Clashes 'near Damascus' after rebel gain

Syrian Rebels have taken control of a strategic airbase in north-western Syria, a watchdog says. Source: AAP

SYRIAN activists say the outskirts of the capital Damascus have been rocked by clashes a day after rebels seized a key regime airbase in the north.

The opposition British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two children and a man were killed when Mleha just southeast of the capital was bombarded, and that two rebels battling forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were also killed there.

The organisation says it relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground in Syria when compiling its reports and death tolls.

It said violence across the country on Friday claimed the lives of 86 people, among them 30 civilians.

Regime artillery also opened up on Beit Sahem south of Damascus, as well as Jdaidet Artuz and Daraya to the southeast, the group said on Saturday.

It reported that regime air raids on Rastan in the central province of Homs caused casualties, without giving an immediate toll of the dead and wounded.

One insurgent was also killed in clashes there, it added.

In the east of the country, a man was killed when artillery pounded Deir Ezzor, the Observatory said.

Among Friday's casualties were nine rebels, eight soldiers and two regime militiamen killed when insurgents overran the key Taftanaz air base in one of their most important military gains to date.

Capturing Taftanaz, from which regime forces launched deadly helicopter gunship sorties, eases the pressure on rebels who already control vast swathes of Syria's north and east.

"This is the largest airbase to be seized since the revolt began" nearly 22 months ago, the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman said on Friday.

The Observatory said government forces managed to evacuate most of the 60 helicopters deployed there, leaving behind 20 that are no longer serviceable.

The United Nations says more than 60,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict since March 2011.

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Malian troops, French, reclaim ground

French soldiers have come to the aid of the Mali government against al-Qaeda-linked militants. Source: AAP

MALIAN troops, backed by French aircraft, have reclaimed the central town of Kona from Islamist rebels within hours of a French intervention in support of government forces.

French airstrikes cleared the way for Malian forces to retake the town which the rebels had captured on Thursday on a march south from their northern strongholds, France Info radio reported on Saturday.

French President Francois Hollande announced on Friday that France had agreed to a request from Mali for military assistance to help drive back the rebels, who have been in control of the desert north for nearly a year.

Hollande said the "terrorists" threatened "Mali's very existence" as well as regional peace and security.

Elisabeth Guigou, president of parliament's foreign affairs commission, told French radio on Saturday that French troops had been deployed to protect French nationals.

France has around 6000 citizens in Mali, some of whom had begun arriving back in Paris on Saturday after the Foreign Ministry called on them to leave the country.

At least seven French hostages are also being held by the armed groups based in northern Mali.

Meanwhile, Malian President Dioncounda Traore declared a state of emergency on Friday night and called on Malians to reunite for the reconquest of territories occupied by the rebels.

France is the first European country to intervene in the nearly-one-year-old Malian conflict.

US officials have said Washington DC is considering joining in with intelligence and logistical support.

Hollande said that the intervention was in line with UN resolutions authorising the deployment of an African force in support of the Malian army and an EU military training mission.

The regional West African bloc ECOWAS, which is preparing the African force, praised the French intervention.

The intervention marks a turning point nearly a year after ethnic Tuareg and Islamist rebels took advantage of a coup in the capital Bamako to seize control of the ancient town of Timbuktu and two other towns.

Since then, the Tuareg rebels have become sidelined by ultraconservative Islamist factions, who have imposed strict Islamic law in the region, including stonings and amputations.

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Bahrain opens probe into labour camp fire

OFFICIALS have opened an investigation into the cause of fire that killed 13 people in a labour camp in Bahrain.

The official Bahrain News Agency says the public prosecutor's office is leading the probe into Friday's blaze in the capital Manama.

The report on Saturday said fire collapsed the roof of the three-story building used to house workers.

Special compounds for migrant labourers are common across the Gulf. For years, rights groups have pressed for better living conditions for the mostly South Asian workers.

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Turkey PM demands France clarify killings

Police are hunting down the assassins of three Kurdish activists shot dead in Paris. Source: AAP

TURKISH Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is calling on France to "immediately" clarify the killing of three Kurdish activists shot dead in Paris.

He also wants to know why French President Francois Hollande is meeting with members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"France must immediately clarify this incident," Erdogan said in televised remarks on Saturday.

"Also, the French head of state must explain immediately to the French, Turkish and world public why ... he is in communication with these terrorists," he added.

Hollande said earlier that the murder of Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan and Leyla Soylemez was "terrible", adding that he knew one of the Kurdish women and that she "regularly met us".

The three were found dead on Thursday at the Kurdistan Information Centre in the French capital's 10th district, after last being seen alive at the centre at midday on Wednesday.

Cansiz was a founding member of the PKK, which took up arms in 1984 for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey and is branded a terrorist organisation by Ankara and much of the international community.

The separatist PKK warned that it would hold France responsible if the killers were not quickly found, as Ankara said the slayings bore the hallmarks of an internal feud, noting that the victims appeared to have given the killer or killers access to the centre.

The killings came days after Turkish media reported Turkey and the PKK leadership had agreed a roadmap to end the three-decade old Kurdish insurgency that has claimed more than 45,000 lives.

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Hong Kong stocks close 0.39% lower

HONG Kong shares fell 0.39 per cent on profit-taking on Friday after the previous session's gains, with dealers unmoved by data showing Chinese inflation coming in below target in 2012.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index eased 90.24 points to 23,264.07 on turnover of HK$82.24 billion ($A10.03 billion). The index lost 0.3 per cent for the week.

