Pakistan court extends Musharraf's remand

Pervez Musharraf's political party says it will boycott next week's historical Pakistan elections. Source: AAP

A PAKISTANI anti-terrorism court has ordered former military ruler Pervez Musharraf to remain in custody for a further two weeks ahead of his trial for unlawfully sacking judges during his rule, officials say.

"Pervez Musharraf's remand is extended for judicial lock-up for 14 days, he should be presented before the court on May 18," Judge Kausar Abbas Zaidi, ordered on Saturday.

Police had asked the judge to grant the custodial extension saying the investigation into Musharraf's activities was still under way.

Lawyers for Musharraf, who is locked in his own home, which has been declared a sub-jail while he is awaiting trial, filed a bail application in the court and the judge fixed a hearing for May 6.

The court was also asked if Musharraf's trial could be held inside his plush villa, citing security reasons, but the matter was left pending.

"It has been brought into my notice that the Chief Commissioner of Islamabad issued a notification for the jail trial, but approval from Islamabad high court is needed in this regard," the judge said.

Musharraf was placed in police custody at his home following his arrest on April 19, in an unprecedented move against a former army chief of staff ahead of key elections.

He was arrested for making a decision to sack judges when he imposed emergency rule in November 2007 - a move that hastened his downfall.

He also faces charges of conspiracy to murder opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in 2007 and over the death of a rebel leader during a 2006 military operation.

The retired general has been humiliated since returning in March from self-imposed exile to contest elections.

However, his party on Friday announced it will boycott next week's historic election after a court on Tuesday banned him from standing for the rest of his life.

The May 11 polls for the national and regional assemblies mark the first time that a civilian government completes a full-term and hands over to another at the ballot box, in a country that has been ruled by the military for half its life.

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Man dies after vehicle hits tree in Vic

A MAN has died after his vehicle hit a tree in Victoria's north west, the second road fatality in the state in one day.

Police believe the man was driving west on Polkemmet Road, near Horsham, when he lost control and died at the scene.

Emergency crews were called to the scene about 8.30pm (AEST) but police believe the incident happened on Saturday afternoon.

Victoria's road toll stands at 89 compared to 101 this time last year.

Earlier on Saturday, a motorcyclist died after colliding with a car in Victoria's northeast.

The man was travelling at Baranduda, near Wodonga, when he collided with a car turning onto the Kiewa Valley Highway on Saturday morning.

He died at the scene.

Three women who were in the car suffered minor injuries in the crash.

The man is yet to be formally identified.

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Hundreds protest China chemical plant

HUNDREDS of people have protested against a proposed chemical plant in southwest China, state media said.

Local residents have also accused authorities of preventing a similar protest in another city.

More than 200 protesters gathered in the city of Kunming to protest against plans for a factory which will produce paraxylene (PX), a toxic petrochemical used to make fabrics, China's official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

Around 1,000 people described as "onlookers" surrounded the protesters, some of whom wore face-masks and held banners, the report said.

Police also lined the streets of Chengdu, the capital of southwest China's Sichuan province, after locals planned a protest against a nearby chemical plant on Saturday, residents told AFP.

"There were a lot of police outside government offices, public spaces and important crossroads in the city," one resident surnamed Liu said, adding that fliers posted around the city in recent days had called for a protest.

"The fliers said the chemical plant has a big impact on people's health," he said.

The government responded with notices calling on people not to demonstrate, Liu said.

Photos posted online showed ranks of police lining the city's streets.

Local police on Saturday morning announced that they would be carrying out an earthquake protection drill, a claim dismissed by thousands of internet users.

"It's about preventing the protest," one user of the popular social networking website Sina Weibo wrote.

Locals online said that the protest did not take place.

China has seen a number of urban demonstrations against proposed chemical plants in recent years, in what analysts have identified as a rising trend of environmentally-motivated "not in my backyard" protests in China.

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Bomb kills five US troops in Afghanistan

A ROADSIDE bomb has killed five US troops in southern Afghanistan, in the biggest attack on NATO-led forces since the Taliban launched their "spring offensive" a week ago.

