Italy president updated on coalition talks

ITALIAN prime minister-designate Enrico Letta is expected to update President Giorgio Napolitano on efforts to strike a coalition deal and give Italy a much-awaited government.

The presidency said on Saturday the leftist 46-year-old was due to meet Napolitano at 1300 GMT (2300 AEST) but it was not known whether he had succeeded in breaking the two-month-old deadlock.

Centrist politician Lorenzo Cesa predicted "a positive outcome by the end of the day" but other MPs said while they expected a breakthrough before markets reopen on Monday, they did not see it happening before Sunday.

Once differences between his centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL) have been ironed out, Letta will formally accept the nomination of prime minister from Napolitano.

He will then be sworn in along with his new cabinet, before the government is put to a confidence vote in both houses of parliament.

Most observers were upbeat about Letta's chances as he met with Berlusconi and the former head of the centre-left, Pier Luigi Bersani, in a bid to close the deal on Saturday.

Italian media feverishly ran through possible cabinet candidates in constantly updated "Toto minister" pools, based on the popular system for betting on the results of Italian football matches.

But some commentators warned that the sparring risked thwarting coalition plans and worsening Italy's political and economic situation.

The parties are acting as if "the government being created is an alliance formed with a pistol to its head," said Luciano Fontana in Italy's best-selling Corriere della Sera daily.

Conditions imposed by both sides "are complicating the deal's closure, to the point it risks failure," he warned.

Letta has said he wants to move quickly to tackle the social fallout of a painful recession and Napolitano has been urging him to include younger ministers and women in his cabinet to help renew the country's tired political scene.

But cross-party unity has demands attached.

Negotiations have been trickiest with the scandal-tainted billionaire tycoon Berlusconi, who has insisted on the abolition and repayment of a controversial housing tax introduced in 2012.

Such a move would set the budget back some eight billion euros ($A10.15 billion) in a country suffering from its longest recession in 20 years.

Furthermore, Letta's own PD, which narrowly won inconclusive general elections in February, is deeply divided over going into government with Berlusconi's.

There have been calls from both sides to prevent rival figures from Italy's political scene from grasping ministerial posts - with Berlusconi, Monti and former premiers Giuliano Amato and Massimo D'Alema the names most fiercely contested.

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H7N9 bird flu spreads in central China

CHINA'S deadly H7N9 bird flu outbreak has spread to the central province of Hunan, local health authorities say, the third announcement in three days of a case in a new location.

A 64-year-old woman in Shaoyang City, who developed a fever four days after coming into contact with poultry, was confirmed to have the virus, the Xinhua state news agency reported on Saturday.

It follows the first confirmed cases in the eastern province of Jiangxi on Thursday and the southeastern province of Fujian on Friday.

More than 110 people in mainland China have been confirmed with H7N9, with 23 deaths, since the government announced on March 31 that the virus had been found in humans.

Most cases have been confined to eastern China, while the island of Taiwan has also reported one case.

A Chinese expert earlier this week warned of the possibility of more cases in a wider geographical area.

"Until the source of H7N9 avian influenza is ... brought under effective control, sporadic cases might continue to appear," said Liang Wannian of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Poultry has been confirmed as the source of the H7N9 flu among humans but experts fear the prospect of such a virus mutating into a form easily transmissible between humans, which could then have the potential to trigger a pandemic.

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100 Guantana prisoners on hunger strike

A HUNGER strike among prisoners at Guantanamo Bay keeps growing.

Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House said on Saturday 100 of 166 prisoners at the US base in Cuba have now joined the strike.

He says 19 are receiving liquid nutrients through a nasal tube to prevent dangerous weight loss. Five of those are at a hospital under observation but do not have any life-threatening conditions.

Lawyers for the detainees say the military is undercounting the number of hunger strikers.

Prisoners began the hunger strike in February to protest conditions and indefinite confinement.

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Vic Labor claims victory in Lyndhurst

Martin Pakula is confident he can win the by-election in the Victorian state seat of Lyndhurst. Source: AAP

LABOR'S Martin Pakula has claimed victory in the Victoria's Lyndhurst by-election with around 40 per cent of the primary vote, after more than three-quarters of the total vote was counted.

Victorian Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews has however acknowledged his party has an image problem after Labor's primary vote took a dive.

The primary vote was significantly down on the 55 per cent result achieved at the 2010 state poll and there was no coalition candidate.

Mr Andrews said it was no secret the Labor brand was facing challenges.

The latest Newspoll published in The Australian this week put the federal coalition at a 10-point lead of 55 to 45 per cent over Labor after preferences.

When asked if federal Labor's woes had impacted on the result, Mr Andrews said: "There are challenges from a brand point of view and I think everybody knows that," he told AAP.

"I'm not someone who throughout my time as leader of the Labor Party in Victoria that has ever sought to blame others for the challenges that we face.

"But I think it would be naive not to note, as we all do - not just Labor people but Victorians more broadly - that, you know, things are challenging, things are difficult for Labor just now."

Mr Pakula will pick up his previous portfolios of shadow attorney-general, racing, gaming and scrutiny of government.

"By-elections are very difficult, they're very challenging," he said.

"History will tell you that in by-elections people take the opportunity to vote differently, they vote all over the card."

The result gives Labor 43 seats on the floor of parliament to the coalition's 44, including the speaker.

It means the government needs the support of independent MP Geoff Shaw to pass legislation opposed by Labor.

The former Liberal MP is under police investigation for misconduct in public office and has a verbal agreement with Premier Denis Napthine that he will support the government on matters of supply and confidence.

"What this victory for Labor now means is that the Napthine government is now officially a minority, one that is beholden to Geoff Shaw," Mr Andrews said.

"On every bill, on every measure in every way, Denis Napthine is tied to Geoff Shaw."

Dr Napthine said there had been a 15 per cent swing against Labor, even without a coalition candidate.

"This is a slap in the face for Daniel Andrews in Labor heartland," he said.