The market enjoyed a rally on Thursday after China released data showing a huge trade surplus last year, which added to recent results indicating the world's number two economy is picking up after a recent slowdown.

On Friday the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said inflation slowed to 2.6 per cent in 2012, down from 5.4 per cent in 2011 and much lower than the 4.0 per cent government target.

But it also said December's rate came in at 2.5 per cent, well up from 2.0 per cent in November.

The month-on-month uptick and underlying data showing food prices spiking has led to concerns that the government will hold off any easing measures to further boost the economy.

China players were among the worst performers, with aluminium producer Chalco down 3.0 per cent at HK$3.95, while oil producer Cnooc lost 1.9 per cent to HK$16.22 and insurer China Life dropped 1.3 per cent to HK$26.00.

Chinese shares closed down 1.78 per cent. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 40.66 points to 2,243.00 on turnover of 101.6 billion yuan ($16.3 billion). The index fell 1.49 per cent for the week.

"The above-view inflation figure for December sparks concerns that Beijing may refrain from rolling out more economic stimulus in fear of triggering stronger inflation," Central China Securities analyst Zhang Gang told Dow Jones Newswires.

Soochow Securities slumped 6.08 per cent to 7.42 yuan and Sinolink Securities lost 5.04 per cent to 16.59 yuan, while Poly Real Estate lost 4.52 per cent to 13.53 yuan and developer Gemdale dropped 4.09 per cent to 6.81 yuan.

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China landslide kills 22, dozens buried

AT least 36 people were killed including seven from a single family when a landslide smashed into a remote village in southwestern China, state-run media said.

About a dozen more were also buried when the landslip engulfed 16 homes in the village of Gaopo on Friday, said Yunnan Web, run by the Yunnan provincial government, adding that emergency teams rescued two injured people from the debris.

Photos posted on the website showed rescuers in orange uniforms digging in large areas of clumpy mud against a backdrop of snow-covered, terraced hills.

A video posted on a Chinese social networking site appeared to show a group of villagers digging through thick mud and debris to uncover a body, which was carried away on a stretcher.

Snow was visible in images of the rescue, in an area which has experienced unusually low temperatures in recent weeks, with China suffering what authorities have called its coldest winter in 28 years.

Top-ranking members of the ruling Communist Party had been made aware of the landslide, Yunnan Web said.

The province, which borders Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, is a relatively impoverished area of China, where rural houses are often cheaply constructed.

Gaopo is in Zhenxiong county, in the northeast of Yunnan, a temperate province known for its tobacco industry and as being the home of Pu'er tea.

But its mountainous areas are prone to landslides and it is also vulnerable to earthquakes. Two in September - one of magnitude 5.7 - left 81 people dead and hundreds injured.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao made an overnight trip to the quake zone at the time to comfort survivors, many of whom had taken refuge in tents erected on a public square.

A county neighbouring Zhenxiong was hit by a landslide in October that killed 18 children, after one which, according to the United States Geological Survey, killed 216 people in 1991.

An earthquake in neighbouring Sichuan province in 2008 claimed around 70,000 lives - the worst natural disaster to hit China in three decades, with shoddy buildings blamed for the high toll.

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Fears for Pakistan as blasts kill 125

A series of bombings have killed 115 people across Pakistan, including 81 who died in Quetta. Source: AAP

EXTREMIST bomb attacks killed 125 people in one of Pakistan's deadliest days for years, raising concerns about rising violence in the nuclear-armed country ahead of general elections.

Two suicide bombers killed 92 people and wounded 121 after they targeted a crowded snooker club in the southwestern city of Quetta on Thursday, in an area dominated by Shi'ite Muslims from the Hazara ethnic minority.

Extremist Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for what was the worst single attack ever on Shi'ites, who account for about 20 per cent of Pakistan's 180 million population.

It was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since twin suicide bombers killed 98 people outside a police training centre in the northwestern town of Shabqadar on May 13, 2011 - shortly after US troops killed Osama bin Laden.

Earlier on Thursday, a bomb detonated under a security force vehicle in a crowded part of Quetta, killing 11 people and wounding dozens.

A bomb at a religious gathering in the northwestern Swat valley killed 22 people and wounded more than 80, the deadliest incident in the district since the army in 2009 fought off a two-year Taliban insurgency.

At the snooker club, the first bomber struck inside the building then, 10 minutes later, an attacker in a car blew himself up as police, media workers and rescue teams rushed to the site, said police officer Mir Zubair Mehmood.

"The death toll is now 92. Some bodies were found from the blast site today," said police official Hamid Shakeel.

He said all but five of the victims had been identified and handed over to their families for burial later on Friday.

Nine police, three local journalists, several rescue workers and a spokesman for the Frontier Corps paramilitary were among those killed, officials said.

"We have collected two bags of body parts, including limbs, fingers, upper torsos, lower torsos, legs, feet," said Mohammed Raza, who works for a Hazara ambulance service.

Akbar Hussain Durrani, home secretary in the provincial government of Baluchistan, said more than 120 people were wounded.

The government has announced three days of mourning in Baluchistan, and compensation of two million rupees ($A19,500) to families of killed police officials and one million rupees to those of civilians.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility in telephone calls to local journalists. The group has links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and was involved in the kidnap and beheading of reporter Daniel Pearl in January 2002.

The attacks, coupled with violence in the northwest, revived warnings from analysts that an Islamist militancy could threaten national elections, expected sometime in May after parliament disbands in mid-March.

Polls would mark the first time an elected civilian government in Pakistan, for decades ruled by the military, completes a term in office and is replaced by another democratically elected government.