"Five American soldiers were killed at about noon when their armoured vehicle hit a powerful roadside mine in Maiwand district," Kandahar province's police chief General Abdul Razeq said on Saturday.

The troops died in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack, NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed in a statement without specifying the nationalities of the victims, in line with coalition policy.

The attack came four days after three British soldiers were killed in a similar attack in the neighbouring province of Helmand.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Taliban militants frequently use roadside bombs against US-led foreign troops and their Afghan allies.

Afghan police and soldiers are taking over responsibility for security, but there is growing concern over the war-torn country's prospects after 2014 when all foreign combat deployments will finish.

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Eurozone recession to continue in 2013: EU

RECESSION in the crisis-hit eurozone will continue unabated for the rest of the year with unemployment remaining at record levels, the EU warns, though signs of recovery could emerge in 2014.

Economic output in the 17-nation area - home to 340 million people and a global rival to the United States, Japan and emerging giants - will shrink by 0.4 per cent this year, the European Commission said on Friday, worse than the 0.3 per cent forecast in February and after a 0.6 contraction last year.

Record unemployment in the single currency area will endure, the Commission's spring forecasts showed, with strong divergence between richer eurozone states to the north and members to the south mired in deep recession.

Repeating its last estimate, the Commission said eurozone joblessness this year would hit a record 12 per cent and 11 per cent across the whole 27-member EU. The rates vary hugely, with an alarming 27 per cent in Spain and a low 4.7 per cent in Austria.

"In view of the protracted recession, we must do whatever it takes to overcome the unemployment crisis in Europe," EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Ollie Rehn said in statement accompanying the Commission's latest economic forecast for the eurozone and full European Union.

"In Spain and Greece unemployment rates are at unbearably high levels," Rehn said at a news conference.

France, which has barely avoided recession despite significant headwinds, will in the end shrink by 0.1 per cent in 2013 as weakness in household demand, a key economic driver, finally takes its toll. France will then rebound to 1.1 per cent growth in 2014, the data said.

But France will widely miss its commitment to meet the EU's 3 per cent of GDP deficit ceiling and will post a 3.9 per cent deficit this year and 4.2 per cent shortfall next year.

Spain will continue a hard slog from its crisis, brought on by the 2008 implosion of a decade-long housing bubble, and should contract by 1.5 per cent in 2013 before reversing to 1.4 per cent in growth in 2014.

But Spanish public finances will remain dire well into next year with a government deficit of 6.5 per cent in 2013 expected to worsen in 2014 to 7.0 per cent as certain measures expire.

The crisis will be hugely felt in recently bailed out Cyprus where output is expected to contract by 8.7 per cent this year in the wake of a severe restructuring of the island nation's key banking sector, including a controversial "haircut" on deposits.

The Cypriot recession will prolong into 2014 and beyond, the Commission said, with the economy expected to contract by an overall 15 per cent between 2012 and 2015.

In a rare glimpse of encouragement, the Commission saw recovery in Greece by the end of the year after six consecutive years of recession. The country is forecast to eke out 0.6 per cent growth in 2014, after contracting sharply by 4.2 per cent this year.

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Boston bombing suspect's remains claimed

The body of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev will be released to his family. Source: AAP

A FUNERAL home has claimed the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a gunbattle with police after an intense manhunt.

Department of Public Safety spokesman Terrel Harris said on Thursday a funeral home retained by Tsarnaev's family had picked up the 26-year-old's remains.

Authorities are now closer to being able to make public Tsarnaev's cause of death.

The medical examiner determined Tsarnaev's cause of death on Monday, but officials said it wouldn't be disclosed until his remains were released and a death certificate was filed. It was unclear whether the death certificate had been filed.

Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell, who has been living with her parents in Rhode Island, learned this week that the medical examiner was ready to release his body and wanted it turned over to his side of the family, her lawyer Amato DeLuca said days ago.

Tsarnaev's uncle Ruslan Tsarni, of Maryland, said on Tuesday night the family would take the body.

"Of course, family members will take possession of the body," Tsarni said.

