Cassar-Daley dominates Golden Guitars

Country music fans have marked Australia Day at the annual Tamworth Country Music Festival. Source: AAP

THOUSANDS of country music fans have kicked off their Australia Day celebrations at the annual Tamworth Country Music Festival cavalcade.

Donning Australian T-shirts and waving flags, fans lined Tamworth's iconic Peel Street to catch a glimpse of their favourite stars on the back of utes and semi-trailers.

Lee Kernaghan, Beccy Cole and Troy Cassar-Daley were among the celebrities who travelled on the more than 80 floats and cars meandering down the main drag.

A caravan of camels dressed in Australian flags and carrying guitar-playing locals also joined in the procession.

The cavalcade marks the start of a big day of Australia Day celebrations in Tamworth, including an Australia Day concert in Bicentennial Park.

On Saturday night, some of country music's biggest names will walk the red carpet at this year's Country Music Awards of Australia (CMAA).

Catherine Britt and Troy Cassar-Daley are among 13 acts who will take to the stage at country music's night of nights.

Both artists are also nominated for seven awards each.

The CMAAs mark the conclusion of the 10-day Tamworth Country Music Festival.

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Troy Cassar-Daley humbled by awards haul

TROY Cassar-Daley has a big place in his heart for the Golden Guitars.

When he inspected the flood-ravaged basement of his Queensland farmhouse the first item he salvaged was one of the statuettes.

He also dragged out a banjo, given by his wife Laurel, upon which he would later write award-winning songs, but even that didn't match the relief of accounting for his collection.

"The award was for a song called Born To Survive so it couldn't have been a more fitting one to find," recalled Cassar-Daley.

"I didn't even have the heart to wipe off all the mud properly just so that I'd be reminded about that moment forever.

"I was more worried about finding that award than our car."

While "cooler" musicians play down the significance of awards in the context of their art, Cassar-Daley has been gratefully receiving Australia's greatest country music accolade since 1996.

The prolific singer-songwriter has 25 Golden Guitars after winning four more at the CMAA Awards, the finale to this year's Tamworth Music Festival.

The latest haul, including best male, song, and album of the year, moves him level with John Williamson as the third most celebrated artist in CMAA history.

"Winning awards is nothing to be scoffed at but I always get embarrassed when there's that many to tell you the truth," Cassar-Daley said before Saturday's ceremony.

"You find yourself running out of people to thank but I'm always grateful for each one."

Fortunately for Australian country music fans, Cassar-Daley has not been running out of things to say on record.

Over 10 albums, the 43-year-old singer has been moving closer to the heights he sets in emulating the songwriting prowess of his idols Slim Dusty and Merle Haggard.

His musicianship was never in question but his lyrics have sharpened.

"I've always prided myself as a musician more than a singer or lyricist so there's always been room to grow.

"When you're learning you've got to be living so I'm continually trying to express myself in different ways."

Cassar-Daley's latest album Home, recorded last year, was a direct response to the 2010-2011 floods that claimed lives, livestock, livelihoods and homes.

Songs such as The River Runs and Country Is were directly inspired by the disaster, and Cassar-Daley was determined his sympathies would not only be conveyed through song.

He went on tour to entertain flood victims, on occasions requiring a boat to reach flood-affected areas, and held a number of benefit concerts including one for a family who could not afford to bury their baby son.

Despite having to rescue his own property, Cassar-Daley's attentions were concerned at the people around him.

"We only spend half of our time at the farm but for the people around us it was their absolute home," he said.

"To me the album was a chance to re-evaluate the meaning of home and talk about the importance of family. I took it for granted until I saw how disaster can affect entire communities."

Born to Maltese-Australian father and an Aboriginal mother, Cassar-Daley grew up in Grafton with a guitar in hand.

He started busking on the streets of Tamworth at 11 under the wing of his uncle Jimmy, a "one-man PR machine" who badgered the big artists of the day like Jimmy Little to give him a break.

He honed his songwriting skills on a seven-month tour with Brian Young before returning home and replacing James Blundell as frontman of The Blue Heeler Band.

After going solo, his debut album Dream Out Loud scooped the 1995 ARIA for best country record and a year later he won a first Golden Guitar.

Cassar-Daley hopes to win more.

"I never stop writing and I'm always looking forward but I have to be inspired before I write an album. There's got to be a reason behind it."

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French-led troops in Mali seize airport

FRENCH-LED troops have seized the airport and a key bridge serving the Islamist stronghold of Gao in a major boost to a 16-day-old offensive to rout al-Qaeda-linked rebels from Mali's sprawling desert north.

The stunning advance came as the extremist Muslim group controlling Gao since June said it was ready for talks to free a 61-year-old French hostage kidnapped in November.

In a parallel movement, Chadian troops deployed in Mali's eastern neighbour Niger started rolling towards the border to join a contingent of Niger soldiers as part of African efforts to boost the French-led offensive.

"They are a very big contingent and they have tanks and four-wheel drives with machineguns," a Niger security source said.