"This is a repudiation of Daniel Andrew's approach and the fact that he is working hand-in-hand with militant union leadership."

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Campaigners protest British drone strikes

ANTI-WAR campaigners opposed to Britain's use of armed drones in Afghanistan have marched on a military base hosting the aircraft's human operators for the first time.

Royal Air Force pilots had been operating Reaper aircraft to support British troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan remotely from a base in Nevada in the United States.

But this week the operations were relocated to Britain for the first time, to RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire in eastern England, the Ministry of Defence said.

About 200 demonstrators marched to the base in Saturday, according to the BBC, to show their opposition to what campaigners said marked a "critical expansion in Britain's drones program".

"Drones are indiscriminate weapons of war that have been responsible for thousands of civilian deaths," said a statement from the Stop the War Coalition.

"Rather than expanding the UK's arsenal, drones should be banned, just as landmines and cluster munitions were banned."

Prime Minister David Cameron announced in December 2010 new funding to increase the Reaper program, although there are no plans to base or fly the drones in Britain, officials say.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said people were entitled to demonstrate but insisted the military did "everything possible" to avoid civilian casualties.

"We would stress that UK Reaper aircraft are piloted by highly-trained professional military pilots who adhere strictly to the same laws of armed conflict and are bound by the same clearly-defined rules of engagement which apply to those operating traditionally-manned RAF aircraft," he said.

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Syria spillover risk, say analysts

SYRIA'S neighbours face a growing risk of the conflict spilling across their region with Bashar al-Assad turning to ever more desperate acts to halt rebels, analysts say.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki voiced such concerns on Saturday when he said a new wave of sectarian strife in his country stemmed from violence elsewhere, although he did not name Syria.

However, others believe while Iraq, Israel and Turkey will all be affected, Lebanon and Jordan will be most vulnerable if the conflict spreads.

"There is a significant risk of an increased spillover," says Anthony Skinner of British risk consultancy Maplecroft.

"It is a very vulnerable region and there is a risk of escalation. The whole region may increasingly become involved in the conflict."

Jordan hosts more than 500,000 Syrian refugees, while Lebanon is home to 400,000 but the two countries face other tough challenges.

Amman has found itself dragged closer to the conflict with the deployment of more US troops on its territory amid a warning by Assad the kingdom could be engulfed by the war, and accusations of allowing fighters into Syria.

"Jordan had been pushed because of the escalation next door and because of its concerns regarding militant Islam and Salafists. Jordan is concerned about the potential chaos that may follow for years or decades in the likely event that Assad will eventually be toppled," Skinner said.

Lebanon has witnessed frequent shelling from Syria of both Sunni Muslim and Shi'ite areas of its north and east.

It has adopted a policy of neutrality despite being torn between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies that support Assad, and the Sunni-led March 14 movement that backs the revolt.

Opposition activists in Syria have accused Hezbollah of sending elite fighters to battle alongside Assad's troops in Qusayr, an area near the border.

"Lebanon could be plunging into a state of war - this is a very real risk," Skinner said.

For Yezid Sayigh of the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, "the main impact on Jordan and Lebanon is the refugees, which puts them under severe pressure.

"Even those who support the Syrian opposition, are becoming fed up with the refugee influx. If the situation develops, more Syrians, maybe millions, will flee to Jordan and Lebanon," exacerbating the chances of conflict in the host countries, he told AFP.

Syria's conflict is increasingly becoming a proxy war, with the rebels backed by US allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, and Assad by Hezbollah, Iran and Russia.

Assad's forces are too stretched to retaliate against those who back the rebels, but occasional cross-border shelling is conceivable, said Skinner.

"Though, these attacks would not be deemed large enough to provoke a strong counter-punch, it's conceivable that Assad would use proxies that are not so clearly linked to his line of command," Skinner said.

Turkey and Israel are worried about the fallout.

"The threat of the Syrian conflict has pushed Turkey to engage in what appears to be a serious peace process with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party)," he said.

Israel fears Syria's chemical weapons arsenal could fall into the wrong hands.

"The United States and Israel have limited options to deal with the chemical weapons. They do not want things to develop, which might give the Syrian regime the chance to use the weapons," Sayigh said.

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Toyota, Microsoft boost Gazoo Net service

TOYOTA is teaming up with Microsoft for an internet service that links cars, home computers and smartphones so users can find nearby tourist spots, connect on social networks and learn about new models.

The service will start in Japan on May 30 as a revamped version of Toyota's internet service called Gazoo.com.

It will be based on "cloud" computing from Microsoft, called Windows Azure and also uses Sharepoint software.

According to the US software giant, it's the first time the technology is being used for a major corporate site.

Gazoo.com users tripled over the last five years to 1.65 million.

Toyota said it wants to raise that to two million over the next year.

All the world's major automakers are working on similar technology to bring autos up-to-date with the internet age, from finding restaurants to helping ensure safe driving.

But a major motive for Toyota is appealing to younger Japanese, who are rapidly losing interest in buying cars and are spending their money on smartphones and video games.

The trend is so widespread it is known as "kuruma banare" or "departure from cars."

Among the Net content in the works are video games, shopping-site links, virtual events and a special social network to chat about cars, according to Toyota.

A smartphone application will guide drivers with an electronic voice to 30,000 destinations from 250 routes.

The site will also offer information on more than 3,000 new and used models, including interviews with engineers.

Switching to Microsoft's cloud computing will cut costs for operating the services, although Toyota plans to invest more money in new content for Gazoo.com.

Toyota reached an agreement with Microsoft in April 2011, to work together on telematics, or network technology for cars.

Toyota looked at other cloud computing services before picking Microsoft for the latest project, said Hiroyuki Yamada, an executive at e-Toyota, which monitors such technology.

It is unclear whether the site will boost car sales but Toyota will be able to tap into data on consumer behaviour, he said.