After a hearse believed to be carrying Tsarnaev's body departed Boston, television stations reported that their helicopters followed it to the Dyer-Lake Funeral Home in North Attleboro.

About 20 protesters gathered outside the funeral home. An Associated Press photographer later saw a hearse leaving the home escorted by two police cars.

Dyer-Lake funeral director Tim Nye told The Sun-Chronicle newspaper late on Thursday that the body was only brought to his funeral home temporarily and was transported to another facility, but he didn't say where.

"He is not at our funeral home and we won't be handling final arrangements," Nye said.

Tsarnaev, who had appeared in surveillance photos wearing a black cap and was identified as Suspect No. 1, died three days after the bombing.

The April 15 bombing, using pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails, ball bearings and metal shards near the marathon's finish line, killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Authorities said Tsarnaev and his younger brother later killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer and carjacked a driver, who later escaped.

Authorities said that during the gunbattle with police, the Tsarnaev brothers, ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago, set off another pressure cooker bomb and tossed grenades before the older brother ran out of ammunition.

Police said they tackled the older brother and began to handcuff him but had to dive out of the way at the last second when the younger brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, drove a stolen car at them. They said the younger brother ran over his brother's body as he drove away from the scene to escape.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured later, wounded and bloody, hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston backyard. He is in a federal prison and faces a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill.

The Tsarnaev brothers' mother insists the allegations against them are lies.

Three of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's friends, college classmates, were arrested on Wednesday and accused of helping after the marathon bombing to remove a laptop and backpack from his dormitory room before the FBI searched it.

A top Republican senator on Thursday asked President Barack Obama's administration to explain how one of the students entered the United States without a valid student visa.

Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, in a three-page letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, asked for additional details about the student visa applications for Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, college roommates from Kazakhstan charged with obstruction of justice in the marathon bombing case, and how Tazhayakov was allowed to re-enter the United States in January.

Tazhayakov was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth when he left the US in December. In early January, his student visa status was terminated because he was academically dismissed by the university.

Peter Boogaard, a DHS spokesman, said on Wednesday that when Tazhayakov arrived in January Customs and Border Protection had not been alerted that he was no longer a student. Boogaard said the department was working on a fix to the student visa system.

The third student arrested, Robel Phillipos, was charged with willfully making materially false statements to federal law enforcement officials during a terrorism investigation.

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Indonesia jails two foreigners over drugs

AN Indonesian court has sentenced a German man and a South African woman to life in prison for attempting to smuggle drugs into a resort island in two separate cases, a judge says.

Rolf Oskar Josef Schweikert, 57, was caught trying to smuggle 3.7 kilogrammes of hashish into the island of Lombok, just east of Bali, in October as he arrived on a Silk Air flight from Singapore.

He was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday at the district court in the city of Mataram, judge Pastra Joseph Ziralluo told AFP on Friday.

Kathlyn Dunn, 28, was arrested arriving on a Silk Air flight from Singapore two days before the German, attempting to smuggle in 2.6 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine, said the judge.

She "was given the same sentence" on Wednesday, Ziralluo said. However, he stressed that the court had not made any connection between the cases and the pair were tried separately.

The two were both charged with "attempting to import drugs", but they avoided the maximum sentence of death by firing squad.

Customs officials found hashish in the lining of Schweikert's suitcase with a street value of $US730,000 ($A715,370), while Dunn was caught with crystal methamphetamine valued at $US500,000.

Indonesia enforces some of the stiffest drug laws in the world. In March, it resumed executions after a hiatus of several years when a Malawian drug smuggler was put to death.

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Man charged over Sydney strip club fire

A MAN has been charged over a suspicious fire that badly damaged a Kings Cross strip club just after a female employee was assaulted.

Firefighters and police were called to The Love Machine on Darlinghurst Road about 3.15am (AEST) on Friday to find the upstairs section of the club well alight.

Five people escaped from the building without injury and six others were evacuated from a nearby residential unit as a precaution.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze before it spread but two rooms on the third level were severely damaged, a Fire & Rescue NSW spokesman said.

Shortly after the fire security officers detained a man seen leaving the area.