It was not clear whether they were set to cross the border, which lies only 100km from Gao.

France on Saturday confirmed the capture of the airport and the Wanbary bridge at Gao but said fighting was continuing in Gao itself.

The airport is located about 6km east of Gao, while the bridge lies at the southern entrance to the town, held by the al-Qaeda-linked Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO).

Sources said earlier that the Islamists had left Gao in the wake of the French-led military offensive on January 11 to stop a triad of al-Qaeda-linked groups from pushing southward from their northern bastions towards Bamako.

An alliance of Tuareg rebels who wanted to declare an independent homeland in the north and hardline Islamist groups seized the northern towns of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal in April last year.

The Islamist groups include MUJAO, Ansar Dine, a homegrown Islamist group, and al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, of which MUJAO is an offshoot.

The Islamists then sidelined the Tuaregs to implement their own Islamic agenda. Their harsh interpretation of sharia law has seen transgressors flogged, stoned and executed, and they have forbidden music and television and forced women to wear veils.

The MUJAO said it was ready for negotiations to release Gilberto Rodriguez Leal, a French national of Portuguese origin who was kidnapped in western Mali.

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China 'must modernise' before global role

CHINA'S new leadership will focus on modernising the country before it increases Beijing's role in international affairs, a top official has told the Davos forum.

Senior Chinese planning official Zhang Xiaoqiang told economic and business leaders gathered in the Swiss ski resort that the whole world would benefit if China completed its development program.

"I think that the new leader of the Chinese government and the Communist Party has emphasised the strategic agenda for China in the future is to realise the modernisation of China," Zhang told the World Economic Forum on Saturday.

"And of course for the largest developing country itself, modernisation must be a great contribution for the human beings' progress and development," said Zhang, a deputy director of China's National Development and Reform Commission.

Zhang was taking part in a panel at the annual World Economic Forum that discussed China's future global agenda, with other members including former British prime minister Gordon Brown and former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd.

China's once-in-a-decade leadership transition is due to take place at a key congress in March, after the Communist Party in November chose current Vice President Xi Jinping to take over the reins from current President Hu Jintao.

Brown, British premier from 2007-2010 and now a UN special education envoy, argued that China should take a more prominent role in global affairs given that it would soon become the largest economy in the world.

"China should now want to play its rightful role in what is not a unipolar world any more but a multipolar world," he said. He added that the world economy was growing "far slower" than it should because of a lack of cooperation.

But Zhang said China was already playing a global role, and urged patience.

"In fact China already takes a lot of efforts in many global challenges, such as dealing with the international financial crisis, the government changes, food security," he told the forum.

Zhang said his nation would "continue to play an important role as a responsible developing country" and wanted to "build up more global development partnership."

"Particularly we first want to promote the common development within the developing countries, but this also will contribute a lot to the whole world's peace, progress and prosperity," he said.

International analysts widely expect China's fast-growing economy to overtake the United States in terms of gross domestic product, or total size, some time in the first half of this century.

But they also see the United States as likely to remain wealthier on a per capita basis given China's huge population of 1.3 billion, while that of the US currently stands at about 315 million.

Rudd, a Mandarin speaker who was Australia's prime minister from 2007 to 2010, warned however of an arms race in Asia fuelled by increasingly nationalistic territorial disputes in China's backyard.

"Economic globalisation does not, as a matter of inevitable mathematical logic, extinguish political nationalism," said Rudd.

"In our part of the world where you've got the biggest arms race unfolding in recent global history, that's the Asian hemisphere, there are important other factors which we need to respect."

Meanwhile Brown - who was introduced to the Davos audience as having led a G20 summit in 2008 that "saved the world from the brink of financial meltdown" - warned that lessons had not been learned from the global debt crisis.

"I think we will have financial crises on a regular basis over the next 30 or 40 years," he said.

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Man saved after ordeal in Qld floods

A 22-YEAR-OLD man who was stranded for around 24 hours by flooding on a roadside in Queensland's northeast has been plucked to safety by helicopter.

The man had been driving from Charters Towers to Mackay when his car became bogged, before rising floodwater left him stranded on the side of Suttor Development Road around 5pm on (AEST) Thursday, the RACQ said.

The man couldn't be reached by road rescuers, so the RACQ CQ Rescue helicopter was sent to his aid just before 5pm on Friday.

He was taken to Mackay and was safe and well, despite being without food and water for some time, the RACQ said in a statement.

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Flood fears for 1600 homes in Moreton Bay

UP to 1600 homes in the coastal Moreton Bay region, north of Brisbane, are in danger of being inundated by a Saturday morning storm tide, authorities have warned.

Homes in low-lying areas could be affected when a high tide arrives at around 9am (AEST) Saturday, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

Moreton Bay Regional Council Mayor Allan Sutherland said on Friday night the council and SES were door-knocking homes in some of the areas at greatest risk.

"These potentially dangerous storm tides are associated with the ex-tropical cyclone Oswald which could also dump up to 400mm of rain on the Moreton region this weekend," the mayor said in a statement late Friday.

