Rebels raid poultry farm

COMMUNIST guerrilla rebels raided a poultry farm in the southern Philippines and torched two buildings after the owner ignored their extortion demands, the military said on Saturday.

Thousands of chickens were killed after rebels from the New People's Army set fire to the buildings in a pre-dawn attack on Friday, military spokesman Captain Alberto Caber told reporters.

The rebels later contacted the farm owner Onyx Go by telephone, threatening to return with gasoline and matchsticks unless he agreed to pay up 60,000 pesos ($1400) a month, according to a military statement.

The raid marked the second such attack on businesses owned by Mr Go since last year, when his chicken shop in a nearby town was ransacked by the rebels, Captain Caber said.

The Maoist NPA has been waging a decades-old guerrilla campaign that has cost tens of thousands of lives.

Earlier this month the Philippine government said it hoped to resume peace talks with the communist rebels, after announcing a peace agreement with Muslim rebels who also operate in the restive south.

Talks with the communist rebels were suspended in November last year due to persistent demands by the rebels to free jailed comrades they claimed were consultants to the negotiations.

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Iraq Eid attacks kill 16

ATTACKS mostly targeting Shi'ite Muslims during the Eid al-Adha holiday, including bombings of a marketplace and a minibus carrying pilgrims, killed at least 16 people in Iraq on Saturday.

The shootings and explosions, which also left more than 40 people wounded, were the latest in a spate of violence in the past week that has broken a relative calm in Iraq, even though authorities had announced a series of moves to boost security during the four-day Eid break.

UN special envoy Martin Kobler condemned Saturday's violence as "atrocious", adding in a statement: "The targeting of worshippers is an appalling crime."

In the east Baghdad district of Maamal, a bomb exploded in a neighbourhood market as women were shopping for groceries alongside their children at around 9am (4pm AEDT).

At least five people were killed, including three children and a woman, security and medical officials said. They added that 13 others were wounded.

Just north of Baghdad in the town of Taji, a magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to a minibus ferrying Shi'ite pilgrims killed at least five people and wounded 12 others, a security official and medics said.

The doctors warned that the toll could rise.

Officials said some Iranian pilgrims were among the dead and wounded, but it was unclear how many. Differing tolls and details of casualties are common in the chaotic aftermath of attacks in Iraq.

A Shi'ite car salesman in the town of Muqdadiyah was shot dead, and eight people were wounded by a car bomb targeting a Shi'ite religious foundation's offices in the town of Tuz Khurmatu.

Shi'ites in Iraq typically use the Eid al-Adha holiday, which began on Friday, to either visit relatives, the graves of dead family members or shrines of key figures in Shi'ite Islam located across the country.

In the run-up to the holiday, authorities in several provinces, including Baghdad, announced tightened security for the holiday, apparently to no avail.

While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, Sunni militants frequently target Shi'ite pilgrims during Muslim holidays such as Eid or Shi'ite commemoration ceremonies.

In Mosul, 350km north of Baghdad, three attacks targeting the tiny Shabak community killed five people and wounded 10 others, officials said.

In separate shootings, gunmen burst into the homes of Shabak families and killed five people and wounded four others, including young children, while a bombing in the compound of a family home wounded six.

"The security forces are supposed to be responsible for protecting all the citizens of Mosul," said Qusay Abbas, a Shabak member of the provincial council of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital.

"This is a very troubling attack."

The Shabak community numbers about 30,000 people living in 35 villages in Nineveh. They largely follow a faith that is a blend of Shi'ite Islam and local beliefs.

The community was persecuted under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and after the 2003 US-led invasion they were targeted several times by al-Qaeda.

Mosul is widely cited as one of the places where al-Qaeda Iraqi front still holds sway.

At least 49 people have been killed in a week since October 20, more than in the first 15 days of the month combined, according to an AFP tally.

At least 250 people have been killed as a result of unrest in each of the past four months.

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Police fire rubber bullets at miners

SOUTH African police have fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas to disperse striking miners trying to prevent a rally by the country's main labour grouping.

Bullet casings littered the ground and a helicopter circled above, with police sirens howling, as the protesters were chased into the area surrounding a stadium in northwestern Rustenburg.

The protesters were trying to prevent a rally by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the country's main umbrella union organisation.

The strikers say they are unhappy with the way unions have been representing their interests. A wave of wildcat strikes that has shaken the mining sector since August has seen workers spurn the main National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Cosatu's main affiliate.

The clashes broke out after police cleared around 300 people from the stadium where union T-shirts were set alight, and blocked the entrance with armoured vans.

An Agence France-Presse photographer saw a man dressed in Cosatu's red colours bleeding after he had been beaten up and a correspondent saw at least eight protesters bundled into a police truck after the crackdown.

"We are here to demonstrate ... we the striking mineworkers are tired of NUM," Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) worker Reuben Lerebolo told AFP.

The clashes came a day after the NUM announced it had reached a deal with the world's number one platinum producer Amplats to rehire 12,000 workers who were fired for a wildcat strike.

But striking workers said they were not aware of the deal, which would signal a further winding down of a wave of wildcat strikes that have rocked platinum and gold mines since August.

"We know nothing about it. We were not consulted, we only heard about it on the radio," said Lerebolo, carrying a poster stating "NUM we are tired of you".

"We can't go to work until our demands are met," he said.