Police will also allege a 67-year-old woman was choked, punched and kicked by a man before the fire started.

The 25-year-old from Gymea has been charged with destroying property by fire, robbery and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He has been refused bail to appear at Parramatta Bail Court on Saturday.

The woman was treated for bruising and lacerations but was not seriously injured.

Identified only as Ann, she told Macquarie Radio she was attacked by a patron yelling that he was going to set the place alight.

"I fought for my life for seven minutes," she said.

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Nathan Tinkler faces fresh legal action

Liquidators have begun legal action against Nathan Tinkler and the directors of Mulsanne Resources. Source: AAP

LIQUIDATORS and a major creditor have begun legal action against Nathan Tinkler and the directors of Mulsanne Resources over allegations of insolvent trading and breaching their duties.

The action was launched over a share placement agreement that was approved by Mulsanne Resources' shareholders at a general meeting on July 12 last year.

In February, Mr Tinkler faced two days of questioning in a NSW Supreme Court examination of his personal finances by liquidators for Mulsanne Resources.

Mulsanne was wound up over a $28.4 million debt.

The chief creditor, Blackwood Corporation, and liquidators initiated legal action on Thursday, almost three months after the liquidator conducted public examinations of Mr Tinkler, fellow director Matthew Keen and the former company secretary Aimee Hyde.

"The liquidator has formed the view that there is a case to answer for insolvent trading and breach of directors' duties," Blackwood Corporation company secretary Patrick McCole said in a statement.

He said the liquidator could seek compensation against the directors and officers if the court found them liable for insolvent trading.

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NSW neighbours win holiday rental ban

GOSFORD Council has failed its constituents by not resolving the issue of an illegal holiday house rental in Terrigal, a judge has ruled.

At the Land and Environment Court on Thursday, Justice Rachael Ann Pepper ruled that Rhonda Bennic's short-term holiday letting of her 6-bedroom house was unlawful because the property is located in a 2A residential zone.

Her next-door neighbours John and Rosemary Dobrohotoff told the court that the house, which can sleep up to a dozen people, had regularly been used for parties and bucks' nights involving strippers and escorts, with noise and anti-social behaviour continuing until the early hours.

The house has been used for short-term holiday rentals since 2006, and Ms Bennic has owned it since 2011.

Justice Pepper said Gosford Council had failed to resolve the issue locally.

"In my opinion, it amounts to an effective abrogation of the council of its duties," she said.

"By leaving it to the court to determine this important issue, the council has failed to do one of its core functions and has failed its constituents."

She said letting the house to short-term guests was prohibited under the current zoning laws.

"This decision may cause a degree of inconvenience for property owners" in the area, she said.

Mrs Dobrohotoff told the court she grew increasingly anxious as weekends and holidays drew near, and often took her family away from their home at those times to avoid the disturbance.

In her ruling, Justice Pepper said the property did not qualify as a dwelling as it was not being occupied in the same way a family or another group would live in it.

But she found that the fault was not entirely Ms Bennic's, as she had never been told by Gosford Council that it was illegal to rent out her property.

She awarded the Dobrohotoffs an injunction preventing the house from being rented out for periods of less than three months, but delayed it until the end of June so as not to impose unnecessary financial hardship on Ms Bennic.

Mr Dobrohotoff told reporters outside the court he welcomed the finding.

"We are pleased to have this outcome, which will have positive effects on the health and welfare of our family, as well as the other families in our neighbourhood," he said.

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More infrastructure funds needed: report

THE federal government must establish a department dedicated to the infrastructure needs of Australian cities to address a $500 billion backlog in urban development, building groups say.

The suggestion is among a raft of ideas in a report - New Deal for Urban Australia - outlining the key infrastructure challenges as Australia deals with a growing population.

Compiled by the Urban Coalition, a collective of key industry figures, the report calls for greater"leadership and investment from the government.

It also recommends the establishment of an Urban Infrastructure Fund to meet the cost of development.

"We need to access both national and international savings and direct them to fund ... infrastructure - such as public interchanges, removing pinch points on local road and freight networks," Property Council Chief Executive Peter Verwer said.

