Albania buries exiled king's remains

ALBANIA'S top leaders and thousands of people have paid their last respect to the country's only post-independence monarch, King Ahmet Zog I, half a century after he died and was buried in exile.

The nation's television stations on Saturday broadcast live the burial ceremony in the capital, a day after Zog's remains were returned from France.

He was buried in the family's mausoleum, alongside his Hungarian wife, Queen Geraldina, his son Leka I and his wife, Susan.

Zog proclaimed himself Albania's monarch in 1928 and ruled until 1939 when he fled Albania after it was occupied by fascist Italy. Albania's post-World War II communist regime abolished the monarchy in 1946.

Albania remains a parliamentary republic after the fall of communism in 1990.

The royal family returned to Albania in 2002, leading a quiet life though never relinquishing the claim to the throne.

Prime Minister Sali Berisha said that Albanians honour Zog "for his historic contribution in building up this country".

Berisha was joined at the ceremony by President Bujar Nishani and Kosovo's President Ahtifete Jahjaga. The ceremony was ignored by the country's opposition parties.

Nishani said Zog "is one of the most important figures of the Albanian history".

After Albania's communist regime fell in 1990, Zog's son, Leka I Zog, made two disastrous attempts to return home - first in 1993 when Berisha's government then threw him out and in 1997, when he was charged with leading an armed uprising after failing to convince Albanians to vote for monarchy in a referendum.

Since then, the family has been given back some of its old royal properties and granted diplomatic passports. Zog's grandson, Leka II Zog, has since served as an adviser to several Albanian governments.

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New Syrian envoy to France named

FRENCH President Francois Hollande and the new Syrian opposition leader have announced plans to install an ambassador to represent Syria in France.

The surprise move came after talks at France's presidential palace between Hollande and Moaz al-Khatib, head of the newly formed Syrian opposition coalition. France recognised the coalition days after it was formed on Sunday - and is so far the only Western country to do so.

Hollande also confirmed that French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who was at Saturday's talk, will raise the issue of lifting the EU arms embargo against Syria at a meeting on Monday in Brussels among European Union foreign ministers.

Fabius has suggested supplying defensive weapons so Syrian rebels can protect themselves from attacks by the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

More than 36,000 people have been killed since the Syrian uprising against Assad began in March 2011 and the new coalition is pressing for the means to defend Syrian civilians.

Since May 2011, the EU has imposed a ban on the export of weapons and equipment to Syria that could be used for "internal repression".

France has taken the lead in efforts to oust Assad's regime, and Hollande reiterated on Saturday that the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces is for France the sole representative of the Syrian people and a future provisional government.

Fabius will also press EU partners to recognise the coalition, Holllande said.

"We have no hidden agenda," al-Khatib said in a bid to reassure other nations.

Hollande said al-Khatib, a preacher-turned-activist, reassured him that the coalition he leads seeks unity of the Syrian people and France's aim in moving quickly is to "assure its legitimacy and credibility".

The United States and other EU nations have said they prefer to wait and see whether the coalition truly represents the variety of people that make up Syria.

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Mali's north tense after Tuareg offensive

AL-QAEDA-LINKED fighters have gathered reinforcements in the tense Gao region of northeastern Mali and are waiting to see if the Tuareg rebels that launched a failed offensive a day earlier would regroup for a fresh assault.

The desert area of Gao has been a focus of Islamist and Tuareg activity since the once-allied fighters seized the region, along with much of Mali's arid north, following a coup and military collapse in Bamako March.

Though the dusty town of Gao and its surroundings were initially under the control of Tuaregs, who are fighting to establish an independent state, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) ousted them at the end of June.

On Friday, Tuaregs with the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) attacked the Islamist fighters but suffered a heavy defeat that saw about a dozen of their men killed, regional security sources said.

To prepare for a possible new offensive, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is linked to MUJAO, sent about 300 reinforcements from Timbuktu, about 300 kilometres west of Gao, witnesses told AFP.

By Saturday morning an uneasy calm had settled over the region as locals waited to see if the MNLA would again try their luck, witnesses said.

According to Moussa Salem, an MNLA fighter, "our goal remains to retake Azawad from the hands of AQIM and its allies. We can fall back, but it's only to be able to better push forwards after."

Azawad is the Tuareg name for all of northern Mali.

MUJAO spokesman Walid Abu Sahraoui said his group would continue to pursue the MNLA across the entire region.

"We are in control of the situation," he said.

Since their defeat at the hands of the radical Islamists on June 27, the more secular Tuaregs have no longer controlled any town in this massive desert region that spans two-thirds of Mali's territory.

In the regions under their control, Islamist groups have implemented sharia law and carried out brutal punishments of transgressors, including the stoning to death of an unmarried couple and the amputations of hands and feet of accused thieves.

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49 children killed in Egypt bus tragedy

AT least 49 nursery school children have been killed when a train smashed into their bus in central Egypt after a railway signal operator fell asleep, officials say, prompting protests and resignations.

Transport Minister Rashad al-Metini stepped down after the tragedy, which also killed the bus driver and his assistant, saying he "accepts responsibility".

President Mohamed Morsi accepted the Egyptian Railway Authority head's resignation.

"There are now 49 deaths and 18 injuries," with almost all of the casualties children, Assiut provincial governor Yehya Keshk told state television.

"There is a team of 45 doctors looking after the injured children."

The bus taking about 60 children aged between four and six on a school trip organised by their nursery was struck on a railway crossing in Manfalut, 356 kilometres south of Cairo, police said.

The worker manning the level crossing - which had been left open - was asleep when the bus tried to cross the tracks, Keshk said. "He has been arrested, of course."

Parents of the children were staging angry demonstrations near the scene of the horrific accident, demanding the death penalty for those responsible, police said.

A state television correspondent described the scene as "terrifying" with the blood-splattered bodies of children on the ground, before they were taken to nearby Manfalut hospital.

In a brief television address, Morsi offered his condolences to the families and said those responsible would be referred to the public prosecutor.

"On my and the Egyptian people's behalf, I offer my sincerest condolences to the families," the president said. "I am referring all those responsible to the public prosecution."

Earlier, Morsi ordered the prime minister, the defence and health ministers, and the Assiut governor "to offer all assistance to the families of the victims", the official news agency MENA said.

Prime Minister Hisham Qandil and his interior minister headed to Assiut, MENA said.

Activist groups have called for the resignation of Qandil's cabinet.

"This accident proves the failure of Qandil's government and strengthens the demands for the resignation of a government that has failed, over several months, to produce anything to improve the suffering of Egyptians," the April 6 movement said.

Keshk has ordered the "formation of a fact-finding committee" to probe Saturday's accident, but in similar tragedies in the past, such panels have done little to shed light on the details and less still to bring about accountability.

In a separate road accident, 12 people were killed and three injured when a truck smashed into a minibus near the Egyptian capital on Saturday.

Officials said a speeding truck driving on the wrong side of the road crashed into a minibus carrying 15 passengers. The truck driver was arrested at the scene in the 6th October area, as rescue services worked to extract the bodies, police said.

Egyptians have long complained that the government has failed to deal with the country's chronic transport problems, with roads as poorly maintained as train lines.

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ASEAN urges China 'hotline' over sea row

SOUTHEAST Asian nations will propose opening a "hotline" with China aimed at defusing tensions over the South China Sea, ASEAN's chief says.

Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said after a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers on Saturday that they had agreed to back the plan first mooted by Indonesia.

"This of course will be brought up to our Chinese friends," Surin told reporters ahead of a gathering of leaders from the region that begins in Cambodia on Sunday.

"We can call it a red line, we can give it a sense of urgency that if there is anything developing that we all will be phoned ... trying to consult, trying to coordinate, trying to contain any possible spillover of any ... incident, accident, miscalculation, misunderstanding," he added.

ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, as well as Taiwan, have claims to parts of the sea, home of some of the world's most important shipping lanes and believed to be rich in fossil fuels.

China insists it has sovereign rights to virtually all of the sea, and the Philippines and Vietnam have expressed concerns that their giant Asian neighbour has become increasingly aggressive this year in staking its claim.

Philippine and Chinese vessels engaged in a standoff at a remote shoal in the sea in April, escalating the dispute between their countries dramatically.

The proposal comes as ASEAN and China struggle to make progress on a code of conduct (COC) to ease tensions in the sea that was first envisaged a decade ago.

"What Indonesia is now looking for while we are working on the COC is a commitment on the part of ASEAN and China to open a hotline of communication," Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told reporters in Phnom Penh.

"So that if there were to be an incident in the future ... we can commit to have communication and have dialogue if there were to be disputes."

ASEAN leaders will hold their annual summit in Phnom Penh on Sunday. This will be followed by a two-day East Asia Summit involving Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, US President Barack Obama, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the leaders of five other countries.

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Sirens go off in Tel Aviv, 1 dead in Gaza

AIR raid sirens have gone off in Tel Aviv for a third day running, sending people scuttling for cover as TV images showed the Iron Dome anti-missile system firing on an incoming rocket.