Cosatu staged the Saturday march and rally in a bid to regain its authority in the area after workers snubbed the NUM in the recent strikes and to demand that fired workers be reinstated.

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Vatican cannot revoke Savile's honour

THE Vatican says it cannot rescind the papal knighthood awarded to television star Jimmy Savile, who emerged as an alleged child sex predator after his death.

The Catholic Church of England said it has contacted the Holy See to ask it to posthumously revoke Savile's honour in recognition of the "deep distress" of the victims allegedly abused by Savile, a well-known BBC children's television host who died last year at the age of 84.

But the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told The Associated Press that the names of people who receive the knighthood don't appear in its yearbook and that the honor dies with the individual.

Lombardi said Savile never would have received the honour had the truth about his behavior been known.

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Battle mars Syria holiday truce

FIGHTING raged near a military base in Syria's north as a cease-fire in the bloody civil war was set begin Friday at dawn, activists said, illustrating the difficulty of enforcing even a limited truce coinciding with a Muslim holiday.

Elsewhere, violence appeared to die down, and thousands of protesters took advantage of the lull to mount some of the largest anti-regime demonstrations in months.

The truce, proposed by U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and endorsed by the UN Security Council, is set for only the four days of the Eid al-Adha holiday, has no monitoring mechanism and no stated plans for its aftermath.

The first serious disruption involved a radical Islamic group, Jabhat al-Nusra, that rejected the cease-fire from the outset. The group clashed with regime forces for control of a military base outside of a strategic town on the road to the northern city of Aleppo, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists.

Fierce fighting has been going on there for several days.

Opposition fighters seized Maaret al-Numan, which lies along the main highway between Aleppo and Damascus, earlier this month. Their presence has disrupted the ability of the Syrian army to send supplies and reinforcements to the northwest, where troops are bogged down in a stalemate with the rebels in Aleppo, Syria's largest city.

Activists said three people were killed in shelling of the Damascus suburb of Harasta and two people died as a result of sniper fire. There were no reports of clashes or protests at the time of the attacks, the Observatory said.

The Observatory said protesters rallied after holiday prayers in Aleppo, in central province of Homs and the city of Hama.

Demonstrators also took to the streets in the suburbs of Damascus, and across the southern province of Deraa, where the uprising began. Three people were wounded when troops tried to disperse protesters in Deraa, the group said.

The demonstrations were reminiscent of the mass protests that ignited the civil war. In recent months, gatherings have been smaller, a result of a brutal crackdown by the Assad regime.

"It reminds me of the early days of the revolution, the days when people could go out and protest peacefully," said activist Khaled al-Shami, who is based in Damascus. Security was tight around the capital, and police forces erected additional checkpoints on main roads. In side streets, people performed prayers and protested freely, Mr Shami said.

"It seems there is an attempt by both sides to abide by this truce, at least in Damascus," Mr Shami said, adding that the truce was "a good thing that unfortunately will not last."

The latest fighting showed the complexity of the situation, with the badly fragmented opposition sending mixed signals about the truce, some endorsing it but others rejecting it as irrelevant.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's government accepted the truce but left significant loopholes, declaring it would respond to any rebel attack or attempts by foreign forces to intervene.

If the truce holds, it would be the first actual halt in 19 months of fighting that began with mass demonstrations but has transformed into a full-blown civil war with sectarian overtones and tens of thousands of dead.

Earlier attempts by mediators to bring about a cease-fire failed, though elements of both sides had accepted truce proposals.

Activists on the ground said the regime cannot be trusted because it has broken too many promises.

"The truce is a joke," said Mohammed Saeed, an Aleppo based activist, via Skype. "The regime that slaughters hundreds of its own people every day cannot be serious about a truce."

Mr Saeed said the city was "relatively calm," despite shelling in several areas and clashes near the city's military airport that killed at least four people. The lull in fighting prompted hundreds to protest against the regime, he said, adding that there are marches in several neighbourhoods, including in al-Shaar, Hanano and Bustan al-Qasr as well as in several suburbs of Aleppo.

Activists' videos that were posted online Friday showed, large groups of protesters waving rebel flags cheering, clapping and in some cases, dancing to revolutionary songs.

"May God curse your soul Hafez," they shouted in the Damascus suburb of Kfar Batna, in reference to Assad's father, the late Syrian president, Hafez Assad. They were also seen chanting, "Syria wants freedom" and "You will fall, Bashar."

Syria's state news agency said Assad attended holiday prayers in Al-Afram Mosque in Al-Muhajireen district of Damascus. The embattled president was shown briefly on TV, sitting on the mosque floor and praying. He was later seen smiling and shaking hands with worshippers.

Assad has rarely appeared in public during the uprising. He was last shown on state TV Oct. 6, when he laid a wreath to mark the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israel war.

More than 35,000 people have been killed, including more than 8000 government troops, since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, according to activists.

The Observatory said overnight clashes between troops and rebels took place in Homs, in Deir el-Zour in the country's east and in the city of Aleppo, the country's largest. At least seven people were killed in the fighting, including three rebels, the group said. Six soldiers were wounded.

On Thursday, rebels claimed major gains in the key battleground of Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub, pushing into predominantly Christian and Kurdish neighborhoods that had previously been held by pro-Assad forces in northern part of the city.