"The government is completely losing control over the situation. Events are taking place one after the other," security and political analyst, retired lieutenant general Talat Masood said.

"The disturbing law and order situation will have a very adverse effect on elections. The government seems to have no plans for security and nothing is being done for the safety of people who are being killed like flies."

But a senior official in the Quetta administration, Mohammad Hashim, denied sectarian violence had any bearing on elections.

"Incidents of sectarian violence have been taking place in the country for more than a decade. It may have an affect on law and order. I don't think it will have an impact on elections. It's not political, it's sectarian," he said.

Human Rights Watch said 2012 was the deadliest year on record for Shi'ites in Pakistan and the government's failure to protect them "amounts to complicity in the barbaric slaughter of Pakistani citizens".

Baluchistan has long been a flashpoint for attacks against Shi'ites and Hazaras, and suffers from a separatist insurgency and Islamist militancy linked to a domestic Taliban insurgency concentrated in the northwest.

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Nastassja Kinski shocked by sister's abuse

Nastassja Kinski (pic) praised her half-sister for alleging she was abused by their father Klaus. Source: AAP

ACTRESS Nastassja Kinski says she's proud of her half-sister Pola for coming forward with allegations that she had been repeatedly raped by their father, the late German film icon Klaus Kinski.

Pola Kinski, 60, said in a magazine interview ahead of the release of a memoir on Saturday that the mercurial actor, who died in 1991, had sexually abused her throughout her childhood.

Nastassja Kinski, who achieved the Hollywood fame with films such as Cat People and Tess that eluded her father, wrote in the German daily Bild that she had wept when she read Pola's account.

"My sister is a hero because she has freed her heart, her soul and thus her future from the burden of this secret," the 51-year-old wrote.

"I stand by my sister, I stand behind her. I am deeply horrified. But I am proud of the strength she has shown in writing this book."

Nastassja Kinski said she hoped the book would raise awareness of child abuse and encourage other victims to tell their stories.

"A book like Pola's helps all children, youths and mothers who are afraid of fathers, who swallow their fear and hide everything away in their souls," she said.

"Just because someone calls himself a father, as in this case, does not mean that he is a father. The horror has taken place nevertheless. Even fathers do horrible things."

She added: "There is always help - all children should know that."

Nastassja Kinski, who lives in California, is the daughter of Kinski's second wife Brigitte. Pola's mother was his first wife, singer Gislinde Kuehbeck.

Pola said Klaus Kinski, who was already notorious as a brilliant but tyrannical force in European cinema, began abusing her at the age of five and raped her for the first time when she was nine.

The assaults continued until she was 19, she alleged in an interview this week with Stern magazine.

The volatile but prolific star of Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God and a frequent collaborator of German director Werner Herzog "ignored all protests" by his young daughter, she charged.

"He just took what he wanted," she said, adding that as a youngster, she lived in constant fear of his angry outbursts.

She said she aimed to go public with her allegations to put a stop to the idolising of her famous father.

"I was sick of hearing, 'Your father! Great! Genius! I always liked him'," she said.

"Since his death, this adulation has only got worse."

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NSW police hunt 'armed and dangerous' man

POLICE are hunting a fugitive they believe is armed and dangerous in the state's west.

A search is underway for Peter James Rowley, 35, who is on the run after he evaded police about 3pm on Thursday by fleeing into bush off the Castlereagh Highway, near Coonamble.

Rowley is wanted in relation to numerous serious domestic violence offences and has access to at least two firearms, police said in a statement on Thursday night.

They warned the public not to approach Rowley, who's described as caucasian, 170cm tall, and solidly built.

He also has a mullet style haircut, many tattoos, and sports a long red goatee beard, police said.

He was last seen wearing a dark coloured shirt, with his right arm bandaged.

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Two Swiss trains collide, 17 injured

TWO passenger trains collided at a train station in northern Switzerland during morning rush hour on Thursday, injuring at least 17 people.

"At least 17 people have been injured. Nine have been hospitalised," Anja Schudela, a local police spokeswoman in the canton of Schaffhouse, told the Blick daily's online edition.

Police said that none of the injuries were serious, according to local daily Schaffhauser Nachrichten.

Initial reports said up to 30 people were injured in the collision.

The crash occurred around 1730 (AEDT) when one crowded train rammed into the side of another at the Neuhausen-am-Rheinfall train station near the German border, the SBB rail company said.

Some 220 rescue workers had been mobilised, and after about two hours all the passengers had been evacuated, police told reporters.

The locomotive of one of the trains, a double-decker that had been heading for Winterthur in the canton of Zurich, had derailed when it was hit by a regional train.

A rescue train that was sent in to help put it back on the track also carried rescue personnel to help with any injuries, SBB spokesman Jean Philippe Schmidt told AFP.

The cause of the crash remained unclear, he said.

"The train hit the emergency breaks and everyone was thrown out of their seats," one of the passengers told the 20minutes.ch website.

"One person was bleeding heavily from the head," he added.

Another passenger told the online paper that he had seen "an old lady lying unconscious on the ground who was bleeding a lot".

A number of ambulances and fire engines were on site.

The train station was closed for the remainder of the day, and rail traffic between Schaffhouse and Dachsen in Zurich, as well as between Schaffhouse and Jestetten in Germany has been halted, according to SBB.

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Three Kurdish activists shot dead in Paris

THREE Kurdish women activists - including a co-founder of the militant separatist PKK - have been found dead with gunshot wounds to the head in the Kurdish Institute of Paris.