AFP correspondents at the scene on Saturday said people could be seen running to find shelter as the sirens wailed, a day after a rocket crashed into the sea off central Tel Aviv.

In Gaza City, one man was killed on Saturday in a fresh Israeli strike on Rafah in southern Gaza, taking the overall Palestinian death toll from three days of Israeli raids to 40, medics said.

"Osama Qadi, 25, was killed and two others were wounded in an air strike on Rafah," emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya told AFP.

In a separate strike, another eight people were wounded in a raid on the southern city of Khan Yunis, he said.

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Obama heads for Asia with stop in Myanmar

PRESIDENT Barack Obama heads to Asia for a tour of three countries on his first foreign trip since winning re-election that will see him make a once unthinkable stop in Myanmar (Burma).

The first trip by a US president spent entirely in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam War, the visit that will also take in Thailand and Cambodia aims to emphasise the Obama administration's focus on the dynamic and largely US-friendly region where several nations worry about a rising China.

But his tour also comes at an awkward time amid a spiralling conflict between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas with the Jewish state poised to launch its first ground offensive on the Palestinian territory in four years.

At home, Obama is in tough negotiations with legislators to avoid steep automatic budget cuts and tax hikes that could send the country back into recession.

Obama launched a so-called "pivot" to Asia in his first term that included greater military cooperation with Australia, Thailand and Vietnam and a plan to shift the bulk of the US navy to the Pacific by 2020.

Virtually no nation has seen a greater shift towards the United States under Obama than Myanmar. The nation formerly known as Burma was for years a close ally of China and treated as a pariah by Western nations.

Surprising sceptics, Myanmar launched reforms after its nominal end to nearly half a century of army rule last year.

President Thein Sein, a former general, released political prisoners, opened dialogue with ethnic rebels and allowed once-confined opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to run for parliament.

Thailand is the oldest US ally in Asia, famously offering elephants to Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War. But the kingdom has been consumed by internal disputes, which escalated in 2010 into violence that left more than 90 people dead.

Obama will be the first sitting US president to visit Cambodia, a staunch China supporter.

On the sidelines of an East Asia Summit there, Obama will meet China's outgoing premier, Wen Jiabao, and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan, amid a dispute between the two countries over islands in the East China Sea and the oil and gas fields in the disputed waters.

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Girl missing, feared taken by croc in NT

IT is feared that a young girl has been taken by a crocodile, after she went missing while swimming in a waterhole in the Northern Territory.

The girl, believed to be aged between seven and 11, was swimming with a group of people in a local waterhole on Friday afternoon about 95km west of the remote community of Maningrida when an adult of the group spotted a crocodile.

"Everyone made their way out of the billabong, but the girl went missing," Senior Sergeant Geoff Bahnert told AAP.

The community quickly launched a search for the girl, but when they were unable to find her, called police around 6.30pm (CST).

Sergeant Bahnert said neither the child nor the crocodile had been seen since.

"It is probable that the child has been taken by a crocodile," he said.

According to Sergeant Bahnert, the community has never seen crocodiles in the area before, which is why they had thought it was safe to go swimming.

Police and fisheries staff were searching with a spotlight overnight in the hopes of spotting either the girl or the crocodile, while wildlife rangers were expected to be on the site at first light to help with the search.

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Petraeus testifies for Congress on Libya

FORMER CIA Director David Petraeus has been sneaked into the Capitol, away from photographers and television cameras, to face lawmakers' questions for the first time about the deadly attack on the US Consulate in Libya - just a week after he resigned over an extramarital affair.

The retired four-star army general, formerly one of the country's most respected military leaders, entered through a network of underground hallways leading to a secure room. CIA directors typically walk through the building's front door.

Petraeus is under investigation by the CIA for possible wrongdoing in his extramarital affair, though that's not the subject of Friday's closed-door hearings. The September 11 attack in Benghazi, which killed the US ambassador and three other Americans, created a political firestorm, with Republicans claiming that the White House misled the public on what led to the violence.

Petraeus was appearing first before the House Intelligence Committee on Friday and then its Senate counterpart and was expected to provide more details about the US response.

Petraeus has acknowledged an affair with a woman later identified as his biographer, the married Paula Broadwell.

The FBI began investigating the matter last (northern) summer, but didn't notify the White House or congress until after the November 6 election.

In the course of investigating the Petraeus affair, the FBI uncovered suggestive emails between Afghanistan war chief General John Allen and Florida socialite Jill Kelley, both of them married. President Barack Obama has put Allen's promotion nomination on hold.

Leading administration officials, meanwhile, met privately with lawmakers for a third straight day to explain how the Petraeus investigation was handled and explore its national security implications.

Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the committee's top Democrat, said after the hearing he was satisfied that the FBI had behaved properly in not notifying the White House or legislators about the inquiry sooner, in keeping with rules set up to prevent interference in criminal investigations.

The CIA on Thursday opened an exploratory investigation into Petraeus's conduct. The inquiry "doesn't presuppose any particular outcome", said CIA spokesman Preston Golson.

Petraeus, in his first media interview since he resigned, told CNN that he had never given classified information to Broadwell. The general's biographer also has said she didn't receive such material from Petraeus.

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Allegations church kept priest sex files

THE psychosexual profiles of priests accused of sexual abuse have reportedly been kept by the Australian Catholic church.

The profiles were allegedly created as part of a church rehabilitation program - Encompass Australasia - which ran from 1997 to 2008 at Sydney's Wesley Private Hospital, Fairfax newspapers reported on Saturday.

The program reportedly treated male clergy for psychosexual disorders and created profiles on them.

According to Fairfax, it is believed none of the clergy treated under the program were referred to police for investigation despite senior church figures being aware of serious allegations against them.

A NSW Police spokeswoman told Fairfax the force had received some abuse information from the church; however, no record of referrals from the program could be found.

Sources familiar with the program reportedly told Fairfax newspapers clergy involved were "transitioned" out of the church, receiving generous payouts, accommodation and tertiary education.

"There were some outrageous situations that would have been very embarrassing for the church had they become public," a source told Fairfax.

The claims come on the heels of this week's announcement by Prime Minister Julia Gillard of a royal commission into the abuse of children in religious and state-run institutions.

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Ukraine's Tymoshenko in 'increased pain'

JAILED Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko is in "increased pain" following her two-week hunger strike, but is too weak to receive full-scale treatment, her doctor says.

The former prime minister took her first sips of fruit juice late on Thursday following her prolonged refusal of food and treatment in protest over alleged fraud in polls won by the country's ruling party.

"The hunger strike process brought a rather negative effect on her pain symptoms, and the pain has now increased considerably," said German doctor Lutz Harms, who is in Kharkiv to treat Tymoshenko, on Friday.

"Currently she is beginning rehabilitation procedures, but the scope of these procedures will be very limited, because she is very weak ... and her body will not be responding to drugs very well," he told journalists outside the clinic in Kharkiv, where the 2004 Orange Revolution leader is being treated.

Tymoshenko has been since this summer in the hospital, where she was moved from her prison cell following complaints of back pain. She continues to serve out her controversial seven-year sentence for abuse of power while in office.

Observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe cited Tymoshenko's detention as one of the reasons why "democratic progress appears to have reversed" in Ukraine's October 28 parliamentary elections.

Tymoshenko has branded her prosecution a political vendetta on the part of her rival, President Viktor Yanukovych.

She is facing a second trial on new charges of embezzlement and tax evasion, but the hearings have been repeatedly delayed due to her health condition, with the new date set for November 23.

Tymoshenko decided to stop her hunger strike after consulting with German doctors, and Harms said on Friday her rehabilitation will take about two weeks.

Her conviction in October last year sharply worsened Ukraine's ties with the West and exposed President Yanukovych to accusations he was persecuting political opponents.

Tymoshenko insists she is a champion of Ukraine's integration with the European Union but critics have accused her of ruthless pragmatism, changing her beliefs with the political winds.

In a statement read out to journalists by her daughter Yevgenia Tymoshenko, the opposition leader said she would "continue fighting the corrupt regime of Yanukovych in every other way.

"I see that I have reached the goal for which I started the hunger strike," her statement said. "Nobody can consider this Verkhovna Rada (parliament) legitimate and democratically-elected anymore," she said.

Tymoshenko, serving a seven-year sentence for abuse of power while in office, is currently facing a second trial on new charges of embezzlement and tax evasion, but the hearings have been repeatedly delayed because of her health condition, with the new date set for November 23.

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Bomb kills 17 Afghans on way to wedding

A ROADSIDE bomb planted by Taliban insurgents has killed 17 civilians - mostly women and children - on their way to a wedding party in western Afghanistan, officials say.

The victims were travelling in a minibus from one village to another for the celebrations when the explosion ripped through their vehicle in Farah province, provincial government spokesman Abdul Rahman Zhewandai told AFP on Friday.

