Iran hangs drug traffickers, rapists

IRAN has hanged an Afghan drug trafficker and four Iranians, three of them convicted of rape, local media reported.

The 27-year-old Afghan from Herat, identified only by his initials MM, was sent to the gallows in the northern city of Damghan after being convicted of selling around two kilos (four pounds) of crack cocaine.

Three Iranian men convicted of rape and another of smuggling heroin and opium, were hanged in the central city of Yazd.

The Islamic republic, where murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and adultery are punishable by death, has one of the highest annual execution counts in the world, alongside China, Saudi Arabia and the US.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has condemned the executions, but Tehran says the death penalty is essential to maintain law and order and that it is enforced only after exhaustive judicial proceedings.

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Iran to relocate airport after oil found

IRAN plans to relocate an airport in the southwest of the country after discovering oil deposits under its runway, media reported.

The National Iranian Oil Company "intends to buy Ahvaz airport due to the existence of oil deposits under the airport's tarmac," the state broadcaster's website quoted Mohammad Rasoulinejad, managing director of the Iranian Airports Company, as saying.

"The government has approved the relocation of the airport," mR Rasoulinejad said, adding that the new airport will be built 15 kilometres from the city.

He did not give any details about the oil deposits.

Mr Rasoulinejad said that the airport is among "the country's busiest" with some 30 flights per day, adding that relocating it would also enable its much-needed expansion.

The NIOC did not comment on the government's decision.

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Fifteen tied up and killed in Nigeria

SUSPECTED radical Islamist gunmen have attacked a village in northeast Nigeria, tying up men, women and children before slitting their throats and killing at least 15 in the troubled region's latest attack.

The assault happened early on Friday morning in the village of Musari on the outskirts of Maiduguri.

The gunmen, suspected of being members of Boko Haram, shouted religious slogans and later ordered people to gather up into a group, said Mshelia Inusa, a primary school teacher in the village.

Chants of "God is great, God is great" followed, he said.

Later, Mr Inusa and others saw corpses with their hands tied behind their backs and their throats cut.

Later Friday morning, an ambulance arrived at the State Specialists Hospital in Maiduguri, accompanied by a group of military vehicles, a security guard said. Agitated soldiers ordered people away, but the guard said he counted at least 15 bodies being brought into the facility's morgue.

A military spokesman later issued a statement saying only five people had been killed in the village during the attack. However, military and police officials routinely downplay casualty figures because they are under increasing pressure from their superiors to minimise the perceived effects of the ongoing attacks by Boko Haram.

Boko Haram could not be immediately reached for comment.

More than 780 people have been killed in Boko Haram attacks in 2012.

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen also attacked another village Friday in Adamawa state on its border with neighbouring Cameroon.

Witnesses said that attack focused on the town of Maiha, where gunmen also shouted praises to God while setting fire to government buildings, a school and a prison.

At least 35 prisoners were released from the prison in the attack, though 11 had been recaptured, police spokesman Mohammed Ibrahim said.

Mr Ibrahim said a civilian and a police officer were killed during the fighting.

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Swine flu kills nine Palestinians

NINE Palestinians have died in an outbreak of the H1N1 influenza strain known as swine flu, the office of Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad says.

"Latest figures and information ... show that 187 cases have so far been recorded, the majority of which are in the northern West Bank," it said in a statement.

"The number of recorded deaths ... stands at nine until now."

It added that the Palestinian health ministry "has the necessary medicines, testing kits and equipment to deal efficiently with the spread of the virus".

The virus has affected Israel and the Palestinian territories in the past, killing dozens of people.

In 2009, an H1N1 epidemic erupted in Mexico and spread into a worldwide pandemic that caused at least 17,000 deaths.

In 1997, the H5N1 strain of influenza, commonly known as bird flu, broke out in Hong Kong.

Spreading from live birds to humans through direct contact, it causes fever and breathing problems and claimed 359 human lives in 15 countries, mainly in Asia and Africa, from 2003 to August of this year, according to the World Health Organisation.

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Hanlong to buy Sundance: report

A PRIVATELY-owned Chinese company is finalising the acquisition of an Australian mining firm that controls a major iron ore mine in west Africa, China's official Xinhua News Agency reports.

The move would give China a stronger role in setting global iron ore prices.

Xinhua, citing officials from Hanlong Group, based in southwestern China's Sichuan province, said Hanlong plans to complete the acquisition of Sundance Resources Ltd for 45 cents per share by March 1, after submitting paperwork to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Sundance controls the Mbalam iron ore mine, which straddles Cameroon and the Republic of Congo.

Hanlong is seeking a partnership with Chinese state-owned companies and investing $US5 billion ($4.84 billion) to develop the Mbalam project and to build a 550-kilometre railway and a shipping port, Xinhua said.

Operations are expected to begin in 2014, Xinhua said.

As the world's second-largest economy, China is eager to acquire overseas assets and resources to feed its rapid growth.

The prospect of a takeover appeared remote earlier this month following news that Hanlong wanted to delay the bid because it could not secure funding by December 13, AAP reported.

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'Invisible Exhibition' opens eyes to blind

THE darkness is total. Mundane gestures suddenly become complicated. How do you find the door to your room, cook a meal or cross the road?

The Invisible Exhibition in the Polish capital Warsaw offers an opportunity to understand what it is like to be sightless, as blind guides steer visitors round in blacked-out rooms .

"The visitors take on the role of the blind," exhibition curator Malgorzara Szumowska told AFP.

"Thanks to a series of sense-based installations, you experience what it is to live in the dark."

The hour-long tour requires a healthy imagination, as the sighted learn how smell, hearing, taste and touch work differently in this unknown world.

"There are six rooms, all in utter darkness. Each one replicates a scene from daily life: an apartment, a street, a museum, and so on," said Szumowska.

The noise seems overwhelming in the street scene, where visitors must dodge cars and lampposts. Smells are a delight in a forest chalet, as is the sound of a stream under a small wooden bridge.

The last stop is a loud cafe where the blind guide takes on the role of the barman.

Along with the dark side, the exhibition has a section with light that offers educational games to stimulate the senses and demonstrates tools the blind use in their daily lives, such as braille.

"Our goal is to show that the invisible world is beautiful and sumptuous, and that the blind have a sense of humour, with a life and passions," said Szumowska. "Fate doesn't exclude them from society."

The idea for the exhibition came from Hungary, where a woman blacked out her apartment to understand and share the experience of her husband, blinded by an accident.

Her experiment led to an exhibition-cum-social project in the capital Budapest. It caught on, and was followed by a version in the Czech capital Prague then another one in Warsaw, which opened a year ago.

Some 30,000 people have visited Niewidzialna Wystawa, as it's called in Polish.

"It's very powerful," said Warsaw student Aleksandra. "At first I was terrified. I didn't know what was going on around me. I felt lost. But luckily there was a blind guide."

The guides are paid, a boost in a labour market where options for the blind are often limited.

"It's the best job I've ever had," said Pawel Kozlowski, one of the team.

It's also a challenge, said 31-year-old Pawel Orabczuk, a graduate in teaching and social work as well as a sound engineer and drummer in a heavy metal band who has been blind since birth.

"The main thing for we guides is to ensure that everything feels fine and safe," he said. You not only have to help visitors tap their four remaining senses but you must do so "only through words, because they can't see your gestures in the dark".

"If only one visitor in 10 realises that you should consider the blind as an ordinary person, that's a success," he added.

Even "we can still say, 'See you soon'," he said at the exit. "How else can you put it?"

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Road trip on tap for NASA's Mars rover

SINCE captivating the world with its acrobatic landing, the Mars rover Curiosity has fallen into a rhythm: Drive, snap pictures, zap at boulders, scoop up dirt. Repeat.

Topping its to-do list in the new year: Set off toward a Martian mountain - a trek that will take up a good chunk of the year.

The original itinerary called for starting the drive before the Times Square ball drop, but Curiosity lingered longer than planned at a pit stop, delaying the trip.

Curiosity will now head for Mount Sharp in mid-February after it drills into its first rock.

"We'll probably be ready to hit the pedal to the metal and give the keys back to the rover drivers," mission chief scientist John Grotzinger said in a recent interview at his office on the sprawling NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory campus 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

The road trip comes amid great expectations. After all, it's the reason the $US2.5 billion ($A2.42 billion) mission targeted Gale Crater near the Martian equator. Soaring from the center of the ancient crater is a 3-mile-high peak with intriguing layers of rocks.

Curiosity's job is to figure out whether the landing site ever had the right environmental conditions to support microbes. Scientists already know water flowed in the past thanks to the rover's discovery of an old stream bed. Besides water, life as we know it also needs energy, the sun.