One of the founding members of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Sakine Cansiz, was among the victims, according to Firat News Agency, a mouthpiece for the PKK, and the French-language ActuKurdes website.

The bodies of the three women were discovered at the Centre for Information on Kurdistan in central Paris. Police said the three women had been shot in the head.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who visited the scene in the 10th district of Paris, said they had "probably been executed."

Valls named one of the victims as the president of the centre, Fidan Dogan, but would not be drawn on the identities of the other two.

Police said two of the women were aged 25 and 28. The third woman was not carrying identity papers.

Cansiz had been living in exile for several years. Turkey had in the past issued an international warrant for her arrest for membership of the PKK. She was arrested in Germany in 2007 but later released.

Hundreds of members of the Kurdish community gathered outside the centre on Thursday morning to protest the killings.

The mostly male crowd shouted slogans expressing their anger.

"We are all PKK," they shouted.

Some called for revenge and accused the French state of failing to protect the women.

Speaking to television cameras at the scene, Valls gave assurances of "the determination of French authorities to elucidate this act," which he called "unacceptable".

The centre is located on the first floor of a building on a busy street. Members of the community became alarmed after failing to make contact with the women on Wednesday afternoon. They discovered the bodies after eventually breaking down the door of the centre.

Turkey's BDP Kurdish party condemned the killings and called on French authorities to investigate to the fullest extent.

"We call on the French government to investigate this massacre so that no shred of doubt remains," BDP leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Gueltan Kisanak were quoted as saying by Firat News Agency, considered a mouthpiece for the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The leaders said it could not be possible for a such an act to go unnoticed in the busiest part of Paris.

The PKK took up arms in 1984, and demands greater autonomy for Turkey's Kurds, who are thought to comprise up to 20 per cent of the population.

It is regarded by Turkey, the US and European Union as a terrorist organisation, because of its attacks on Turkish security forces and civilians.

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Mideast hit by worst storms in a decade

At least eight people have died as fierce winter storms batter the Middle East. Source: AAP

THE worst storms in a decade left swathes of Israel and Jordan under a blanket of snow and parts of Lebanon blacked out on Thursday, bringing misery to a region accustomed to temperate weather.

Freezing temperatures and floods since Sunday across the region have claimed at least 11 lives and exacerbated the plight of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees huddled in tent camps in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.

But for students in countries battered by the snow, rain and bitter winds, the storms meant they could cut classes as authorities ordered schools and universities closed in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan Israel.

With snow blanketing the war-hit Syrian capital Damascus, the education ministry on Thursday announced that mid-term exams would be postponed in the country until further notice.

In Jordan, a blizzard brought the country to a near halt, as snow blocked most of roads in Amman and other parts in the desert kingdom, police said.

Jordan's King Abdullah II ordered the army to support the government - which declared Thursday a public holiday - in opening roads and helping those stranded in the snow, the palace said.

The storm has also triggered power blackouts in Lebanon, Jordan and Israel.

In Lebanon parts of the country were plunged into darkness, leaving those who rely on electricity to heat their homes shivering.

Officials and residents blamed the outage on the storm and an open-ended strike by employees of the state-run Electricite du Liban power company over salaries and pension issues.

"There is a storm, and there is a problem in the grid. The electricity workers are on strike, and they're not letting anyone fix the problem," Lebanese Energy and Water Minister Gebran Bassil told AFP on Thursday.

The storm also highlighted the poor infrastructure in Lebanon where chronic power shortages since the end of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war have been a main source of grievance among Lebanese who must put up with daily rationing.

A Beirut international airport weather expert said the storm is the worst ever to have hit Lebanon while other met officials in the region said it was the worst in 10 years.

Media reports said the cold weather originated in Russia, with one daily dubbing the storm "Olga".

At least 11 people have reportedly been killed in the region, including a man who froze to death after he fell asleep drunk in his car in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley and a baby swept away in a flash flood in the centre of the country.

In the Palestinian territories, officials reported four fatalities since Tuesday, one of them a woman in the southern West Bank village of Jabaa who died from a fire she started in her home to keep warm.

Three days of driving rains and strong winds that struck normally warm Egypt paralysed most ports, with the commercial harbour in Alexandria on the Mediterranean sea worst affected, officials said.

Snow was even seen capping the northwestern Tabuk region of the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where roads leading to Mount Alluz were packed with motorists excited at the rare sight of snow.

For children across the region, including in Holy City of Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Ramallah, the snow was a godsend which saw youngsters rush outside to make snowmen and enjoy snowball fights.

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German church sacks abuse researcher

GERMANY'S Roman Catholic Church has fallen out with a prominent outside expert who was tasked with researching sexual abuse by clergy dating back decades.

The church in 2011 assigned Professor Christian Pfeiffer's Lower Saxony Criminological Research Institute with analysing data on abuse from German dioceses as far back as 1945. It was part of efforts to address the scandal triggered by revelations in 2010 of abuse in Germany, Pope Benedict XVI's homeland, and elsewhere.

But the German Bishops Conference said on Wednesday that "mutual trust is shattered" between the bishops and Pfeiffer and it was terminating its agreement with the institute. It said it would seek a new partner for the project.

Prof Pfeiffer told ZDF television some in the church wanted pre-publication checks on the researchers' work, which he called unacceptable.

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New strain of vomiting bug blamed

A NEW strain of norovirus has been responsible for the majority of recent cases of the northern winter vomiting bug, health experts said.

The new variant of the bug, called Sydney 2012, has become the "dominant strain" and will have caused many of the cases of the recent outbreak, officials said.