"The latest toll we have shows that 17 civilians, the majority of them women and children, were killed and 14 more were wounded," said provincial police chief Aqa Noor Kintoz.

"Among the wounded are nine women, one child and four men," he said, blaming Taliban militants for planting the bomb.

Roadside bombs are the weapon of choice of the hardline Islamists fighting Afghan forces and some 100,000 NATO troops in an effort to topple the government of President Hamid Karzai.

While the Taliban says their targets are military, civilians using the same roads are frequently the victims.

In the first six months of 2012, a total of 1145 Afghan civilians were killed and around 2000 were wounded, mostly by roadside bombs, according to United Nations figures.

Women and children accounted for about 30 per cent of this year's casualties.

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Air raid sirens wail in Jerusalem

AIR raid sirens are wailing across Jerusalem as press reports speak of three blasts in the city, just hours after a rocket fired by militants in Gaza landed in the sea off Tel Aviv.

There was no immediate comment from Israeli police or the army, with both saying they were checking into the incident.

Gaza militants targeted Tel Aviv on Friday with another rocket, defying Israeli warnings of a possible ground assault to follow its aerial bombardment of the Hamas-run strip.

Police and a witness said the rocket crashed into the sea off Tel Aviv in the second incident in as many days, as sirens wailed across the city.

Friday's rocket was the farthest that one from Gaza had ever hit inside Israel, and it sparked panic among beachgoers, although several people tried to swim out to the point where the rocket landed, the witness said.

The provocative attack came as world leaders urged Egypt to use its influence with Gaza's Hamas rulers to stamp out the rocket fire that sparked a vast Israeli air offensive launched on Wednesday in which 23 Gazans have already died.

Three Israelis were killed on Thursday in one riposte by militants.

With the rocket fire intensifying, the Israeli army said it had started calling up 16,000 reservists, with officials saying the military was preparing for a possible ground offensive into Gaza.

"As part of Operation Pillar of Defence, the IDF (army) will begin recruiting 16,000 reservists," the military said on its official Twitter feed.

Senior cabinet minister Moshe Yaalon warned that Israel was considering a ground operation in order to stamp out rocket fire.

"We are preparing all the military options, including the possibility that forces will be ready to enter Gaza in the event that the firing doesn't stop," he wrote in a series of postings on his official Twitter account.

An AFP correspondent on the Israeli side of the border reported seeing tanks massed along the frontier, and a steady stream of reserve soldiers arriving for duty in the area.

The escalating conflict sparked urgent calls by world leaders for restraint, some urging Egypt to use its influence with Hamas to try to secure a ceasefire.

The calls came as Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil visited Gaza City, where he said Cairo would intensify efforts for a truce but also urged world leaders to end Israel's "aggression" in Gaza.

Ahead of his arrival, a senior Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to an Egyptian request to halt its fire during the visit.

But Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza made no mention of any truce, and shortly after Qandil crossed into the territory, Hamas's armed wing said it had fired 42 rockets into Israel.

Palestinian security and medical officials told AFP Israeli planes had carried out an air strike on northern Gaza that killed two people, one of them a child. Israel denied carrying out an air strike in the area.

Speaking at Gaza City's Shifa hospital after seeing the bodies of those killed in the incident, Qandil vowed to intensify Cairo's efforts to secure a ceasefire.

"Egypt will not hesitate to intensify its efforts and make sacrifices to stop this aggression and achieve a lasting truce," he told reporters.

"What I saw today in Gaza, at the hospital, with the martyrs, cannot be met with silence... and the whole world should take responsibility to stop the aggression."

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Indians protest over Irish abortion row

ABOUT a hundred opposition protesters have held a demonstration outside the Irish embassy over the death of an Indian woman who died after being refused an abortion in the Catholic country.

The crowd, carrying posters of the dead 31-year-old dentist, Savita Halappanavar, and accusing Irish authorities of committing "medical murder", were prevented by police from getting close to the Irish compound on Friday.

Elsewhere, the Indian government cranked up the pressure on Dublin over the October 28 death of Halappanavar after local politicians expressed their concern and urged the government to act.

Foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said India's ambassador to Ireland would meet Irish authorities on Friday to seek assurances of a "transparent" probe.

"We expect that he will also seek reassurance from the Irish authorities that they will hold an independent, transparent enquiry into the matter," Akbaruddin told AFP.

"He will request that the Irish authorities keep India informed of the progress and outcome of the enquiry," he said, adding that the envoy would also convey the "concern growing in India" over Halappanavar's death.

The dentist repeatedly asked staff at University Hospital in Galway, west Ireland, to terminate her pregnancy because she was miscarrying, her family said.

Doctors allegedly refused her demand, telling her that "this is a Catholic country". Abortion is illegal in Catholic-dominated Ireland except when it is necessary to save the life of the mother.

Smriti Irani, president of the women's wing of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, was among the protesters outside the embassy. She was allowed in as part of a four-person delegation to meet the ambassador.

"The Irish ambassador assured us that there could be a possibility of inviting international experts to be part of the investigation and we told him that Savita's husband should also be part of it," Irani said.

"The ambassador acknowledged that there is intense pressure (on Ireland) not only from the people of India but globally over Halappanavar's death," Irani told reporters amid shouts of "we want justice".

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has described the death as a "tragedy", while two separate investigations have been announced.

Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid expressed regret over her death, saying: "It is extremely sad and unfortunate. Whatever the inquiry does, human loss cannot be compensated."

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Israel to take 'whatever action necessary'

ISRAEL will take "whatever action is necessary" to defend its citizens from Palestinian rocket attacks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says.

His remarks at a televised press conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday came after Israel carried out 24 hours of air strikes on Gaza, killing 15 Palestinians, at least seven of them Hamas militants.

Over the same period, militants fired more than 200 rockets at Israel, killing three people and injuring 16, police and medics said.

Israel will "continue to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people," the prime minister said, adding that the army was prepared to "significantly expand the action" in Gaza.

The Israeli air force had "caused significant damage to the Fajr rockets aimed at Tel Aviv, the (surrounding) Dan region and north of that," he said, referring to Iranian-built missiles which have a range of up to 75 kilometres.

Earlier on Thursday, Defence Minister Ehud Barak, on a visit to an Iron Dome anti-missile battery near Beersheva, said the operation had "nearly completely paralysed" Hamas's arsenal of Fajr 5 rockets.

Hamas militants said they had fired several Fajr 5 rockets at Tel Aviv, but the Israeli military dismissed the claim and there were no reports of any attacks in the area.

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Christchurch's Victoria Square to reopen

A WALK through Christchurch's Victoria Square will be possible for the first time since the February 2011 earthquake when the red zone is reduced on Friday.

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority says pedestrians will be able to access the restored area, which was extensively damaged in the quake, between 7am and 9pm daily, although access by vehicles is restricted.

Two pathways will be opened and it's likely more will be opened this month.

Construction work will continue, but areas will be cordoned off for public safety.

"While returning to Victoria Square may be tempered by a sense of loss we can all take heart at the collective determination to reopen and revive the central city," Christchurch City Council city environment group general manager Jane Parfitt said.

Work has not started near the amphitheatre as decisions are pending on the Town Hall and other projects.

The Floral Clock and Cook and Queen Victoria statues are being assessed as part of a Statues and Memorial project.

The 6.3-magnitude quake struck west of Lyttelton on February 22, 2011 killing 185 people and causing widespread destruction and extensively damaging Christchurch's central city infrastructure.

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US jobless claims soar after Superstorm

US weekly jobless claims jumped by 78,000 in one week in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, which both interrupted reporting and forced people out of work in the northeast, Labor Department data shows.

New claims for unemployment insurance, a signal of the pace of layoffs, rose to 439,000 in the week to November 10 from the previous week's figure of 361,000.

"Several states have experienced large increases of initial claims as a result of Hurricane Sandy," a Labor Department official said on Thursday of the sharp rise.

Sandy blasted the northeastern coast of the US at the end of October and beginning of November, shutting down major cities, leaving millions without power for days, and wrecking homes and businesses in many communities.

The weekly figure was far above the 360,000-380,000 range for claims of the past year and pulled the four-week moving average higher, to 383,850.

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Only nine nations own Twitter handles

ONLY nine out of 193 UN member states own Twitter accounts bearing their country name, and only three of those accounts have been officially verified by the micro-blogging site, according to a new report.

In "Twiplomacy", a study looking at country branding on Twitter, communications firm Burson-Marsteller said it had found that most country name accounts were held by private individuals and that three out of five were either dormant, inactive, suspended or protected, meaning they can only be seen by accepted viewers.

"Few governments and tourism organisations have understood the power of country branding and marketing on Twitter," Matthias Luefkens, who heads Burson-Marsteller's digital practice unit, said in a statement.

Only the @GreatBritain, @Israel and @SouthAfrica handles were verified by Twitter as official accounts run by the countries' governments or tourism boards, Luefkens told AFP.