Sand and sandbags are available for areas potentially affected by storm tides at SES depots on Bribie Island, at Deception Bay and Redcliffe, he said.

The bureau has issued a severe weather warning for the area this weekend with damaging winds, heavy rainfall, abnormally high tides and dangerous surf conditions.

It says tides are expected to be almost a metre higher than those listed on tide charts.

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Wild weather tipped for long weekend

HEAVY rain, wild surf and gale force winds are expected to hit northern NSW on the Australia Day long weekend, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) warns.

BoM says ex-tropical cyclone Oswald, which has already travelled 2000 kilometres south from Cape York, is tracking south and is due to hit the states north on Saturday.

In a statement, it said the wild weather would move south to the NSW mid-north coast on Sunday and Monday, with communities at risk including Ballina, Byron Bay, Grafton, Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie.

The rainfall is expected to extend west of the Dividing Range, affecting Moree and Inverell, and south to eastern parts of the Hunter Valley, including Newcastle, BoM said.

It said gale force winds would produce high seas and damaging surf conditions.

It also said the low pressure system had the potential to cause major flooding from the Queensland-New South Wales border to the Hunter Valley.

The weather bureau forecast the rain and wind to ease on Tuesday.

Surf Life Saving NSW spokesman Dean Storey said novice surfers should avoid the ocean after the front hits and "persons intent on swimming should only do so between the red and yellow flags".

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Number of new Aussies up on Australia Day

A RECORD number of people will become citizens this Australia Day, marking the end of the migrant journey and the start of their new lives in Australia, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Bowen says.

Mr Bowen says 17,059 people from 145 countries will become Australian citizens on Saturday, with 430 ceremonies planned across the nation.

Australia Day is always the most popular day for citizenship ceremonies, he says.

"Australia Day is a special day for all Australians to come together to celebrate what is great about our nation - our rich history and our promising future," Mr Bowen said in a statement.

"It is also a fitting opportunity for all of us - whether Australians by birth or by choice - to recognise our common bond and unique diversity while celebrating the privileges and responsibilities of Australian citizenship."

Queensland will naturalise the most people - almost 5000.

Brisbane City Council will host the largest single ceremony at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, where about 1200 people will become Australians.

NSW and Victoria will each welcome 3800 new citizens, South Australia 1300, Western Australia 2500, Tasmania 320 and the Northern Territory 260.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Julia Gillard will confer citizenship on 22 people in the national flag-raising and citizenship ceremony in Canberra.

"On behalf of the Australian government and the people of Australia, I congratulate all new citizens as they mark the end of their migrant journey and the start of their new lives as Australians," Mr Bowen said.

More than four-and-a-half million people have become Australian citizens since the first ceremony in 1949, he said.

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Syria TV shows Assad at religious ceremony

SYRIA'S embattled President Bashar al-Assad has been shown on state television attending prayers at a mosque in a northern district of Damascus to mark the Prophet Mohammed's birthday.

The leader was shown in a live broadcast kneeling in Al-Afram mosque flanked by Syria's mufti, the highest religious authority in the country, and the religious endowments minister.

The minister, Mohammed Abdel Settar, earlier called for "million man prayers" at mosques on Friday to appeal for the re-establishment of security in the country, rocked by a deadly anti-regime uprising since March 2011.

"Prayers will be held after Friday services in Syria's mosques with the appeal for a return to security and safety in the homeland," Settar said, quoted by state news agency SANA.

The last time Assad appeared in public was for a rare speech to supporters on January 6, in which he dismissed calls for his removal and said he had no partners with whom to negotiate for an end to the 22-month conflict.

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15,000 crocs escape from Sth African farm

SOUTH Africa's army and police have been called in to rescue residents from thousands of crocodiles that escaped from a farm where the floodgates were opened due to torrential rains.

About 15,000 predators sprung from the Rakwena Crocodile Farm in the far north of the country when owners were forced to open the gates to prevent a storm surge, local newspaper Beeld reported.

A number have since been recaptured, but at least half remain on the loose, scattered far and wide.

Some turned up on a school rugby pitch 120 kilometres away.

The surrounding province of Limpopo has been hit by serious floods that have killed 10 people and made many more homeless.

"Before, there were only a few crocodiles in the Limpopo River. Now there are plenty," said Zane Langman, the son-in-law of Rakwena's owner.

"We go catch them when farmers phone us and say crocs are around."

Langman earlier used a motor boat to rescue some local residents who had climbed onto the roof of a garage to escape the rising floods.

"When we arrived there, the crocodiles were circling them," he said.

The army has been called in to help track down the reptiles, according to police spokesman Hangwani Mulaudzi.

"Police, the army, and people from the community are assisting," he said.

No incidents involving crocodile attacks have been reported, he told AFP.

Hundreds of kilometres downstream the Limpopo River floods have also savaged neighbouring Mozambique, were tens of thousands of people were being evacuated from their homes.

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Toyota, BMW focus on green technology

MOTOR vehicle manufacturers Toyota and BMW say they are working closely together to develop green technology.