What's missing are the chemical building blocks of life: complex carbon-based molecules. If they're preserved on Mars, scientists figure the best place to hunt for them is at the base of Mount Sharp where images from space reveal hints of interesting geology.

It's a six-month journey if Curiosity drives nonstop. But since scientists will want to command the six-wheel rover to rest and examine rocky outcrops along the way, it'll turn into a nine-month odyssey.

Before Curiosity can tackle a mountain, there's unfinished business to tend to. After spending the holiday taking measurements of the Martian atmosphere, Curiosity gears up for the first task of the new year: Finding the perfect rock to bore into.

The exercise - from picking a rock to drilling to deciphering its chemical makeup - is expected to last more than a month.

"We have promised everybody that we're going to go slowly," said Grotzinger, a geologist at the California Institute of Technology.

Curiosity's low-key adventures thus far are in contrast to the drama-filled touchdown that entranced the world in August. Since the car-size rover was too heavy to land using a parachute and airbags, engineers invented a daring new way that involved lowering it to the surface by cables. The risky arrival proved so successful and popular that NASA is planning an encore in 2020.

Curiosity joined another NASA rover, Opportunity, which has been exploring the Martian southern hemisphere since 2004. Opportunity's twin, Spirit, stopped communicating in 2010.

After nailing the landing, Curiosity fell into a routine. The first month was dominated by health checkups - a tedious but essential prerequisite before driving. A chemistry laboratory on wheels, it's the most high-tech spacecraft to land on another planet so extra care was taken to ensure its tools, including its rock-zapping laser and robotic arm, worked.

Once it got the green light, it trundled to a way point that's home to three unique types of terrain to perform science experiments. Every time Curiosity roves, it leaves Morse code tracks in the soil, providing a visual signal between drives. The message spells out JPL, short for Jet Propulsion Lab, which built the rover.

So far, its odometer has logged less than a mile. Despite the slow going, scientists have been smitten with the postcards it beamed home, including a stylish self-portrait and tantalising glimpses of Mount Sharp.

Huge expectations weigh on the mission with NASA balancing the need to feed the public's appetite while pursuing discoveries at its own pace. Last month, the space agency quashed Internet speculation that Curiosity had detected complex carbon compounds in a pinch of Martian soil by issuing a statement ahead of a science meeting where the team was due to present the latest findings.

American University space policy professor Howard McCurdy said Curiosity is currently in a transition, caught between the viral landing and the scientific payoff expected at Mount Sharp.

"It is interesting, but slow," he said in an email. "I expect public interest will rise as the rover gets closer to its destination."

Curiosity's prime mission lasts two years, but NASA expects the plutonium-powered rover to live far longer. A priority for its human handlers is to learn to operate it more efficiently so that it becomes second nature. Before heading to Mount Sharp, engineers plan a software update to Curiosity's computers to fix remaining bugs.

"We'll need to be pretty careful," project manager Richard Cook said of the upcoming drive. "We may find terrain that we're not comfortable driving in and we'll have to spend time driving around stuff."

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Don't return to sectarian strife: Iraq PM

IRAQI Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has called for people to stand together against sectarian strife, warning of a return to the days of bloody conflict when heads were left in the streets.

Maliki called in a speech in Baghdad for Iraqis to "stand together in one rank in facing this strife".

And the Shi'ite premier warned of a return to the worst days of the sectarian conflict that swept Iraq from 2006 to 2008.

"Have you forgotten the day we were collecting bodies from the streets? Have you forgotten the day we were collecting severed heads from the streets?" he asked.

Maliki's remarks came two days after security forces arrested at least nine of Sunni Finance Minister Rafa al-Essawi's guards on terror charges, threatening a new crisis with the minister's secular, Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc.

After his guards were arrested, Essawi demanded Maliki's resignation, and also called for no-confidence proceedings that failed to remove the premier earlier this year to be reopened.

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Egypt VP Mekki resigns: state TV

EGYPTIAN Vice President Mahmud Mekki announced his resignation on Saturday, state television reported, on the day of a referendum on a new constitution that leaves unclear whether his position would be maintained.

Mr Mekki, 58, was a respected judge before President Mohamed Morsi named him to the post in August.

He led judicial opposition to ousted leader Hosni Mubarak, but eschewed calls to become a presidential candidate himself, saying he wished to stay politically independent.

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Bomber kills 9 at Pakistan political rally

A SUICIDE bomber in Pakistan has killed nine people including a provincial government official at a political rally, officials say.

The rally in Peshawar, the capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was held by the Awami National Party, whose members have been repeatedly targeted by the Pakistani Taliban.

Among the dead was Bashir Bilour, the second most senior member of the provincial cabinet, said Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, the politician's brother and federal railways minister.

More than 20 others were wounded by the blast, said local police officer Sabir Khan.

Bilour was leaving the rally after delivering the keynote speech when the attack occurred, said Nazir Khan, a local Awami National Party leader.

"There was smoke and dust all around, and dead and wounded people were lying on the ground," he said.

The suicide bomber was on foot, said another police officer, Imtiaz Khan.

Mohammed Afridi, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call with The Associated Press.

He said the militant group has formed a special wing to attack members of the Awami National Party and the Muttahida Quami Movement, another political party that has opposed the Taliban.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa information minister and a member of the Awami National Party, said both he and Bilour had repeatedly received threats from militants.

He condemned the attack and said the government needed to intensify its battle against the Pakistani Taliban.

"Terrorism has engulfed our whole society," said Hussain.

"They are targeting our bases, our mosques, our bazaars, public meetings and our security checkpoints."

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Bahrain protesters demand departure of PM

THOUSANDS of Shi'ite protesters in Bahrain have demanded a transition government and the removal of Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, who has been premier since 1974, witnesses say.

They said the demonstrators marched in the village of Diya near the capital Manama, chanting "Resign, Khalifa!" and waving Bahraini flags.

The Shi'ite opposition in the tiny Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom is led by al-Wefaq, which wants a government of technocrats to rule in a transition leading to a constitutional monarchy.

Since February last year, Bahrain has been shaken by opposition protests that the authorities accuse of being exploited by Shi'ite Iran across the Gulf.

At least 80 people have died since the start of the unrest in February 2011, according to the International Federation of Human Rights.

The opposition insists that the premier stand down and that the government be headed by the leader of the elected majority in parliament

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Taliban seek new Afghanistan constitution

AFGHANISTAN'S Taliban has called for a new constitution as a pre-condition for it joining the country's fledgling peace process, according to a declaration issued by representatives at a landmark meeting in France.

Representatives from the country's warring factions met on Thursday for two days of talks that diplomats hope will bolster relations in the war-torn country.

It is the first time since a US-led bombing campaign drove the Taliban from power in 2001 that senior representatives have sat down with officials from the government and other opposition groups to discuss the country's future, in a meeting brokered by a French think tank.

"Afghanistan's present constitution has no value for us because it was made under the shadows of B52 bombers of the invaders," said the declaration, which was handed to participants during the meeting and later released to the media.

"Islamic Emirate, for the welfare of their courageous nation, need a constitution that is based on the principles of the holy religion of Islam, national interest, historical achievements, and social justice," it read.

The meeting in France was organised by the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), and was held behind closed doors at an undisclosed location near Paris.

The talks come against a background of accelerating efforts to draw the Taliban and other opponents of President Hamid Karzai into negotiations on how Afghanistan will be run after foreign troops withdraw at the end of 2014.

Karzai's government has drawn up a roadmap for peace which involves persuading the Taliban and other insurgent groups to agree to a ceasefire as a prelude to becoming peaceful players in the country's nascent democracy.

As a first step in that direction, Karzai's administration has been attempting to secure the release of top Taliban prisoners held by neighbouring Pakistan.

Despite the landmark meeting, the Taliban's declaration continued to display a lack of trust in the government.

"The invaders and their friends don't have a clear roadmap for peace," it stated.

"Sometimes they say we want to talk to the Islamic Emirate, but sometimes they say we will talk with Pakistan. This kind of vague stance will never get to peace," it said.

To date the Taliban has refused to negotiate with the government, which it regards as a puppet of the United States.

Discussions with US officials were suspended in March.

In France the Taliban was represented by their senior figures Shahabuddin Dilawar and Naeem Wardak, a move seen as a sign that the Islamist group is contemplating going beyond exploratory discussions.

The Taliban, who ruled in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, were ousted from power by a US-led invasion and have since waged an 11-year insurgency to topple the US-supported government of Karzai.