Britain's account was a successful part of the "Britain is Great" campaign launched in March this year, while Israel's account, run by the foreign ministry, was the country's official Twitter channel and counted more than 66,000 followers, according to the study.

Sweden's Twitter account @Sweden, with 65,000 followers, is meanwhile run jointly by the government-linked Swedish Institute and the country's official tourism board, but has, according to Luefkens, likely not been verified by Twitter due to its "democratic" format, allowing a new citizen to host the feed each week and tweet about anything that comes to mind.

The Twitter accounts of Antigua Barbuda, Barbados, Lithuania, the Maldives and Spain are also run by their respective tourism organisations to promote tourism in the countries, the study showed.

It is meanwhile not possible to tell who runs the world's most followed country handle, @Indonesia, which is basically a feed for news about the country and counts 193,349 followers, Luefkens said.

Many country-name accounts were held by private individuals, with the protected @Egypt account profile for instance stating it was run out of the California Bay area and that "I am not Egypt the country. Okay? I am. not. Egypt. the. country."

The person who owns @Canada has meanwhile repeatedly offered to give the handle to the Canadian government, if it gets in touch, Luefkens said, pointing out that it is against Twitter rules to sell a handle.

He said he was not surprised that more governments did not have control of their country handles, pointing out that "it is only just dawning on them that this is a powerful vehicle for communication."

"I think it will change quickly and governments will become more active" in trying to gain control of Twitter accounts bearing their countries' name, he said.

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McDonald's axes US boss after sales dip

MCDONALD'S is replacing its head of US operations after the world's biggest burger chain reported its first monthly sales decline in nearly a decade.

The company, based in Oak Brook, Illinois, says its global chief restaurant officer, Jeff Stratton, will succeed Jan Fields as president of McDonald's USA effective December 1.

Ms Fields, 57, is leaving after more than 35 years with the company. She was behind many major menu innovations, including the expansion of the specialty drinks menu.

After years of outperforming its rivals, McDonald's has struggled recently amid intensifying competition at home and a persistently weak economy abroad. In October, the company reported its first monthly sales decline since 2003.

McDonald's has more than 34,000 locations around the world, with about 14,000 in the US.

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Parents slam Irish abortion laws

THE parents of an Indian woman who suffered a miscarriage and died after being refused an abortion in an Irish hospital have slammed the country's abortion laws.

Savita Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when she miscarried and died last month.

Ireland's government confirmed on Wednesday she suffered blood poisoning and died after being denied an abortion, reigniting the debate over legalising abortion in the predominantly Catholic country.

"In an attempt to save a 4-month-old fetus they killed my 30-year-old daughter. How is that fair you tell me?" A. Mahadevi, Halappanavar's mother, told several Indian television stations on Thursday.

"How many more cases will there be? The rules should be changed as per the requirement of Hindus. We are Hindus, not Christians," she said.

Savita Halappanavar's father, Andanappa Yalagi, said the combination of medical negligence and Irish abortion laws led to his daughter's death.

The spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, Syed Akbaruddin, said in a Twitter post the Indian Embassy in Dublin was "following the matter".

Halappanavar's husband, Praveen, said doctors at University Hospital Galway in western Ireland determined that his wife was miscarrying within hours of her hospitalisation for severe pain on October 21.

He said over the next three days, doctors refused their requests for an abortion to combat her searing pain and fading health.

It was only after the fetus died that its remains were surgically removed.

Within hours, Savita was placed under sedation in intensive care with blood poisoning, her husband said.

By October 27, her heart, kidneys and liver had stopped working, and she was pronounced dead the next day.

Three separate investigations are looking into the cause of Halappanavar's death.

Ireland's constitution officially bans abortion but a 1992 Supreme Court ruling said the procedure should be legalised for situations when the woman's life is at risk from continuing the pregnancy.

Five governments since have refused to pass a law resolving the confusion, leaving Irish hospitals reluctant to terminate pregnancies except in the most obviously life-threatening circumstances.

An estimated 4000 Irish women travel next door to England every year, where abortion has been legal on demand since 1967. But that option is difficult, if not impossible, if the woman's health is failing.

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US shares open higher, Walmart sheds 4%

US stocks have edged higher after a sharp fall the previous day, with Walmart's disappointing revenues in its third quarter report sending its shares down more than four per cent.

In the first five minutes of Thursday trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 6.84 points (0.05 per cent) to 12,577.79.

The broad-market S&P 500 added 1.86 (0.14 per cent) to 1,357.35, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite rose 1.24 (0.04 per cent) at 2,848.05.

Walmart's shares fell 4.1 per cent to $68.39 on quarterly earnings that showed a nine per cent rise in net income to $3,63 billion but revenue at stores climbed only 1.5 per cent, below expectations.

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CSG study raises questions: green groups

A NEW study into methane levels around coal seam gas mining in Queensland shows the industry in a "whole new light", suggesting it's not as clean as it claims, environmental campaigners say.

In an attempt to measure the effects of CSG mining on air and water, Dr Isaac Santos and Dr Damien Maher from the Southern Cross University travelled to Tara in southern Queensland and the Richmond River catchment in Northern NSW.

While there they took snapshots of the level of methane in the atmosphere and creeks in order to determine the amount of emissions.

Lock the Gate Alliance president Drew Hutton said the findings - presented at a lecture in Lismore on Wednesday night - recorded methane levels in CSG areas as high as 6.89 parts per million.

This, he said, compared to other non-CSG areas that recorded levels around two parts per million.

"This throws the industry into a whole new light," Mr Hutton told AAP.

Mr Hutton said the fugitive methane emissions escaped through cracks in the soil, pipelines or wellheads after an aquifer was depressurised to release gas in the coal seam.

"The federal government currently works on the assumption that fugitive methane emissions from coal seam gas are 0.12 per cent of all gas produced," he said.

However, he said, if methane levels are "many times higher" - as the study suggests - than the industry could face higher penalties under the carbon tax.

Nature Conservation Council of NSW CEO Pepe Clarke said the study raised questions as to whether the industry was a cleaner alternative to coal.

"If fugitive emissions of methane from CSG gas fields occur on the same scale as was detected around Tara Estate, this industry is potentially much more dangerous in terms of its contribution to climate change than traditional fossil fuels," he said.

However, Rick Wilkinson from The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) said the research was incomplete and "lacks the basics of scientific rigour".

"What is presented as research is in reality a funding submission," he said in a statement.

"The research is notable through omission rather than content and seems squarely aimed at natural gas production rather than all sources of actual and potential greenhouse gas emissions."

Mr Hutton said the study was preliminary and more were needed.

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US retail sales dip in October

A DROP in car sales pushed US retail sales lower in October after a strong gain in September, government data shows.

Retail sales fell 0.3 per cent, the Commerce Department reported on Wednesday, slightly more than analysts expected.

It upwardly revised September's reading from an initial estimate of 1.1 per cent to 1.3 per cent, the largest increase since March 2010.

Superstorm Sandy, which wreaked havoc on the East Coast in late October, had both positive and negative effects on sales, the department said.

"Some firms reported a drop in sales due to permanent or temporary store closures and stores having reduced business due to damage, fewer customer and/or lack of employees," it said.

"On the other hand, some firms reported sales increases due to significant sales of supplies for the affected areas and evacuees purchasing retail and food services in different geographic locales."

Excluding car sales, which dropped 1.5 per cent, retail and food services sales were unchanged from the prior month.

On a 12-month basis, retail sales were up 3.8 per cent in October.

The retail sales data, which are not adjusted for price changes, are a key indicator of consumer spending that accounts for about 70 per cent of economic activity.

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Clashes erupt in European protests

RIOT police and anti-austerity protesters have clashed in Spain and Italy as anger boils over on a Europe-wide day of strikes and mass demonstrations.

General strikes in Spain and Portugal paralysed swathes of industry and hit road, rail and air transport on Wednesday, as people vented their frustration at state cut-backs.

Seething workers staged industrial walkouts in Italy, the eurozone's number three economy, and in Greece, fighting to avert default even after enacting an austerity squeeze of 13.5 billion euros ($A16.37 billion).

Against a background of peaceful industrial action and protests across Europe, however, police charged with batons in Spain and running street battles erupted in Italy.

In Madrid, riot police fired rubber bullets into the air and struck protesters with batons in the centra Plaza de Cibeles square, an AFP journalist at the scene said.

The clashes erupted when a police cordon blocked demonstrators from joining a rally in the square.

Earlier, police swung batons and pushed away hundreds of young protesters to prevent them blocking the nearby Gran Via avenue in the Spanish capital.

Crowds of protesters chanted "Abuse of power" and "More education, fewer police".

Police arrested 82 protesters across the country and 34 people were wounded, including 18 police, the government said.

In Italy, media said some 20 activists beat a riot police officer with a stick and baseball bats in Turin, while five officers were hurt during running street battles in central Milan.