Gazoo.com is the brainchild of Akio Toyoda, the president and grandson of Toyota's founder.

Toyoda was ahead of his time in foreseeing the importance of social networks and stressing how Toyota needs a presence in the blogosphere.

Toyota has a partnership with another US cloud computing company, Salesforce.com, which runs a social network for Toyota plug-in hybrid owners so they can see how efficiently they have been driving and be alerted when their vehicle has recharged.

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Election a referendum on fair go: Swan

DEPUTY Prime Minister Wayne Swan admits the federal government is on the nose with voters, but says Labor is best placed to deliver better schools and disability care for Australians at the upcoming federal election.

In an essay, Fair Go Under Fire, the treasurer says Australia now stands at one of the "decisive points" in its national story.

"I know the Labor party isn't exactly flavour of the month at the moment and we haven't always pulled the right rein every single time over the last few years," he writes in the essay published on Saturday by Labor's official think-tank, The Chifley Institute.

But every government has successes and failures, and Mr Swan said Labor had made the right economic calls when the global financial crisis hit in 2008, much to its political cost.

"At stake is something essential to our national character: the idea of the fair go," Mr Swan said.

He said Labor's goal to share the nation's prosperity and to reject mindless austerity was under threat from Opposition Leader Tony Abbott at the federal election on September 14.

"A dark cloud is gathering over it," Mr Swan said.

"And so I want you to think of this coming election not just as a contest between (Prime Minister) Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, or between Labor and Liberal, but as a referendum on the fair go."

Mr Swan said the choice was between opportunities for schools and a national disability insurance scheme, against coalition policies for tougher industrial laws and higher taxes for low-income earners.

The treasurer also argued that while Mr Abbott was reluctant to release the coalition's policy detail, its intentions could be gleaned by the policies advocated by right-wing think-tanks, such as the Centre for Independent Studies and the Institute of Public Affairs.

"They think harsh austerity is simple commonsense. But this simply ignores the hard reality of real world economics," Mr Swan said.

"When expenditure in an economy is savagely slashed, aggregate demand is suppressed and unemployment rocks up, and ultimately savings in the economy (including the budget position) deteriorate, and in the long run we are all poorer."

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Rescuers find 50 survivors in Bangladesh

RESCUE teams have found around 50 people alive in a collapsed garment factory compound in Bangladesh.

Fire brigade officials said on Friday they had found around 50 people still alive at several places on the third floor of the the eight-storey Rana Plaza building which imploded on Wednesday morning, trapping thousands of workers.

It is understood the discovery happened after rescuers dug a series of tunnels in the rubble.

"We hope we can rescue them by tomorrow morning," Sheikh Mizanur Rahman, deputy director of the Bangladeshi fire service, says.

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15 trapped in India hospital roof collapse

UP to 15 people, mostly patients, are feared trapped after a hospital roof caved in in the central Indian city of Bhopal.

Rescuers moved in heavy machinery to cut through the crashed roof of the female surgical ward of Kasturba Hospital, hospital spokesman Vinodanand Jha said on Friday.

"Twelve to 15 patients are feared trapped and a relief operation is on," Jha said, adding that rescuers had already dug out five survivors.

Debris showered on the ward's inmates, trapping them after the roof tumbled around 2.30pm (1900 AEST), Jha said.

He was unable to say how the accident occurred in the hospital, which is run by the state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. firm.

"Right now, relief operations are our priority and then we will try to find out how the accident happened," he said.

A staffer for the ambulance service said the roof collapsed without any warning and fell "in a shower of debris of bricks and mortar".

"It happened very suddenly."

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ADM makes another GrainCorp offer

ARCHER Daniels Midland Co. is closer to making a huge expansion into Australia with a possible deal for grain handler GrainCorp.

Decatur, Illinois-based ADM has offered 12.20 Australian dollars ($US12.54) to buy GrainCorp.

That values GrainCorp at about $US3.1 billion ($A3.03 billion), including the portion of GrainCorp that ADM already owns.

The deal announced late on Thursday says GrainCorp's board has agreed to recommend the offer to shareholders for approval.

ADM's two previous offers for GrainCorp Ltd. were rejected for being too low.

ADM says it is examining GrainCorp's books and will announce a final decision about the deal by end of its first-quarter earnings conference call, which has been delayed until Wednesday.

ADM has been looking to invest in overseas suppliers. Australia is a major exporter of commodities, including iron ore and wheat.

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Militants kill four Indian police in Kashm

KASHMIRI militants have gunned down four Indian police in an ambush on a patrol in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The four had just jumped from their vehicle to conduct a routine patrol near the town of Sopore, in the village of Hygam, when they came under fire, police spokesman Superintendent Imtiyaz Hussain told AFP on Friday.

"Four of our policemen got killed in the ambush," he said.

A hunt for the attackers was now under way, the officer added.

The village is around 45 kilometres northwest of Srinagar, the summer capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state.

It is the first deadly attack in the region since March 13 when a group of militants disguised as cricketers killed five paramilitary police in an ambush in Srinagar.

Kashmir is split between India and Pakistan along a UN-monitored line of control but both claim it in full and have fought two wars over its control.

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Four men shot in Sydney known to police

POLICE say four men who have been shot outside a home in Sydney's west are known to them.

The men, aged between 20 and 25, were gunned down outside the Smithfield residence just after 8pm (AEST) on Friday.

Around 15 bullet holes were found in a garage door at the property.

The men have been taken to hospital for non-life threatening injuries including gunshot wounds to the stomach and leg.

A number of Nomad bikies were seen in the area after the incident, according to Fairfax Radio Network.

Police say the men are known to them but they don't appear to have any links to bikie-gangs.

They say they believe the incident was a targeted attack.

The Horsley Drive has been closed between Wetherill Street and Gibbs Street as PolAir and the DogUnit canvass the area for clues.

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Legacy donations stolen from NSW RSL club

DONATIONS for the families of defence personnel have been stolen from an RSL club on the NSW south coast in a "shocking" robbery in the early hours of Anzac Day, police say.