The short holiday cease-fire was all a divided international community could agree on after the failure of a more ambitious plan for an open-ended truce and political transition talks by Brahimi's predecessor, former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, in April.

Mr Brahimi has not said what was supposed to happen after four days, an ominous sign, since Assad and opposition leaders disagree sharply on how to proceed.

Assad refuses to resign, while some opposition leaders say his departure is a prerequisite for any political talks. The fragmented opposition factions disagree over whether to negotiate with Assad at all.

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Hong Kong to cool property market

HONG Kong announced it will raise real-estate purchasing and resale costs to cool its overheating property market down, in a move targeting non-local buyers and speculative activities.

The prices of small and medium sized residential flats in the southern Chinese city, famous for its sky-high rent, surged 20 per cent for the first nine months of the year, prompting the government to take action.

The new measures include the increase of special stamp duties for properties re-sold within the first three years of its purchase and imposing an extra 15 per cent transaction cost on non-local buyers and local and foreign companies.

The measures "targets speculative activities, and for most genuine homebuyers it would not affect them because they won't be reselling in a short period of time", said Financial Secretary John Tsang.

The extra 15 per cent transaction cost "will cause inconvenience to some non-local buyers. We hope that they will understand that this is an extraordinary measure introduced in exceptional circumstances," Mr Tsang said.

The new measures will go into affect today.

Mr Tsang attributed the substantial increase in the demand for property to low interest rates, adding that the city's economy is showing signs of slowing down due to a weak US market recovery and Euro sovereign debt crisis.

"It is apparent that the property market and the local economy are heading in different directions," he said.

Mr Tsang also acknowledged that the city was in short supply of residential units.

Hong Kong in August unveiled a series of measures to cool the red-hot property market, including to provide around 65,000 new units on the market in the next three to four years.

"Maintaining a healthy stable property market will be our ongoing endeavour," Mr Tsang said.

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Retail Adventures goes into administration

DISCOUNT store business Retail Adventures has gone into voluntary administration with jobs at risk and store closures expected.

Retail Adventures is the largest trader of discount stores such as Sam's Warehouse, Crazy Clark's, Chickenfeed and Go-Lo stores.

The company's board of directors made the decision to place the company in voluntary administration and appointed Deloitte's Vaughan Strawbridge and two of his partners to oversee the restructure of the business, the company said in a statement.

Under the restructure, the company's 238 stores and 5000 full-time staff will continue under the Sam's Warehouse and Crazy Clark's brands.

The company said 29 Crazy Clark's, Go-Lo and Chickenfeed stores have already been closed, with more store closures expected in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.

It said 57 Chickenfeed and Go-Lo stores will be rebranded as Crazy Clark's stores.

Retail Adventures chief executive Penny Moss said all staff who lose their jobs will be paid their entitlements with alternate employment offered where possible.

"The infrastructure and overheads of both the distribution centres and our head office are currently unsustainable," she said in a statement on Saturday.

"The restructure is necessary to preserve value for the creditors and make sure the business is financially viable in the future."

The 238 continuing Sam's Warehouse and Crazy Clark's stores will be operated from Saturday under licence from the voluntary administrators by DSG Holdings Australia Pty Ltd, the current holding company of Retail Adventures.

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Mystery after oil exec gunned down

SO far, it's still a mystery.

A British oil executive gunned down in front of his wife in the Belgian capital of Brussels. Helmeted assailants escaping on a motorcycle. No arrests. A driver of a white van who has not been found. A court order for police not to reveal the details.

Was the killing of Nicholas Mockford, a 60-year-old executive for ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, a car-jacking gone wrong? A muffed purse-snatching? Or was it a cold-blooded professional hit for reasons yet unknown?

Mockford, a British national living in Belgium, was shot dead on Oct. 14 as he left an Italian restaurant in Neder-over-Heembeek - a village in medieval days that has since been swallowed up by the expanding capital. He died in the street as his wife cradled him in her arms and a neighbour tried to resuscitate him.

In the beginning, the investigating judge imposed an order on police preventing them from releasing any detail on the case, which police said was not unusual in a serious murder case. As a result, initial news reports were sparse. But on Thursday, authorities switched course and decided to enlist the public's help, releasing a brief description of the crime.

Mockford and his wife, Mary, left Da Marcello restaurant about 10 p.m., the report said. They crossed the street toward their car, identified by news reports as a Lexus.

When they reached the car, an assailant "threatened" Mrs. Mockford, hit her several times in the face, and tried to yank her bag away, police said.

Suddenly, a second assailant fired four shots at Mockford, who died at the scene, according to police.

On Oct. 16, the VTM television channel interviewed a neighbour who asked not to be identified.

"I heard the sound of two, well I don't know, like tac, tac," said the man, whose image was blurred.

"I thought that was strange and went outside. I saw a woman lying on the sidewalk across the street. She was shouting 'Help! Help!' There was also a man lying next to a car."

The man said Mrs. Mockford mentioned a white van, so neighbors originally thought her husband had been the victim of a hit-and-run accident.

"I stayed with the man, but he stopped breathing," the neighbour said.

"I resuscitated him and he came to. Then he became unconscious again and at that moment the ambulance arrived.

He said after ambulance workers had cut open the man's clothing, he saw the man "had a bullet in his chest and a bullet in his shoulder. There was also blood on his head."