"Europe is waking up today - from Rome to Madrid to Athens," said Mario Nobile, a 23-year-old university student in Rome.

"The 'PIGS' are rebelling!" he said, using a derogatory acronym for the most troubled eurozone economies of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.

In Rome, the protest was peaceful except for a small group of students who threw stones and tried to break through police lines outside Prime Minister Mario Monti's offices.

Spanish unions said participation in the strike was massive, surpassing 85 per cent in some industrial sectors but the government said the impact was more modest with electricity usage down 15.8 per cent from normal.

Spain's Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said the strike was "not the right path" to reduce uncertainty and insisted that austerity was the only way out of the crisis.

In Portugal, the general strike brought Lisbon's metro service to a halt while ferries across the River Tagus and trains across the country ran skeleton services.

Both Spain and Portugal have legislation guaranteeing minimum services in essential industries.

But in Spain, Iberia, Iberia Express, Air Nostrum, Vueling, Air Europa and easyJet cut more than 600 flights including some 250 international routes. Ryanair said no flights had been scrapped yet.

Portugal's TAP said it was grounding more than 170 flights, most of them international.

Greece's unions are focused on the national crisis, rather than the European-wide action, and their protest was limited to a three-hour work stoppage and a rally in Athens.

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Cisco results boost US stocks at open

ANALYST-BEATING quarterly results from Cisco Systems have given US stocks a solid opening boost, following two listless sessions.

Five minutes into Wednesday trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 34.81 points (0.27 per cent) at 12,790.99.

The broad-market S&P 500 added 4.21 (0.31 per cent) at 1,378.74, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite gained 14.60 (0.51 per cent) at 2,898.49.

Dow component Cisco jumped 7.8 per cent to $18.16 after its 48 cents earnings per share for its fiscal first quarter beat analyst expectations by two cents.

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Hamas commander killed in air strike

SENIOR Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jaabari was killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Gaza City overnight.

"The martyr is Ahmed al-Jaabari and his bodyguard was injured," Ayman Sahabani, a doctor at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, told AFP. A Hamas security source also confirmed Jaabari's death, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israel's Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency and the military also confirmed the operation.

"During a joint operation of the General Security Service (Shin Bet) and the IDF (army) today, Ahmed Jaabari, the senior commander of the military wing of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, was targeted," a statement from the Shin Bet said.

"In the past hour, the IDF targeted Ahmed Jaabari, the head of Hamas's military wing, in the Gaza Strip," the military added in a statement, saying Jaabari "was a senior Hamas operative... directly responsible for executing terror attacks."

"The purpose of this operation was to severely impair the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership, as well as its terrorist infrastructure."

Military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said the strike was the start of an operation targeting armed groups in Gaza following multiple rocket attacks on southern Israel.

"The IDF started an operation against terror organisations in Gaza due to the ongoing attacks against Israeli civilians," she said on her Twitter account.

The killing of Jaabari sparked furious protests in Gaza City, with hundreds of members of Hamas and its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, chanting for revenge inside Shifa hospital.

Outside, armed men fired weapons into the air, and mosques throughout the city called prayers to mourn the commander's death.

Palestinian security sources and medics confirmed a total of four air strikes across Gaza during the late afternoon -- two in Gaza City, one of which killed Jaabari, one in northern Gaza, and a fourth in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

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Iraq blasts kill 19

A SPATE of apparently coordinated attacks across Iraq on the eve of a festival marking the Islamic New Year have killed 19 people and wounded more than 150 others.

The 13 bombings and shootings struck in Baghdad and nine other cities, the security and medical officials said on Wednesday, and will likely raise tensions in a country mired in political deadlock and which suffered a brutal sectarian war.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the violence, but al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq frequently carries out coordinated bombings and attempts mass-casualty attacks in a bid to destabilise the government through bloodshed.

Wednesday's deadliest blasts struck in Kirkuk, a disputed ethnically mixed oil-rich province in north Iraq frequently targeted by militants seeking to sow communal violence, where at least nine people were killed and 39 wounded.

Two car bombs and a roadside blast in Kirkuk's eponymous capital killed five people and wounded 34 others, while another explosives-packed vehicle targeting an army patrol in the town of Hawijah, also in Kirkuk province, left four dead and five others wounded, officials said.

"My child was killed! His friends were killed!" Shukriyah Rauf screamed in Kurdish at the site of the worst of the Kirkuk city attacks, where a car bomb and a roadside explosion in a majority-Kurdish neighbourhood killed five.

"There is no security here, our homes were destroyed!"

The attack that killed Rauf's child struck near offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Iraq's most powerful Kurdish political party which is led by Massud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdistan region.

Nearby buildings and vehicles were badly damaged, with shrapnel, garbage and bloodstains on the street.

Another attack in the city wounded seven street cleaners.

"The car bomb targeted our friends - they are not police, soldiers or politicians," wailed Jassim al-Obeidi, a cleaner who escaped unscathed. "They just wanted to make a little money."

Kirkuk province lies at the centre of a tract of territory claimed by both the central government and the Kurdish region, and the unresolved row is cited by diplomats and officials as the biggest long-term threat to Iraq's stability.

South of Baghdad near the city of Hilla, meanwhile, a car bomb in a parking lot near a crowded marketplace killed five people and wounded 77 others, officials said.

Also south of the capital, in the town of Hafriyah, another car bomb left four dead and 15 wounded, while a car bomb near Baghdad's Firdos Square, the site famous for Iraqis pulling down a statue of Saddam Hussein shortly after the 2003 US-led invasion, killed one person and wounded six others.

Four more bombings and two shootings in the restive provinces of Diyala and Salaheddin, both north of Baghdad, wounded 22 others.

The attacks come a day before Muharram, which marks the Islamic New Year on the lunar calendar.

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US producer prices dip in October

US producer prices fell in October after four straight months of rises, officials say.

The US Labor Department said on Wednesday the producer price index fell 0.2 per cent from September, led by a drop in energy prices of 0.5 per cent. Food prices rose 0.4 per cent.

Most analysts had expected PPI to rise 0.1 per cent.

Excluding food and energy products, prices dropped for the first time since November 2010, by 0.2 per cent.

The pullback in producer prices came after sharp rises in September and August that averaged 1.4 per cent.

"Input prices will struggle to advance while uncertainty about US fiscal policy and global economic growth persists," said Arijit Dutta at Moody's Analytics.

Superstorm Sandy, which battered the eastern US in late October, had virtually no impact on the preparation of the PPI reading, the department said.

"Crude oil prices peaked in September and have fallen steadily in recent weeks as supply disruptions have proved temporary and the result of concerns that demand is slowing," Dutta said.

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Up to three feared missing in western NSW

A SEARCH for up to three people feared missing in a national park in western NSW is set to resume at first light, with police warning they may be very difficult to find.

Police said a woman called Triple Zero about 12pm (AEDT) on Tuesday, saying she was lost around one hour's drive from Broken Hill.

But the call dropped out before full details could be provided.

Using GPS co-ordinates traced from the call, emergency crews began searching for her throughout Tuesday afternoon inside the Mutawintja National Park - about 150km northeast of Broken Hill.

Rescue crews discovered a car after flying over the region around 8pm. However, the missing people could not be located.

The search was suspended a short time later due to poor light.

Broken Hill's acting police sergeant, Russell Smith, said they have spoken with the family of the female caller and understand one or two people were travelling with her.

"We believe that they are essentially tourists to the region," he told AAP.

He said police would meet early on Wednesday morning before both a ground and air search resumes at first light.

"We don't know what condition they are in, we don't know what provisions they have.

"We need to find them."

Describing the national park as "rugged desert-type terrain" with limited access to water, Sergeant Smith said their exact location could be "very difficult to find".

"It is a very large area to find people in," he said.

"It can be very hot during the daytime and very cold during the night."

But he said additional resources were being sent from Sydney overnight.

"Now that we have an idea of where we are going we will go back there first thing."

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Italy's inflation slows in October

ITALY'S inflation slowed in October to a rate of 2.6 per cent from 3.2 per cent in September, official data from Italy's statistics agency shows, confirming previous estimates.

The slowdown was due partly to seasonal effects for various goods and services sectors and partly to external factors including an increase of value-added tax by one percentage point in October, Istat said on Tuesday.

The inflation rate calculated according to European Union measurements was 2.8 per cent in October at an annualised rate compared to 3.4 per cent in September and 0.3 per cent over the month.

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NYC's Christmas tree survived Sandy

THE Christmas tree that will dominate New York's Rockefeller Center survived the winds of Superstorm Sandy that left a path of destruction in a New Jersey town and even its donor without electricity for weeks.

Joe Balku, 76, learned that the 24-metre Norway spruce had been chosen for the honour four weeks ago. Sandy hit two weeks later.

Mr Balku watched the tree, which weighs 9 tonnes and is 15m in diameter, as it swayed in the backyard.