The companies said on Thursday they had reached binding agreements on several strategies. These include the possible joint development of a mid-sized sports vehicle, with a feasibility study expected to be completed by the year's end.

"Toyota and the BMW Group are seizing this unique chance to lead the industry towards the future of mobility," Herbert Diess, a member of BMW's management board, said in Tokyo.

"By doing so we will play a central role in defining tomorrow's vehicles."

The agreement would also see the pair work together on developing lightweight vehicle bodies and next-generation vehicle batteries.

The development of fuel-cell systems has a target completion date of 2020, they said.

"The companies are convinced that fuel cell technology is one of the solutions necessary to achieve zero emissions," said a joint statement.

Under an earlier deal, the German automaker agreed to provide diesel engines for Toyota, a major player in environmentally friendly vehicles, as the Japanese firm looks to boost sales in Europe, where more than half of passenger cars are diesel powered.

Demand for lower-emission diesel vehicles is forecast to grow, with further technological advances in the field seen as crucial due to toughening emissions standards.

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Nepal colonel in UK court over torture

A COLONEL in Nepal's army will stand trial in Britain in June on charges of torture allegedly committed during the Himalayan nation's civil war.

Colonel Kuma Lama appeared by video link from prison for a London court hearing on Thursday. The judge set a provisional trial date of June 5.

Lama, who lives in England, was denied bail.

He was arrested by British police earlier this month and charged with two counts of intentionally "inflicting severe pain or suffering" on two individuals.

Police say the charges relate to incidents that allegedly occurred between April and October 2005 at the Gorusinghe Army Barracks in Nepal.

Thousands of people died and thousands were injured or tortured during Nepal's decade-long civil war, which ended in 2006.

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Crane collapse fast tracks safety program

WORKCOVER NSW has fast-tracked a safety inspection program of tower cranes across the state after one caught fire and collapsed at a Sydney construction site late last year.

The inspections, which were set to begin at the end of 2013, have since been brought forward, WorkCover NSW said in a statement on Thursday.

The move comes after a crane at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) site at Broadway caught fire on November 27 and caused cables to give way, which sent the boom crashing down onto the site.

While no one was seriously injured in the incident, the crane crew was credited with saving the lives of building workers and the public.

In response, WorkCover NSW said the tower crane verification inspection program will start with the type involved in the Sydney collapse.

The inspections will review existing risk controls such as crane pre-assembly and pre-use inspection systems.

It will also physically inspect the cranes.

"The Sydney CBD crane collapse had never happened before and at the time of the incident was considered extremely unlikely," WorkCover General Manager John Watson said in a statement.

"WorkCover's thorough investigation into the causes, systems of work, maintenance of equipment and adequacy of control measures is continuing."

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Putin offers to host Syria refugee talks

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has offered to host an international conference in Moscow on the refugee crisis in Syria sparked by the conflict between rebels and the regime.

"If the interested nations agree to this, we will be ready to propose Moscow as the venue," news agencies quoted Putin as saying during talks with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman on Wednesday.

The Russian leader also promised Lebanon financial assistance to help deal with the Syrian refugees on its territory.

The United Nations warned on Wednesday that more than 650,000 people have already fled the 22-month conflict to neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Turkey.

Putin told Sleiman that "Russia is ready to help Lebanon solve humanitarian issues.

"We will ask our specialists to determine the size of this assistance," said Putin.

"It could be made along several different channels - through direct financing ... and assistance associated with refugee support."

Putin did not specify when exactly the refugee conference in Moscow might be held.

Russia provides military assistance to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and has accused Western powers of inciting more violence by backing opposition attempts to topple the Damascus regime.

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35 killed in suicide bomb at Iraq mosque

A SUICIDE bomb in the middle of a funeral at a Shi'ite mosque in north Iraq killed at least 35 people and wounded 70 others on Wednesday, security and medical officials say.

The blast struck at the Sayida al-Shuhada mosque in Tuz Khurmatu, 175 kilometres north of Baghdad, and targeted the funeral of a relative of a politician who was killed a day earlier.

"Corpses are on the ground of the Husseiniyah (Shi'ite mosque)," said Shallal Abdul, mayor of Tuz Khurmatu.

"The suicide bomber managed to enter and blow himself up in the middle of the mourners."

Among the wounded was Ali Hashem Mukhtar, the deputy chief of the Iraqi Turkman Front and a provincial councillor in Salaheddin province.

The funeral had been for Mukhtar's brother-in-law, who was shot dead in Tuz Khurmatu on Tuesday afternoon.

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Dental report shows good tooth decade

THE number of dentists in Australia's remote areas has risen by almost 50 per cent and more of them are women.

Statistics in the government's Dental Workforce 2011 report, released on Thursday, will have both the oft-neglected rural community and the government showing off their pearly whites.

The number of dentists employed in "remote/very remote" areas increased by 49 per cent between 2006 and 2011 - more than double the national average increase of 22.4 per cent, it states.