Investigators have asked that the driver of the van report to police, saying it had crossed the couple's path shortly before the attack.

The assailants, who wore motorcycle helmets, initially escaped on foot but were later seen on a motorcycle, the police report said.

Mockford's family is not buying the idea that the motive was robbery. A British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph UK, quoted an unnamed relative as saying the family believed it was a professional hit.

A spokesman for ExxonMobil said Friday the company was "shocked by the very tragic death." The company, headquartered in Irving, Texas, did not immediately respond to further requests for comment.

Mockford grew up in Leicestershire in the English Midlands. He reportedly moved abroad years ago, living in Belgium and Singapore. He is believed to have worked for ExxonMobil since the 1970s and was head of marketing for interim technologies for ExxonMobil Chemicals, Europe, promoting new types of greener fuel.

He had been married to his wife, who is Belgian, for 15 years. His three adult children from his first marriage live in Britain, the Telegraph said.

Mockford was also a sailor and a golfer. A sailing team of which he was a member reportedly won a race in the English Channel last year.

And for the last seven years or so he had been a member of the Steenpoel Golf Club, a nine-hole course just outside Brussels. The club secretary, Andrew Watson, told The Associated Press that Mockford was a keen if ordinary golfer, showing up about once a week.

"Everybody at this club is completely shocked," Watson said. "He was a very easy going guy. Very polite, very pleasant."

Mockford never mentioned anything about enemies or any work-related conflicts, Watson said.

"Absolutely not!" Watson said. "He never had a bad word about anyone."

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New York Times sees modest profit

THE New York Times Co has announced a modest profit in a quarter in which digital subscriptions rose but revenues fell, including from online and print advertising.

The media company seeking to manage a shift to digital readership reported net income for the third quarter of $US2.28 million ($A2.21 million), a slump of 85 per cent from a year ago, when profits saw a temporary boost from asset sales.

Overall revenue fell 0.6 per cent from a year ago to $US449 million, hurt by weakness in advertising, but partially offset by gains in paid digital subscribers.

The company said on Thursday paid subscribers to The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune rose by 57,000 or 11 per cent from the end of the second quarter to 566,000. The number of paid subscribers to its Boston Globe unit rose by 13 per cent to 26,000.

But the Times said print ad revenues fell 10.9 per cent and digital ads were down 2.2 per cent "largely due to the challenging economic environment, ongoing secular trends and an increasingly complex and fragmented digital advertising marketplace".

"While our results for the third quarter reflect continued pressure on advertising revenues, total circulation revenues rose, led by the ongoing expansion of our digital subscription base," said Arthur Sulzberger Jr, chairman and chief executive officer.

"Digital subscription trends have remained robust."

Like other US newspapers, the Times has been struggling with declining print advertising revenue, falling circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.

The Times began charging in March last year for full access to NYTimes.com and it launched a subscription-only website for the Boston Globe in October last year.

Gains from two major asset sales recently concluded by the company will be recorded in the fourth quarter. They were the sale of the About.com for $US300 million and the Times' stake in Indeed.com for $US167 million.

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Astronauts docks with space station

A RUSSIAN Soyuz spacecraft carrying three astronauts and a consignment of fish successfully docked Thursday with the International Space Station after a two-day voyage.

The arrival of NASA astronaut Kevin Ford and Russians Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin brings the crew at the orbiting outpost to six.

Novitsky gently slotted the Soyuz craft into the Russian Poisk research module around 410 kilometres above southern Ukraine around six minutes ahead of the scheduled 1235 GMT (8:35am EDT) arrival.

The trio blasted off Tuesday from a Russian-leased facility in the southern Kazakhstan town of Baikonur.

Incoming cargo includes 32 guppy-like fish that will be used to test how conditions in space impact on living organisms.

Akihiko Hoshide, an astronaut with Japan's JAXA space agency, spent early Thursday morning preparing an aquarium on the Japanese experiment module called "Kibo," or Hope.

"The importance of these very small fishes is that they have bones and muscles just like human beings," Mr Hoshide told NASA TV earlier this year before the start of his mission.

"What we're trying to do is have them stay in space for a longer duration and then bring them down to look at their bone structure and muscles."

The hardy Medaka fish, which can grow up to four centimetres, are considered particularly suitable for the study as they have transparent bodies that enable scrutiny of their internal organs.

A spacewalk by Mr Hoshide and U.S. astronaut Suni Williams to repair an ammonia leak from the station's temperature control system is planned for next Thursday.

NASA says ammonia is pumped through the station's system to keep electronics and other equipment cool.

Another task in the frenetic workload over the incoming crew's first week in orbit will be the unberthing Sunday of a commercial Dragon cargo vehicle.

The capsule loaded with completed scientific experiments will splash down in the afternoon in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Baja California.

The growing capabilities of private space vehicle companies have boosted hopes that NASA will be able to focus increasingly on more ambitious exploration projects.

Earlier this month, California-based SpaceX successfully delivered supplies to the space station on Dragon, the first official shipment under a $US1.6 billion contract with NASA. It calls for 12 such shipments.

Cygnus, the first cargo vehicle to the station from Orbital Sciences, of Dulles, Virginia, is scheduled for December.

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Lemons could replace chemicals in IVF labs

MORE than 200 years after Casanova employed their contraceptive qualities, lemons are making a comeback as a way to stop sperm in their tracks.