"I kept going outside during the night. I lost two trees, an oak and an evergreen, but the big tree was tied up for its protection," Mr Balku said.

His electricity went out, but on the morning after the storm, the tree was still standing and his home did not sustain any damage.

The tree was about 7m tall when Mr Balku purchased the home in 1973.

Mr Balku had two generators running to power his home in the rural community about an hour from Manhattan. He didn't have cable TV or internet service.

Electricity was restored on Saturday.

The tree will be loaded on a 35m-long flatbed truck and erected at Rockefeller Centre tomorrow. Workers will then string 45,000 lights on the branches.

"It's a thrill of a lifetime to have the chance to donate the tree to Rockefeller Centre and for millions of people to see it all over the world," he said.

The 80th Christmas tree lighting will take place on November 28.

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Myanmar quake toll 26: Red Cross

THE Red Cross says the death toll has risen to 26 from an earthquake that damaged homes and ancient Buddhist pagodas in northern Myanmar.

The Red Cross said in a statement on Tuesday another 231 people were hurt in Sunday's magnitude-6.8 quake in the underdeveloped mining region.

Myanmar has a poor official disaster response system and lost upward of 140,000 people to a devastating cyclone in 2008.

The Red Cross says it provided aid to some families and is still assessing needs but that no external assistance will likely be needed.

Myanmar's second-biggest city of Mandalay is the nearest population centre to the quake but reported no casualties or major damage.

It is 117 kilometres south of the epicentre near the town of Shwebo.

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Clinton applauds Asia white paper

UNITED States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has applauded the federal government's strategic white paper on Asian policy and welcomed Australian-Indian naval vessel exercises in the future.

Mrs Clinton is in Perth for the annual Australia-United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) meeting and on Tuesday night launched the Perth USAsia Centre at the University of Western Australia (UWA), aimed at strengthening ties between the US, Australia and the Asian region.

She praised Australia's "burgeoning" relationship with India, which she said was the "world's largest democracy and a dynamic emerging economy".

"We would welcome joint Australian-Indian naval vessel exercises in the future and we are eager to work together in the Indian Ocean Rim-Association for Regional Cooperation which Australia will chair in 2013 and which the United States has now joined as a dialogue partner," she said.

Mrs Clinton said it was important for Australia and the US to work closely together in the region and said the US had encouraged Delhi to participate more in world affairs.

She also spoke briefly about China, saying she hoped to support China in becoming a "responsible stakeholder in the international community".

The $10 million Perth USAsia Centre is a partnership between the US Studies Centre (USSC) at the University of Sydney and University of Western Australia.

Mrs Clinton said it was her first visit to Perth and she recalled her friend John Glenn's space orbit of the earth in 1962.

"Every light in this city came on to signal support for his mission and I will tell you that he never forgot the gesture of friendship from this city of light, so for me to come here is a dream come true," she said.

Mrs Clinton said it wasn't surprising that foreign investment in Australia was "soaring" including more than $100 billion from the US.

She said Australia was a key focus of America's expanding engagement in the region.

WA Premier Colin Barnett also shared his love of space and joked that as a child he "wanted to be American" and insisted on being called Sputnik, prompting a jovial Mrs Clinton to call him "Premier Sputnik".

Senator Chris Evans joked that his teenage son understood American politics better than Australian politics, highlighting the bond between the two nations.

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US stocks slide on Greece, US worries

US stocks have sunk in opening trade amid worries about Greece's debt crisis and a US "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax hikes at year-end expected to drag the economy into recession.

In the first five minutes of Tuesday trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 49.53 points (0.39 per cent) at 12,765.55.

The broad-market S&P 500 dropped 7.75 points (0.56 per cent) to 1,372.28, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite skidded 24.82 (0.85 per cent) to 2,879.43.

"The fiscal cliff concern hasn't gone away... (and) the concerns about Greece are still present," Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com said in a client note.

"The only clear thing right now is that there is a lot of uncertainty and that there isn't a headline today so far that is the equivalent of a game-changer."

On Monday US stocks closed flat as investors weighed fiscal cliff fears and eurozone debt concerns.

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French aristocrat swindler gets 8 years

AN alleged modern-day Rasputin has been convicted of brainwashing three generations of an aristocratic French family for nearly a decade, swindling them of their fortune and their turreted manor.

Thierry Tilly, who was sentenced to eight years in prison by a court in Bordeaux on Tuesday, became a confidante of the landed Vedrines family in 2000 in a case has both riveted and shocked the nation.

Over nine years, the man who local media dubbed "the guru" used manipulation techniques to convince the family of 11 - aged from 16 to 89 - of a secret plot against their lives, according to court testimony.

The family was so convinced of his story that they locked themselves inside their chateau for several years, terrified they would be killed. They sold off their possessions - including the family manor - and handed over 4.5 million euro ($A5.49 million).

French media reported that the money was poured into a fake Canadian charity that Tilly claimed was set up to pay the Vedrines' "protectors."

The French-born Tilly was convicted of arbitrary detention, using violence against vulnerable people and abusing people weakened by "psychological subjection."

"Eight years is a small price to pay for what he did to our family and children," Christine de Vedrines, who first alerted police to Thierry's actions, told the Sipa news agency on Tuesday. "The trial is behind us and we will do everything to rebuild."

His accomplice, Jacques Gonzalez, was sentenced to four years in prison.

Despite the conviction, Tilly remained defiant, invoking his right as a British citizen and saying he would take his case to the European Court of Justice, Sipa reported.

Tilly's lawyer had argued that the family from 13th-century village of Monflanquin in southwestern France had acted willingly.

"These 11 family members aren't ill, have their feet on the ground, a level of self-awareness. Eleven people manipulated by mysterious forces by a single man? The legal basis for case is weak," lawyer Alexandre Novion told The Associated Press.

Although Tilly was deemed mentally stable during his trial, French media have reported that he has a history of lies and exaggerations. Tilly claimed before the Bordeaux court that he was a member of the Habsburg dynasty, that he once almost played football for Marseille and that he knew former French President Francois Mitterrand.

"(The trial) has only just begun," Tilly declared.

His lawyer, meanwhile, said he was not aware that his client was a British citizen.

The case raised echoes of another controversial trial involving France's richest woman, 90-year-old L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, who was swindled by a French tax lawyer into handing over a private Seychelles island to him.

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Final IBAC bills in Vic parliament

A GOVERNMENT-APPOINTED Victorian inspector will be able to sit in on witness examinations and be privy to material uncovered in investigations by the ombudsman and the state's new anti-corruption commission.

The final pieces of legislation in the state government's new integrity regime will be introduced into parliament on Tuesday.

The draft laws will replace the Office of Police Integrity with the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC).

Although its permanent head is yet to be announced, the IBAC can start investigations as soon as the legislation passes parliament, which is expected to happen before the end of the year - about 18 months late.

Ron Bonighton is acting commissioner until the end of December.

The IBAC will be responsible for investigating serious corrupt conduct across the state's public service, covering some 250,000 workers including MPs, ministerial staffers and local councillors.

It will also investigate alleged misconduct by Victoria Police sworn and unsworn officers.

There will also be major changes relating to the role of Ombudsman George Brouwer, who will be answerable to a parliamentary committee for the first time.

He, along with the IBAC, will also be monitored by the Victorian Inspectorate, to be led by an inspector who is yet to be announced. The inspector's role will be to ensure the use of covert and coercive powers is lawful and fair.

The Victorian Inspectorate will be able to observe any witness questioning by the ombudsman and the IBAC and have access to material seized during investigations.

The ombudsman will lose the power to make decisions about which complaints can receive whistleblower protections. That power will be transferred to the IBAC.

The minister responsible for the establishment of an anti-corruption commission, Andrew McIntosh, said the government had taken the time to get its integrity regime right to fix a "patchwork system" that had failed Victoria.

"These are the most significant integrity reforms in the history of this state," he said.

"The bills introduced today cap off these reforms."

The IBAC will have the power to bug phones and conduct other surveillance once federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon rubber stamps federal telecommunication interception legislation.

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Sica allegedly had sex with nine-year-old

A NINE-year-old girl started documenting her almost four-year intimate sexual relationship with convicted triple murderer Massimo "Max" Sica in a series of coded diary entries, a court has been told.

Brisbane District Court judge Michael Shanahan was told the girl even showed the allegedly damning diaries to Sica's dad, Carlo, before destroying them to protect the killer she claimed to be in love with.

The court was told Sica is alleged to have had sex with the girl on numerous occasions, including in his parent's matrimonial bed, in a public park while delivering take-out meals from one of his parents' restaurants and after celebrating the girl's 12th birthday with cake.

Sica, now aged 42, yesterday pleaded not guilty to 21 sex offences, including two counts of rape and one of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child between November 15, 2004, and September 10, 2008.

Prosecutors said Sica, then aged 35 to 39, was also charged with nine counts each of unlawful carnal knowledge and indecent dealing of a child under 16.

