Left-leaning President Dilma Rousseff was re-elected Sunday in the tightest race Brazil election

Left-leaning President Dilma Rousseff was re-elected Sunday in the tightest race Brazil has seen since its return to democracy three decades ago, giving the juggernaut Workers' Party its fourth-straight presidential victory and the chance to extend its social transformation of the globe's fifth-largest country.

Grandfather kills daughter, granddaughter and self in Seattle

(Reuters) - A grandfather shot dead his daughter, granddaughter and then turned the gun on himself on Monday in a Seattle home, authorities said.
Officers received a call at around 8:15 p.m. from a 10-year-old boy who was inside the home and said his grandfather threatened his mother and sister with a handgun before he shot them, the Seattle Police Department said.

The boy ran from the home as the man, who police described as being in his 60s, shot himself. The identities of the shooter and the victims were not provided, and further details were not immediately available.

The Seattle Times newspaper reported that the granddaughter was in her teens, citing a police spokesman.

Police said they were investigating.

Nigerian Stock Exchange joins World Federation Nigerian Stock Exchange joins World Federation of Exchanges, fifth African to become member

The Nigerian Stock Exchange became a full member of the World Federation of Exchanges on Tuesday, just as it prepares to woo Asian fund managers.
It’s taken three years for the West African exchange to win approval based on proper regulation by bodies including the Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Central Securities Clearing System.
The federation sent an assessment team to Nigeria last month and the Nigerian Stock Exchange announced in a statement that it received a unanimous vote for admission as a full member at the general assembly of the federation Tuesday in Seoul, South Korea.
CEO Oscar Onyema said it is a step forward in the Nigerian exchange’s integration with global financial markets.
The exchange’s head of strategy, Yvonne Emordi, said “It sets the tone for the upcoming Asia tour the Nigerian Stock Exchange will kick off in early December this year, to introduce our market to Asian fund managers with frontier and emerging market investment strategies.”
The federation is a global trade association for operators of regulated securities exchanges that Onyema called “an important reference for international investors.”
The main board of the Nigerian Stock Exchange currently lists 190 equities with a market cap of more than $83 billion.
The membership comes the same year Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer and its most populous nation of about 160 million, rebased its economy to overtake South Africa as the largest on the continent.
The Nigerian exchange is only the fifth in Africa to join the federation. The others are based in South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.

A devastated widow who watched in horror as her husband was killed by an ice-crazed robber has broken down while pleading for an overhaul of Victoria's justice system.

Bridget O'Toole said she is disgusted at the sentence handed to Gavin Perry, 27, who fatally stabbed her husband, Dermot O'Toole, as he rushed to protect her during a botched robbery at their Hastings jewellery store in July last year.

Grieving wife slams sentence handed to husband's killer

Mrs O'Toole was forced to witness her husband's violent death - a nightmare that plays over and over in her mind.
The parolee was high on the drug ice and brandishing a 20-centimetre knife when he burst into the couple's shop, pushed Mrs O'Toole through a glass cabinet and stabbed Mr O'Toole as he lay helpless on his back.

Dermot O'Toole, his wife Bridget and their sons. Photo: Supplied

Perry must serve a minimum of 23 years, despite 200 prior offences, before he is considered for release, in a sentence Mrs O'Toole described as devastating.
"The laws need to change," she said.
"I had to watch that. I had to watch him (her husband) die in front of me. I don't think 20 years is justifiable."

Dermot O'Toole was fatally stabbed as he tried to protect his wife, Bridget, during a botched robbery at their Hastings jewellery store. Photo: Supplied

The only explanation Perry offered for his attack on the O'Tooles was that he had been abusing drugs.
Perry was on parole when he committed three armed robberies in six days in July 2013 - the final crime targeting the O'Tooles' shop.
He had been released from jail in early 2013, after serving four years of a six-year term for armed robbery offences.
Mrs O'Toole says she will write to the Attorney General pleading for violent killers to be locked up for life.
"When does it happen that you can go out and commit multiple crimes and get such huge reductions for all these crimes?" she said.

Tony Abbott urges business leaders to help drive tax reform, convince Labor to join 'Team Australia'

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has urged Australia's most influential business leaders to drive a new wave of economic reform and help convince Labor and the states to join the patriotic front he calls "Team Australia".

Mr Abbott spoke to more than 400 leading executives at the annual Business Council of Australia dinner in Sydney last night.

He praised the economic reform efforts of the Hawke and Howard governments and implied that reform had stalled under prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
He noted the Business Council's central role in the economy and called on business leaders to help promote a new wave of economic reform, including an urgent overhaul of the tax system.
"Because no reasonable person thinks that our current tax system is the best we can do," Mr Abbott said.
"No reasonable person thinks that the current dog's breakfast of divided responsibilities is the most efficient way to run our country."
Mr Abbott acknowledged the reforming zeal of some his predecessors and said he wanted to resume that fight.
"The period from 1983 to 2007, the era of Hawke and Howard, of Keating and Costello, was a golden age of economic reform," he said.
"The lesson of history is that serious reform does take time, and that's why it must start now if it is to come to fruition within the next five years."

Labor Party invited to join 'Team Australia'

Mr Abbott also encouraged all sides of government to join together for a long-range plan for economic reform.
"I am inviting the Labor Party, the state governments, to join Team Australia and to think of our country and not just the next election," he said.
Former Queensland Labor leader Anna Bligh, now on the board of Medibank Private, accepted Mr Abbott's praise for Mr Hawke and Mr Keating.
"I was very pleased to hear the Prime Minister tonight acknowledging the great work of, the great economic reforms of previous Labor governments," Ms Bligh said.
"I think that kind of bipartisanship is something that makes the country stronger."

Fuel cost top gripe for new firms: MYOB

New businesses are less confident of enjoying rising or steady revenue in the year ahead.

More than one in three new businesses see fuel costs as the biggest impediment to trying to grow their firms.

The latest business monitor from software provider MYOB found this was ahead of cash flow and attracting new customers as the pressure points for start-up companies.
The survey, conducted last month, was released the day after the Abbott government imposed a tariff on oil companies in an attempt to bypass Senate opposition to the reintroduction of fuel excise indexation.
The MYOB report on Wednesday also found that while start-up businesses have enjoyed steady or rising revenue in the past year, they were less confident about the next 12 months.
Almost two-thirds of new firms reported rising or steady revenue in the 12 months to August but only just over half saw this continuing into 2015.
MYOB boss Tim Reed says it was discouraging to see a "grey cloud" hovering over this usually dynamic and eager group of businesspeople.
"We can only hope that we see their confidence bounce back," Mr Reed said.
He said it is critical for the government and industry to inject practical, strategic policy to help lift this aspiring group in their quest to foster innovation and "keep the flame of entrepreneurialism burning".