In fact the report, released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), is about as squeaky clean as a dentist's surgery itself - without the hospital grade detergent aroma.

Despite having the smallest growth at 19 per cent, major cities continued to have more dentists per capita than all other areas in 2011, with 64.1 full-time equivalent dentists per 100,000 people.

Women in the dental workforce are also up from 2006, representing just over one-third of employed dentists - an increase of about seven per cent to 35.6 per cent.

And depending how you look at it, employed dentists themselves - 30 per cent of whom worked part time - can also take something from the report.

Figures show on average they were working more than one hour less per week in 2011 (37.4 hours) than they were in 2006 (38.5 hours).

The AIHW is a national agency set up by the Australian government to provide regular and relevant information and statistics on Australia's health and welfare.

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China's young declining in fitness: govt

DESPITE its formidable performance in recent Olympic Games, China has found itself in a crisis of declining fitness among its youngsters.

The government has urged schools to beef up their physical education following a recent outcry touched off when two college students collapsed and died during mandatory annual running exams.

Obesity rates among Chinese students have been climbing.

Experts attribute deteriorating fitness scores to the cruelly competitive environment for college admissions, as well as a proliferation of indoor entertainment like video games and online activities.

Sun Yunxiao, deputy director of China Youth and Children Research Center in Beijing, says the fitness crisis is worrying for the country.

He says: "Our economic power has grown while our people's physiques have not only failed to improve, but have deteriorated. That's unacceptable."

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Gas leak in France causes chaos

FRANCE'S ecology minister says she's rushing back home from a trip to Germany after a gas leak at a chemical plant spread fumes over Paris and forced the cancellation of a major football match.

Authorities insisted the gas, mercaptan, was harmless, but emergency lines were inundated with calls from people worried about the smell that came from a Lubrizol factory in the Normandy city of Rouen, northwest of the capital.

Ecology Minister Delphine Batho said in a statement on Tuesday she was heading for Rouen to oversee operations to ensure that the leak was being dealt with safely.

Winds carried the smell 100 kilometres down the Seine valley from Rouen to the capital, where more than 10,000 people phoned fire and ambulance services overnight to complain about the stench.

Despite the official insistence that there was no danger, French social media were awash with people in the affected regions complaining of headaches and nausea from the gas that smelled like rotten eggs.

"They're all saying not to panic, but they said the same thing about the cloud from Chernobyl," said mother-of-four Patricia Cousteau, referring to radioactive fallout that spread across Europe in 1986 after an explosion at a Ukrainian nuclear plant.

Regional authorities ordered the postponement of a French Cup tie match in Rouen between the city's football team and Marseille on Tuesday evening, the host club revealed.

"We didn't want to be in a situation where we have 10,000 spectators two kilometres away from the plant without any capacity for confining or evacuating them if that were necessary," said senior local official Florence Gouache.

Authorities said in an earlier statement that a chemical substance at the Lubrizol plant became unstable and caused odours that are similar to those of town gas.

"The gas has an unpleasant smell but is not toxic," it said.

The concentration of the gas was also "very low", the statement said, adding that "a large number of people have been inconvenienced".

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India warns of nuclear threat to Kashmir

POLICE in Indian Kashmir have warned residents to build underground bunkers to prepare for a possible nuclear war in the disputed region, which is on edge after a string of deadly border clashes.

The warning comes despite a ceasefire which took hold last week in the scenic Himalayan region, after the Indian and Pakistani armies agreed to halt cross-border firing that had threatened to unravel a fragile peace process.

"If the blast wave does not arrive within five seconds of the flash you were far enough from the ground zero," says the notice, headed "Protection against Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Weapons".

It warns of "initial disorientation" from a nuclear attack, saying the blast may "carry away many prominent and familiar features".

The instructions were issued on Monday in a local English-language Greater Kashmir newspaper by the State Disaster Response Force, which is part of the police.

They vividly describe a nuclear war scenario to prepare residents to deal with "the initial shock wave".

The notice tells them to "wait for the winds to die down and debris to stop falling".

"Blast wind will generally end in one or two minutes after burst and burns, cuts and bruises are no different than conventional injuries. (The) dazzle is temporary and vision should return in few seconds," it says.

It tells residents to build toilet-equipped basement shelters "where the whole family can stay for a fortnight", and says that they should be stocked with non-perishable food.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have fought three wars since partition in 1947, two of them over the Kashmir region that both nations claim.

Police confirmed they issued the notice but said it "should not be connected with anything else", in an apparent reference to border tension.

The notice is part of regular year-round civil defence preparedness, Mubarak Ganai, deputy inspector general of civil defence in Kashmir police, told AFP.

An Indian counter-terrorism expert criticised the warning as valueless for Kashmiris, who could be forgiven for imagining war was an imminent prospect.

"There can be no conceivable motive for issuing a notice like this," Ajay Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, told AFP.

"Such information collected from here and there is not worth the paper it is printed on," he said, adding that "there can be no preparedness for such an eventuality".

There has been calm along the de facto border in Kashmir since commanders of the two sides agreed last Thursday to halt the cross-border firing.