An unknown number of people broke into the Bomaderry club about 2.20am (AEST) on Thursday after a rock was thrown at a glass door, they say.

The only thing reported missing was a replica digger's tin hat used to collect donations for Legacy, a charity that supports the families of defence services personnel.

Police said the amount of money stolen was not known.

"We are particularly shocked by this theft, given it occurred just four hours before the Anzac Day Dawn Service in Bomaderry," Shoalhaven duty officer Inspector Bruce Griffin said.

He's urged anyone with information about the incident to contact them.

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Remains found in missing Vic woman's home

HUMAN remains have been found in the home of an 82-year-old Melbourne woman who has been missing for almost two years.

Phyllis Kelly was last seen on August 20, 2011, at the State Theatre, just after 6pm.

She had not accessed her bank account since then and police had made public calls for information about her disappearance, having held grave fears for her welfare.

Police, accompanied by a pathologist, searched the woman's home on Little Charles Street in Fitzroy on Thursday after receiving authority from the coroner to conduct the search.

The remains will now be taken to the coroner for testing, a police spokeswoman said.

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40 survivors found in Bangladesh collapse

FORTY people have been found alive in a room inside a collapsed garment factory compound in Bangladesh, the army said in an announcement greeted by loud cheers from waiting relatives.

"We've found 40 people alive in a room," an army spokesman announced at the scene of the country's worst industrial accident, near Dhaka.

"They are being rescued," he added to wild applause from the crowds.

More than 230 people are so far known to have died in Wednesday's disaster but many more are still trapped under the rubble at the Rana Plaza, in the town of Savar.

Thousands of relatives of people still missing have gathered at the site to watch the rescue effort.

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UN votes to send peacekeepers to Mali

THE UN Security Council has unanimously backed sending up to 12,600 international troops and police to take over from French and African forces battling Islamist guerrillas in Mali.

The United Nations is aiming for a July 1 start by the new force, but the 15-nation council will decide later whether the conflict has eased enough for the handover.

French troops moved into Mali in January to halt an Islamist advance on the capital Bamako and have since forced the al-Qaeda-linked militants into desert and mountain hideouts.

France is to keep up to 1000 troops in Mali and they will maintain responsibility for military strikes against the Islamists, who are now waging a guerrilla campaign.

UN resolution 2100 authorises France to intervene if the UN troops are "under imminent and serious threat and at the demand" of UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

The resolution authorised the new force to use "all necessary measures" to stabilise major cities, protect civilians and help the government extend its authority over the vast West African nation.

"The adoption of this resolution confirms the unanimous international support for the stabilisation of Mali and France's intervention," said France's UN envoy Gerard Araud.

Mali's Foreign Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly called the resolution "an important step in the process to stem the activities of terrorist and rebel groups".

The proposed UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali, to be known by its French acronym MINUSMA, would have a maximum of 11,200 soldiers and 1440 police.

Mali's army launched a coup in March 2012, which unleashed the chaos that allowed Tuareg rebels and their erstwhile Islamist allies to take over the north of the country and impose a brutal Islamic rule.

Many shrines in Timbuktu and other cities were destroyed, and public executions and amputations staged.

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UK man loses Longley murder appeal

A YOUNG British man found guilty of murdering his aspiring New Zealand model girlfriend has lost his appeal against conviction.

Wealthy jeweller's son Elliot Turner, now 21, from Bournemouth was present in the dock at the Court of Appeal in London for Wednesday's ruling by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, sitting with Justice Royce and Justice Globe.

In May last year Turner was sentenced to life and ordered to serve at least 16 years before he can apply for parole after he was convicted by a jury at Winchester Crown Court of murdering 17-year-old Emily Longley.

After hearing argument on Turner's behalf and from a QC representing the prosecution, Lord Judge announced the court had decided to reject Turner's challenge.

He said the court had reached the "clear conclusion" that the appeal should be dismissed.

The court also threw out Turner's bid to have his sentence reduced.

The judges will give their reasons for their decision at a date to be announced.

A large number of Ms Longley's family were in court, including members who had travelled from their home in New Zealand.

During his trial Turner claimed that he acted in self-defence when Emily attacked him and he grabbed her by the throat for five or six seconds, then woke up to find her dead in his bed at his home.

The prosecution said Turner used a pillow to smother Emily and then strangled her after she went back to his house to talk things over following a violent argument that night.

When sentencing Turner, Justice Dobbs said he had "bullied, harassed, threatened and assaulted" Emily to control her as his "trophy" girlfriend.

Turner's QC Anthony Donne told the appeal judges: "The appeal against conviction centres on the use by the police of a covert listening device at the appellant's family home in Bournemouth following his release on police bail after his arrest on suspicion of the murder of his girlfriend Emily Longley on the night of 6/7 May 2011."

As well as hearing submissions on the safety of the conviction from Donne, the judges also heard argument from Timothy Mousley QC, opposing the appeal on behalf of the prosecution.

Justice Dobbs described Emily as a "lovely, kind, fun-loving girl who brought a ray of sunshine to those she touched".

The teenager had come from New Zealand to study at college just eight months before her death.

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Shooting zone needed in NSW parks: union

THE Australian Workers Union (AWU) is urging the NSW government to enforce a 10-kilometre shooting exclusion zone around the homes of employees who live and work in the state's national parks.

Recreational hunters will be allowed to hunt in national parks with bows and arrows and guns under a plan agreed to by the state government last year.

A survey of 365 national park workers reveals they have "deep fears" about the policy, AWU state secretary Russ Collison said.

He said nearly 100 employees live in national parks, prompting calls for an expanded exclusion zone.

"Unfortunately bullets don't stop at 1.5 kilometres, and can easily travel three to five kilometres. We can't have a situation where families are dodging bullets in their backyard," Mr Collison said.