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Kenya deputy PM eyes presidential bid

KENYAN Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, charged by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity over deadly 2007-08 election violence, says he will run for president in the March vote.

"I have been mandated by (the Jubilee coalition) to be the flag bearer in the March 4 election, and I will never let you down," he said.

The son of Jomo Kenyatta, who is considered the founding father of Kenyan independence, Uhuru Kenyatta has been charged by the ICC over his alleged role in the unrest unleashed after the December 2007 elections that killed at least 1100 people.

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Punish those who shot UN chopper: Russia

RUSSIA has urged South Sudan to punish those responsible for shooting down a UN peacekeeping helicopter and killing all four Russian crew members aboard, in an attack condemned by the international community.

"We call on the government of South Sudan to carry out the necessary investigation, punish the guilty and take every measure to guarantee that this never happens again," the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website after Friday's incident.

A South Sudan military spokesman said troops fired anti-aircraft guns at the Russian Mi-8 believing it was a rebel helicopter carrying weapons to anti-government forces in the world's newest country.

The United Nations said the aircraft was hit while on a "reconnaissance flight" over the Likuangole district of the eastern Jonglei state.

"The tragic event in this African country raises with new urgency the question of the security of UN peacekeeping missions," the Russian ministry said, attributing the helicopter downing to "blunders".

"The governments of countries that accept missions and carry the main responsibility for the security of UN peacekeepers must approach this problem with all seriousness and recognise all the possible consequences of blunders," it said.

It cited South Sudan officials as saying the helicopter was downed "despite the fact that the UN mission informed the local command about the planned flight as usual".

"The mission was guaranteed complete safety," the ministry said.

Russian television named the men who died as commander Sergei Ilyin, second pilot Alfir Abrarov, flight engineer Sergei Yegorov and cabin attendant and radio operator Nikolai Shpanov.

UN leader Ban Ki-moon, as well as the UN Security Council, had vehemently condemned the attack.

He said on Friday it was a "clearly marked" UN aircraft and demanded that those responsible be brought to account.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also said in a statement on Saturday that she "deplores" the attack and "calls on the government of South Sudan to give full cooperation in the investigation of this very serious incident".

Jongeli state has been stricken by ethnic strife since South Sudan became independent from Khartoum in July last year, becoming a base for rebellion against the new government.

The Mi-8 helicopter is a hardy workhorse model that was developed in the 1960s and is still being made in a modified version today.

It can carry up to 28 passengers or be used to transport cargo.

The downed aircraft belonged to the Nizhnevartovsk-Avia air company based in the Western Siberian town of Nizhnevartovsk.

The company was working on a contract with the United Nations, acting director Sergei Bakunin said in televised comments.

"They are fine pilots. The commander had more flight experience than the others: around 7000 hours. He went through Afghanistan, so he had great experience," he said.

The company had been working in South Sudan since March this year when Russian troops that had been servicing flights since 2006 left the region, Russian television reported.

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Bodies removed from US massacre school

THE bodies of 20 young children and six adults massacred by a lone gunman in a quiet US town were finally removed from the blood-soaked school, police said.

The formal identification of the victims in one of America's worst mass shootings marked a new chapter for horrified residents of Newtown, Connecticut, where Friday morning a 20-year-old man walked in with at least two powerful pistols and shot everyone he could find in two rooms of the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"By early this morning, they were able to positively identify all of the victims and make formal identification to all of the families of the victims," said Connecticut State Police spokesman Lieutenant Paul Vance.

The removal of bodies, which were initially left for investigators, "has been accomplished," he said on CBS television. "That was done overnight."

The gunman shot dead 18 children inside the school and two more died of their wounds shortly afterwards. Six adults, including the school principal, perished before the gunman died - apparently in a suicide.

Authorities offered little clue as to the motive for the shootings in Newtown, a wooded and picturesque small town northeast of New York City.

Hours after the shooting, hundreds of people gathered for a vigil, the crowd filling the church to capacity and spilling outside its doors.

"This is a kind of community, when things like that happen, they really pull together," the priest, Robert Weiss, said during the Mass.

A letter from Pope Benedict XVI was also read during the service.

Pope Benedict XVI sent his condolences to the community, in a letter read aloud at a vigil in Newtown Friday evening.

The pope "has asked me to convey his heartfelt grief and the assurance of his closeness in prayer to the victims and their families, and to all affected by the shocking event," Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone said in the letter.

"In the aftermath of this senseless tragedy he asks God our Father to console all those who mourn and to sustain the entire community," the letter said.

David Connors, whose triplets were at the school during the shooting but were unharmed, said he was still horrified.

"It's hard. I've never imagined a thing like that could happen here."

"Our faith is tested," state Governor Dan Malloy told the congregants.

"Not just necessarily our faith in God, but our faith in community, and who we are, and what we collectively are."

Earlier the governor had said "evil visited this community today."

US President Barack Obama, wiping away tears and struggling to maintain his composure, said he was aghast over the tragedy.

State police spokesman Vance said just one injured person survived, indicating that the gunman was unusually accurate or methodical in his fire.

The majority of killings, which began at around 9:30am local time, "took place in one section of the school, in two rooms," Vance added. The children were aged between five and 10, officials said.

The killer was identified as Adam Lanza, 20. Initially, police told media they thought the murderer was his brother, 24-year-old Ryan Lanza, whose identity card had been found on the shooter's dead body.

The surviving brother was in custody and being questioned, according to US television reports.

Many news outlets said another victim found in a home in Newtown - the 28th body in the day's bloodshed - was the shooter's mother, who was a teacher at Sandy Hook and whom he had killed before driving to the school.

Mr Obama went on national television to express his "overwhelming grief." He ordered flags to be lowered to half mast.

And there were similar statements of grief and shock around the world.

The head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, spoke of his "deep shock and horror," the Queen sent a message to Mr Obama in which she said she was "deeply shocked and saddened," and French President Francois Hollande expressed his condolences to Mr Obama, saying the news "horrified me."

Of all US campus shootings, the toll was second only to the 32 murders in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech university.

The latest number far exceeded the 15 killed in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, which triggered a fierce but inconclusive debate about the United States' relaxed gun control laws.

However, the White House has scotched any suggestion that the politically explosive subject would be quickly reopened.

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Police to launch interactive crime map

Police computer boffins are developing software described as like a "Google Maps of crime" that will for the first time show offences street by street. Source: The Courier-Mail

QUEENSLANDERS will get a new perspective on crime in their neighbourhoods thanks to a ground-breaking police mapping project.

Police computer boffins are developing software described as like a "Google Maps of crime" that will for the first time show offences street by street.

But there are no plans to include crime-rate information that would allow comparisons of neighbourhoods.

From next year anyone will be able to enter a street address, postcode or police division into a special search engine and compare the number of reported offences. The system, which will be free to access, is likely to show crimes ranging from assault and burglary to car theft using user-friendly icons to represent each type of offence.

Users will be able to customise their own maps showing neighbourhood crime hot spots and to track offending over time, with up to 15 years' worth of information being made available.

Sensitive crimes such as sex offences and breaches of domestic violence orders are likely to be aggregated with other crime types, such as assault, so they can't be associated with a particular location.

The Queensland Police Service is using data that records the location of each offence, but is working on ways to show crimes by street only so as to avoid breaching people's privacy. QPS said it would consider including crime rates at a future date.

The data will be updated regularly, but there is likely to be a time lag while police verify the figures.

The project is the product of about 18 months' work, triggered by pressure from Queensland's Information Commissioner and the media.

A spokesman for Emergency Services Minister Jack Dempsey said the program would help homebuyers and businesspeople make informed decisions about different locations.

"We want to give everyone an opportunity to look at the crime stats," he said.

"There's no reason to keep it secret or to do it just once a year."

The aim was to have the project go live by February but the State's Privacy Commissioner would be consulted first, the spokesman said.

It will be the first time police have published "divisional" level crime stats, breaking the figures down by suburb.

Police have kept more detailed divisional numbers to themselves, with the QPS last year saying it could not release the divisional statistics because they had not been "verified" by their statistics unit.

A QPS spokeswoman said The Sunday Mail's and The Courier-Mail's use of Right To Information laws to obtain the neighbourhood statistics two years ago had been the initial trigger for the project.

It also comes as the Newman Government makes commitments to greater transparency.

Its moves so far include putting a selection of statistics, including 15-years' worth of Statewide crime numbers and rates, on a pilot website, http://data.qld.gov.au.

In NSW residents can access data by suburb that is collected by an independent body.

