down more than 125,000 terrorism-related accounts since the middle of 2015, most of them linked to the Islamic State group.

In a blog post, the company said that while it only takes down accounts reported by other users it had increased the size of teams monitoring and responding to reports and has decreased its response time "significantly."

J.M. Berger, a co-author of the report, said Twitter is still less active than many of its rivals but that part of that is due to its relative youth as a company.

"Each company has been dragged into this kicking and screaming," he said in an interview.

The study took place prior to the Paris attacks, which the researchers said likely led to a heavy wave of suspensions mostly in French and Arabic networks.

The average tweets per day measured across the lifetime of an account also declined during the monitored interval, from a peak of approximately 14.5 in June to a low of 5.5 by October, the report found. The average number of followers was measured between 300 and 400.

ISIS finds 'diminishing returns' on Twitter

Reporting of Twitter accounts affiliated with Islamic State is a steady, low-level activity generally, but occasionally events lead to "periodic purges," Berger said.

RepublicanJeb Bush's presidential campaign has added an Ohio political veteran to his team as a national political adviser.

A Bush aide said on Wednesday that Bob Paduchik, who was the Ohio campaign manager for the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns of Jeb's brother George W. Bush, is joining the Bush campaign.

Paduchik also managed Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman's campaign for the Senate in 2010, among other political jobs in the state.

In addition, the Bush team said that Bush, fighting for a strong showing in the South Carolina Republican primary on Saturday, had secured the help of long-time Virginia Republican fundraiser Bobbie Kilberg.

Kilberg had been helping the presidential campaign of Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who dropped out of the race after finishing far back in the pack in the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary.

Bush hires Ohio political veteran as national adviser

Paduchik also managed Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman's campaign for the Senate in 2010, among other political jobs in the state.

The Republican race for the party's 2016 presidential nomination erupted into a four-candidate crossfire on Wednesday over who has the proper experience and is the most conservative, days before South Carolina voters put their stamp on the campaign.

In TV interviews and campaign events, front-runner Donald Trump threatened to sue Senator Ted Cruz of Texas over a negative TV ad, while Senator Marco Rubio of Florida accused Cruz of lying about his record, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush questioned Rubio's experience to serve as president.

The endorsement gave Rubio, 44, a valuable ally to try to sway voters ahead of Saturday's South Carolina Republican primary, the third contest after Iowa and New Hampshire to pick a party nominee for the Nov. 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama.

Bush had a tough day, learning of Haley's endorsement right before a town hall meeting in Summerville, South Carolina, where four members of the audience second-guessed his campaign strategy and offered tips on how to have a greater impact in the state.

Much of the debate took place over the television airwaves, as Trump, 69, a billionaire businessman and former reality TV star, lobbed charges at his rivals at an MSNBC town hall, and Rubio and Cruz battled in back-to-back appearances at a CNN town hall in Greenville, South Carolina.

Trump fumed about a TV ad put out by the Cruz campaign that brought up Trump's past position in support of a woman's right to an abortion. Trump says he has evolved into a conservative and is now against abortion.

"You look at a guy like Ted Cruz, he's a nasty guy," Trump said. "He doesn't have one Republican endorsement from the Senate and he works with the Senate. Think of it. Hard to believe."

Cruz dared Trump to sue him over the campaign ad, which featured a 1999 video clip of Trump saying he was "very pro-choice" on abortion.

Cruz said Trump sent his campaign a "cease and desist letter" demanding it drop the ad. At the CNN town hall, he said he laughed out loud when he got the letter threatening what he called a "frivolous lawsuit."

"In any defamation case, truth is a complete defense," Cruz said.

Questioners at the town hall pressed Cruz, 45, on charges leveled against him by Trump that he may not be eligible to be president because he was born in Canada, and that none of his U.S. Senate colleagues liked him.

Cruz said he met the constitutional requirement that a president must be a "natural born citizen" because his mother was an American.

As for his Senate colleagues, Cruz said some may not like him because he serves the interests of his constituents, not fellow senators.

The latest national Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Trump taking a more than 20-point lead over Cruz in the Republican race.

Trump had 40 percent support in the poll conducted from Saturday to Wednesday, compared with 17 percent for Cruz, 11 percent for Rubio, 10 percent for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and 8 percent for Bush.

The results contrasted with those of an NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll that put Cruz ahead of Trump among Republicans by 28 percent to 26 percent.

Rubio, hoping to overtake Cruz for second place in South Carolina, where Trump leads in the polls, accused Cruz of spreading falsehoods with an ad attacking Rubio over his position on immigration.

Rubio backed a 2013 Senate immigration reform effort that collapsed. Cruz says Rubio would have supported "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, which his rival denies.

"If you say something that isn't true and you say it over and over and you know it's not true, it must be a lie," Rubio said.