Judge Shanahan was told Sica's alleged sexual relationship with the girl lasted from when she was nine until she was 13.

Prosecutor Todd Fuller, SC, said the alleged relationship was revealed when the girl told school friends she was in love with an older man with whom she was having sex.

In July, a Brisbane Supreme Court jury found Sica guilty of the 2003 murder of the Singh siblings Neelma, 24, Kunal, 18, and Sidhi, 12. He received a minimum 35-year jail term.

Publication of Sica's previous offending would normally be prohibited during a trial for unrelated offences, however Sica sought and won an application to have the trial heard before a judge only and not before a jury.

Details of Sica's past could be prejudicial if the matter was heard by an impartial jury, but are not likely to have any impact on a judge.

Judge Shanahan has adjourned the trial until tomorrow.

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Gaddafi's ex-PM faces Libyan judges

MUAMMAR Gaddafi's last prime minister has become the highest ranking former regime official to go before Libyan judges, in a brief but sullen court appearance.

Dressed in a traditional white robe and brown vest, Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi sat in stony silence within a caged section of the Tripoli criminal court, where figures of the toppled Gaddafi regime are facing justice.

The judge did not read out the charges on Monday but Taha Baara, the spokesman for the prosecutor general, said Mahmoudi "is accused of committing prejudicial acts against the security of the state and financial crimes".

Two other defendants being tried along with Mahmoudi were not brought to court, triggering protests from the defence team, which also requested more time to study the case.

"It is a big file. I need more time in order to get myself ready for the defence," lawyer Ali Dabba told AFP.

The session lasted about 10 minutes before the trial was adjourned until December 10 at the request of both the defence and the prosecution.

Mahmoudi fled to neighbouring Tunisia in September last year shortly after rebels seized Tripoli and effectively put an end to more than four decades of iron-fisted Gaddafi rule.

He was extradited to Libya to face justice on June 24, despite warnings from rights groups that he could face the death penalty.

Along with Saif al-Islam, the toppled dictator's most high-profile son, Mahmoudi is one of the few remaining keepers of the many state secrets under Gaddafi, who was killed on October 20 last year.

Saif, arrested inside Libya a year ago, is awaiting to hear where he will stand trial for alleged crimes against humanity.

The authorities in Tripoli want him to stand in the dock inside Libya, but the International Criminal Court wants him to face justice in The Hague.

Judges in The Hague heard arguments last month by a lawyer for Libya and representatives of the ICC to decide where Saif, 40, and Gaddafi's former spymaster Abdullah Senoussi, 63, should be tried.

Saif has been in custody in the western Libyan hill town of Zintan since his arrest last November, while Senoussi was extradited from Mauritania on September 5.

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Israel army in direct hit on Syria source

ISRAELI troops have fired tank shells into Syria in retaliation for a mortar round that struck near an army post in the Golan Heights, scoring "direct hits" on the source of the fire, the army says.

"A short while ago, a mortar shell hit an open area in the vicinity of an IDF (army) post in the central Golan Heights, as part of the internal conflict inside Syria, causing no damage or injuries," it said on Monday.

"In response, IDF soldiers fired tank shells towards the source of the fire, confirming direct hits."

Israeli military sources said: "Syrian mobile artillery was directly hit," without elaborating further.

The army warned that any further fire from Syria towards the Israeli-occupied sector of the strategic plateau would be answered with "severity".

"Fire emanating from Syria into Israel will not be tolerated and shall be responded to with severity," a statement said, indicating that Israel had filed a complaint with UN observers monitoring the ceasefire line.

Israeli troops fired a warning shot across the UN-monitored ceasefire line on Sunday in the first such shooting on the Golan since the 1973 Middle East war.

Sunday's mortar round, which hit an Israeli position, drew a warning from Defence Minister Ehud Barak that Israel would take "tougher" action in response to any new fire from Syria.

United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky said after Sunday's fire the UN chief was "deeply concerned by the potential for escalation".

"He calls for the utmost restraint" and urges both sides to uphold the 1974 accord that set up the ceasefire line and surrounding demilitarised zone.

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Toyota tests cars that communicate

TOYOTA Motor Cop. is testing car safety systems that allow vehicles to communicate with each other and with the roads they are on in a just completed facility in Japan the size of three baseball stadiums.

The cars at the Intelligent Transport System site receive information from sensors and transmitters installed on the streets to minimise the risk of accidents in situations such as missing a red traffic light, cars advancing from blind spots and pedestrians crossing the street. The system also tests cars that transmit such information to each other.

In a test drive for reporters Monday, the presence of a pedestrian triggered a beeping sound in the car and a picture of a person popped up on a screen in front of the driver. A picture of an arrow popped up to indicate an approaching car at an intersection. An electronic female voice said, "It's a red light," if the driver was about to ignore a red light.

The 3.5 hectare test site looks much like the artificial roads at driving schools, except bigger, and is in a corner of the Japanese automaker's technology center near Mount Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan.

Toyota officials said the smart-car technology it is developing will be tested on some Japanese roads starting in 2014. Similar tests are planned for the US, although details were not decided. Such technology is expected to be effective because half of car accidents happen at intersections, according to Toyota.

Managing Officer Moritaka Yoshida said Toyota sees preventing collisions, watching out for pedestrians and helping the driving of the elderly as key to ensuring safety in the cars of the future.

"We offer the world's top-level technology," he told reporters.

All automakers are working on pre-crash safety technology to add value to their cars, especially for developed markets such as the US, Europe and Japan. But the strongest sales growth is coming from emerging markets which are eventually expected to show more interest in safety technology.

Toyota's Japanese rival Nissan Motor Co. recently showed cars that were smart enough to stop on their own, park themselves and swerve away from pedestrians who suddenly jumped into the vehicle's path.

Toyota also showed a new feature that helps the driver brake harder to prevent bumping into the vehicle in front. Toyota officials said drivers often fail to push hard on their brakes in such situations because they get into a panic.

Toyota said the technology will be available "soon," without giving a date, and hinted it will be offered for Lexus luxury models. Luxury models already offer similar safety features such as automatic braking. Technology involving precise sensors remains expensive, sometimes costing as much as a cheaper Toyota car.

Toyota has also developed sonar sensors that help drivers avoid crashing in parking lots. One system even knows when the driver pushes on the gas pedal by mistake instead of the brakes, and will stop automatically.

Rear-end collisions make up 34 per cent of car accidents in Japan, comprising the biggest category, followed by head-on collisions at 27 per cent.

Cars that stop and go on their own, avoiding accidents, are not pure science fiction, experts say.

Alberto Broggi, professor at the University of Parma and an expert on intelligent transportation systems, said the idea of the accident-free cars is "very hot," and probably within reach on some roads within several years.

"I'm sure we will arrive to such a technology even if I don't know when exactly," he said.

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Two charged over NSW child sex assaults

A CATHOLIC brother and a former Catholic teacher have been charged in NSW over alleged assaults on children dating back to the 1980s.

Sex Crimes Squad detectives investigating allegations of abuse on an eight-year-old girl in 1985 and two 13-year-old boys in 1987 made the arrests on Monday evening and later charged the pair.

Police allege some of the incidents took place at a Catholic college and a Catholic primary school in Sydney's west.

The Catholic brother, whose charges relate to the two boys, has been refused bail and will appear at Wyong Local Court on Tuesday.

The 59-year-old was arrested at a property at The Entrance on the Central Coast.

He was charged with committing an indecent act on a child under 16 and under authority, along with five counts of indecent assault on a child under 16 and under authority.

The former teacher, a 58-year-old man arrested at a Blacktown property, was charged with offences relating to a 13-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl.

The charges are sexual assault on a child under 16, indecent assault on a child under 16, committing an indecent act on a child under 16 and indecent assault on a child under 16 and under authority.

He has been granted strict conditional bail and will appear at Blacktown Local Court on December 13.

Police said their inquiries are continuing.

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US stocks rise on China trade data

US stocks have opened with modest gains after last week's slump, lifted by encouraging China trade data that signalled renewed momentum in the economy and solid earnings from a key US homebuilder.

In the first five minutes of trade on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 13.82 points, or 0.11 per cent, at 12,829.21.

The broad-market S&P 500 advanced 3.26 points, or 0.24 per cent, to 1,383.11.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite rose 12.94 points, or 0.45 per cent, to 2,917.81.

"The support for stocks comes as China reported stronger than expected exports and US homebuilder DR Horton Inc posted better-than-expected earnings," Charles Schwab & Co analyst said.

China's export growth accelerated in October for the second straight month, the government said on Saturday, adding to evidence the world's second-largest economy is bouncing back from a slowdown.

There were no major economic data scheduled for release and the bond market was closed in observance of Veterans Day.

On Friday, US stocks eked out small gains, capping a week of solid losses amid fears about the nation's looming "fiscal cliff", automatic spending cuts and expiring tax breaks that will come at year-end unless avoided.