The AWU survey also found 99 per cent of those polled want supervision and competency testing of shooters.

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US stocks open mixed

US stocks are mixed in opening trade after Tuesday's one per cent-plus gains, with trade tempered by Apple's fall in profits and a poor read on durable goods orders in March.

Five minutes into trade on Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 21.81 points (0.15 per cent) at 14,741.27.

The broad-based S&P 500 added 2.26 (0.14 per cent) to 1581.04, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.64 (0.05 per cent) to 3267.69.

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US stocks surge on upbeat earnings

US stocks have opened sharply higher as investors dismiss downbeat Chinese manufacturing data and focus on a batch of encouraging US company earnings reports.

Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 92.39 points (0.63 per cent) at 14,659.56.

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 9.42 (0.60 per cent) to 1571.92, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 23.79 (0.74 per cent) at 3257.35.

"A disappointing Chinese manufacturing report and lacklustre business activity reports out of the eurozone are being met with a plethora of upbeat domestic earnings releases," Charles Schwab & Co said in a market note.

Stocks extended Monday's rebound from last week's losses. The Dow closed up 0.14 per cent, the S&P 500 added 0.47 per cent and the Nasdaq jumped 0.86 per cent.

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Boston Marathon blast injuries toll at 264

A TOTAL of 264 people have been treated in Boston area hospitals for injuries suffered in the marathon bomb attacks, the city's public health commission says.

The toll, up from around 200 on Monday, has been rising because people who suffered minor injuries in the blasts last week are only now going in for treatment, said commission spokeswoman Katinka Podmaniczky.

As of Tuesday morning, a total of 51 people remained hospitalised, she told AFP.

The blasts, allegedly carried out by two ethnic Chechens living legally in the United States, killed three people, one of them an eight-year-old boy.

The surviving suspect, 19-year-old Dzorkhar Tsarnaev, himself remains hospitalised with gunshot wounds. He has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and could face the death penalty if convicted.

His 26-year-old brother Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police.

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Forged Hitler diaries to become accessible

THIRTY years after publishing what it believed were Hitler's diaries, a German news magazine says it will hand over what it still owns of the forgeries to the country's state archive, making them accessible to the public.

Stern magazine unveiled on April 25, 1983 excerpts from more than 60 notebooks purportedly written by the Nazi leader in a supposed world exclusive, but a few days later the diaries were found to be forgeries.

"The forged diaries are a part of the history of Stern. We don't want to get rid of them but deal with them appropriately and, above all, objectively," Stern chief editor Dominik Wichmann said in a written statement.

It was the federal archive in Koblenz in western Germany as well as federal criminal police who had detected the forgery three decades ago, according to Stern.

The incident became one of the biggest German post-war media scandals.

Stern reporter Gerd Heidemann presented 62 notebooks supposedly written by Hitler between 1932 and 1945, for which the magazine had paid 9.3 million deutschmarks (around $A6.02 million today).

But they turned out to have been the work of forger Konrad Kujau, and he and Heidemann were prosecuted and sentenced to around four years in prison each for the fraud.

"We're rendering all the diaries that are still in the safekeeping of the publishing company," Stern spokeswoman Franziska Kipper told AFP.

Other parts of the forged diaries held by other institutions, such as the Cartier Foundation in Paris or the House of History in Bonn, will stay where they are and are unaffected by Stern's decision, she said.

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NSW missing woman case treated as murder

POLICE are treating the suspicious disappearance of a Central Coast woman eight months ago as a homicide investigation.

Leisl Smith, 23, hasn't been seen since leaving her Wallarah home in August last year.

Ms Smith's car, which was abandoned at Tuggerah Lakes train station, was found last September.

Detectives "no longer hold out hope" of finding Ms Smith alive, acting Tuggerah Lakes Crime Manager, Detective Inspector Chris Wellfare said on Wednesday.

He said police have told Ms Smith's family that her disappearance is now being treated as a homicide.

"They've obviously been left devastated and heartbroken by Leisl's disappearance.

"We (will) continue to do everything we can to find out what happened to Leisl and give them the closure they need."

Earlier this month, two properties in Wallarah and Brookfield were searched after police spoke with a 42-year-old man about Ms Smith's disappearance.

Police also raided a number of properties at Merriwa in the upper Hunter Valley during an "extensive operation".

Investigators have renewed their appeal for anyone with information to come forward.

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Housing prices rising, but not a boom

NEW figures show housing prices are on the rise.

Australian Property Monitors said on Wednesday in its quarterly housing report that the median price of a house rose by 3.2 per cent over the year to March.

Over the same time, the price of a home unit was up by only 0.7 per cent. (The median is the value in the middle when prices are ranked from high to low.)

The slow rises can be seen in other measures, like the Australian Bureau of Statistics' established house price index, which grew by 2.1 per cent through 2012.

Over the same year, the bureau's consumer price index rose by 2.2 per cent.

So it's not a boom.

Far from it.

And the Reserve Bank of Australia wants to make sure it stays that way.

In a speech in Sydney on Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia's head of financial stability, Luci Ellis, twice warned that the central bank did not want a return to the boom times seen a decade ago.

Her wish is being granted, at least so far.

But the decline starting in late 2010 and extending into early 2012 has ended.

The only questions are how steep, and how durable, the pickup will be.

Dr Ellis thinks the big shift to a low-inflation economy generated a one-off surge in housing prices, as lower interest rates enabled banks to make bigger loans.

"But the transition does end after a while, and it is our assessment that it has now ended," she said.

And that would mean slower growth in prices from here and, as a result, a greater likelihood that fluctuations around that trend would bring falls - rather than just slower growth - in prices, she said.

The recent behaviour of the ABS house price series bears that out.

The index, which in various incarnations goes back as far as 1986, had recorded only two annual falls in prices before the global crisis in 2008.

One was in 1992, but prices fell only 0.2 per cent despite the major recession and double-digit home loan interest rates.