Scientists from Sydney's Genea fertility clinic are planning to replace the carcinogenic chemical formaldehyde with lemon juice to analyse sperm samples in their laboratories.

The citric acid in lemon juice immobilises sperm, allowing scientists to conduct accurate sperm counts and analyse the samples for abnormalities, said Genea's scientific director Steve McArthur.

The clinic has successfully trialled the new method on 50 samples and will validate the results in a further study before completely switching to lemon juice, probably within months, Mr McArthur said.

The initial trial showed lemon juice was just as effective as formaldehyde in immobilising sperm, he said.

Scientists wanted to move from using the dangerous chemical, which is often used to preserve bodies in medical laboratories, to a natural alternative.

"The lemon juice makes a much more safe and efficient way for us to be able to process our sperm in our laboratory," Mr McArthur told AAP.

"The benefit, not just for our laboratory but all laboratories in Australia and globally, is that we take a potentially harmful chemical out of our labs.

"In those labs we have sperm samples that are going to be used in the production of embryos, so any time that we can make that system safer is of benefit to our patients."

However, Mr McArthur said the sperm used to fertilise embryos never comes into contact with formaldehyde, which is simply used to analyse men's sperm for deficiencies before assisted reproductive therapy begins.

Male infertility is the underlying cause for about 40 per cent of couples who have trouble conceiving.

The 18th century lover Casanova was said to have discovered the contraceptive qualities of lemons, using half a squeezed lemon as a uterine cap.

Lemon juice was also thought to be used as a contraceptive by Mediterranean women about 300 years ago.

The results of Genea's study are to be presented at the Fertility Society of Australia annual scientific meeting in Auckland next week.

The latest figures on assisted reproductive technology (ART) in Australia and New Zealand, released on Friday, showed there were about 56,500 treatment cycles performed in Australia and 5,300 in New Zealand in 2010.

This was a fall of about 13 per cent for Australia and one per cent for New Zealand, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The drop in Australia in 2010 coincided with a cap on the amount of money that could be claimed back from Medicare for fertility treatment.

About 12,100 babies were born from the ART treatments in 2010 and almost three quarters were full-term single births of normal birthweight.

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Forty whales die in mass stranding

ABOUT 40 whales died in a mass stranding on the west coast of India's remote North Andaman island in the Bay of Bengal, wildlife officials said.

"The short-finned pilot whales were found by fishermen who alerted us and investigations show it was a case of mass stranding," said Ajai Saxena, a wildlife official in Port Blair, capital of the islands.

Ms Saxena said no previous mass stranding had been reported in the Andamans, but that it was a natural phenomenon that occurs when whales get disoriented and are unable to swim back into deep water.

Stranding is also thought to occur when a pod follows a sick or an injured whale into the shallows, experts say.

Emergency teams and local volunteers headed to the beach near Elizabeth Bay on the North Andaman island where the whales were stranded, but they were unable to help.

"The mammals are so heavy, it is impossible to move them back to the waters," Ms Saxena said.

A post-mortem has been conducted on one of adults, which weighed two tonnes.

The Andaman and Nicobar islands are Indian territory, though they are at least 1000 kilometres from the mainland and are closer to the coast of Burma.

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Man charged with brothel murder

A SYDNEY man has been charged with murder and armed robbery after a fatal stabbing at a brothel in the city's west.

Police and paramedics rushed to the red-light business on George Street, Clyde, early on Wednesday morning after reports that a man was seriously hurt.

They found a 48-year-old with stab wounds who died a short time later.

Reports suggested the dead man was the boyfriend of the brothel's female, Chinese-born owner.

Detectives arrested a 22-year-old man at Hurstville police station, in Sydney's south on Wednesday evening.

It's alleged he stabbed the 48-year-old as he tried to rob the brothel.

He was charged with murder and armed robbery and is due to appear at Sutherland Local Court on Thursday.

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Virgin space project keeps being delayed

BRITISH billionaire Richard Branson says his space tourism project keeps being pushed back and isn't sure of an exact date for the first launch.

He says it will be at least another 12 or 18 months before the Virgin Galactic venture can offer paid space travel to adventurers.

The founder of the Virgin Group met with students on his first visit to Poland on Wednesday, where he came to launch Virgin Academy, which will help young people kick start their own businesses.

Asked about Virgin Galactic, Branson said he has "stopped counting" days to the launch because it gets delayed "to the next year, to the next year."

More than 100 would-be space tourists have signed up for the $US200,000 ($A195,000) two-hour trips that go 100 kilometres above Earth.

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Kennedy cousin says innocent of killing

KENNEDY cousin Michael Skakel is proclaiming his innocence in his first parole hearing to determine whether he should be released from a Connecticut prison a decade after he was convicted of killing his neighbour.

Skakel said, "I did not commit this crime."

Skakel is serving 20 years to life for fatally beating Martha Moxley with a golf club in 1975 when they were 15. Skakel is a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F Kennedy.

He was convicted in 2002. He is eligible for parole consideration because of laws in place at the time of the crime including good behaviour credits.

Dorothy Moxley, the victim's mother, has rejected Skakel's claims of innocence.