Julie Katz, national president of the Urban Development Institute of Australia, said inadequate funding was causing congestion in cities.

"The longer distances between home and work, the greater the difficulties and congestion in our cities," she said.

Executive Officer of The National Growth Areas Alliance, Ruth Spielman, said more than 80 per cent of Australia's population lived in cities and people in fast-growing outer suburbs want to live closer to basic services.

"People need jobs and services closer to home and improved transport options," she said.

She said the proposed changes would financially realistic for the government to put into action.

"There's no doubt that the money is there, and we need collaboration among the spheres of government," she said.

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Kriss Kross rapper Chris Kelly dead at 34

Kris Kross rapper Chris Kelly, who made the 90s hits Jump and Warm It Up, has died aged 34. Source: AAP

CHRIS Kelly, half of the 1990s kid rap duo Kris Kross who made one of the decade's most memorable songs with the frenetic Jump, has died, according to authorities. He was 34.

Investigator Betty Honey of the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office said the 34-year-old Kelly was pronounced dead around 5pm on Wednesday at the Atlanta Medical Center in the US state of Georgia.

Honey said authorities are unsure of Kelly's cause of death and that an autopsy has yet to be performed.

However, the New York Times reported that Kelly had died of an apparent drug overdose.

"It appears it may have been a possible drug overdose," Corporal Kay Lester, a spokeswoman for the Fulton County police, is reported to have said.

This, Lester said, is based on statements received at the scene as well as evidence turned up at Kelly's home in south Atlanta, the newspaper said.

According to Lester, police were called to Kelly's home around 4.30pm on Wednesday. He was then transported to the south campus of the Atlanta Medical Center.

Kelly, known as Mac Daddy, and Chris Smith, known as Daddy Mac, were introduced to the music world in 1992 by music producer and rapper Jermaine Dupri after he discovered the pair in an Atlanta mall.

The duo wore their clothes backwards as a gimmick, but they won over fans with their raps.

Their first, and by far most successful song, was Jump. The hit, off their multiplatinum 1992 debut album Totally Krossed Out, featured the two trading versus and rapping the refrain, the song's title.

The duo had surprising maturity in their rap delivery, though the song was written by Dupri. It would become a No. 1 smash in the United States and globally, and one of the most popular of that year.

Their success led to instant fame: they toured with Michael Jackson, appeared on TV shows, and even had their own video game.

The pair were never able to match the tremendous success of their first song, though they had other hits such as Warm It Up and Tonite's tha Night. Earlier this year, they performed together to celebrate the anniversary of Durpri's label, So So Def.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on its website that Kelly's death was being treated as a possible drug overdose.

The rapper was found unresponsive at his home on Wednesday and rushed to Atlanta Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy has been scheduled for Thursday.

The singer's mother, Donna Kelly Pratte, said in a statement reported by several US media outlets early on Thursday: "To millions of fans worldwide, he was the trendsetting, backwards pants-wearing one-half of Kris Kross who loved making music.

"But to us, he was just Chris - the kind, generous and fun-loving life of the party. Though he was only with us a short time, we feel blessed to have been able to share some incredible moments with him."

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IBM makes tiny molecule movie

SCIENTISTS have taken the idea of a film short down to new levels. Molecular levels.

IBM says it has made the tiniest stop-motion movie ever - a one-minute video of individual carbon monoxide molecules repeatedly rearranged to show a boy dancing, throwing a ball and bouncing on a trampoline.

Each frame measures 45 by 25 nanometres - there are 25 million nanometres in an inch - but hugely magnified, the movie is reminiscent of early video games, particularly when the boy bounces the ball off the side of the frame accompanied by simple music and sound effects.

The movie is titled A Boy and His Atom.

Videos showing atoms in motion have been seen before but Andreas Heinrich, IBM's principal scientist for the project, said Tuesday this is the first time anything so small has been manoeuvred to tell a story.

"This movie is a fun way to share the atomic-scale world," Heinrich said. "The reason we made this was not to convey a scientific message directly, but to engage with students, to prompt them to ask questions."