Pakistan says three of its soldiers died in the firing while India says it lost two of its soldiers - marking the worst violence along the frontier dividing the region since the two nations nearly went to war in 2003.

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Cyber safety mum is SA's award nominee

IN recent years Sonya Ryan's life has been filled with grief and despair as she coped with the murder of her 15-year-old daughter Carly.

But instead of turning away from society, the Adelaide woman has worked tirelessly to prevent the same thing happening to other young Australians.

Ms Ryan established the Carly Ryan Foundation to promote internet safety through presentations in schools and universities and to support victims of cyber crime.

It is that work which has resulted in her being named the South Australian of the Year for 2013.

She says what happened to her daughter can happen to anyone.

"People that groom the young online are manipulating and controlling. They know exactly how to target a child," Ms Ryan says.

"They become the most important person in that child's life, then use that trust to do whatever they like to their victim."

In the case of her daughter, the pedophile was Garry Francis Newman, a middle-aged Victorian man who is serving a minimum of 29 years for murder.

In 2007 Newman used a cyberspace alter-ego, "Brandon Kane", to communicate with Carly after meeting her through a gothic vampire website.

The teenager fell in love with the fictitious guitarist who portrayed himself as a member of the "emo" subculture.

But when Newman, posing as Brandon Kane's father, travelled to Adelaide in February 2007 in a bid to fulfil his sexual fantasies, Carly rejected his advances.

Evidence at the trial revealed she had been bashed, suffocated and placed in the water at Port Elliott, south of Adelaide, where she drowned.

As part of her ongoing campaign Ms Ryan wants online safety to become a compulsory component of the national education curriculum.

She has also thrown her support behind proposed new federal laws that would make it illegal for adults to lie online about their age to meet children.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon plans to introduce legislation into parliament when it resumes in February to reform existing grooming laws.

Called Carly's Law, after Ms Ryan's daughter, the legislation is expected to be referred to a Senate inquiry.

"The problem with current grooming laws is that the police have to prove the predator has contacted the child with a sexual purpose," Senator Xenophon says.

"This reform will make it much easier to protect children."

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Iran helps Syria build paramilitary force

PRESIDENT Bashar al-Assad's regime has put together a new paramilitary force of men and women, some trained by key ally Iran, to fight what is now becoming a guerrilla war, a watchdog says.

The force, dubbed the National Defence Army, gathers together existing popular committees of pro-regime civilian fighters under a new, better-trained and armed hierarchy, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The popular committees were originally formed to protect pro-regime neighbourhoods from rebels.

"The (regular) army is not trained to fight a guerrilla war, so the regime has resorted to creating the National Defence Army," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Most of the new fighters are members or supporters of the ruling Baath party, said Abdel Rahman. "They include men and women, and members of all the sects."

The new force is not connected to the pro-regime shabiha militia, which the army and security forces have deployed ever since the outbreak of an anti-regime revolt to help it suppress dissent across the country.

Members of the paramilitary force, like the popular committees before, will focus on fighting in their own neighbourhoods.

On Friday, Moscow's Russia Today reported on its website that the new National Defence Army was being set up to "defend districts against gunmen".

"The Syrian authorities are set to create ... a National Defence Army, parallel to regime forces, so that the (regular) army is freed up for combat," the website reported citing an unnamed official.

Abdel Rahman, whose Observatory relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground, said Iran was involved in building the paramilitary force.

"The paramilitary force includes an elite fighting force trained by Iran," Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"Iran has provided training to the paramilitary force's commando fighters."

Iran, Damascus's key regional ally, staunchly backs Assad and in September 2012 said its elite Quds Force, which is tasked with carrying out operations outside the Islamic republic, was giving Damascus "counsel and advice".

On the ground, an activist said the new force was already active in the central province of Homs.

"The number of regime fighters in the province has swelled in recent days, as the National Defence Army has started to come into action," anti-regime activist Hadi al-Abdullah told AFP via the internet from the rebel-held town of Qusayr.

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Fitch highlights economic threat of ageing

MANY advanced economies will be threatened by another, long-term fiscal shock unless they tackle the problem of ageing populations, the ratings agency Fitch has warned.

"Whilst a successful resolution of the current fiscal crisis remains the most important driver for many advanced-economy ratings, without further reform to address the impact of long-term ageing these economies face a second, longer-term fiscal shock," a Fitch statement said on Monday.

Few countries face immediate threats, and reforms implemented by indebted eurozone members such as Greece, Italy and Portugal "have effectively neutralised the long-term impact of ageing on public finances in those countries", it added.

But others, in particular Cyprus, Ireland and Japan, could well see the cost of ageing populations jump over the next decade, the agency said, warning this would affect the sovereign debt ratings of such countries at some point.

"Luxembourg, Belgium, Malta and Slovenia face the most severe impact over the very long term," Fitch noted.

Based on the agency's calculations, barring any reforms, debt to GDP (gross domestic product) ratios for the European Union's 27 member countries would rise by 6.9 per cent by 2020, and by 119.4 per cent by 2050.