The other was in 1996, but that drop was still only 0.9 per cent even though the RBA had nudged the standard home loan rate up from 8.75 per cent to 10.5 per cent.

More recently, annual falls have been recorded in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012.

Of course, for every rise or fall in housing prices there are winners and losers.

Homebuyers like the falls while home owners, including investors, like to see rises.

But this new environment could be seen as the worst of both worlds.

Homebuyers can look forward to persistently high housing prices, but investors will have to do without the prospect of the kind of recurrent booms seen over the past 30 years.

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Four UK soldiers reinterred 96 years on

FOUR British soldiers have been laid to rest with full military honours in northern France, nearly a century after they were killed in action in World War I.

The soldiers were interred in the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) Cemetery at Ecoust-Saint-Mein near the northern town of Arras in a ceremony attended by relatives of two of the four men who it was possible to identify.

Lieutenant John Harold Pritchard and Private Christopher Douglas Elphick were both killed during an attack by German forces near Bullecourt on the Hindenburg Line on the morning of May 15, 1917.

Their bodies were discovered with two other sets of remains in 2009 when a local farmer was clearing one of his fields.

Pritchard, 31 at the time of his death, was identified by a silver identity bracelet, and Elphick, 28, by a signet ring bearing his initials.

A former chorister and head boy at St Paul's cathedral school, Pritchard had joined the HAC as a reservist in 1909 and was part of the first wave of British soldiers to be sent into action when war broke out in 1914.

Injured in 1915, he could have opted for a desk job in London but chose to return to France, surviving the horrors of the Somme in 1916 before being slain as he led his men into a battle in which they were almost all killed.

Elphick, an insurance clerk, had joined up in 1915 and arrived in France in November 1916, three months after the birth of his son, Ronald Douglas, who was to survive service with the HAC during World War II but died before the discovery of his father's remains.

It is understood DNA samples have been taken to enable positive identification of the unknown soldiers should any relatives come forward in the future.

Hundreds of thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Great War were buried in unmarked graves across the swathe of northern France and Belgium that witnessed the bloodiest fighting.

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UK fails again to deport radical cleric

THE British government has suffered a fresh setback in its long-running legal battle to deport radical preacher Abu Qatada, but insists it will not give up trying to send him to Jordan.

The Court of Appeal refused ministers permission to challenge its ruling last month that the terror suspect, also known as Omar Othman, cannot be deported to Jordan because of human rights concerns.

"The Court of Appeal has refused permission" to the government to take the case to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, a spokesman for the Judicial Office told AFP.

However, the refusal is not fatal to the case because ministers are entitled to ask the Supreme Court directly to hear their appeal -- and officials indicated they would do exactly that.

"We are disappointed with the Court of Appeal's decision but will now request permission to appeal directly from the Supreme Court," a spokesman for the interior ministry said.

"The government remains committed to deporting this dangerous man and we continue to work with the Jordanians to address the outstanding legal issues preventing deportation."

There is huge frustration in London over the failure to deport a man considered "an exceptionally high-risk terrorist", who has successfully blocked his removal for eight years.

A Spanish judge once branded him the right-hand man in Europe of Osama bin Laden, although Abu Qatada denies ever meeting the late al-Qaeda leader.

The preacher was convicted in Jordan of terrorism charges in his absence, and is likely to face a retrial if he is returned.

But the European Court of Human Rights last year blocked his deportation over fears that evidence obtained through torture would be used against him in the new trial.

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Rates to stay low for some time: Access

INTEREST rates should remain low for a couple of years given there is no immediate danger to the inflation outlook, an independent forecaster says.

Deloitte Access Economics says a high Australian dollar, a peaking mining boom and the impact of earlier state and federal budget cuts should limit economic growth to average rates of growth.

"We expect interest rates to stay low for a couple of years - long enough, in fact, to ginger up both retail and housing construction, and keep overall growth in the economy on a relatively even keel," economist Chris Richardson says in Deloitte Access Economics latest business outlook on Tuesday.

"It's hard to see immediate dangers to the inflation outlook."

Official inflation data for the March quarter is released on Wednesday, which economists expect will show both annual the consumer price index and underlying inflation around the middle of the Reserve Bank's two to three per cent inflation target band.

Mr Richardson said there were only modest retail price pressures, wage growth was subdued and a recent lift in productivity also cut inflation risks.

The dollar is also riding high, keeping the lid on import prices.

He said that although the federal government had slowed its surge towards a budget surplus, it, along with Queensland, overdid earlier cuts, leaving their austerity weighing on economic growth.

"Even so, there's still heaps to do," Mr Richardson said.

Lower commodity prices have also cut tax revenues, forcing federal and state governments to tighten their collective belts "in a belated recognition that they spent too much in the glory years of the mid-2000s", he said.

Yet despite this, both sides of federal politics are promising the budget will do even more, even though it's still in deficit."

Labor was promising to spend more on education and disability insurance, while the Liberals were promising to do away with new taxes and to spend more on defence, yet neither side had said how these would be paid for, he said.

"We should be worried about that," Mr Richardson said.

"It's an election year, so we should focus less on politicians' promises and instead press them on exactly how they'll pay for them," he said.

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US stocks follow global markets higher

US stocks have followed Asian and European markets higher after shrugging off a disappointing earnings report from Dow member Caterpillar.

Five minutes into trade on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 27.80 points, or 0.19 per cent, to 14,575.31.

The broad-based S&P 500 added 4.58 points, or 0.29 per cent, to 1,559.83.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 17.12 points, or 0.53 per cent, to 3,223.18.

Monday's rally came after markets elsewhere moved higher, including Japan's Nikkei 225, which added 1.9 per cent after a G20 meeting in Washington validated Tokyo's aggressive monetary easing policies.

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NSW gas prices to rise by 10 per cent

GAS prices are expected to rise by nearly 10 per cent next year, the NSW independent pricing tribunal is expected to announce.