In October, when the number of cases started to increase, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) performed genetic testing of norovirus strains in England and Wales. They found a "cocktail of different strains" that were circulating around the population.

However, recent analysis has shown that Sydney 2012 - first identified in Australia last year - has overtaken all others to become the dominant strain.

While other strains are still in circulation, Sydney 2012 is responsible for the majority of recent cases in England and Wales.

But health officials said that Sydney 2012, which has also been identified by health experts in France, New Zealand and Japan, does not cause more serious illness than other strains.

The HPA said yesterday there have been 4,140 laboratory-confirmed cases of norovirus so far this season - but for every reported case, an estimated 288 are not flagged.

This means as many as 1.19 million people could have contracted the illness this season - a 63 per cent rise on the previous year.

Dr David Brown, director of Virology Reference Department at the HPA, said: "It is always difficult to predict the norovirus season and this year is no different.

"Noroviruses mutate rapidly and new strains are constantly emerging.

"The emergence of a new strain does not mean that it causes more serious illness.

"There is no specific treatment for norovirus infection other than to let the illness take its course, with symptoms usually lasting around two days. Keeping hydrated is very important and you can take over-the-counter medicines to relieve headaches and aches and pains."

Norovirus is highly contagious and can be transmitted through contact with an infected person or contaminated surfaces and objects. It is known to spread rapidly in closed environments such as hospitals, schools and nursing homes.

Symptoms include sudden vomiting, diarrhoea, or both, a temperature, headache and stomach cramps. The bug usually goes away within a few days.

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NSW Princes Highway closed for backburn

THE Princes Highway between Bendalong Road and Sussex Inlet Road is closed to allow firefighters to undertake a backburn near Wandandian.

The closure, from 9pm (AEDT), follows a reduced speed limit of 60km/h on the Princes Highway from Wandean Road to Bendalong Road, while Wandean Road and Twelve Mile Road also remain closed.

The Kings Highway also remains closed in both directions between Bungendore and Braidwood Road due to a bushfire.

Motorists are advised to use Braidwood Road to Tarago then Bungendore Road instead.

There is still no access from Nerriga to Nowra via Braidwood Road.

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Hugh Jackman gets BAFTA best actor nod

Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman have both received nominations for their Les Miserables performances. Picture: Victoria Will/Invision/AP Source: AP

AUSTRALIAN Hugh Jackman has received a BAFTA best actor nomination for his role in the musical Les Miserables.

Jackman will face off against four others for the prestigious award, after the nominations were announced in London on Wednesday.

Steven Spielberg's political drama Lincoln, the film version of hit stage musical Les Miserables and Ang Lee's Life of Pi lead the nominations for best film.

All three are in the running for best film in the British awards, viewed as one of the indicators of Oscars glory, alongside Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden manhunt movie Zero Dark Thirty and Iran hostage drama Argo.

Lincoln received 10 nominations in total, including for best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis, best supporting actor for Tommy Lee Jones and best supporting actress for Sally Field, although Spielberg was overlooked for best director.

Les Miserables took nine nominations including best supporting actress for Anne Hathaway and best British film.

Life of Pi also has nine nominations, including best director for Ang Lee, who is up against Bigelow, Ben Affleck for Argo, Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained and Michael Haneke for French-language film Amour.

Javier Bardem is up for best supporting actor for his role as the villain in the latest and most successful Bond movie, Skyfall, among eight nominations which also include best supporting actress for Judi Dench and best British film.

Affleck was nominated in the leading actor category alongside Day-Lewis, Jackman, Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings Playbook and Joaquin Phoenix for The Master.

In the leading actress category are Cooper's co-star Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty, Marion Cotillard for Rust and Bone, Helen Mirren for Hitchcock and Emmanuelle Riva for Amour.

Alongside Bardem and Lee Jones in the supporting actor category are Alan Arkin for Argo, Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Master and Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained.

Dench, Field and Hathaway are in the running for best supporting actress alongside Amy Adams for The Master and Helen Hunt for The Sessions.

The BAFTA awards ceremony will take place on February 10 at the Royal Opera House in London.

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NSW bushfires claim first home

A total fire ban is in place for NSW, as more than 20 uncontained fires rage across the state. Source: AAP

CATASTROPHIC fire conditions, including oppressive temperatures and high winds, have seen NSW lose its first home in the bushfires.

Dozens of homes were under threat in NSW on Tuesday as firefighters battled 135 blazes in 40-plus temperatures and conditions officially rated as "catastrophic".

On Tuesday night the fires claimed the first home, with one property confirmed to have been lost in Jugiong near the ACT border.

RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said a large amount of damage had been done to infrastructure in pasture country across the state, with 1000 head of stock lost.

"We've still got many hours of very difficult conditions being faced for NSW. That's tonight alone, let alone looking into tomorrow," he told ABC Television.

"Particularly as this southerly change moves northward, we can expect some fairly intense and erratic weather behaviour."

More than 1600 firefighters were in the field or on standby on Tuesday night, after a day in which blazes, fanned by winds over 70km/h, burnt more than 60,000 hectares of grass, scrub and bushland.

Catastrophic fire danger ratings remain in place in the Illawarra/ Shoalhaven region, as well as the Southern Ranges and the Eastern and Northern Riverina.

Severe and Extreme warnings are affecting much of the rest of NSW.

Although almost 30 fires remain uncontained on Tuesday evening there had been no reports of loss of life.

"We should simply breathe a sigh of relief if we get to 2 o'clock tomorrow morning and nothing serious has happened," Premier Barry O'Farrell told the Seven Network.