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Allison face-to-face with Gerard's mistress

FLASHPOINT: The Indooroopilly gym where Allison Baden-Clay came face-to-face with her husband's lover Toni McHugh, and Ms McHugh's witness statement detailing the meeting. Source: The Sunday Mail (Qld)

FACE to face in a suburban gym, Allison Baden-Clay and her husband's mistress Toni McHugh stared mutely at each other.

The pair had rarely crossed paths before the chance encounter, which came just weeks after Mrs Baden-Clay found out about her husband's affair. Court documents, lodged as part of accused killer Gerard Baden-Clay's failed bail application on Friday, reveal how both women were lost for words.

"Nothing was said, we just looked at one another," Ms McHugh says in one of four signed police statements.

After the encounter, both women vented their anger on Baden-Clay in text messages.

"I may have used the term that Allison was a lady of leisure in the text message," Ms McHugh told police.

"Gerard never showed me or told me what she had said, just that she had sent him an abusive text message."

Three alleged affairs, including a relationship with a woman named for the first time as Jackie Crane, and their impact on his troubled marriage are also detailed.

Neighbour: Screams in night heard by MP Flegg

Allison's diary: Lonely mum, broken heart

Evidence: Police focus on husband's "blunt razor" cuts

Bail fail: Gerard Baden-Clay to spend Christmas behind bars

A packed court room has heard accused wife killer Gerard Baden-Clay's bid to be home for Christmas

As it happened: Baden-Clay's second bail application

Baden-Clay maintains his innocence on charges of murdering his wife.

Defence barrister Peter Davis SC claimed at the bail hearing the Crown case was weak and Mrs Baden-Clay may have taken her own life.

Mr Davis told the court a witness saw a woman walking in the Brookfield area at around 5.30am on the day she disappeared and an autopsy found high levels of her anti-depressant medication that could indicate suicide.

In her statements to police, Ms McHugh details how Baden-Clay continued to contact her after he reported his wife missing from their Brookfield home on April 20.

Baden-Clay had allegedly committed to leaving his wife for Ms McHugh, but their complicated relationship unravelled after the disappearance. In one frosty phone call with Baden-Clay on May 27, Ms McHugh confronted him about another affair.

"The conversation did not go well. When I answered the phone, Gerard said, 'It's me'. I think I went straight into, 'I know what you've been doing. How could you do that to me?'

"Gerard admitted that he had been in a relationship with Jackie Crane and another woman. I basically asked him why I should give him any time to explain. Gerard agreed that he shouldn't have any time to explain.

"Gerard then told me that he loved me. He again said that he did not know what went wrong there and that he believed the police would find the killer," she said.

He told her he would phone her at work the next day, but didn't make the call.

Ms McHugh, a 41-year-old mother of two, admitted to the affair in her first statement to police the day after Baden-Clay reported his wife missing.

She told police how she was in a long-term relationship when she first met Baden-Clay through the sale of her home around 2006. As Century 21 Westside principal, Baden-Clay was the agent selling her home and hired her as a property consultant in April 2007.

"When I first started working with Gerard, there was definitely chemistry for me. I admired him. I was attracted to him," she told police.

After the affair allegedly started in August 2008, Ms McHugh left her partner and would refer to Baden-Clay as "GM" for gorgeous man. He referred to her as "GG" for gorgeous girl.

They would secretly meet on a quiet dirt road at Pullenvale, in Baden-Clay's Century 21 office at Kenmore and at her home in the inner western suburbs.

On two occasions she went to Baden-Clay's Brookfield home while Allison and the children were away.

Neighbour: Screams in night heard by MP Flegg

Allison's diary: Lonely mum, broken heart

Evidence: Police focus on husband's "blunt razor" cuts

Bail fail: Gerard Baden-Clay to spend Christmas behind bars

As it happened: Baden-Clay's second bail application

Ms McHugh said in "a lot of ways Gerard did defend Allison", who he said had severe bouts of depression, but also did not express admiration or a depth of feeling towards his wife. He also raised fears his wife would take her life if he left her.

"Gerard told me that he did not love Allison and they had not slept together for many years. Gerard told me that he slept most nights on the couch in the living room," Ms McHugh told police.

The affair continued for more than three years until ending abruptly on October 14 last year after "someone at the school canteen" was told of the affair and informed Mrs Baden-Clay. They broke off the relationship but were allegedly seeing each other again within months, until Allison's disappearance.

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Farmers given all-clear to shoot bats

Environment Department Director Wildlife Rebecca Williams confirmed nine out of 17 applications for lethal Damage Mitigation Permits (DMP) had been approved. Source: The Courier-Mail

THE first shots against Queensland's flying fox population were fired this weekend with fed up farmers finally given the all clear to shoot to kill.

Queensland authorities have approved nine shoot-to-kill licences out of 17 applications for lethal damage mitigation permits to deter the night-time raids of flying foxes on fruit growers across the state.

From the apple orchards of Stanthorpe, to the citrus trees of Bundaberg, to the lychee plantations of the deep north, bat lovers claim a modern "yippee shoot" is the new battlefront in wildlife conservation.

Farmers retort: "Shooting is a last resort".

Mostly they use lights, noise, netting, electric shock, poison and hot chilli spray to ward off hungry hordes of bats - one colony of thousands of flying foxes can strip a $100,000 harvest bare in a few nights.

Successful applicants of lethal permits must use have previously used "prescribed methods" such as netting or sound to deter flying foxes.

Lethal permit holders said yesterday how they did not want to be photographed for this story because they felt it would make them a target for "green hysteria".

"We don't want to end up in the cross hairs," said fruit producer Derek Foley, of Electra near Bundaberg.

"It'll be us with the bullseye on our heads.

Frosty Mango Farm Manager Robert Mizzi sprays hot chilli on lychees and mango to deter bats, better then shooting them.

"But we do believe in our right to farm, to feed the nation, and shoot the odd flying fox to protect our crop."

Mr Foley has 14,000-odd trees of lychee, avocado, mango and lemon.

Full canopy netting covers the trees, gas guns make a sound barrier, and six 18m high towers with 24 metal halide 2000-watt lights light up the farm "like the Sydney Cricket Ground".

Shooting is the final option to "take out scout bats" he said.

Under the permit, producers are strictly capped per motnh to take down: 30 black flying foxes; 30 little red flying foxes; 20 grey-headed flying foxes; and 15 spectacled flying foxes.

Conservationists believe the permits will still put some species at risk.

"This is barbaric," said Bat Conservation and Rescue Queensland president Louise Saunders.

"These permits are a sick joke. It is near impossible to get a clean shot on a bat at night," said the Brisbane-based animal carer.

She believes wounded and winged creatures will be left to die an agonising death in the forests.

"Bats are not some ravenous, rabid, violent monster out there to eat you. They are beautiful, clever, loving mammals.

"This'll be one big yippee shoot."

The Newman Government overturned a four-year ban on killing flying foxes earlier this year, opening the permit system in September. In the 1920s, organised hunts killed thousands of bats a night.

Alf Poefinger, 73, a lychee and mango grower of Mutarnee, north of Townsville, prefers to use hot chilli spray over the messy and expensive practice of shooting.

"Bats bite or lick the hot chilli on the fruit, it does not kill them, but they don't like it," said Mr Poefinger.

"It is definitely cheaper than netting and not as vicious as shooting them."

Fellow Mutarnee grower Martin Joyce was the first producer in Queensland to be granted a lethal permit.

He said when the bats come in their thousands they are very hard to control.

"Now, if we do get a great influx, we have the permit."

Environment Department Director Wildlife Rebecca Williams confirmed nine out of 17 applications for lethal DMPs had been approved.

But they were always willing to consider applications on non-lethal methods of managing flying foxes, she said.

What do you think? Email yournews@thesundaymail.com.au or write to us at GPO Box 130, Brisbane, 4001.

peter.michael@news.com.au

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Russia breaks up anti-Putin rally

RUSSIAN police have detained dozens of people, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny, after breaking up an anti-Vladimir Putin rally in Moscow.

Scores of Muscovites, many holding white roses, defied authorities by gathering at Lubyanka Square, despite temperatures of minus 14 Celsius.

Police pushed protesters from the precinct and shoved some into vans two hours into the Saturday rally following warnings it would be broken up.

"By the end it was rough," Nikolai Svanidze, a member of the Kremlin-linked human rights council told Dozhd television.

Police said around 40 people had been detained.

"The unsanctioned action has now been thwarted and serious provocations were prevented," police said in a statement.

Mr Navalny, possibly the most charismatic figure in the protest movement, was detained a day after investigators launched a new criminal probe against him for suspected fraud.