Bush, running fourth in South Carolina and behind Rubio, questioned Rubio's level of experience after Rubio said Bush did

not have foreign policy experience. Rubio counts his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as valuable experience.

"It's hard for me to be lectured to by a gifted young guy who thinks going to committee hearings means you know something about the world," Bush said in Summerville.

At the event, Bush, 63, the son and brother of former presidents, sounded a note of frustration at frequent criticism of his campaign by TV pundits.

"The pundits have made it all – it's all decided. We don't have to go vote, I guess. It's all finished. I should stop campaigning, maybe, huh? It's all done," he said.

"No," shouted people in the crowd.

Republican presidential race erupts into four-way battle

Amid the squabbling, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley endorsed Rubio as the Republicans' best hope for winning the White House, a boost to Rubio and a blow to Bush, who had lobbied hard for her to pick him.

Tropical Cyclone Winston is expected to intensify to a category four storm, the second highest level, when it strikes Tonga's northern islands later on Thursday, according to Tonga Meteorological Services.

The Tongan weather bureau said it expected winds to reach as high as 95-110 km per hour (60-70 mph), while heavy rains were also forecast.

Aid agencies said they were concerned cyclone Winston could cause severe damage after it hit northern islands earlier this week, especially after a prolonged El Nino-induced drought weakened livestock and crops across Tonga.

Heavy rains could also bring another severe impact even after the storm passed, aid agencies warned.

"Another deadly threat lies in the wake of Winston - the presence of Zika virus in Tonga could spread easily in a response situation," said Carlos Calderon, Pacific humanitarian manager for Oxfam New Zealand.

Oxfam said cyclone Winston could disrupt access to running drinking water and hygienic drainage systems or mosquito control measures such as nets, raising the risk of an increase in mosquito breeding and a fresh outbreak of the Zika virus.

Aid workers have begun removing mosquito larvae from water tanks, spraying affected areas to remove the threat of Zika, and distributing mosquito nets, with a focus on pregnant women.

Tonga declared a <a href="http://pulse.ng/health/zika-us-firm-says-experimental-vaccine-works-in-mice-id4702526.html" id="5e9447ad-ee58-5ede-b4a9-254c9e39cf73">Zika</a> outbreak earlier this month after five cases of the mosquito-borne illness were confirmed and another 259 suspected.

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global public health emergency on Feb. 1, noting its association with two neurological disorders: microcephaly in babies and Guillain-Barre syndrome that can cause paralysis.

Brazil announces $1.9m international partnership to produce Zika vaccine

Aid agencies said they were concerned cyclone Winston could cause severe damage after it hit northern islands earlier this week, especially after a prolonged El Nino-induced drought weakened livestock and crops across Tonga.

Aid agencies prepare for virus spread in Tonga as tropical cyclone looms

A Syrian national, identified from his fingerprints, carried out a car bomb attack next to military buses in Turkey's capital, Ankara, that killed 28 people, the pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper said on Thursday.

The paper did not specify the source for its report and it was not immediately possible to confirm it. A claim of responsibility for Wednesday's bombing has not yet been made.

The bomber, identified as Salih Necar, was thought to have entered Turkey with refugees from Syria. His fingerprints had been taken when he entered the country, which was how police identified him, Yeni Safak reported on its website.

It said the car used in the attack, carried out near Turkey's military headquarters, parliament and other government buildings, had been rented out in the western Turkish city of Izmir around two weeks ago.

A senior security source said initial signs indicated that Kurdish militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were responsible for the attack.

Turkish paper identifies Ankara car bomb attacker as Syrian national

The bomber, identified as Salih Necar, was thought to have entered Turkey with refugees from Syria.

Newspaper identifies Ankara car bomb attacker as Syrian national

An Australian dog trainer and former surfing champion is using the discipline of surfing as a way of teaching owners to build healthy relationships with man's best friend.

On sunny morning on the outskirts of Sydney, Chris de Aboitiz heads out on the surf on his stand-up paddle board, joined by Rama and Millie, two rescue dogs who perform tricks, jumping on their owners shoulders and back as he rides the waves.

The Sunshine Coast dog trainer, who is a former world tandem surfing champion, has been hitting the waves with his dogs for around ten years and has since taken to using it as a way to teach people to understand their dogs.

"Surfing is not just about training dogs, it is about understanding them and their behavior," said Aboitiz.

"When you are surfing with the dogs they are allowed to look around but they have to sit on the board and not move, or we fall off and get wet," he said. "Training dogs for everyday life is the same."

"So many dogs are given away because people don't have control, their dog turns from an asset to a liability. The ultimate result is to have less dogs euthanised," said Aboitiz.

