Man seriously hurt in Qld machete attack

A MAN is in a critical condition in hospital with serious head injuries after being attacked with a knife and a machete by two men at Landsborough in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Police said the 49-year-old victim also suffered wounds to his arms in the attack about 2.15pm (AEDT) on Friday.

He was taken to the Nambour Hospital where he is in a critical condition.

Police want anyone who saw a vehicle leave Gateway Avenue or any suspicious activity around the time of the incident to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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Death report as Tas bushfire razes homes

TASMANIAN police are investigating reports of a death in a huge bushfire in the state's south that has destroyed homes, and damaged a school and an RSL club.

Police say up to 65 buildings could have been damaged or destroyed in the small community of Dunalley, 55 kilometres southeast of Hobart.

Damaged buildings include the local school, the RSL club, a service station and houses, ABC television reported.

Around 15 houses at nearby Boomer Bay could also have been lost as the impact of catastrophic fire conditions in southern Tasmania begins to emerge.

Tasmania deputy police commissioner Scott Tilyard said a team was on the ground to investigate a fire crew's concerns that a man may have been trapped while trying to defend his house.

"We can't at this early stage rule out that there has been loss of life," Mr Tilyard told reporters in Hobart.

He said around 50 people were awaiting the arrival of police boats to help them leave the waterfront near the top of the Tasman Peninsula where they had taken refuge.

The Tasman Peninsula, including the popular Port Arthur tourist destination, was completely cut off by the closure of the major Arthur Highway.

Around 600 people were taking refuge at temporary accommodation at Nubeena and 1500 people were reported to have visited the Port Arthur convict ruins on Friday.

"Those people are being looked after as best we can," Mr Tilyard said.

"The main thing is they are safe."

People had also been told to leave the beachside town of Dodges Ferry.

Fire crews were monitoring potential spot fires further south at Eaglehawk Neck and banking on a southerly change due late on Friday night to stop the fire from spreading.

Huge plumes of smoke were visible from Hobart as the island capital sweltered through its hottest day on record. The temperature reached 41.8C at 4.05pm (AEDT), the hottest it has been since record keeping started in 1883.

Winds gusting to 100km/h whipped up the two largest blazes that had started on Thursday; at Forcett, near Dunalley, and Lake Repulse near Mt Field National Park northwest of Hobart.

Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) Chief Officer Mike Brown said conditions on Friday had reached the catastrophic level in the rating system that was developed after the Black Saturday fires in Victoria.

"We reached catastrophic fire danger ratings at times during this afternoon," Chief Officer Brown told reporters.

"I don't think we're quite out of the woods yet."

The threat posed by the second major fire, which authorities suspect was started by a campfire, had eased by Friday night.

A grass fire at Epping in the state's north had been contained, but reports had emerged of a property being lost near Bicheno on the east coast.

Mr Brown said the change would bring lower temperatures and higher humidity but little rain.

"Tonight we still consider that there's a serious danger," he said.

Acting premier Bryan Green said the state government would provide whatever emergency assistance was needed and would liaise with the federal government.

Authorities say smoke is likely to be visible for several hours and people sensitive to it should stay indoors.

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Bid to restore Vic fire website and app

WORK is under way to restore Victoria's Country Fire Authority (CFA) website to full capacity.

The crash occurred as the state sweltered through its hottest day in several years. At some points up to 700 people a second tried to access the website and FireReady App.

In a statement late on Friday, Victoria's fire services commissioner Craig Lapsley said he had asked CFA chief Mick Bourke to investigate why some people were still experiencing delays on the website.

Mr Lapsley said the CFA would work throughout the weekend to respond to the issue as a "key priority".

"We recognise it has been frustrating for people who rely on the website and app for fire information," he said.

"Seeking out the appropriate information is exactly what we have been asking the community to do and we know people are relying on this technology to keep themselves updated about their fire risk."

The capacity of the website and the FireReady App were increased after the crash.

Mr Lapsley says important fire information is also available from ABC radio, SKY NEWS, and CFA social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter as well as the Victorian Bushfire Information Line on 1800 240 667.

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Chavez suffers lung woes, aides allege war

VENEZUELA'S government has accused opposition leaders of waging a "psychological war" to destabilise the country, as cancer-stricken president Hugo Chavez battles a serious lung infection.

The hardline stance was adopted after Vice President Nicolas Maduro returned from a visit with the ailing Chavez in Cuba, where he is suffering from complications more than three weeks after undergoing cancer surgery.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said on Friday Chavez developed a "severe pulmonary infection" after the surgery.