"It's raving mad. (They) simply snatched me from the crowd," Mr Navalny tweeted from inside a police van.

Police also arrested Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of leftist group the Left Front, and activists Ilya Yashin and Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of Putin's late mentor Anatoly Sobchak.

"One of the policemen mentioned that we had criminal intentions," Mr Yashin told Echo of Moscow radio by telephone from detention.

The prominent figures arrested all noted that the police vans holding them had been equipped with webcams to keep close watch on their behaviour.

Police put the turnout at around 700 people, over 300 of them journalists and bloggers, but an AFP correspondent said the number of the protesters appeared to be significantly higher.

People laid white lilies, carnations and chrysanthemums at the Solovetsky Stone, a monument to victims of Stalin-era purges adorning the square, as a helicopter hovered overhead.

The opposition movement is hoping to maintain momentum despite internal divisions between liberals, leftists and nationalists and the authorities' tough crackdown on dissenters since Putin's return to the Kremlin in May.

Smaller rallies were held in several cities across Russia including Mr Putin's hometown of Saint Petersburg, where about 1200 people gathered for a sanctioned march.

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School gunman 'forced' his way in: police

THE gunman who slaughtered 20 young children and six adults at a US school in Connecticut "forced" his way into the building, police say.

Lieutenant Paul Vance of Connecticut State Police said the man - identified widely in media reports as 20-year-old Adam Lanza - was not let into the Sandy Hook Elementary School "voluntarily".

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Family mourns after US school tragedy

PUERTO Rican relatives of one of the 20 children shot dead at a US primary school say the family of the 6-year-old girl moved to the mainland just two months earlier.

The parents of Ana Grace Marquez had moved from Canada to Connecticut and enrolled her at Sandy Hook Elementary School because of its good reputation, the child's grandmother, Elba Marquez, told The Associated Press.

"They looked for the best school for their daughter, the best," Marquez said, adding that she had flown there for Thanksgiving.

She said the family had moved to the area because Ana Grace's mother had been hired to teach at a local university.

"It was a beautiful place, just beautiful," Elba Marquez said.

"What happened does not match up with the place where they live."

Elba Marquez's brother, Jorge Marquez, who is mayor of a Puerto Rican town, said Ana Grace had a 9-year-old brother who was at the school during the shooting.

"He was in another classroom," he said.

The family flew from Puerto Rico to Connecticut overnight for the girl's funeral.

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One dead in Miami airport bus crash

OFFICIALS say a double-decker bus has hit an overpass at Miami International Airport, killing at least one person and injuring more than two-dozen people on board.

Airport spokesman Greg Chin says the bus, which was a cruise or tour bus, hit the overpass going into the airport's arrivals section on Saturday morning. The bus was going about 32km/h when it clipped the roof entrance.

Chin says 32 people were on the bus, and all have some sort of injuries. The arrival area remained blocked off by fire trucks and police cars Saturday morning.

Chin says buses are supposed to travel through the departure area, not the arrival section, because it has a higher clearance for large vehicles.
 

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Pope greets clowns, acrobats

POPE Benedict XVI has greeted thousands of clowns, acrobats, puppeteers and even a pair of lion cubs as the circus came to town for an unusual papal performance.

Benedict clapped and watched amused as circus workers flipped, flopped, juggled and twisted before him in what the Vatican has called a historic audience to make street performers and other itinerant entertainers feel like they belong to the church.

Benedict, a known cat lover, paid particular attention to a pair of lion cubs that were brought up to him on Saturday, stroking them and chatting with their trainers. At one point Benedict even bent down to caress one - not an easy feat given the 85-year-old pope has trouble with his knees and occasionally uses a cane.

Benedict acknowledged the sacrifices circus workers make to bring joy to young and old alike, travelling constantly and living on the margins of society. He noted they lack schools for their children or parish churches to call home. But he urged them to keep the faith.

"I hope that you can find, in the communities where you stay, people who are welcoming and available and able to care for your spiritual needs," Benedict said. He urged governments to better integrate itinerant entertainers in the social fabric.

A big top tent and carousel were mounted in St Peter's Square to make the scene complete, and thousands of entertainers from a dozen countries filled a Vatican audience hall for the papal performance that featured acrobats and a puppet show.

Benedict has been entertained before by various circus troupes, but Vatican officials said Saturday's audience was unusual in that it involved so many different types of travelling performers from around the world, and was dedicated to them alone.

 

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US warns against N.Korean missile launch

THE United States has urged North Korea to scrap plans to launch a rocket later this month, warning the "highly provocative" move would destabilise the region.

"Devoting scarce resources to the development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles will only further isolate and impoverish North Korea," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement on Saturday.

Her comments came after Pyongyang announced it would conduct between December 10 and 22 its second long-range rocket launch this year following a much-hyped but failed attempt in April.

As in April, the North said it would be a purely "peaceful, scientific" mission aimed at placing a polar-orbiting earth observation satellite into orbit.

The announcement was certain to ratchet up tensions with South Korea, which is just days from a presidential election.

The US and its allies insist the launches are disguised tests for an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

As such, they would contravene UN resolutions triggered by Pyongyang's two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

"A North Korean 'satellite' launch would be a highly provocative act that threatens peace and security in the region," Nuland said.

"We call on North Korea to comply fully with its obligations under all relevant UNSCRs," she added, referring to UN Security Council resolutions.

Washington and its allies say the North's Unha-3 rocket is actually a three-stage variant of the Taepodong-2 ICBM that Pyongyang has been developing for years but has never tested successfully.

"The path to security for North Korea lies in investing in its people and abiding by its commitments and international obligations," Nuland added.

She said Washington was "consulting closely" with its allies on a response.

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Internet resumes in Syria after blackout

INTERNET connections were back up and running in Damascus, after a three-day blackout of Internet and mobile phone communications, according to an AFP journalist in the capital.

"Internet is back in Damascus and in parts of Damascus province," the correspondent said.

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Protesters, police clash in Mexico

HUNDREDS of protesters have clashed with police outside Mexico's congress ahead of Enrique Pena Nieto's presidential inauguration, throwing firebombs while officers responded with tear gas.

At least five police officers were injured on Saturday as around 500 protesters, many wearing masks, threw objects and Molotov cocktails outside the congress, which was surrounded by metal barricades.

One officer was hit in the face by a stone while two others were struck by a Molotov cocktail. They were taken away in ambulances.

Two more officers were carried out by their colleagues, apparently affected by the tear gas.

"We weren't expecting something so violent," an officer told AFP.

Pena Nieto's presidency will mark the return of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico with an authoritarian hand for 71 years until it lost the 2000 presidential election.

The second-place finisher in this year's election, leftist leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has refused to conceded defeat, charging that the PRI bought millions of votes. The electoral court threw out his claims.

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European stealth-combat test drone flies

A PAN-EUROPEAN stealth combat drone has taken its first test flight in southern France.

French defence company Dassault-Aviation is lead contractor on the "Neuron" project launched in 2005 involving firms from France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Greece and Switzerland to provide a test bed for developing future combat aircraft.

Its successful flight took place on Saturday near Istres.

Program officials say the Neuron is not a prototype, but aims to help European countries explore stealth technology for possible use - years from now - in future drones or successors of fighters like the Eurofighter or France's Rafale. The program will also seek innovations like the release of air-to-surface weapons from an internal bay.

Many experts believe armed drones will play an increasing role in the future of air combat.

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Ram on the lam in Iowa

A SHAGGY brown sheep successfully dodged police, his handlers and a few cars while trotting through downtown Des Moines after escaping from his trailer.

But the ram's freedom only lasted about an hour on Friday before he was cornered and tackled by about a half dozen of his pursuers.

The Navajo-Churro ram jumped from a trailer near the Iowa Capitol on Friday morning. He led police, Animal Rescue League officials and some Capitol workers on a chase.

Video from KCCI-TV shows the animal strolling along downtown sidewalks and streets, resembling a wooly ball of hair bouncing on tiny legs and picking up speed when someone gets too close.

Authorities say the ram was being taken from Creston to Cedar Rapids.

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Anti-immigration couple lose foster kids

THREE children from ethnic minority groups have been taken away from their foster parents because the couple support the anti-immigration UK Independence Party.

The couple from Yorkshire in northern England said they had been fostering children for seven years but have been told by social workers that they were not suitable because of UKIP's calls for curbs on immigration to Britain.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said the decision was "indefensible" and opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband, whose party runs the local authority involved, called for an urgent investigation into the "very disturbing" claims.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage, a member of the European Parliament, said the situation was "appalling" and "disgraceful".

He accused the council of bigotry, insisting that decisions on foster care should be "colour-blind".