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Facebook, Boeing fuel US stock rebound

OPTIMISTIC forecasts by Boeing and Facebook have pushed US stocks higher in opening trade, reversing course after a slew of earnings disappointments sent markets sharply lower on Tuesday.

Facebook shares rocketed 23 per cent after the company told analysts it was making a strong stand in the mobile advertising markets against doubts that it could make money off use of the social network from smartphones.

Five minutes into trade the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 41.01 points (0.31 per cent) at 13,143.54, after Tuesday's 243-point loss.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 6.75 (0.48 per cent) to 1419.86, while the Nasdaq Composite added 21.97 (0.73 per cent) at 3012.43.

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Butler's 'accomplice' faces Vatileaks trial

A VATICAN computer technician will go on trial on November 5 on charges of helping the Pope's former butler steal secret papers, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi says.

Claudio Sciarpelletti's trial follows the conviction of ex-butler Paolo Gabriele, who was found guilty of stealing papers which revealed fraud scandals and intrigue at the heart of the Vatican, and sentenced to 18 months in jail.

The 48-year-old technician was arrested on May 25 as the Vatican investigation into the leaks unfolded, but was released the following day.

He was initially due to stand in the dock with Gabriele in early October, but was granted a separate trial. His alleged role in stealing and leaking the memos is considered "rather marginal" by the judiciary, Lombardi said.
His trial is likely to be even shorter than Gabriele's, the spokesman added.

Gabriele spent months under house arrest but his trial in the so-called Vatileaks scandal lasted a week.

An envelope containing stolen documents and addressed to Gabriele was found in Sciarpelletti's desk within the walls of the tiny state. He has claimed ignorance, insisting he had forgotten it was there and never opened it.

The technician has also admitted, however, that two people gave him envelopes containing documents to pass on to the butler.

Lombardi told a briefing following the release of the full judgment on Gabriele that the former butler could serve his 18 months in a Vatican cell - scotching earlier rumours that he would likely be jailed in Italy.

Because the tiny state does not have a jail, experts said he would have to serve time in Italy - but the notion of letting the convicted whistleblower leave the Vatican's walls was apparently worrying top clerics.

Vatican prosecutors still have time to appeal the verdict, but should they not do so in the next few days "the sentence will come into effect and Gabriele will have to serve his time in the Vatican," spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

"Cells have been outfitted in the police barracks," he said.

Gabriele, who is currently under house arrest, was held in a holding cell in the Vatican for 53 days and accused the guards during the trial of mistreating him. He may end up with the very same guards he filed complaints against.

But the butler may still escape serving time should the pontiff decide to pardon him: "It's a possibility, I cannot say anything more than that. No one knows," Lombardi said.

The day the butler was sentenced Lombardi said it was "very likely" Gabriele would be pardoned, but there has only been silence from the Pope himself so far.

Gabriele, who lives in a Vatican apartment with his wife and three children and continues to receive his salary, has been ordered to pay court costs.

The relationship between the butler and the computer technician is unclear.
While Gabriele insists they were friends and has talked about family outings together, Sciarpelletti says they were no more than acquaintances.

The trial could reveal interesting elements regarding five witnesses - or possible accomplices - whose names have been blacked out and replaced with letters of the alphabet in court documents.

The butler had told Italian investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, who published the leaks, that there were "around 20" like-minded people in the Vatican - sparking rumours that the leaks may be orchestrated by cardinals.

Religious watchers will be following the Sciarpelletti trial closely to see whether any fresh names emerge that could shed light on the latest scandal to embarrass the Vatican.
 

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Woman deported over royal photos

A CAMBODIAN court has ordered the deportation of a Chinese factory manager who nearly caused a riot among workers by ripping up photographs of recently deceased former king Norodom Sihanouk.

Wang Zia Chao, 43, was also handed a one-year suspended sentence for "intentionally damaging the photos" of the revered royal and told to pay a two million riel ($500) fine, judge Seng Neang at Phnom Penh municipal court said.

Wang expressed remorse for destroying the two photos on Monday after becoming annoyed that staff at the Top World garment factory had interrupted work to look at them, but she told the court she was unaware who was depicted in the images.

"If I had known... I would not have done it. I feel regret for the mistake and I would like to say sorry for everything," Wang said.

Monday's incident so infuriated the factory workers that police had to be called in to calm down a 1000-strong crowd.

Wang was handcuffed and forced to make a public apology at a shrine to the revered royal. She was also fired from her job as chief of a production unit.

Unlike neighbouring Thailand, Cambodia does not have strict legislation against insulting the monarchy and prosecutions are extremely rare.

Sihanouk, who steered Cambodia through decades marked by independence from France, civil war, the murderous Khmer Rouge regime and finally peace, died of a heart attack on October 15 aged 89.

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Syrian shell hits health centre in Turkey

AN anti-aircraft shell fired from Syria has hit a health centre in a Turkish border town but caused no casualties, reports the private CNN-Turk television network on its website.

The shell landed in the Reyhanli district of Hatay province, 200 metres from the Syrian border, and shattered windows of the building, according to the network.

It was not immediately clear if Turkish artillery struck back at Syria after the incident.

Turkey has been retaliating systematically on each occasion that its border with Syria has been violated by mortar bombs or shells since Syrian fire killed five Turkish civilians on October 3.

On Friday, two shells fired from Syria fell into an empty field in Hatay province, prompting Turkish border units to retaliate.