The Independent Pricing and Remuneration Tribunal will on Tuesday report that the average gas bill will rise by an average of 9.5 per cent or more than $900 a year, according to News Ltd.

Volatility in the market for rising gas prices is being singled out as the major reason as to why prices will climb, IPART will report.

Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association of Australia's chief operating officer Rick Wilson said opposition to coal seam gas was also partly to blame.

The IPART report is also expected to reveal there will be a predicted six per cent drop in power bills in three years' time.

It should take the average household electricity price down to $2015 in 2015-16.

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Titanic bandmaster letter fetches $138,000

A LETTER written by the bandmaster of the Titanic who carried on playing as the doomed ship sank has sold at auction for STG93,000 ($A138,000).

Wallace Hartley, 33, has become a key figure of the disaster as - together with his seven other band members - he carried on playing until the very last moments.

The violinist, who travelled as a second-class passenger on Titanic, wrote a letter to his parents as the ship set off from Southampton on April 10, 1912.

Experts estimated that the letter would fetch around STG50,000 but a bidding frenzy saw the hammer go down at STG93,000 at Henry Aldridge and Son in Devizes, Wiltshire on Saturday.

Hartley, from Colne in Lancashire, wrote: "Just a line to say we have got away all right. It's been a bit of a rush but I am just getting a little settled.

"This is a fine ship & there ought to be plenty of money on her. I've missed coming home very much & it would have been nice to have seen you all if only for an hour or two, but I couldn't manage it.

"We have a fine band & the boys seem very nice. I have had to buy some linen & I sent my washing home today by post. I shall probably arrive home on the Sunday morning.

"We are due here on the Saturday. I'm glad mother's foot is better."

The band, and Hartley in particular, have been depicted as the ship's heroes in virtually every genre, including postcards, song sheets, books, stage and films, for carrying on playing while the Titanic went down.

Titanic left Southampton on April 10, 1912 on the start of a journey that ended in tragedy in the cold North Atlantic four days later, with the loss of more than 1500 lives.

Hartley's letter is written on adjoining sheets of on-board Titanic stationary with company watermark and is hand-dated by Hartley on April 10, 1912.

The note also bears the red embossed White Star Line house burgee.

Hartley did not survive the sinking ship and his body was later recovered and returned to his home town of Colne, where he received a large funeral.

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EU eases Syria oil embargo to help rebels

EUROPEAN Union foreign ministers have eased an oil embargo against Syria with the aim of helping rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Under the deal, European firms seeking to import Syrian crude or invest in the energy sector would ask for authorisation from their government, which in turn would confer with Syria's opposition National Coalition to secure its agreement.

"With a view to helping the Syrian civilian population ... a member state may authorise the purchase, import or transport from Syria of crude oil and petroleum products", but only after consulting with the Syrian opposition, a statement said.

The decision to ease the 2011 EU oil embargo will enable EU companies on a case-by-case basis not only to import Syrian crude but also to export oil production technology and investment cash to areas in the hands of the opposition.

This first easing in two years of harsh sanctions against the Assad regime aims to help tilt the balance in the conflict.

The 27-nation bloc slapped a ban on investments in Syrian oil in September 2011, followed by a ban on imports of oil in December, depriving the regime of a major source of cash.

Exports of crude provided up to a third of its hard currency earnings, with the EU buying 95 per cent of it.

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Six killed in Russia hunting shop shooting

AN armed former convict has killed six people, including a 14-year-old girl, in a broad daylight shooting at a hunting shop in the Russian city of Belgorod, police say.

The man, apparently armed with a hunting rifle, killed three salespeople at the shop and two passers-by outside the premises in the southern city close to the border with Ukraine, regional police spokesman Yevgeny Kamalov said from Belgorod.

Another woman was wounded in the head and died later in intensive care, the regional council based in Belgorod, around 700 kilometres south of Moscow, said in a statement.

The assailant, who police said was born in 1981, fled in a BMW which he then abandoned. The area around the shooting scene has been cordoned off by police.

The Moscow-based Investigative Committee named the assailant as Sergei Pomazun, a resident of Belgorod who had a theft conviction and was released from prison in 2012.

"Currently, an active search is going on to detain the suspect," regional police said in a statement.

Another regional police spokesman, Alexei Pomorov, said a group of investigators had been dispatched to the city from Moscow to assist with the investigation.

Police refused to speculate about the possible reasons for the shooting.

"We do not know whether it was a conflict because there's no one we can ask: everyone's dead," Pomorov told AFP.

Unlike in the United States, access to firearms is restricted in Russia and mass shootings are relatively rare.

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Merkel says Germany not seeking 'hegemony'

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected the idea that her country is seeking "hegemony" in the European Union, but insists members need to cede some national sovereignty for the greater good.

Merkel says Germany always seeks to make joint decisions in co-ordination with France and the other members of the 27-nation bloc.

"Germany has a ... sometimes complicated role because we are the largest economy - we are not the richest, but we are the largest," Merkel said at a book launch and panel talk with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday.

"Therefore Germany will only act together with the others - hegemony is totally foreign to me."

Merkel said the EU tended to find solutions "when we are looking into the abyss" but also needed to work toward greater unity in calmer times.

She said members should be willing to give up some national sovereignty and accept that "Europe has the last word in some areas".

Merkel said Europe needed even closer co-operation to succeed amid tough global competition and to avoid decline, pointing to her personal experience growing up in the former communist East Germany.

"Look, I've experienced the collapse of a country, the GDR," she said, referring to the German Democratic Republic. "The economic system failed under the aegis of the Soviet Union.

"What I really don't want is to look on, eyes open, as Europe as a whole slips back. I would find that absurd, we have all the skills in our hands."

Angry protesters on the streets of debt-mired eurozone countries such as Greece, Cyprus and Portugal argue that Merkel is imposing austerity-driven prescriptions against the crisis that are choking off economic growth and killing jobs.