Following the outcry, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council announced it would launch an investigation into the actions of its staff.

The couple involved told the Daily Telegraph newspaper they had been "stigmatised and slandered" by the removal of the baby girl, boy and older girl they had been caring for for eight weeks.

The decision came after two officials visited to question them about their membership of UKIP, Britain's fourth-biggest party which campaigns for an end to Britain's membership of the European Union and a freeze on immigration.

The woman, a qualified nursery nurse, said the social worker told her: "We would not have placed these children with you had we known you were members of UKIP because it wouldn't have been the right cultural match".

She asked what UKIP had to do with the decision, "then one of them said, 'Well, UKIP have got racist policies'. The implication was that we were racist."

The identity of the couple, who are in their 50s, has been kept secret to protect the children.

Mr Gove condemned the council for making "the wrong decision in the wrong way for the wrong reasons" and said he would be looking into what happened.

Rotherham council's director of children's services, Joyce Thacker, told BBC radio the children had been placed with the couple as an emergency and it was never meant to be a long-term arrangement.

She added: "These children are not UK children and we were not aware of the foster parents having strong political views. There are some strong views in the UKIP party and we have to think of the future of the children."

UKIP started life on the fringes of politics but a recent ICM poll suggests it now has the support of seven per cent of voters.

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Iran congratulates Hamas 'victory'

IRAN'S President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has congratulated Gaza's Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya on a "great victory" over Israel, the two sides say.

Haniya in turn "thanked Iran for its support," they added, days after Tehran confirmed it had supplied military aid to Gaza.

"The Iranian president congratulated the people of Gaza and the (Palestinian) resistance facing Zionist aggression ... on their great victory," Iran's news agency ISNA reported on Saturday.

Haniya's office said Ahmadinejad called late on Friday to praise Gaza's "victory after eight days of Israeli aggression," referring to the Jewish state's Operation Pillar of Defence which ended with a Wednesday ceasefire.

"We stand beside the Palestinian people," the Iranian president added.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani on Wednesday said Iran had supplied military aid to Islamist movement Hamas, which controls Gaza and which fired missiles at Tel Aviv for the first time during the eight-day conflict with Israel.

"We are proud to defend the people of Palestine and Hamas ... and that our assistance to them has been both financial and military," Larijani said in remarks reported by parliament's website, ICANA.ir.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief General Mohammad Ali Jafari also said on Wednesday that Tehran had provided the "technology" for the Fajr 5 missiles used to target Tel Aviv, but denied supplying the actual weapons.

He said they were being "rapidly produced" in Gaza.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Wednesday thanked Iran as well as Egypt for their support during the conflict, saying Iran "had a role in arming" his Islamist movement.

The truce ended eight days of cross border attacks in which 166 Palestinians and six Israelis died.

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Dubai plans world's largest mall, new city

DUBAI famed for its mega-projects before it was hit by the global financial crisis, has announced a new development to open the world's biggest mall and a park larger than London's Hyde Park.

The ruler of the Gulf desert city state, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, announced the plan for a "new city within Dubai," according to an official statement on Saturday, naming it after himself.

No cost was stated for "Mohammed bin Rashid City," to be carried out by his Dubai Holding and the publicly-listed Emaar Properties, which developed many of Dubai's prestigious projects, including Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower.

The plan also features new residential areas, although the emirate continues to have a surplus of units built during a five-year bubble which burst in 2009.

The "Mall of the World" will have a capacity of 80 million visitors a year to become the "largest in the world," said the statement, while its park will be "30 per cent bigger than Hyde Park of London."

The mall will be connected to a family entertainment centre to be developed in cooperation with Universal Studios International that will be the largest in the region, aiming to attract six million visitors a year.

The emirate already has countless malls and hotels, including the Dubai Mall, touted as the world's largest shopping, leisure and entertainment destination, with 62 million visitors this year.

"The current facilities available in Dubai need to be scaled up in line with the future ambitions for the city," Sheikh Mohammed said in the statement.

Dubai's tourism is growing by 13 per cent a year, according to the statement, with hotel occupancy hitting 82 per cent in 2011 while hotel revenues grew 22 per cent last year, exceeding 16 billion dirhams ($4.26 billion).

The emirate rocked global financial markets in autumn 2009 over its debt crisis, but Dubai has restructured the mountain of debt owed by its corporations, and its economy has returned to growth after contracting in 2009.

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India to log 5.5% quarter growth: minister

INDIA'S economy logged around 5.5 per cent growth in the last financial quarter, a rate that could boost calls for lower interest rates to spur activity.

India's once-booming economy has been hit by high interest rates, Europe's debt crisis that has slowed exports, and sluggish investment caused by domestic and overseas concerns about policy and corruption.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday said he expected official data to be released next Friday to show that the economy grew by "around 5.5 per cent" in the three months to September 30.

That would be down from 6.9 per cent in the same second-quarter period a year earlier.

"It goes without saying that we face a difficult situation," Chidambaram said at a bankers' conference, adding the "global economy is still in crisis".

India's economy was growing by more than eight per cent before 2011/12.

But it has been performing increasingly worse with the Congress-led government of Prime Minister Manmohan widely criticised for its handling of the situation.

Even though 5.5-per cent growth would be the envy of much of the world, it is not enough for India, which has been aiming for close to double-digit expansion to substantially reduce crushing poverty.

"For us eight per cent growth is not an aspiration but a necessity. India cannot afford to grow below eight per cent," Chidambaram said.

The slow growth comes at a time when it is more difficult for the Indian government to pep up the economy than in the 2008/09 financial crisis.

Then, the government had more fiscal room to stimulate the economy but now it is struggling to cut a widening budget deficit and avert a downgrade of its sovereign debt to "junk" status by global credit ratings agencies.

In addition, the central bank has been keeping interest rates high to combat stubbornly high inflation.

Inflation eased marginally in October to 7.45 per cent year-on-year, but economists said the level is still too high to permit the bank to lower rates.

Indian businesses have been calling for lower rates, saying the slowdown is in large part due to high borrowing costs that have curbed consumer spending.

Chidambaram said India must boost growth "through innovation, through finding ways of increasing the production of goods and services".

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Syria rebels attack army in Aleppo

SYRIAN rebels have attacked army positions in the northern province of Aleppo, while Islamist fighters clashed with Kurdish militias on the border with Turkey.

Insurgents also attacked troops guarding the strategic Tishrin dam, located on the Euphrates river between the provinces of Aleppo and Raqa.

The rebels have surrounded the area, about 10 kilometres from the town of Manbij, local resident Abu Mohammed told AFP.

Opposition fighters already control one of the main routes to Raqa and the Tishrin dam would give them a second passage, connecting a wide expanse of territory between the two provinces, both of which border Turkey.

In Aleppo city, the commercial capital where fighting has reached stalemate after five months of deadly urban combat, clashes broke out near an air force intelligence building, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Insurgents earlier this week captured Base 46, just west of Aleppo. Nearly 300 soldiers were killed in the sprawling army garrison, according to the rebels, and a large cache of arms and ammunition seized.

The rebels are aiming to also seize Sheikh Suleiman base, also west of the city, that they have encircled for nearly two months, to give them full control of a swathe of northwest Syria from Aleppo to the Turkish border.

In Hasakeh province, northwest Syria, Ras al-Ain saw its fiercest violence since the town near the Turkish border was captured by rebels two weeks ago, a resident told AFP.

"There are so few people, most have left. There is no electricity, no water and no mobile coverage," said Ali, a farmer in his 40s, who fled with his family on Saturday.

"The fighting has been non-stop for five or six days now, but in the last 24 hours it has gotten worse ... The Kurds are bringing reinforcements from Derik and other nearby villages," he said.

Two main Kurdish groups have joined forces in a standoff with hundreds of Islamist rebels, a Syrian Kurdish representative and an activist said on Friday.

Hundreds of fighters loyal to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) - which has close ties to Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - have been locked in fierce battles with fighters of the jihadist Al-Nusra Front and allied Ghuraba al-Sham group in Ras al-Ain.

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Probe into attempt to set bear on fire

AN INQUIRY has been ordered into an attempt by a jeering mob to set a terrified bear on fire in northern Indian, a state minister said.

Television footage showed the frightened bear scrambling up a tree in the state of Jammu and Kashmir as one of the men in the crowd tied a flaming cloth to a pole and tried to poke the animal.

"We've ordered an inquiry - a senior government official will hold the inquiry," Kashmir forest minister Mian Altaf told India's NDTV network.

The incident took place in the southern Kashmir district of Shopian earlier in the week, the network said.