One-time allies Turkey and Syria fell out after Ankara joined Arab and Western countries in urging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to halt his deadly crackdown on the popular revolt that erupted last year and has now turned into a civil war.

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US stocks plunge 1% on poor earnings

US stocks have opened more than one per cent lower after blue chips Dupont, United Technologies and 3M turned in disappointing quarterly earnings and cut their forecasts.

Five minutes into trade the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 166.39 points (1.25 per cent) at 13,179.39.

The broad-based S&P 500 sank 16.97 (1.18 per cent) to 1416.85, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 33.28 points (1.10 per cent) at 2983.68.

Dupont sank 6.7 per cent, United Technologies lost 0.6 per cent and 3M fell 3.3 per cent in the opening minutes.

Fighting the selling pressure, longtime laggard Yahoo jumped 3.8 per cent on its strong earnings rise.

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Emergency planning 'lacks funds'

AUSTRALIA needs to boost its "shamefully inadequate" emergency services funding and set up a national body to oversee disaster management, former federal emergency services minister Robert McClelland says.

Mr McClelland says more attention should be given to preventing poor planning decisions before they lead to unnecessary damage and the loss of life.

"In short, the consequences of failing to develop a more sophisticated approach to emergency management is inevitably more loss in terms of lives, property and environment but also, potentially, in terms of maintaining a civil society," Mr McClelland said in a chapter of a book, Next Generation Disaster and Security Management, to be released on Wednesday.

Australia should consider having a similar organisation to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Mr McClelland said.

A central body like FEMA would oversee the three Australian agencies that deal with natural and security emergencies - the national security resilience policy division, the national security capability development division and Emergency Management Australia.

Mr McClelland said once a dedicated agency was set up to focus on all aspects of emergency prevention, preparation, response and recovery, it would have to push for enough funds for national emergency management capability.

The commonwealth spends less than $30 million a year on natural disaster mitigation strategies, the former minister said.

"Currently, unfortunately, funding is shamefully inadequate," he said.

Mr McClelland said governments had helped to create a culture of entitlement rather than a culture of prevention.

"This has occurred because the emphasis of government has been on being seen to provide assistance to individuals after they fall victims to a natural disaster rather on developing strategies and working with communities to prevent those communities from falling victim to disaster in the first place," he said.

Mr McClelland said eligibility to Australian government disaster recovery payments (AGDRP) should be tightened for those disadvantaged from natural disasters or terrorism, which would free up funds to prevent injury loss and damage from future events.

An adult affected by a natural disaster or terrorist event is entitled to $1000 while a child can receive $400.

"A 20 per cent saving on the AGDRP commitments in respect to the Queensland floods and cyclones Yasi, for instance, would have released approximately $166 million for future mitigation measures," Mr McClelland said.

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More young people drowning

A SIGNIFICANT rise in the number of young people drowning in Australia has led to a call for compulsory swimming lessons at primary schools.

The Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) says 371 people aged between 15 and 24 drowned between 2002 and 2012 - a 25 per cent increase on previous decades.

RLSS CEO Rob Bradley says many children are no longer taught basic swimming skills, and 20 per cent of youngsters leaving primary school in coming months will be unable to stay afloat for two minutes.

He's launched a petition calling on governments to support and help fund compulsory swimming lessons at primary schools.

The RLSS believes the number of young people drowning could double in the next decade unless action is taken.

"Royal Life Saving believes that the rapid increase in drowning in young adults ... is undeniably linked to a fall in the swimming and water safety skills of children in Australia over the past 10 years," the organisation said.

The RLSS believes many families simply can't afford swimming lessons and having them as part of the curriculum would be one way to ensure all children receive training.

It acknowledged that some schools do offer swimming training but said it was often only a few lessons every year.

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Instant phone translation begins in Japan

JAPAN'S biggest mobile operator says it will launch a translation service that lets people chat over the phone in several different languages.

The application for NTT DoCoMo subscribers will give two-way voice and text readouts of conversations between Japanese speakers and those talking in English, Chinese or Korean with a several-second delay, the firm says.

"Hanashite Honyaku" will be a free application that can be used on smartphones and tablet computers with the Android operating system, DoCoMo says.

Customers will also be able to call landlines using the service, it says.

It plans to next launch voice-to-text readouts in French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai.

"We hope that with this application, our subscribers will be able to widen the range of their communication," a company spokeswoman said.

However, she conceded the service does not offer perfect translations and has trouble deciphering some dialects.

DoCoMo also said it has launched a separate service that lets users translate menus and signage using a smartphone camera.

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US stocks slip on Caterpillar outlook

US stocks have opened mostly lower as investors braced for a week of earnings reports, with Caterpillar's lowered outlook hurting sentiment.

Five minutes into trade on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 12.86 points, or 0.10 per cent, at 13,330.65.

The S&P 500-stock index was off 0.12 point, or 0.01 per cent, at 1,433.07.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 4.71 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 3,010.33.

"Some cautious guidance from Caterpillar is helping to keep things in check," said Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com.

Although the world's largest heavy equipment maker posted its best third-quarter, with record profit and sales that beat forecasts, "the bad news is that it provided FY12 and FY13 guidance that is below current consensus estimates", he said.

"Thus far, the earnings reporting period, even with the financials, has left plenty to be desired," he added.