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Boat reported missing off NSW coast

A SEARCH is to resume at first light on Monday for a boat feared to have sunk off Wollongong.

Police were called to Wollongong Harbour at 6pm (AEDT) on Sunday after witnesses reported seeing a small boat that appeared to be sinking and two people in difficulty in the water.

They launched a search, some 500 to 600 metres off the lighthouse.

Despite the best efforts of surf lifesaving club volunteers, marine rescue teams, water police and two helicopters, there has been no sign of the boat or its occupants.

The foreshore has also been searched, with officers checking boat ramps for vehicles and trailers.

The search was postponed at 9.30pm and is to start again on Monday morning following a briefing.

Police would like to hear from witnesses, including the woman who originally saw the boat and told others what she had seen.

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Inquiry to see list of pedophile priests

A VICTIMS group on Monday will present to the Victorian government inquiry into sex abuse by priests a list of 18 convicted pedophile priests who were moved from parish to parish or further away, where they continued offending.

Helen Last of In Good Faith, a consultant for the Melbourne Victims Collective, will present the evidence to the state inquiry into how the churches handled sex abuse by priests, Fairfax says.

It comprises men who have been convicted in criminal courts or found by the Catholic Church's own investigation to have had credible complaints made against them.

Ms Last said the church has known through its Pastoral Appointments Board and its bishops that there have been problems with the conduct of all these priests previously reported to them.

She said the placements gave these priests access to primary and secondary schools, hospitals, orphanages and other care institutions.

The 18 include some of the most notorious pedophiles, such as Gerald Ridsdale, Edward Dowlan, Michael Glennon and the socialite priest Vincent Kiss, as well as many who barely caught public attention.

Ms last said the 18 priests were selected to see how many times they were moved by the church.

She said the problem of clergy abuse was so prevalent that the collective believed a dedicated police unit should be set up to work with victims of clergy.

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BBC trust head calls for radical overhaul

THE head of the BBC's governing body says the broadcaster needs a radical overhaul following the resignation of its chief executive in the wake of a scandal over a botched report on child sex-abuse allegations.

Chris Patten vowed on Sunday to restore confidence and trust in the BBC, which is reeling from the resignation of George Entwistle and the scandals prompting his ouster.

Entwistle resigned on Saturday night amid a storm of controversy after a news program wrongly implicated a British politician in a child sex-abuse scandal.

The blunder had deepened a crisis sparked by revelations the broadcaster decided not to air similar allegations against one of its own stars, DJ and presenter Jimmy Savile who died last year aged 84 and may have abused as many as 300 victims over a 40-year period.

Patten told the BBC on Sunday he will not resign, saying he must ensure the publicly-funded broadcaster "has a grip" and gets back on track.

"My job is to make sure that ... we restore confidence and trust in the BBC," he said, and called for a "thorough, radical structural overhaul".

The scandal comes at a sensitive time for Britain's media establishment, struggling to recover from an ongoing phone-hacking scandal which brought down the nation's best-selling Sunday newspaper, led to the arrests of dozens of journalists and prompted a judge-led inquiry into journalistic ethics and the ties between politics and the news media.

Kevin Marsh, a former senior editor of the BBC, said the resignation does little to re-establish public trust in the BBC, which is funded mainly by a tax on UK households that have televisions.

"The BBC asks the British public to pay its bills every year, and the only way it can do that is if the British public trusts the way it is spending its money," he said.

Entwistle took over as head of the BBC two months ago from Mark Thompson, who will become chief executive of The New York Times Co. this month.

The broadcaster was emerging from a difficult period marked by budget cuts, job losses and mounting calls to justify its 3.5 billion pound ($A5.40 billion) budget.

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Order implicated in abuse scandal

A PSYCHOLOGIST who met dozens of child abuse victims claims three quarters of the Brothers from the St John of God order were suspected to be involved in the scandal.

Michelle Mulvihill has also told Fairfax that Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell helped in negotiations for a loan for the order that was later used to pay victims.

The Sydney-based psychologist was employed by the order for nine years, from 1998, to sit in on meetings between victims and representatives from the order. She left the job because of fears suspected pedophiles had too much power in the order.

Fairfax also reported that according to Dr Mulvihill, the order hid documents and did not properly supervise suspected pedophile Brothers.

She said of the 40 to 50 Brothers in the order at the time she was there, around 75 per cent had been subject to allegations.

Dr Mulvihill said the order included Brothers who had carried out "the worst examples of child abuse I have ever heard of", Fairfax reported.

There have been calls for a royal commission into sexual abuse by religious groups.

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell has already announced a special commission to investigate allegations of child sex abuse by Catholic Church clergy in the Hunter region.

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EgyptAir stewardesses begin wearing hijab

EGYPTAIR stewardesses who campaigned to wear the Muslim headscarf have begun donning the hijab for the first time since the national carrier was founded in 1932, a company official says.

The first flight attendants dressed in the hijab, which mainstream clerics say is mandatory, worked on flights to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

Under president Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in an uprising in early 2011, the hijab was taboo for women in some state institutions such as public television and the national carrier.

But after the election of the Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in June, women in television and EgyptAir campaigned for permission to wear the hijab, like most Muslim women in Egypt.

The company had agreed to allow the stewardesses to wear the hijab after a strike by cabin crew in September that also demanded better pay.

An EgyptAir official said a foreign company has been contracted to design a cap and headscarf for the estimated 250 stewardesses who want to wear the hijab, out of 900 women working for EgyptAir.

In September, an anchorwoman was the first woman to appear on state television wearing the scarf, which traditionally covers the hair and neck. Some more liberal women wear the hijab to cover only their hair.

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French gunman's brother blames parents

THE radicalisation of the French gunman who killed seven people on an eight-day shooting spree this year began at home, his brother recounts in a new book and documentary, according to media reports.

Mohamed Merah killed three Jewish children, a rabbi and three paratroopers in and around the southern city of Toulouse in March before dying in a standoff with police.

Merah claimed links to al-Qaeda and said he had received training at an Islamist paramilitary camp in Pakistan.

One of his brothers, Abdelkader, also faces preliminary charges in the case and is in police custody.

The attacks raised painful questions about whether France was failing to integrate the children of Muslim immigrants, like the Merahs, who are of Algerian origin.

Many blamed the poverty of the neighbourhoods many immigrants and their children live in for driving them to radical Islam.

But a new book by another of Merah brother, Abdelghani, says his parents, particularly his mother, are responsible for Mohamed's radicalisation.

According to excerpts published in Le Figaro and other newspapers, Abdelghani made a silent vow on the day of Mohamed's funeral to tell the world how they were raised on anti-Semitism.

"I will explain how my parents raised you in an atmosphere of racism and hate before the Salafis could douse you in religious extremism," he writes in My brother, that terrorist, due out this week. Salafis are ultraconservative Muslims.

The Merahs' mother was at one point held for questioning but has since been released.

Their father left the family for Algeria when the children were young but has since sued the French state for Mohamed's death.

A documentary featuring interviews with Abdelghani and his sister, Souad, treads similar ground.

In an excerpt, Abdelghani remembers how his mother drove home a message of anti-Semitism.

"My mother always said, 'We, the Arabs, we were born to hate Jews.' This speech, I heard it all throughout my childhood," Abdelghani says in the documentary.

Souad, on the other hand, declares how proud she is of her brother, Mohamed.

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NATO soldier dies in Afghan insider attack

A NATO-LED soldier fighting insurgents in Afghanistan has been shot dead by a man in an Afghan army uniform in southern Afghanistan, the latest in a series of "insider" attacks, the alliance says.

"I can confirm that an individual wearing Afghan national army uniform turned his weapon against ISAF members in southern Afghanistan, killing one," an International Security Assistance Force spokesman told AFP.

The incident happened after a "verbal argument" between an Afghan soldier and foreign troops in a joint camp in Nad Ali district of Helmand province on Saturday, said Ahmad Zeerak, the Helmand governor's spokesman.

The Afghan soldier was wounded after the foreign troops returned fire and he has been taken to the hospital, he said.

An Afghan security officer told Deutsche-Presse Agentur the dead soldier was British. An official with the British army in Kabul declined to comment.

Shootings by Afghan forces have taken an increasing toll on NATO troops and have seriously undermined trust between NATO forces and their Afghan allies in the fight against hardline Islamist Taliban insurgents.

In the most recent "insider" attacks, at least two Afghan soldiers attacked NATO-led forces in western Afghanistan on Saturday, injuring a Spanish soldier, officials said.

The injured Afghan soldier and the other assailant were captured by the Afghan National Army and a third man was suspected of involvement, officials said.

The Afghan conflict has seen a surge in insider attacks this year, with more than 50 ISAF troops killed by their colleagues in the Afghan army and police.

There are presently about 100,000 US-led forces fighting alongside Afghan security forces against a Taliban-led insurgency that has been raging in the war-torn country since a US-led invasion toppled the Islamist regime in late 2001.

NATO combat forces are scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

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