The bear eventually climbed down from the tree and managed to escape but its fate was unknown, Mr Altaf said.

The attack was reported just two days before India's environment ministry was due to host a global conference on bear conservation in New Delhi.

Vivek Menon, executive director of the Wildlife Trust of India, blamed the the incident on the increasing incursion by humans into bears' natural habitats in Kashmir and in other parts of the country.

"There has been a great land use change in Kashmir. People are living closer and closer to the forests and therefore coming into contact with bears - and both people and bears are suffering," he said.

According to medical officials, a large number of hospital beds in Kashmir are occupied by people suffering from wounds inflicted by bears, Mr Menon said.

"That is spreading fear and panic among people and resulting in absurd retaliatory measures," he said.

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Mideast nuclear conference moved to 2013

UN leader Ban Ki-moon says he has given up hope of holding a conference on a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East this year, but hopes it can be held in 2013.

Ban and Finnish special envoy Jaakko Laajava have been trying to persuade Middle East powers to attend the conference but hit opposition from Israel and others.

The conference, organised by the United States, Britain and Russia, was to be held in 2012 in Finland.

But Ban on Saturday said he was now aiming for it "to be convened at the earliest opportunity in 2013".

The US State Department on Friday said the conference could "not be convened because of present conditions in the Middle East and the fact that states in the region have not reached agreement on acceptable conditions for a conference".

"The United States believes that a deep conceptual gap persists in the region on approaches toward regional security and arms control arrangements," it said.

But Britain said the three co-organisers also wanted it held as soon as possible in 2013.

Ban also appealed to Middle East states to overcome their differences "to seize this rare opportunity to initiate a process that entails direct engagement on security issues".

Laajava will continue talks "in the shortest possible time which will allow the conference to be convened at the earliest opportunity in 2013," Ban said.

Israel had said it would not attend a conference now because of the tense security in the region and it would become a target of diplomatic attacks in any talks, diplomats said.

US diplomats had expressed similar fears, which have heightened since the eight days of conflict between Israel and the Hamas movement in Gaza this month.

Iran and Arab states criticise Israel for its suspected nuclear arsenal.

Israel refuses to say whether it has nuclear arms, though security experts say it has a substantial number of weapons.

Israel and the United States and its allies say Iran is the main proliferation threat, even though Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

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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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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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Hamas chief in Cairo for talks

HAMAS chief Khaled Meshaal is in Cairo to confer on ending the Gaza conflict, but the Islamist group is reluctant to agree a ceasefire without guarantees Israel will honour it, a senior Hamas official says.

Meshaal was scheduled on Saturday to meet with Egypt's intelligence chief as well as Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, both visiting Cairo, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hamas, now its fourth day of conflict with Israel around the Gaza Strip, doubts that any country could guarantee terms for a ceasefire, he said.

"Through Egyptian mediation, we reached an understanding for a truce and it was broken in about 48 hours," he said of an Israeli air strike on Wednesday that killed the Hamas military chief, after rockets were fired from Gaza.

"Egypt now cannot say: 'I guarantee a truce'," he said, adding it would require a stronger effort by the "international community".

Hamas's last sustained conflict with Israel in December 2008-January 2009 ended with an Egyptian mediated truce that was meant to guarantee a loosening of Israel's blockade of Gaza.

Palestinian medics said 40 Gazans have been killed and more than 350 wounded since Israel launched an air campaign on the enclave on Wednesday. Three Israelis were killed by a Hamas rocket.

Since Israel's last major offensive on Gaza, the Arab Spring uprisings that brought an Islamist to power in Cairo have put more pressure on Israel to halt its campaign before it expands into a ground operation.

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UN to hold emergency talks on DR Congo

THE UN Security Council will meet in an emergency session after UN attack helicopters launched missions against rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, diplomats say.

France's UN mission announced on its Twitter account on Saturday that it had called for a meeting of the 15-nation body on the offensive launched by M23 rebels and that talks would start at 3.00pm (0700 AEDT Sunday).

The UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, said in a statement that M23 rebels had launched an offensive with "heavy weapons" early on Saturday and that it had put peacekeepers into action as part of its mandate to "protect civilians".

"As part of this, 10 missions were carried out by its attack helicopters," the statement said.

The attack helicopters, provided by Ukraine, were put on standby on Friday after M23, former government troops who launched a mutiny in March, launched a surprise attack against the army just north of the Nord Kivu provincial capital of Goma.

The new fighting is concentrated around the town of Kibumba, about 25 kilometres north of Goma.

"MONUSCO is following the situation closely and will not tolerate any advance or action by M23 troops which would provoke panic in the civilians population," said the UN mission's statement.

MONUSCO said that M23, which UN experts have said is backed by Rwanda and Uganda, has "entire responsibility" for the new crisis.

The fighting since April has displaced tens of thousands of civilians and the UN said thousands more had arrived in camps this week.

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Arabs to demand Gaza ceasefire: diplomat

ARAB foreign ministers meeting in Cairo are expected to demand that Israel immediately halt its campaign in Gaza, and to discuss sending a delegation of ministers there, an Arab diplomat says.

The pan-Arab body announced on Wednesday its decision to hold emergency talks in response to Israeli air strikes in Gaza, which have killed 40 Gazans and wounded more than 350.

The Arab diplomats "will seek an immediate end to the Israeli aggression and stress their full support for the Gaza Strip", the diplomat said on Saturday.

They will also consider sending a delegation headed by Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi and other foreign ministers into Gaza "to stress support for the Palestinian people".

"The final statement will stress the importance of (Palestinian) national reconciliation as a pressing matter in the face of the aggression," the diplomat said.

The ministers will also "stress their support for Egyptian efforts to achieve a long-term truce between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza".

Israel's harshest Gaza operation in four years began on Wednesday and was followed by fresh Israeli air strikes, as Palestinian militants inside Gaza responded with rocket fire.

Israeli strikes on Gaza killed 10 Palestinians and destroyed the Hamas government headquarters on Saturday as the Jewish state called up thousands more reservists for a possible ground war.

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Israel air raids kill 10, destroy Hamas HQ

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories, Nov 17 AFP - Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed 10 Palestinians and destroyed the Hamas government headquarters as Israel called up thousands more reservists for a possible ground war.

After Palestinian militants fired rockets at the heart of Israel on Friday, Israeli warplanes carried out 180 air strikes overnight, Israel TV reported, with the strikes levelling the headquarters of the Hamas government.

Medics said 40 Gazans have been killed and more than 350 wounded since Israel launched an aerial campaign on the enclave on Wednesday afternoon, with at least five militants among the 10 people killed in Saturday's raids.

As the toll rose, sirens went off in Tel Aviv on Saturday for a third day running, sending people scuttling for cover, a day after a rocket crashed into the sea near the city centre, AFP correspondents said. The fire was claimed by Hamas's armed wing.

While Cairo was at the centre of efforts to halt the violence, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti appealed for a truce in a telephone conversation with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, Monti's office said.

He called for "a truce between the parties as soon as possible, to bring to an end the fighting and allow dialogue and peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians to begin again".

Since the start of Operation Pillar of Defence, the Israeli army says militants have fired more than 600 rockets over the border, of which 404 hit and 230 were intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system.

Over the same period, three Israelis have been killed and 18 injured, including 10 soldiers, with the army saying the air force had hit more than 830 targets in Gaza.

On Saturday, four Israeli soldiers and five civilians were hurt in separate rocket attacks on the south which hit a building and a car, police and the army said. Another militant group in Gaza, Islamic Jihad, claimed those attacks.

The military said it had sealed off all main roads around Gaza and declared a closed military zone, in the latest sign it was poised to launch its first ground offensive on the territory since the 22-day campaign over New Year 2009.

Overnight, the air force hit Gaza City, targeting Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya's headquarters, other government buildings, including the interior ministry and police compound, militant training facilities and "dozens of terror sites", it said.

Correspondents at the scene said the headquarters, which had been emptied over attack fears, was reduced to a pile of rubble but there were no reports of casualties.

Air strikes in southern Gaza, notably Rafah, killed six people while three more died in an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in central Gaza, medics said. Another man died of injuries sustained in a morning strike on Gaza City.

Saturday's violence came as Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem paid a brief solidarity visit to Gaza, a day after a similar mission by Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil.

The world must stop Israel's "blatant aggression", Abdessalem told AFP on his arrival in Gaza City, where he visited the ruins of the cabinet building where a day earlier Haniya had received Qandil.

The Tunisian minister called on the Arab League to act to halt the aggression as it gathered for talks in Cairo.

