In Netflix’s first foray outside of the United States, members can watch unlimited movies and shows streamed instantly to their TV sets and computers for a monthly fee.

Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman, said the company was not ready to divulge details such as pricing, exact launch date, or whether the service will be available via gaming consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox.

U.S. membership costs $8.99 (C$9.44) a month for unlimited video streaming as well as home-delivery of DVD rentals, a service Swasey said was “highly unlikely” to be offered in Canada because of its focus on growth through Internet streaming.

Despite Netflix’s huge popularity and loyal following in the United States, Wedbush Securities Inc analyst Michael Pachter doubts it will pose an immediate threat to retailers like Blockbuster or other similar providers.

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DAMASCUS, Syria – Syria has banned the face-covering Islamic veil from the country’s universities.

The Education Ministry’s ban on the niqab comes as similar moves in Europe spark cries of discrimination against Muslims.

An official at the ministry says the ban affects public and private universities and aims to protect Syria’s secular identity. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Sunday’s ban does not affect the headscarf, which many Syrian women wear.

The niqab is not widespread in Syria, although it has become more common recently. It’s growing popularity has not gone unnoticed in a country governed by a secular, authoritarian regime.

Last month, hundreds of primary school teachers who wear the niqab were moved to administrative jobs, local media reported.

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SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard leapt ahead in a key opinion poll Monday and sealed a vital deal with the Greens party, underlining her as early favourite for August 21 elections.

As Gillard campaigned in the key battleground state of Queensland, the Newspoll survey put her government 10 points clear of the opposition at 55-45 percent, contradicting an earlier study which had them neck-and-neck.

Gillard, Australia’s first woman prime minister who deposed ex-leader Kevin Rudd just three weeks ago, dismissed the poll’s findings and insisted the campaign was headed for a “photo-finish”.

“We’re going to see a lot of polls between now and election day,” Gillard told reporters in the tropical north-eastern city of Townsville.

“I believe this election is on a knife-edge. I believe it’s going to be a photo-finish … here and right around the country. This is going to be a tough contest.”

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CANBERRA, Australia – Julia Gillard was a sickly child when she left her native Wales in search of a warmer climate. She thrived to become Australia’s first female prime minister.

Gillard was 4 years old, the younger of two sisters, when the family left the Welsh coal mining village of Barry for the South Australian state capital of Adelaide. She had been hospitalized with pneumonia as a child.

Gillard studied law at universities in Adelaide and Melbourne, where she became a leader in the national student union movement. At 29, she became a partner in a prominent Melbourne law firm and specialized in industrial law. Gillard was a Labor Party state political staffer before entering the federal parliament in 1998.

She became deputy Labor leader under former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd after striking a deal with him in 2006 to topple then-leader Kim Beazley.

Gillard lives with a common law partner, Tim Mathieson, a hairdresser by profession. They have been together since 2006.

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BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel will probably lose yet another powerful regional leader of her party on Sunday when Ole von Beust, the popular mayor of Hamburg, is expected to resign, German media reported on Saturday.

Von Beust, a charismatic 55-year-old who led the conservative Christian Democrats into power in the left-leaning port city in 2001 after 44 years of opposition, would be the sixth CDU state leader to leave office in the last 10 months.

The loss of von Beust, who local media say is fatigued in the job running Germany’s second largest city, would be another severe setback for Merkel, whose popularity has slumped to the lowest level since she was elected in 2005.

Von Beust, a close ally of Merkel, engineered the first CDU-Greens coalition ever in 2008 — establishing a precedent with Merkel’s blessing for the right-left coalition and possible model for such a government at the federal level at some point.

Hamburg is one of Germany’s 16 federal states. Von Beust was long viewed as one of the CDU’s most influential leaders. Openly gay, von Beust has been a leading moderate voice in the CDU and helped make important inroads into new voter groups, especially in urban areas, that conservatives had long ignored.

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