Jamie Panas of Guinness World Records said Guinness certified the movie as "Smallest Stop-Motion Film."

IBM used a remotely operated two-ton scanning tunnelling microscope at its lab in San Jose, Calif., to make the movie earlier this year. The microscope magnifies the surface over 100 million times. It operates at 450 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (268 degrees below zero Celsius).

The cold "makes life simpler for us," Heinrich said. "The atoms hold still. They would move around on their own at room temperature."

Scientists used the microscope to control a tiny, super-sharp needle along a copper surface, IBM said. At a distance of just 1 nanometre, the needle physically attracted the carbon monoxide molecules and pulled them to a precisely specified location on the surface.

The dots that make up the figures in the movie are the oxygen atoms in the molecule, Heinrich said.

The scientists took 242 still images that make up the movie's 242 frames.

Heinrich said the techniques used to make the movie are similar to what IBM is doing to make data storage smaller.

"As data creation and consumption continue to get bigger, data storage needs to get smaller, all the way down to the atomic level," he said.

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China officials holding 'sauna parties'

CHINESE officials have been holding secret sauna parties and spiking their plastic water bottles with alcohol in trying to beat a crackdown on extravagance.

"Constant reports of saunas held at farm houses" were evidence of a growing culture of "low key extravagance" that was damaging the new president's anti-corruption campaign, the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party reported on Wednesday.

Officials have been filling mineral water bottles with expensive liquor and storing upmarket cigarettes in boxes belonging to cheaper brands, the report said.

China's new leaders have stressed austerity as they try to rein in extravagant feasts and luxury spending, with newly-installed President Xi Jinping vowing to crack down on corruption among high and low ranking officials.

Xi has said corruption could lead to the Communist party's downfall, and it often incites public anger, with 50 percent of Chinese ranking official graft "a very big problem", according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

The recent campaign has driven some officials away from expensive hotel restaurants, but led others to hold covert feasts in private clubs or even government canteens, the People's Daily said on its front page.

China has no laws requiring officials to publicly disclose their assets, creating greater opportunities for graft.

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Oil prices drop on weak Chinese data

WORLD oil prices have slid on weak Chinese and US economic data and ahead of the latest weekly snapshot of energy inventories in the United States.

Brent North Sea crude for delivery in June fell 80 cents on Wednesday to stand at $US101.57 a barrel in London midday deals.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for June shed 75 cents to $92.71 a barrel.

"Crude oil prices retreated... on Wednesday with Brent sliding lower below $101 per barrel, as disappointing Chinese PMI manufacturing data weighed on market sentiment," said Myrto Sokou, senior research analyst at Sucden brokers.

Manufacturing activity in China slowed slightly in April from the previous month, official data showed, in a sign of further weakness in the world's second-biggest economy.

The purchasing managers' index (PMI) dropped to 50.6 in April, down from 50.9 the month before, according to the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP).

The PMI is a widely watched indicator of the health of the Chinese economy, with a reading above 50 indicating expansion while anything below that points to contraction.

Oil prices had meanwhile slumped on Tuesday after an index on US manufacturing activity in the Chicago area unexpectedly dived into contraction territory in April.

Markets were awaiting the release Wednesday of US energy stockpiles data, as well as the outcome of key central bank policy meetings this week, with expectations that stimulus will keep flowing in a bid to prop up economic growth.

The US Federal Reserve's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will wrap up a two-day meeting Wednesday. It is widely expected to maintain its ultra-low interest rates and $85 billion-a-month bond purchasing program.

The European Central Bank will unveil its latest interest rate decision Thursday. Most analysts predicted the ECB will cut its key interest rate, which is already at an all-time low of 0.75 per cent.

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World growth too slow to generate jobs

THE world economy is still not growing fast enough to generate jobs for tens of millions who have become unemployed but it is strengthening gradually, a top IMF official says.

While global growth is seen at 3.3 per cent in 2013 and an even better four per cent next year, this masks significant divergence in prospects, said Naoyuki Shinohara, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

The world is seeing a "three-speed" global recovery without "enough growth to generate jobs for the millions who have fallen into unemployment over the past five years", Shinohara told a gathering of diplomats and business people.