Sydney recorded a peak temperature of 42.5 degrees, with the heat set to remain as high as 30 degrees late at night and into Wednesday morning.

Thirty homes were threatened by a fire 12km east of Cooma - 20 in the Kybeyan Valley and 10 around Mount Forest Road in the Cooma-Monaro area.

At the township of Tarcutta, in southwest NSW, a bushfire burnt through 500 hectares and surrounded the town.

But by the early evening the Hume Highway was reopened in both directions with the immediate threat to the village easing.

RFS spokesman Brendan Doyle urged people to remain vigilant as southerly winds shift fires.

"If the southerly wind changes, that may push the fire back on to the town," he told AAP.

At Wandandian, south of Nowra, the Princes Highway was closed in both directions on Tuesday night as a southerly wind change saw a large bushfire burn out of control.

The fire which had burned through more than 1500 hectares was about two to six hours from properties.

Three youths were taken into police custody on Tuesday afternoon after a suspicious fire in Shalvey in Sydney's west.

Firefighters contained the blaze which affected about 10 hectares of bushland.

A total fire ban will remain in place across NSW on Wednesday.

The Salvation Army has launched the Australian Disaster Relief Appeal in response to the bushfires in communities in NSW and other communities across Australia.

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France cuts trade deficit: data

FRANCE cut its trade deficit in November to 4.3 billion euros ($5.65 billion), down from 4.7 billion euros in October.

The customs service said that, overall, exports to and imports from other countries in the European Union, and particularly concerning Germany, had fallen sharply over three months.

There had also been a marked fall of trade with the United States in refined products and with the Middle East in crude oil.

A trade surplus contributes to growth in a country, as in the case of Germany, France's main trading partner in the European Union which has a strong external trade account.

A trade deficit reduces any overall growth in an economy.

For several years France has developed a huge structural trade deficit.

Analysts say that this reflects mainly a fall of the competitive position of French industry and services, largely because France does not have enough medium-sized companies exporting high quality and specialist products.

The government is attempting to address the problem of high production costs by switching some social taxes from businesses to a wider tax base.

The customs service said that in the 12 months to the end of November the trade balance had shown a cumulative deficit of 65.826 billion euros, down from 74.203 billion euros in 2011.

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Vietnam tries 14 activists for subversion

FOURTEEN Vietnamese accused of links to a banned US-based opposition group went on trial Tuesday on charges of attempting to overthrow the communist government.

The defendants, who include Catholics, bloggers and students, appeared in a provincial court in Nghe An, about 300 kilometres south of Hanoi, a court clerk told AFP, declining to provide further details.

They are accused of being members of the Viet Tan group, which is labelled by Hanoi as a terrorist organisation.

If convicted the 14 -- who are aged between 24 and 55 -- could in theory face the death sentence, although the Communist regime has never executed anyone for anti-state activity.

The authoritarian country's state-controlled media made no mention of the trial, which overseas activists said was one of the largest of its kind.

Charges of spreading anti-state propaganda and attempting to overthrow the regime are routinely laid against dissidents in a country where the Communist Party forbids political debate.

The defendants are part of a group of 17 people who have appealed to the UN's working group on arbitrary detentions to intervene on their behalf. The three others were sentenced in May for spreading anti-state propaganda.

The detainees have suffered various violations of human rights according to Stanford Law School lecturer Allen Weiner who is assisting with their petition to the UN.

"Most of the petitioners have been jailed for an extended period of time without meaningful judicial process," he said in a statement.

"Those petitioners who have been brought to court have been convicted after perfunctory hearings lasting only a few hours," he added.

Activists on Tuesday posted photos online showing hundreds of police surrounding the courtroom in Nghe An, saying that several people who had turned up to support the detainees had been harassed and detained.

Rights group say dozens of peaceful political activists have been sentenced to long prison terms since Vietnam, a one-party state, launched a fresh crackdown on free expression in late 2009.

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Winehouse inquest confirms alcohol death

A new inquest into the death of British singer Amy Winehouse is set to begin in London. Source: AAP

A SECOND inquest into the death of singer Amy Winehouse has confirmed that her death was caused by alcohol.

The same verdict of misadventure was recorded at a re-hearing of the inquest - after the first was heard by a coroner who did not have the correct qualifications.

The hearing was told on Tuesday that the Back To Black star had more than five times the legal blood alcohol drink-drive limit when she died, having 416mg of alcohol per decilitre of blood in her system - the legal driving limit is 80mg.

The inquest at St Pancras Coroner's Court in London heard the same evidence about the singer's death as was revealed at the first inquest in October 2011.

Winehouse was found dead in bed at her flat in Camden, north London, on the afternoon of Saturday July 23 2011.

St Pancras Coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe said the star died from "alcohol toxicity", adding that it was "a level of alcohol commonly associated with fatality".

She said Winehouse "voluntarily consumed alcohol" and added that "two empty vodka bottles were on the floor" beside her bed when her body was discovered.

In a written statement, Winehouse's GP, Dr Christina Romete, said: "She was genuinely unwilling to follow the advice of doctors, being someone who wanted to do things her own way."

Dr Romete saw Winehouse the night before she died.

Although the singer had been drinking, the GP said: "She specifically said she did not want to die."

The doctor's statement also revealed Winehouse's struggle with an eating disorder - which she spoke about shortly before her death.

"I visited Amy at home on 16 May and for the first time she admitted she made herself sick following food binges," Dr Romete said in her statement.

In a written statement, Winehouse's live-in security guard Andrew Morris said he and the star had over time "developed a brother/sister relationship".