Aboitiz said he has had a positive response from dog owners, some of whom had taken to the waves with him, while others have embraced his training but stuck to land.

"People make a lot of mistakes in training their dogs, who end up being dominant over them. Training the dog is the easy part, you also need to train the owner" he added.

Australia's surfing dogs chase waves, not cats

Aboitiz travels up and down the Australian east coast with his four dogs, all rescued from shelters, using this unique method to teach owners and encourage them to take a more disciplined approach with their pets.

Surfing dogs chase waves, not cats

China's stock market rebound showed signs of fatigue on Thursday, with main indexes giving up initial gains and ending lower, as profit-taking threatens to erase optimism fuelled by stimulus hopes.

The blue-chip CSI300 index fell 0.3 percent, to 3,053.70, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.2 percent, to 2,862.89 points.

January inflation data showed little improvement in economic activity, underlining the need for more policy support.

China stocks surrender gains on profit-taking amid stimulus hopes

The blue-chip CSI300 index fell 0.3 percent, to 3,053.70, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.2 percent, to 2,862.89 points.

Stocks surrender gains on profit-taking amid stimulus hopes

When U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged African leaders not to cling to power at a summit last month, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe responded by saying he would continue "until God says 'come'".

Mugabe turns 92 on Sunday and, judging by those comments, has no intention of stepping down - despite being Africa's oldest leader and the only president Zimbabwe has known since independence in 1980.

His life presidency aspirations could frustrate the feuding big-hitters of his ruling ZANU-PF party who have been trying for years to position themselves for a post-Mugabe political era.

They will also fuel criticism from opponents of the government, who say the internal conflict is distracting it from its job of dealing with a stagnating economy and responding to the worst drought in a generation - charges denied by ministers.

"Amid this looming starvation, coupled with an economy on the ropes, no one is paying attention to this national crisis. There is no government response as ZANU-PF is too pre-occupied with the succession issue of President Mugabe," main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Tuesday.

Critics blame Mugabe for many of the problems facing the country. They say his policies, including the seizures and redistribution of white-owned commercial farms, drove one of Africa's most promising economies into nearly a decade of deep recession until 2008 that cut its output almost in half.

They also say Zimbabwe's sluggish economy and low productivity - the jobless rate is around 85 percent - has left it ill-equipped to deal with the drought, which has left 3 million people in need of food aid, about a quarter of the population.

For his part, Mugabe defends his land seizures as necessary to correct colonial injustices and says the economy has fallen victim to sanctions by Western countries that are punishing him for seizing white-owned land.

Mugabe remains in charge of day-to-day running of his government. He still presides over graduations at all state universities and military passing-out parades, and takes trips abroad.

His wife Grace, a powerful figure in ZANU-PF in her own right, told party supporters last week that he was the only one who could keep Zimbabwe "intact and peaceful", adding she would push him in a wheelbarrow to work if he was unable to walk.

"From analysing the political situation, his political speeches, his political actions, it is increasingly becoming clear that he is gunning to be there for as long as he lives," said Eldred Masunungure, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.

Despite his old age, Mugabe remains the glue holding together his fractious ZANU-PF, which dominates the political scene. He enjoys support from the military, an institution that has been a major pillar of his long rule.

Many Zimbabweans follow his health with keen interest, especially after assertions by Wikileaks that he might have prostate cancer - which he denied. With Mugabe having ruled for 36 years, some people fear the government could be paralysed and the country riven by instability should he die without resolving the succession issue.

Last year he read out the wrong speech in parliament, which the opposition seized upon to question whether he was still of sound mind, though the president's spokesman blamed his aides.

His reluctance to cede power could frustrate ZANU-PF grandees with ambitions for his throne.

Several leading party figures have presidential aspirations, but Emmerson Mnangagwa has been regarded as heir apparent to Mugabe. He was made vice president in 2014 following the sacking of Joice Mujuru, another faction leader who had been also tipped for the top job after holding the office for a decade.

Mnangagwa has since cemented his position by getting allies appointed to important cabinet posts and securing the tasks of reforming the economy and legal system.

But the vice president - nicknamed 'Crocodile', which he says reflects his ability to strike at the opportune time - is opposed by a group labelled G-40 by local media, comprising young government ministers and ZANU-PF members rallying behind Grace Mugabe, including the party's women's wing.

Grace is widely regarded in the party as another potential successor, even though she says she has no such ambitions.

The group says Mugabe should be allowed to die in office and has exchanged insults with Mnangagwa's acolytes, accusing them of plotting to overthrow the president - charges they deny.

Mnangagwa himself has not responded to such accusations, but his allies in ZANU-PF and the military privately express unease at the influence that the First Lady wields on the president. They say the G-40 group is trying to isolate Mugabe from his old comrades.