Creating jobs must be "an overarching issue" as it goes to the heart of the global economic crisis that is "falling disproportionately on young people", he emphasised in a speech in New Delhi coinciding with May Day.

The address by Shinohara, a former Japanese finance ministry official, came amid May Day protests in Greece over a government austerity program.

On Tuesday figures showed European unemployment hit a new record of over 19 million in March.

"The best performing economies are in the emerging and developing countries, with Asia expected to grow by an average 7.1 per cent this year and sub-Saharan Africa forecast to expand by 5.6 per cent," Shinohara said.

Other nations are on the mend such as the United States, seen expanding by two per cent in 2013.

But there are those which still have a significant distance to go such as the euro area where growth is expected to shrink this year, he said.

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US consumer spending grew slowly in March

US consumer spending grew slightly in March, the Commerce Department reports, in a fresh sign that higher payroll taxes and government spending cuts could be slowing economic growth.

Consumer spending grew by 0.2 per cent, or $US21.0 billion ($A20.5 billion), from February, down from the 0.7 per cent expansion in the January-February period.

Personal income grew by the same amount, 0.2 per cent, or $US30.9 billion, compared to 1.1 per cent the previous month.

The personal saving rate remained flat: Americans were saving a net 2.7 per cent of their disposable income.

On Friday the Commerce Department estimated overall economic growth in the first quarter of 2013 at 2.5 per cent, lower than economists expected.

Economists blamed the impact of the government's "sequester" spending cuts which came into effect at the beginning of March.

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CIA gave millions in cash to Karzai

THE CIA has delivered tens of millions of dollars in cash packed in suitcases and backpacks to the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai for more than a decade, the New York Times reports.

"We called it 'ghost money'," Khalil Roman, Karzai's deputy chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, told the Times. "It came in secret, and it left in secret."

The money was aimed at obtaining influence, but instead fuelled rampant corruption, current and former officials told the newspaper.

"The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan," an unnamed US official told the newspaper, "was the United States."

The United States has long been known to funnel cash to supporters in Afghanistan, as it also did in Iraq. However, the Times story is one of the first accounts that puts a figure on the amount of cash sent specifically to Karzai's office.

There appears to be no oversight over the secret CIA money, which is aimed at gaining influence by paying off warlords and politicians including some linked to the drug trade and even the Taliban, the Times reported.

Iran earlier made cash payments to one of Karzai's top aides, the Afghan president acknowledged in 2010. However, the Iranians have stopped such payments while the CIA payments continue, the Times reported.

Billions of dollars in aid have been pledged to help Afghanistan after NATO combat troops withdraw in 2014, but only on condition that corruption is brought under control.

Karzai later confirmed his government received money from the CIA.

"Yes, the NSC of Afghanistan has received money from CIA in the past 10 years. The amount was not big, rather it was small," Karzai said in a statement, referring to the National Security Council which is part of the president's office.

He said the money had been used for good causes in Afghanistan, where endemic corruption is one of the main problems undermining efforts to establish a stable state.

"The money was spent for different reasons: operation objectives, helping wounded and sick (people) and for house rents and others objectives," the president said.

"These assistances were very productive and we thank them."

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Shots fired into Sydney home

SHOTS have been fired into a house full of people in Sydney's south.

Police rushed to the home on Moorefields Road, Kingsgrove late on Monday night and found several bullet holes in a side fence and a side door.

Bullet holes were also found in several cars parked outside the house, police said.

A car was heard fleeing the scene about the same time as the shots were fired.

No one was injured.

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Subaru recalls more than 10,000 wagons

SUBARU is recalling just over 10,000 of its 2014 Forester wagons because the floor mats can interfere with the clutch, brake or gas pedals.

The recall affects Foresters made from January 2013 through March. The company says the floor mats can curl when exposed to heat.

The problem was discovered in cars arriving at a port in Vancouver, Washington.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the mats could distract the driver or interfere with operation of the car.

Subaru traced the problem to improperly manufactured backing on the mats.

Dealers will replace all four mats free of charge. It will begin notifying owners in April.

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