Speaking about the moment he realised she was dead, he said: "I was upset and shaken. She's like a sister to me."

Detective Inspector Les Newman, who gave evidence in person, confirmed there were "no suspicious circumstances" in the singer's death.

Professor Michael Sheaff, a colleague of Suhail Baithun who carried out the post-mortem examination, also gave evidence in person and said: "Mr Baithun established the cause of death as alcohol toxicity."

He added: "It is likely Miss Winehouse had a respiratory arrest."

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Police arrest man after police shooting

A 24-YEAR-OLD Footscray man has been arrested after a police shooting early on Monday morning in which two officers shot at a stolen car that was speeding towards them.

The drama occurred at 12.40am (AEDT) in Maribyrnong, in the inner west, and a short time later two women arrived at the Western Hospital, one with a gunshot wound to her leg.

The man driving the car remained at large.

At 8.10pm on Monday Special Operations Group members arrested a man at a Melton address in Melbourne's west.

He is helping police with inquiries.

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Indian rape case - judge closes trial

The father of the gang-rape victim has revealed his daughter's identity to a British newspaper. Source: AAP

AN Indian magistrate has ruled to exclude the media from pre-trial hearings or the trial of the five men accused of raping and killing a young student in the Indian capital, a police official says.

Magistrate Namrita Aggarwal on Monday upheld the prosecutor's request that the media be barred from attending the proceedings, according to police spokesman Rajan Bhagat.

Hundreds of journalists, lawyers and onlookers had jammed the courtroom where the five were to appear.

The Monday hearing was expected to result in the case being sent to a special "fast-track" court.

Indian courts are notoriously slow, with some cases dragging on for decades. The trial is expected to begin in the coming days. Indian rape trials are normally closed to the media.

Authorities have charged the men with murder, rape and other crimes that could bring them the death penalty. The crime caused nationwide outrage, leading to massive protests.

A sixth suspect, who is 17 years old, was expected to be tried in a juvenile court, where the maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility.

Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan said last week that a DNA test confirmed that the blood of the victim matched bloodstains found on the clothes of all the accused.

On Sunday, two of the defendants offered to become "approvers", or informers against the others, according to reporters present at the hearing. The two were presumably seeking lighter sentences.

The companion of the student recounted in a television interview last week how the pair was attacked for 2 1/2 hours on a New Delhi bus before being thrown on the side of the road, where passersby ignored them and police debated jurisdiction issues before helping them.

The student died weeks after the December 16 attack at a hospital in Singapore.

The attack has led to calls for tougher rape laws and reforms of a police culture that often blames rape victims and refuses to file charges against accused attackers.

The nation's top law enforcement official said the country needs to crack down on crimes against women.

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William, Kate and bub to live at Grandma's

The Queen and guests at a garden party at Sandringham last year. Anmer Hall is on the sprawling property. AFP PHOTO / ADRIAN DENNIS Source: AFP

SOON-TO-BE family man Prince William will have plenty of space to house a growing clan based on reports the Queen will give him a sprawling country home.

The 30-year-old heir to the throne and his pregnant bride are in line to receive the heritage-listed Anmer Hall on the sovereign's Sandringham Estate, where the royal family traditionally spends Christmas.

William spent time at the 10-bedroom late-Georgian mansion as a boy, when it was being leased by family friends, the Daily Express newspaper reported.

There is a swimming pool, tennis court, stable block, conservatory and even a bell tower at the property, which is set at the end of a gravel driveway, close to a church and about 3km from Sandringham House.

While a source said the property has been "earmarked" for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, it is unlikely the popular royals will take up residence for some years, with the current lease due to expire in 2017.

Late in 2012 William and Catherine will move into a freshly-renovated apartment at London's Kensington Palace, which will become their official city residence.

The Cambridges currently have a country house in Wales, close by the base where William works as a search and rescue helicopter pilot. They also have a cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace.

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Britain's oldest man dies

BRITAIN'S oldest man has died, aged 110 years and 63 days, friends have said.

Reg Dean, a former United Reform Church minister, died on Saturday, according to an announcement by the Dalesmen Male Voice Choir in Derbyshire.

He was the choir's life president, and helped to found the group in the 1980s.

Mr Dean, a former Army chaplain and teacher, survived two World Wars and witnessed 24 British prime ministers come and go.

He was born in Tunstall, Staffordshire, on November 4 1902, and became Britain's oldest man in June 2010 after the death of Stanley Lucas, 110, of Cornwall.

During the Second World War, Mr Dean was stationed in Burma in the Far East, but continued his work as a minister until he retired at the age of 80.

The father-of-one, from Wirksworth in Derbyshire, moved to the county in 1947, after living for a short period in Stratford-on-Avon.

In 1958 he became a teacher at Herbert Strutt School in Belper, Derbyshire, where he worked for 10 years.

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Wong Kar Wai returns with The Grandmaster

HONG Kong director Wong Kar Wai's long-awaited martial arts film The Grandmaster was shown in public for the first time in Beijing on Sunday, after more than six years in production.

The film spans several decades of Chinese history to tell the story of legendary martial artist Yip Man, who went on to train Bruce Lee, and features lengthy battles between rival kung fu masters.

Wong is best known for his 2000 slow-burn drama In the Mood for Love.

His new film, packed with Chinese stars including Hong Kong actor Tony Leung and Beijing-born starlet Zhang Ziyi, appears well placed to capture the local audience.

In his first press appearance to promote the film, Wong was also confident that The Grandmaster, which runs for over two hours in its current edit and is steeped in traditional martial arts culture, would be well received abroad.