Egypt and Turkey, meanwhile, put the onus on Israel to end the fighting, as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Cairo a day after Washington urged the two Muslim countries to pressure the Palestinians.

After a meeting with his counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr said they both agreed on "denouncing Israel's aggression and on the need to swiftly stop this aggression".

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IT tech convicted in 'Vatileaks'

A VATICAN court has convicted a Holy See computer technician of helping the former papal butler in the theft of confidential papal documents and given him a two-month suspended sentence.

Claudio Sciarpelletti, an Italian who is a computer program analyst in the Vatican's Secretariat of State, had testified earlier that he had played no role in helping to spirit out confidential documents in a scandal involving alleged corruption in the Vatican bureaucracy.

Pope's former butler, Paolo Gabriele, was convicted last month in a separate trial for the theft of the documents and is serving a 18-month prison sentence in Vatican City.

Top Vatican security officials, including the head of Pope Benedict XVI's bodyguards, as well as his convicted former butler were the witness list in the latest trial in the leak of confidential papal correspondence.

The witnesses had been called to testify earlier in the week in a Holy See courtroom, but the judge told them to come back Saturday to give more preparation time for the defence.

The stolen documents formed the basis of an Italian journalist's book about alleged corruption at the Vatican.

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Prince Charles thanks 'kind' Aussies

Prince Charles thanked Australians for being "wonderfully kind", as he and wife Camilla wrapped up a six-day tour which has taken them from the Outback to Bondi Beach.

Hundreds of people came to see the royal couple at their final destination in Canberra, with one woman offering the prince a packet of chocolate Tim Tams -which he had said he hoped someone would allow Camilla to try.

"You're very kind," Charles told Alyson Richards, 25, as she handed over the biscuits and wished him a happy birthday for next week.

At a lunch at Government House, Charles said it had been a joy to visit Australia, where the couple had met hundreds of community volunteers, as well as been able to see the local wildlife, including koalas and kangaroos, up close.

"When we finally get back, after a very, very, long journey, if I'm still reasonably compos mentis by then and haven't completely lost my marbles to jet lag, I will report back to Her Majesty your wonderfully kind thoughts and expressions after our visit," he said.

He said while the tour had not allowed them to visit as many places as they would have liked, it enabled them to "witness so many of the changes that have happened here since I was here last".

"And to witness... the extraordinary vibrancy of the multicultural society which Australia is and which of course has stood Australia in such remarkable stead in terms of the richness and diversity which you can see only too well."

Earlier, Charles watched as one of the terraces of Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin was named after the Queen, following a tradition of naming the terraces after Australia's monarchs since the country became a federal state in 1901.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the renaming would "remind future generations that for more than half of our journey as a united nation, Elizabeth the Second has been our monarch."

The royal couple arrived in New Zealand late onSaturday on the last leg of their tour marking the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and were met at a military air base in Auckland by Prime Minister John Key.

They will formally begin their six-day visit with a traditional Maori welcome today at the Auckland War Memorial Museum where they will also commemorate Armistice Day.

They will then travel to Wellington and tour Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop to inspect costumes and props used in The Hobbit movies before moving to Christchurch, the scene of devastating earthquakes last year that claimed 185 lives.

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China plans manned space launch

CHINA is aiming to launch its next manned space mission as early as June 2013, state media reported, as the country steps up its ambitious exploration program.

The Shenzhou-10, with three crew members, is aiming for a primary launch window in June, Niu Hongguang, deputy commander-in-chief of the manned space programme, told China National Radio in an interview Friday.

Mr Niu, speaking on the sidelines of China's 18th Communist Party Congress that kicked off Thursday in Beijing, said officials had identified a back-up launch window for July or August.

He said one of the three astronauts would likely be a woman.

China sent its first female astronaut, Liu Yang, into space earlier this year on the Shenzhou-9 in the country's first manual space docking mission.

The docking procedure was a major milestone in the country's ambitious space program that has a goal of building a space station by the end of the decade.

In its last white paper on space, China said it was working towards landing a man on the moon, but did not specify a time-frame.

So far only the United States has achieved that feat, most recently in 1972.

Beijing has said it will also attempt to land an exploratory craft on the moon for the first time in the second half of 2013 and transmit back a survey of the lunar surface.

China sees its space program as a symbol of its rising global stature, growing technical expertise, and the Communist Party's success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.

The country sent its first man into space in 2003. It completed a space walk in 2008 and an unmanned docking between a module and rocket last year.

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Orthodox patriarch visits Bethlehem

RUSSIAN Orthodox Patriarch Kirill visited the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem and met with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, on the second day of his Holy Land trip.

After his visit to the Bethlehem church, built over the site where Christians believe Mary gave birth to Jesus in a stable, Patriarch Kirill met with the Palestinian president at his office in the West Bank city.

A statement from the president's office cited Mr Abbas as telling Patriarch Kirill the visit was historical and bore political meaning.

"We feel it comes from the leadership of the Russian people," Mr Abbas said of the visit, saying Moscow supported peace and justice in the Middle East.

The statement also quoted Patriarch Kirill as saying the visit was special to him, and especially important "since Christ walked here."

"I'm fully confident you are committed to real peace, and your position is welcome because the people living here know the meaning of living in unrest," the Russian patriarch was quoted as saying.

The head of a community of some 150 million Orthodox believers arrived in Jerusalem on Friday for his first visit since becoming head of the powerful church in 2009, and held prayers at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Over the course of his six-day trip, Patriarch Kirill will also meet Israeli President Shimon Peres and King Abdullah II of Jordan, in a new sign of his importance as a global religious figure.

Israel's foreign ministry called his trip "the most important (religious) visit (to Israel) since that of the Pope Benedict XVI" in 2009.

The 65-year-old patriarch will visit Christian holy sites in northern Israel as well as in Jordan.

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Afghan soldiers attack NATO troops

TWO Afghan soldiers attacked US-led NATO forces (ISAF) in western Afghanistan, in the latest "insider" attack in the country, injuring one foreign soldier, ISAF said.

An ISAF spokesman in Kabul said that the attack by two Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers occurred in Muqur district of Badghis province in the early hours of Saturday, which resulted in the injury of one NATO soldier and one attacker but no fatalities.

"Two ANA service members turned their weapons against ISAF forces in Badghis province. There was no fatalities, but one ISAf soldier was injured and one attacker was also wounded when ISAF troops returned fire. Both attackers were detained by ISAF and Afghan forces," the spokesman said without giving more details.

A provincial spokesman confirmed the incident but said that only one attacker, an ANA soldier who "was suffering from mental problems", was involved.

"The soldier who opened fire was suffering from mental problems, he was wounded when ISAF forces returned fire and later detained by Afghan and ISAF forces," said provincial governor spokesman Sharafudin Majidi.

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 previous attack a man in Afghan police uniform opened fire on NATO-led coalition forces in southern Helmand province on October 30, killing two British soldiers.

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 around 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 hardline Islamist regime in late 2001. NATO combat forces are scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

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Rebels fight Syrian troops over airbase

SYRIAN rebels have launched a major assault on a strategic airbase in the north of the country, trying to disrupt strikes by warplanes and helicopters that pound rebel-held towns.

The assault, reported by activists, comes a day before the start of a key international conference in Qatar at which the United States and its allies aim to reorganise the opposition's political leadership and unite their ranks. The leadership-in-exile has been widely seen as ineffective and out of touch with rebel fighters on the ground.

Rebel forces attacked the Taftanaz airbase early on Saturday morning in fighting with government forces that continued into the afternoon, the anti-regime activist Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Joining Syrian rebels in the attack were fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic militant group made up of foreign jihadis, according to the Observatory. Al-Nusra fighters, who are considered among the most experienced and disciplined among the opposition forces, have led attacks on other airbases in the north in past months.

The Taftanaz base mainly houses military helicopters, near the main highway between the capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, where rebels and the military have been battling for control for months.

Online activist videos claim to show the battle, with rebels firing rockets and mortars, and smoke rising over buildings and an airstrip area. An activist speaking in the video identifies it as an attack by rebels and Jabhat al-Nusra on the base.

The videos appear genuine and are consistent with other Associated Press reporting in the area.

The capturing of the base - and holding on to it - would be a major achievement for the rebels, who often complain they are outgunned by government forces.

Airstrikes have been one of the most effective and feared weapons of the regime in the civil war. Rebels managed to seize control of a pocket of territory around Aleppo, but government warplanes and helicopters continue to blast towns they hold from the air. In the fierce fighting over Aleppo itself, warplanes almost daily swoop in to strafe or bomb rebel-held neighbourhoods.

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