Villegas then levelled the charge that the president's health had become the target of a campaign to destabilise the government and end its socialist revolution.

The government "warns the Venezuelan people about the psychological war that the transnational media complex has unleashed around the health of the chief of state, with the ultimate goal of destabilising the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela," he said in a televised statement.

The statement came amid rising demands at home for a detailed accounting of Chavez's condition and whether he is fit to take the oath of office on January 10 for another six year term.

Venezuela's constitution calls for new elections to be held within 30 days if the president is unable to take the oath of office.

But Maduro and National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello, the regime's number two and three leaders, made clear on their return from Cuba that they were not preparing for a transfer of power.

"Here there is only one transition and it began at least six years ago and it was decreed by comandante Hugo Chavez," Maduro said, referring to the launch in 2006 of the president's socialist revolution.

Maduro and Cabello spoke on Venezuelan state television, as they toured a coffee packaging plant in Caracas that had been taken over by the state.

Both men went out of their way to deny rumours of an internal power struggle between them, with Maduro saying they had sworn before Chavez that they would remain united.

"We are here more united than ever," said Maduro, who is Chavez's handpicked successor. "And we have sworn before comandante Hugo Chavez, and we reaffirmed to him today in our oath ... that we would be united with our people."

Referring to the reported rift, Cabello said the opposition would have to wait "2000 years for that to happen" and said "no conciliation is possible with this opposition".

Maduro accused the opposition of "lies and manipulation", a campaign to try to create uncertainty.

"We know that the United States is where these manipulations are being managed," he said. "They think that their time has come. And we have entered a kind of crazy hour of offensive by the right, here and internationally."

It was unclear whether Maduro was referring to US-based Venezuelans or the US government.

A leading opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, who was defeated by Chavez in October's presidential election, has indicated that he would be willing to accept a delay in next week's scheduled inauguration ceremony.

Capriles, former governor of the state of Miranda, is seen as a possible presidential challenger.

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Superstorm Sandy tops insurance claims

A LEADING insurance company says natural disasters cost the industry $US65 billion ($A62.20 billion) last year and Superstorm Sandy accounted for nearly two-fifths of the total.

However, Munich Re AG said on Thursday total insured losses from natural catastrophes were down from a record $US119 billion in 2011, when devastating earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand cost the industry dear.

The company said total economic costs in 2012 from natural disasters - including uninsured losses - amounted to $US160 billion, compared with the previous year's $US400 billion.

Sandy was blamed for at least 120 deaths when it battered eastern coastline areas at the end of October.

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were the hardest-hit states.

Munich Re estimated insured losses from Sandy at $US25 billion and total losses at $US50 billion.

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Tycoon blames government for land prices

A CHINESE property tycoon is blaming a government "land famine" for high property prices after he paid one billion yuan ($A153.10 million) for a plot in Beijing.

Ren Zhiqiang, a prominent real estate tycoon, paid the mammoth price for development land in a suburb of the capital before turning to Weibo, China's version of Twitter, where he has 13 million followers.

"For fear of sky-high prices, (the government) has stopped holding many land auctions and reduced the supply of land, creating a land famine that has led to sky-high prices," he said on Thursday.

"Does the government think it can control property price increases by reducing the land supply?

"This is neither good for companies nor for society," he added. "But to survive in a land monopoly and shortage means doing whatever you can."

Ren's purchase was a soaring 490 per cent above the auction starting price, the highest such premium since 2010, the Beijing News said, marking an extreme case of the spiralling prices that China has struggled for years to control.

Authorities are concerned that escalating prices could shut more ordinary homebuyers out of the market, fuelling discontent and possible social unrest.

Measures announced in early 2010 have ranged from restrictions on second and third home purchases, higher down payments and taxes in some cities on multiple homes and homes owned by outsiders.

The restrictions have frustrated players such as Ren and cooled the once red-hot market, with analysts estimating that prices nationwide have risen only four to seven per cent since then.

But pent-up demand, easing government monetary policy and inflows of speculative funds from abroad have brought the property market out of the doldrums.

Some Weibo users shared Ren's frustration, with one lamenting that high prices were "good for the government, of no choice for the developer and bad for homebuyers".

But others blamed the businessman, with one pointing out: "How could you buy at such a high price? Doesn't that make you an accomplice?"

"Crocodile tears!" wrote another.