"Without reforms to boost labour productivity and/or participation rates in many other advanced economies, population ageing will cause potential GDP growth to decline over the long-term, exacerbating the fiscal challenge," Fitch added.

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French, Mali troops retake Islamist towns

FRENCH and Malian troops have recaptured the Malian towns of Diabaly and Douentza from Islamist fighters, France's defence minister says.

After heavy fighting in Diabaly over the past week there was uncertainty over whether the Islamists had fled, but French and Malian troops met no resistance when they entered the town on Monday.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a statement it was now under the control of French and Malian troops and the central town of Douentza had also been retaken.

French warplanes have pounded suspected Islamist positions around both towns since France swept to the aid of the crippled Malian army on January 11, a day after the Islamists made a push towards the capital Bamako.

Diabaly, which lies 400 kilometres north of Bamako, was seized by the Islamists a week ago in an attack that surprised observers as the town lies deep within supposedly government-held territory.

Douentza lies in what was Islamist territory east and north of the town of Konna, whose capture earlier this month by extremists sparked the French intervention. Konna was recaptured by the Malian army last week.

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Stubborn streak got nurse out of Algeria

A FRENCH nurse caught up in the Algeria hostage crisis has revealed how the fear of being raped and an overwhelming determination "not to submit to terrorists" ensured she survived.

The nurse, identified only as Muriel, escaped from the gas complex after spending the first day of the siege hidden with three other expatriates in offices the Islamist gunmen failed to scour.

"Two of us wanted to try and get out, the two others said it was safer to stay," she told Europe 1 radio.

After hours of agonised indecision, her sceptical colleagues were finally convinced that it was better to die trying to escape than leave their destiny in the hands of fate.

"I told them we had to take our chance. You can't submit to them, otherwise you are giving in to the terrorists," Muriel said, explaining how this defiant mindset had enabled her to avoid being paralysed by terror.

"Even with a little act, saying to yourself they are trying to capture me but I won't let them succeed, you regain your identity," she said.

"These people were ready to commit any kind of barbaric act but I succeeded in thwarting them."

Muriel and her colleagues escaped into the desert with the help of a pair of pliers she found in the ambulance on the site and she used to cut a hole in the exterior fence.

But she admitted she had feared the worst in the hours after the plant was seized at dawn on Wednesday in a raid linked to France's military action in neighbouring Mali.

"I said to myself they cannot find me, I am a women and I am French. With what is happening in Mali they'll kill me immediately.

"At best I'd get a bullet in the head straight away. At worst, as a woman - well, I don't need to draw you a picture.

"We stayed hidden in the office for hours, jumping out of our skin at every little noise. Every time we heard someone in the corridor, we said 'that's it, the terrorists are coming to get us'.

"It was our good fortune that they didn't come and search where we were, in a little corner out of the way. But for those left behind it was really awful."

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WA still Australia's economic powerhouse

WESTERN Australia is still the nation's strongest performing economy followed closely by the Northern Territory, a report shows.

The CommSec State of the States report finds WA leading the way in four of eight criteria over the past three months.

"Western Australia remains Australia's best performing economy, ahead of the Northern Territory and both economies are likely to hold their top positions over 2013, underpinned by rising population growth," the report said on Monday.

While WA led on construction work, retail trade, population growth and equipment investment, the Northern Territory ranked first on overall economic growth and unemployment.

The report noted the Northern Territory was gaining momentum and had the potential to overtake WA at the top of the leader-board, due mainly to its faster growth in investment and population growth.

Queensland was strongest on construction work and equipment investment but was being held back by high unemployment.

CommSec expects housing activity in NSW to lift in 2013 thanks to the state's historically low unemployment and its rising population growth.

Tasmania remained at the bottom of the Australian economic performance table, falling behind on overall economic growth, retail trade, population growth and construction work.

CommSec's report measures economic performance of the states by looking at eight key indicators - economic growth, retail spending, equipment investment, unemployment, construction work done, population growth, housing finance and dwelling commencements.

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25 bodies of foreigners found in Algeria

ALGERIAN security forces have found the bodies of 25 foreigners as they combed a desert gas plant after a deadly stand-off with Islamists.

Citing security sources, Anis Rahmani of the private television channel Ennahar told AFP the army discovered "the bodies of 25 hostages" on Sunday as they sought to secure the sprawling Sahara site at In Amenas.

Reports also emerged that nine Japanese hostages had been executed.

"In all nine Japanese were killed," one Algerian witness identified as Brahim said a day after special forces swooped on the gas plant run by Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil and Sonatrach of Algeria to end the siege that began on Wednesday.

In Tokyo, a foreign ministry official said: "We are in a position not to comment on this kind of information at all. Please understand."

Algerian Communications Minister Mohamed Said had earlier told a radio station: "I fear that it (the toll) may be revised upward," after at least 23 foreigners and Algerians, mostly hostages, were killed over the four days.