"There is no such thing as a Western or Eastern audience... the elements of cinema are the same worldwide, although their expression is different," said Wong, wearing his trademark dark glasses.

The film, set to hit Chinese cinemas on Tuesday, follows its lead character through some of China's most tumultuous recent history including the Japanese invasion in the 1930s.

It has been delayed several times, amid rumours of extensive reshooting and injured actors, but Wong shrugged off claims that the filming had taken too long.

"It felt like three years of university... we didn't want filming to end," he said.

Wong made his international breakthrough in 1994 with Chungking Express and was the first Chinese director to sit on the jury at Cannes.

In February he will lead the jury of the Berlin film festival, which traditionally highlights Asian cinema.

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US drones kill nine militants in Pakistan

SUSPECTED American drones have fired several missiles into three militant hideouts near the Afghan border, killing nine Pakistani Taliban fighters, intelligence officials say.

The strikes targeted the group's hideouts in the South Waziristan tribal region, the three officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

The identity of the killed militants was not immediately known yet, but two important commanders of the Pakistani Taliban may be among them, they said.

It was the third suspected US drone strike in five days. A strike late Wednesday night killed a top Pakistani militant commander, Maulvi Nazir, whose fighters focus on attacks against US and allied NATO troops in Afghanistan.

It was followed close on by another attack on Thursday.

Islamabad opposes the use of US drones on its territory, but is believed to have tacitly approval some strikes in the past.

Washington wants Pakistan to launch a military operation in North Waziristan, but Islamabad had been refusing to do so, saying it does not have enough troops and resources to do that.

In absence of such an operation, the US relies more on drone strikes to take out militants.

The program has killed a number of top militant commanders including Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was al-Qaeda's No. 2 when he was killed in a June strike.

The death of Nazir was likely to be seen in Washington as affirmation of the necessity of its controversial drone program.

But it could also cause more friction in already tense relations with Pakistan because Nazir did not focus on Pakistani targets. Nazir was believed to have a nonaggression pact with the Pakistani army.

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Depardieu gets Russian passport

French actor Gerard Depardieu has received a Russian passport and met with President Vladimir Putin. Source: AAP

GERARD Depardieu, the French actor who has threatened to quit his homeland to avoid higher taxes for the rich, has received a Russian passport and met with President Vladimir Putin.

Depardieu met Putin, who earlier granted him citizenship, at the Russian leader's sumptuous residence in the palm-dotted Black Sea resort of Sochi on Saturday, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP.

Putin granted Depardieu "a short meeting" and did not personally deliver the document to the actor, Peskov added without saying where and when Depardieu "was handed his passport".

National television broadcast images of the Sochi meeting featuring Depardieu and Putin hugging each other and sharing a meal at Putin's residence.

Dressed casually in a white shirt and a dark jacket, Depardieu asked the Russian strongman whether he had seen a new film about the mysterious Tsarist monk Grigory Rasputin played by the French actor.

"Did you see the movie at all? I had sent (it) to you," Depardieu said in remarks translated into Russian, appearing to use the familiar form of address to speak to Putin.

The film is a France-Russia co-production about a monk who was famous for his mystical influence over Russia's last Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra and was assassinated in December 1916 by a group of discontented aristocrats.

"Gerard, are you pleased with your work?" Putin, who also wore a shirt without a tie, asked the actor.

"I am very much pleased with everything," Depardieu replied, praising the Russian actors who co-starred with him in the movie.

Oleg Dobrodeyev, chief of state television broadcaster VGTRK, who was also present at the meeting, said the film would be released to the general public in May.

Moscow's decision to grant citizenship to the star of Cyrano de Bergerac, Green Card and the Asterix and Obelix series was the latest volley in a row between the actor and the French government over its attempt to raise the tax rate on earnings of more than one million euros ($1.3 million) to 75 per cent.

When Depardieu first announced he would leave the country to avoid the tax, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault branded the move "pathetic".

Depardieu, who can easily earn up to two million euros per film and who has extensive business interests in France and elsewhere, will qualify for the 13 per cent tax rate if he spends at least six months of the year in Russia.

The Kremlin move and the actor's comments praising Russia sparked amusement and disbelief among many in the country.

The eccentric actor has been a huge star in Russia since the Soviet era and still enjoys cult status among many movie buffs.

But in recent years, he has also raised many eyebrows with his often unsavoury behaviour.

In 2011, Depardieu shocked passengers on a Paris to Dublin flight when he relieved himself on the cabin floor.

He was arrested last November after falling off his scooter, which he had been riding while more than three times over the legal alcohol limit.

Depardieu is also planning to star in a historic serial penned by the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan's strongman President Islam Karimov.

In a surreal twist to the saga over Depardieu's move, cinema legend Brigitte Bardot this week threatened to follow him out of France unless two elephants under threat of being put down are granted a reprieve.

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Border fence with Syria needed: Israeli PM

ISRAEL'S prime minister says he will erect a fortified fence on the border with Syria to protect against radical Islamist forces who he claims have taken over the area.

Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel needs a barrier like a new Egyptian border fence that he says has stemmed the flow of African migrants.

He said the Syrian regime was "unstable" and Israel was concerned about the country's chemical weapons. He told his Cabinet Sunday that across the frontier "the Syrian army has moved away, and in its place, Global Jihad forces have moved in."

Global Jihad is the term Israel uses for forces influenced by al-Qaeda.

Syria's rebels include some al-Qaeda-allied fighters.

Israel has largely stayed out of the conflict, though several mortar rounds have landed in the Israel-held Golan Heights.

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