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German jobless rate up to 6.7 percent

GERMANY'S unemployment rate crept up to 6.7 per cent in December due to seasonal factors and a more sluggish economy, but the labour market remained robust.

The Federal Labor Agency said on Thursday the unadjusted jobless rate was up from 6.5 per cent in November.

About 2.84 million people were registered unemployed in Germany, Europe's biggest economy - 80,000 more than the previous month and 60,000 higher than a year earlier.

Germany's economy has enjoyed robust growth that kept down unemployment even as many debt-troubled European partners have seen output shrink and joblessness soar.

Still, the economy saw slower growth in 2012 than in previous years.

In seasonally adjusted terms, the unemployment rate was static at 6.9 per cent in December, while the number of jobless was 3000 higher than the previous month.

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China denies rejecting journo's visa

BEIJING has denied rejecting the visa of an Australian journalist working for the New York Times after the paper - which has published a series of exposes on Premier Wen Jiabao's family - said he had been forced to leave mainland China.

Chris Buckley, a longstanding China correspondent recently employed by the New York Times, departed Beijing for Hong Kong on Monday after the authorities did not issue him a working visa for 2013, the newspaper said.

"There has not been any so-called rejection," an official from the spokesman's office of the ministry of foreign affairs told AFP in response to faxed questions about Buckley on Thursday.

His visa application was still being processed, she said, adding that at present it "did not meet all requirements, but has not been delayed".

The official declined to give her name and also refused to specify which requirements had not been fulfilled, adding that Buckley "should be clear about that himself".

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China, which represents foreign journalists in the country, said on Thursday it "strongly regrets" what it called "delays" in Buckley's accreditation.

In a statement it linked the apparent delay to a Times investigation into the huge riches amassed by the family of Wen, who is soon to step down as premier.

The New York Times in October published reports saying relatives of Wen have controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion during his tenure.

Lack of clarity over Buckley's accreditation "inevitably raises suspicions that the authorities are punishing the New York Times" for the articles, the statement said.

Buckley, who has worked as a reporter in China for 12 years, was previously employed as a correspondent for Britain-based newswire Reuters, and rejoined the New York Times in October.

David Barboza, the New York Times Shanghai bureau chief who wrote the Wen articles, was among six other New York Times correspondents in China who had their visas renewed.

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Russia's oil output hits post-Soviet high

WORLD energy power Russia says its 2012 oil output hit a post-Soviet record high while natural gas production declined amid stalling European sales.

The energy ministry's reporting unit said on Wednesday oil and gas condensate production grew by 1.3 per cent last year to reach 518.0 million tonnes or 10.4 million barrels per day.

Russia had established its previous post-Soviet high in 2011 when output stood at 10.28 million barrels per day.

Its current rate outpaces that of Saudi Arabia and clinches for Russia the title of the world's biggest oil producer.

But Russia lacks the quick ability of Saudi Arabia to boost output in case of a global economic rebound or more serious turmoil in the Middle East.

The state-owned oil firm Rosneft accounted for 22.8 per cent of Russia's oil market - its share this year expected to reach more than 40 per cent following its October acquisition of the Anglo-Russian venture TNK-BP.

But Russia's natural gas production fell by 2.3 per cent to 655.0 billion cubic metres as its European sales shrivelled up.

Production of the state natural gas giant Gazprom was reported at 478.8 billion cubic metres - well off its 2011 figure of 513.1 billion cubic metres.

The drop reflects the reality that almost all of Gazprom's foreign sales are focused on European and post-Soviet countries which are now experiencing some of the slowest growth rates in the world.

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Goldfinger scene is Bond favourite: poll

A sucessful Goldfinger would have brought Bond's fame, and philandering, to an end. Source: Supplied

IN a scene voted the all-time favourite by James Bond fans, 007 is strapped to a table, a laser beam creeping towards his crotch. He asks his adversary: "Do you expect me to talk?"

Goldfinger exclaims: "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die."

A poll of 2500 people in the homeland of Her Majesty's Secret Service asked fans to name the best scene in a 007 film, with the sequence from 1964's Goldfinger emerging a clear winner with 10.3 per cent of votes.

On hearing the result, current Bond Daniel Craig acknowledged the scene "would take some beating".

The survey was conducted by Sky Movies HD at the end of 2012, a year which celebrated half a century of Bond films.

Naked, golden dead woman is perhaps as famous as the winning scene, but not so popular.

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