Governments scrambled to track down missing citizens as details emerged of the deadly showdown after Islamists of the "Signatories in Blood" group raided the plant on Wednesday, demanding an end to French military intervention in Mali.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement that "it is now clear that this appalling terrorist incident in Algeria is now over.

"Tragically, we now know that three British nationals have been killed, and a further three are believed to be dead. And also a further British resident is also believed to be dead."

Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp had said 10 of its Japanese and seven of its foreign workers remained unaccounted for, before the reports became known of Japanese hostages being executed.

Kuala Lumpur said JGC had told it one of two Malaysians still unaccounted for is dead while the fate of the other was unknown.

Norway's Statoil, which operates the gas plant alongside Britain's BP and Sonatrach of Algeria, said the situation remains "unresolved" for five Statoil employees.

"We will, and we must, keep hoping for more positive news from Algeria. However, we must be prepared to deal with bad news in the next few days," Statoil CEO Helge Lund said.

Thirty-two kidnappers were also killed in the 72-hour stand-off, and the army freed "685 Algerian workers and 107 foreigners", Algeria's interior ministry has said.

Relatives of Kenneth Whiteside, 59, from Glenrothes in Scotland, were "devastated" after hearing that an Algerian co-worker claimed to have seen him being shot but dying bravely with a smile, Britain's Mail on Sunday reported.

The mother of survivor Stephen McFaul, 36, from Belfast, told the Sunday Mirror her son will "have nightmares for the rest of his life after the things he saw".

Forced to wear explosives, he fled when the hostage-takers' convoy he was in came under fire on Thursday.

In Saturday's final assault, "the Algerian army took out 11 terrorists, and the terrorist group killed seven foreign hostages", state television said, without giving a breakdown.

A security official told AFP it was believed the foreigners were executed "in retaliation".

The militants, whose leader is Algerian Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a former al-Qaeda commander, first killed a Briton and an Algerian on a bus on Wednesday before taking hundreds of workers hostage when they overran the In Amenas plant.

Most of the hostages were freed on Thursday when Algerian forces launched a first rescue operation that was widely condemned as hasty.

But US President Barack Obama and his French counterpart Francois Hollande said responsibility for the deaths lay with the "terrorists".

"The blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out, and the United States condemns their actions in the strongest possible terms," Obama said in a statement.

At least one American had already been confirmed dead before Saturday's final assault.

Cameron on Sunday refused to criticise Algeria, saying the attack on the In Amenas gas complex had been an "extremely difficult" situation to deal with.

Hollande called Algiers' response "the most appropriate" given it was dealing with "coldly determined terrorists ready to kill their hostages".

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Syria opposition seeks deal on PM-in-exile

SYRIA'S opposition umbrella group, which most Western and Arab powers opposed to the Damascus regime have recognised, is meeting in Istanbul in a bid to name a prime minister-in-exile, one of its leaders says.

The Syrian National Coalition is discussing the idea of a government-in-exile but differences have emerged between members of the group, including over who should lead the new executive, an opposition official told AFP.

"A proposal was made to name Riad Hijab but it has run into much criticism," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Hijab is a former prime minister under President Bashar al-Assad who defected in August last year and has since worked closely with Turkish leaders to help restructure the fragmented Syrian opposition.

He is now based in Jordan.

The Istanbul meeting is also scheduled to discuss what the opposition leader said were unkept promises by countries that had pledged diplomatic, military and financial support to the coalition.

The National Council, which is the leading component of the Cairo-based umbrella group, has called for the establishment of an interim government with full executive powers in areas of Syria controlled by the rebels.

The group is also due to meet on January 28 in Paris, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Sunday.

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Assad's mother in Dubai: Syrians

ANISA Makhluf, the mother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has left the war-torn country and joined her daughter in Dubai, expatriates in the United Arab Emirates and an activist say.

Makhluf has been living next to her daughter, Bushra, the only sister of Assad, in Dubai for about 10 days, Syrian expatriates told AFP.

Bushra's husband General Assef Shawkat, an army deputy chief of staff, was killed along with three other high-ranking Syrian officials in a July 18 bombing at the National Security headquarters in Damascus.

In September, Syrian residents in the Gulf emirate said that Bushra had enrolled her five children at a private school in Dubai where she had moved.

Makhluf's "departure from Syria is another indication of Assad losing support even from within his family," said Ayman Abdel Nour, head of the newly-formed group Syrian Christians for Democracy and editor-in-chief of opposition news website all4syria.com.

Analysts say that Assad is increasingly relying on the tightly-knit circle surrounding him, which includes Maher, his only brother still alive and who commands the army's notorious Fourth Brigade.

Assad's two other brothers Bassel and Majd are dead. The embattled president also relies on relatives from his mother's side, analysts say.

A large number of businessmen and wealthy Syrians who had close ties with the regime have fled the deadly bloodshed in Syria to Dubai in the past few months.

More than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria's 22-month conflict, according to the United Nations.

The conflict has sent some 600,000 people fleeing the country, most of them to neighbouring countries, according to the world body.

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