In the austerity-versus-economic-stimulus debate, Merkel said "growth has become a mirage. Growth doesn't come from saving - and I don't favour an approach of only saving - but growth is created from structural reforms. That is also Germany's experience."

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ANZ ranks lowest for business customers

THE Commonwealth and Westpac rank highest for customer satisfaction among the big four banks, while ANZ and National Australia Banks are still languishing.

A monthly survey of satisfaction among the big four's business customers shows the Commonwealth and Westpac tied for first place with an average satisfaction rating of 7.4 out of 10.

By contrast NAB had an average satisfaction rating of 7.0, but ANZ ranked lowest with an average score of 6.9.

The monthly DBM Consultants' Business Financial Services Monitor (BFSM) shows the Commonwealth had the highest satisfaction rating for small, medium and large businesses and was tied with Westpac among micro businesses.

DBM Managing Director Dhruba Gupta said ANZ was still making up ground with business customers after a difficult 2012.

Satisfaction with ANZ dropped sharply after the bank shifted the timing if its monthly interest rate decision away from the Reserve Bank of Australia's board meeting.

Mr Gupta said the bank's recent pledge to lend $1 billion to start-up businesses over the next year may help to improve its standing.

"It will be interesting to see if ANZ's pledge will impact positively on its business customers' satisfaction levels," he said.

The BFSM is based on interviews with 20,000 businesses a year.

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Vic family violence 'worse than feared'

THE scale of domestic violence in Victoria is worse than imagined, police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay says.

Some 51,000 family violence incidents were recorded in 2011-12, but Mr Lay says he expects the figure to rise above 60,00 this financial year.

He told Fairfax newspapers that while the rise was mostly due to more reporting, it was an alarming situation.

"There's still a hell of a lot of work to be done, and still a lot of very vulnerable people being injured every night," Mr Lay said.

"We never had a true sense of how big this problem was ... it's quite frightening."

Mr Lay said he was undaunted by the high numbers.

"No matter how much pressure we put on the courts or broader system, we're keeping on going with this," he said.

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NSW prison staff win on back pay

HUNDREDS of NSW prison workers will share in thousands of dollars in back pay after the Industrial Relations Commissions found they were owed money.

In a statement, the Health Services Union (HSU) said around 250 of its members would share in about $650,000 in underpaid allowances, dating back to 2002.

The HSU said the payments were for a range of prison workers including social workers, cooks and cleaners.

HSU NSW secretary Gerard Hayes said the IRC found the workers weren't being properly compensated.

"We began this court action after learning that on average, these employees were being underpaid by more than $20 a week," Mr Hayes said.

"Over time this has added up to thousands of dollars for some Justice Health staff.

"This is a big win for Justice Health staff."

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Abbott's hit on retail workers' super

KITCHEN hands, hospitality workers, retail staff and cleaners are among those that will be hardest hit by the coalition's plan to scrap the low-income superannuation tax offset, Superannuation Minister Bill Shorten says.

Mr Shorten said the super savings of 3.6 million Australians earning less than $37,000 will be $500 worse off under an Abbott-led government.

He said women made up 60 per cent, or 2.2 million of those affected.

"Mums working part-time while they care for young kids being hit with a $500 tax bill for contributing to her superannuation (is) not fair or smart," Mr Shorten said, adding that women were already retiring with less money because of pay disparity and time out of the workforce to raise children.

Mr Shorten has released new figures with a breakdown of 20 occupations that will be hardest hit by the opposition's plan.

These included retail staff, kitchen hands, hospitality workers, cleaners, receptionists, labourers, childcare workers.

"I'd rather see a $500 boost to the super account of a kitchen hand or a checkout operator or a farm hand than into Tony Abbott's pocket," he said.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has committed the coalition to scrapping the low-income superannuation tax offset funded by the government's mining tax, which it wants to repeal.

The coalition is opposed to the federal government's plan to impose a 15 per cent tax on superannuation earnings over $100,000, a measure likely to affect some 16,000 high income earners.

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Brazil police jailed for prison 'massacre'

TWENTY-THREE Brazilian military police officers have been sentenced to 156 years in jail each for their role in the killing of 111 inmates during Brazil's deadliest prison uprising in 1992.

The 23 were among 26 officers on trial before the Sao Paulo state tribunal. The three others were cleared.

The officers, most of them now retired, were accused of killing 15 prisoners in Sao Paulo's Carandiru prison during the operation to quell the revolt on October 2, 1992, which came to be known as the "Carandiru massacre".

The defence, which argued the police officers fired in self-defence after being threatened and assaulted by the prisoners, said it would appeal.

None of the officers involved in the operation were harmed. In addition to the 111 prisoners killed, some 87 others were wounded.

Survivors accused police of firing on inmates who had already surrendered or were hiding in their cells.

Authorities initially claimed the police were trying to break up a fight between prisoners who had seized control of one of the cell blocks.

But evidence uncovered later suggested military police had shot prisoners and then destroyed evidence that could have determined individual responsibility for the killings.

The commanding officer of the operation, Colonel Ubiratan Guimaraes, was initially sentenced to 632 years in jail for his mishandling of the revolt and the subsequent killings.

But in 2006, a court voided the conviction because of mistrial claims. Later that year, Guimaraes was found dead in his apartment under unclear circumstances.

The massacre in what was then Latin America's biggest prison sparked outrage among inmates, and prosecutors said it was a key factor in the emergence of a criminal gang known as First Command of the Capital (PCC) in 1993.

The PCC is believed to have ordered the death of the director of the prison at the time, Jose Ismael Pedrosa.

From the prison, PCC bosses organised a series of assaults on police stations and other buildings that left more than 170 people dead and paralysed Sao Paulo for four days in May 2006.

The unrest eventually spread to other cities, and scores of suspected criminals were gunned down in a subsequent wave of police reprisal attacks.

Late last year, the PCC was also blamed for a wave of police killings and bus burnings.

The Carandiru prison was demolished in 2002.

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