At last week's party rally, Grace said some unnamed people were plotting to physically remove Mugabe and harm his family, accusations similar to ones she made in 2014 against Mujuru, who was then regarded as the most likely successor to Mugabe.

The campaign against Mujuru led to Mugabe denouncing her before party loyalists as leader of a "treacherous cabal" bent on removing him from power, and firing her.

Grace Mugabe has hinted Mnangagwa may not be the chosen one after all.

"They go around saying Mrs Mugabe wants to lead, I am already in charge. Those that we thought could succeed him (Mugabe), we no longer have any confidence in them," she said at the rally last week.

Mnangagwa did not respond to several requests for comment for this article.

The University of Zimbabwe's Masunungure said the stage may have been set for Mnangagwa's removal from office, little more than a year after Mujuru's ejection. He said that would mean the two dominant factions that had vied to succeed Mugabe since 2000 would be purged from the party.

"The lesson for Mnangagwa is that you can quarrel, you can struggle among yourselves, as long as you do not commit the cardinal sin of wanting to take over while the president is still alive," he added.

"I think that's the red line for President Mugabe. Now the president is being told this guy has crossed that red line."

'Until God says come': turning 92, Zimbabwe's Mugabe refuses to relinquish power

The president maintains that his party will choose a successor. But he plans to contest the next election in 2018 aged 94, seeking his last five-year term under a new constitution that would see him through to 99.

At 92, Zimbabwe's President refuses to relinquish power

China has "challenged" reports that it deployed advanced surface-to-air missiles to a disputed island in the South China Sea, but any militarisation would be a concern, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said on Thursday.

Taiwan's Defence Ministry said the missile batteries had been set up on Woody Island in the Paracels chain, which has been under Chinese control for decades, but is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.

A U.S. defence official also confirmed the "apparent deployment" of the missiles, first reported by Fox News.

Bishop, the first senior Western official to visit China since the missile reports, said she had raised the issue of the South China Sea's militarisation in her talks.

"President Xi said in Washington last year that China did not intend to militarise the islands and we certainly hold China to that and that's been reiterated to me," she told reporters, after meeting China's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi.

Pressed on whether China was denying the presence of missiles, she said, "No, they did not deny, but nor did they admit that there were. It was challenged. The reports were challenged.

"The point about the surface-to-air missiles is in dispute, so until such time as we have a clear picture of it, of course it's a matter of concern."

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.

The Chinese government has offered few specific details in response to the missiles claim, while accusing Western media of "hyping up" the story and saying China has a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Thursday would also neither confirm nor deny if the missiles were on Woody Island, repeating that China has had defence facilities on the islands for decades.

China has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near artificial islands China has built in the Spratly islands chain farther south in the South China Sea, including some by two B-52 strategic bombers in November.

Last month, a U.S. Navy destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels, a move China condemned as provocative.

China needs to strengthen its "self-defence" in the South China Sea in the face of "more frequent provocations from the U.S. military," the influential state-run tabloid, the Global Times, wrote in an editorial on Thursday.

"Jet fighters from the United States, an outside country, may feel uneasy when making provocative flights in the region. To us, that's a proper result," it said of the reported missile deployment.

The United States claims no territory in the South China Sea but has expressed serious concerns about how China's increasingly assertive pursuit of territorial claims there could affect the vital global trade routes that pass though it.

Australia says China "challenged" S.China Sea missile report

"In the case of the surface-to-air missile claim, that's disputed by China. We raised the matter and we've had a discussion about it," Bishop added.

Australia says China "challenged" missile report

The founder of a non-profit in Mumbai that educates sex workers' daughters has been shortlisted for a $1 million global award for teaching that she hopes will help change attitudes toward these marginalised people.

Robin Chaurasiya, co-founder of Kranti, which means revolution in Hindi, has been nominated for the Global Teacher Prize given annually by the Varkey Foundation.

The shortlist of 10 also includes teachers from the United States, Britain, Finland, Australia, Kenya, Japan, the Palestinian Territories and Pakistan. The winner will be announced in March.

Chaurasiya, 30, was born in Los Angeles and served with the U.S. Air Force for several years. She has a master's degree in gender studies and volunteered with an anti-trafficking NGO in Uganda before coming to Mumbai. She set up Kranti in 2011.

The Kranti School is for daughters of sex workers from Mumbai's red-light district of Kamathipura and for victims of human trafficking, between the ages of 12 and 20. Its curriculum includes lessons in English, computers, dance therapy, meditation, photography, theatre and travel.

The "krantikaris" or revolutionaries are encouraged to become teachers and community leaders.

"It is my hope that being on this shortlist will help change people's attitudes and mindsets about sex workers and their children, and what they can and cannot do," Chaurasiya said in remarks on the Foundation website.

ben adhoc

Articles written by the author