On Friday, stocks fell sharply after a spate of disappointing earnings from major heavyweights.

The Dow dropped 1.52 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 1.66 per cent and the Nasdaq gave up 2.19 per cent.

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Budget 12/13 surplus not necessity: Access

THE federal government's promise to bring the budget back to surplus is based more on politics than economic necessity, a leading independent forecaster says.

As Labor prepares to release its mid-year budget review on Monday morning, Deloitte Access Economics director Chris Richardson says while the task of repairing budgets cannot be shirked, it shouldn't be rushed.

"Governments need to pay their way over time, but we still think that a surplus in 2012/13 is partly a political target rather than an economic necessity," he said in the company's business outlook released on Monday.

The government's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) is widely expected to stick to the May budget forecast of a $1.5 billion surplus this financial year, even though it needs to find further savings.

Mr Richardson said federal and state governments were all scrambling to repair "broken" budgets after spending the past decade dishing out the revenue proceeds of the commodity price boom.

"But a shockwave in commodity prices means the tax take will (now) stay soggy," he said.

At the same time, the fact the Australia dollar is still riding high when commodity prices are down is creating headaches across the industrial landscape.

"Some miners are losing money, and mining services ... are now feeling the pressure of cost cutting," he said.

New sectors were joining the "trouble list" of manufacturing, utilities and retail, at the same time as the government was "jumping on the anchors" of spending.

However, Mr Richardson said the engineering construction sector still had an enormous workload ahead because of increased mining investment.

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WA remains the economic powerhouse

WESTERN Australia is still the nation's economic powerhouse but a slowdown in the mining sector could lead to weaker spending and a softer jobs market.

A report shows WA leads the other states in four of eight criteria over the past three months.

"Western Australia remains Australia's best-performing economy, but Northern Territory is coming up fast, with the Inpex natural gas project providing strong momentum to the Top End economy," the CommSec State of the States report says.

It says WA is still first or second on seven of the eight indicators, coming out on top in construction work, retail trade, population growth and equipment investment.

Over the past quarter WA held its position while Tasmania remained fixed at the bottom end of the scale.

The NT passed the ACT to take second spot after WA, while NSW improved to rank alongside Victoria and Queensland.

There was a sizeable gap to South Australia and then another significant gap to Tasmania.

WA's economic output was 34 per cent higher than the decade average level. It also outperformed the other states in terms of equipment investment.

With an unemployment rate of 3.9 per cent, both the NT and WA have arguably the strongest job markets in the nation.

In terms of population growth, WA is the clear leader with an annual growth rate of 3.14 per cent.

The report says home prices are lower than a year ago in only half of the state capitals.

The strongest growth in home prices was in Darwin, where they are up by 2.9 per cent, followed by Sydney, up 0.9 per cent.

The weakest home prices are in Melbourne, down by 3.8 per cent on a year ago.

Real wages were positive in all state economies in the June quarter, with the strongest growth in WA.

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Growth could slow in 2014 with price falls

AUSTRALIA'S growth could slow in 2014 and deliver headaches for business as commodity price falls put a brake on mining construction projects.

Big mining projects that were approved a few years ago will drive output gains in the next two years, but the next round of project approvals will be a "pale shadow of the last lot", a Deloitte Access Economics report says.

"The strong bit of Australia's 'two speed economy' won't be as strong in a couple of years," the Business Outlook said.

Rising world prices for iron ore and coal had underwritten a lot of the gains in Australian incomes in the past decade, but those prices had fallen through 2012.

"There's a risk of a pothole in growth in 2014-15 as the surge in mining construction finishes before rising gas export volumes hit their straps," the report said.

"That's not the end of the world, but it suggests the difficult business environment of the last couple of years won't disappear any time soon."

A supply surge in commodities coincided with weaker demand from China, leading to faster than expected price falls.

The report also warned of complacency around the consensus view of a relatively rapid rebound in China and in its insatiable demand for commodities.

Still, Deloitte found there was a lot of import spending locked in to feed into massive resource construction spending this financial year and next.

But the same was not true of exports.

The study showed unemployment remained low, despite anaemic job growth, partly because workers have been discouraged by weak job gains.

"More Australians are retiring or otherwise staying out of the job hunt," it said.

"That buffer was only a respite and we see unemployment drifting up as governments and even the mining sector tighten their belts."

Deloitte predicts unemployment will top out in this cycle at 5.5 per cent.

Inflation prospects were less worrying, but a surge of "funny money" from the central banks underlined continuing financial fragility around the globe.

While fears for Europe had faded, concerns about China had intensified.

"Even if the US dodges the big bullet of the 'fiscal cliff', there's still going to be some fiscal headwinds in the US in 2013," the report said.

The global recovery would continue, but it would be dogged by difficulties that would leave global growth below trend in 2012 and 2013.

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Protesters try to storm Lebanese govt HQ

LEBANESE soldiers have fired machine guns and rifles into the air and lobbed volleys of tear gas at hundreds of angry protesters trying to storm the Lebanese government headquarters in Beirut.

The chaotic scene in Lebanon's capital on Sunday comes in the midst of a funeral for a top intelligence official who was killed in a massive car bombing that many blame on the regime in neighbouring Syria.

The protesters believe the government is too close to Syria and Damascus's ally in Lebanon, the Shi'ite group Hezbollah.

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