Tsunami warning canceled for Alaska, Canada

OFFICIALS have canceled a tsunami warning for parts of southern Alaska and coastal Canada.

The Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre says a tsunami was generated by a strong earthquake, but the waves don't pose a threat to the areas.

The centre says some areas are seeing small sea level changes, but there will be no widespread destructive wave that had earlier been warned about.

The warning area included coastal areas from Cape Fairweather, Alaska, to the north tip of Vancouver Island, Canada. The area extended for more than 700 miles.

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Cooler weather helps Vic firefighters

Victorian firefighters hope to gain control over two major bushfires as the temperature cools. Source: AAP

FIREFIGHTERS are making progress against a major bushfire in Victoria's southwest.

About 40 trucks and several aircraft were at the scene of the blaze at Kentbruck, in the state's southwest, on Saturday.

The fire began in a pine plantation on Friday and has so far burned more than 2700 hectares in the Lower Glenelg National Park area.

No property is under threat, but smoke from the fire is visible several hundred kilometres away.

As the temperature cooled, Victorian firefighters made the most of conditions.

At Ensay in East Gippsland a blaze which burned out of control about 7km north of the town has been contained.

Crews will remain on site overnight, patrolling the fire edge and mopping up.

Temperatures on Saturday were much cooler than Friday, when the mercury peaked above 40C across much of the state.

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Afghan govt releases 80 Taliban prisoners

SOME 80 Taliban prisoners once held at the US military Bagram jail have been released by the Afghan government amid hopes that it might help reconciliation efforts.

Their release was secured through a special complaints committee that looked into each case.

Most of them had been incarcerated without charge, said a senior member of the High Peace Council, a government initiative seeking peace and reconciliation efforts with the Taliban insurgency, which has been waging a deadly war for more than 11 years.

"Many were imprisoned on political grounds ... We hope their release will strengthen the peace efforts," council member Ismail Qasimyar said.

"We want those who have been released to be peace workers and spread the word of peace."

A total of 275 prisoners had already been released from Bagram jail, which hosts around 3000 inmates and came under Afghan control in September.

A further 585 prisoners are to be released in the coming days, General Ghulam Farooq Barakzai, the commander of the Bagram Jail, told reporters, adding that a total of 1200 prisoners are set to be freed in the coming months.

"Justice causes security and stability. If we fear an individual's release will cause an effect on security, we will keep him jailed," he stressed.

Last year, an Afghan government investigation found "many cases of violations" of Afghan law and human rights at the then US-run Bagram prison, which is located north of Kabul city.

The Afghan government also accused the United States military of holding some prisoners for more than two years without charge.

The mood was sombre during Friday's release ceremony, which was held inside the infamous Pul-e-Charkhi jail in the Afghan capital.

Obaidullah, an Afghan teacher, was one of those released on Friday. He had spent 20 months in Bagram after being arrested during a US special forces raid on a school in eastern Logar province.

Teary-eyed, his relatives greeted him and handed him a mobile phone to talk to his family in the village.

"They arrested me without any reason. Later they told me that I had links with the Haqqani network and the Taliban," he said.

"They could not find any proof. Now I am free."

Obaidullah said he was tortured mentally, with the US army keeping him in an uncomfortable position for hours each day.

He was also kept in a dark cold room without any blankets for weeks, he said, and could leave the room only for one hour each day.

On many occasions, his meals were limited to one a day, he alleged.

"We all faced different types of problems ... I am still suffering from deep mental pressure," he said, adding he was still surprised as to why he had been arrested in the first place.

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Quake hits off Alaska, tsunami 'no threat'

OFFICIALS have cancelled a tsunami warning for parts of southern Alaska and coastal Canada.

The Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre says a tsunami was generated by a strong earthquake, but the waves don't pose a threat to the areas.

The centre says some areas are seeing small sea level changes, but there will be no widespread destructive wave that had earlier been warned about.

The warning area included coastal areas from Cape Fairweather, Alaska, to the north tip of Vancouver Island, Canada. The area extended for more than 1,125 kilometres.

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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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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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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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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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Drones kill 13, including top militant

PAKISTANI intelligence officials say two US drone strikes in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan have killed 13 people, including a senior militant commander who had a truce with Pakistan's military.

The five officials say two missile strikes occurred early Thursday in the South and North Waziristan tribal areas.

They say the commander, Maulvi Nazir, was reportedly among nine people killed in the first strike in the village of Angoor Adda in South Waziristan.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

Residents in both Angoor Adda and Wana, the biggest town in South Waziristan, said they heard announcements on mosque loudspeakers announcing Nazir's death.

Reports of individual deaths are difficult to verify independently, and the US rarely comments on its secretive drone program.

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Bushfire watch and act in WA

A WATCH and act alert has been issued for residents of Narrikup in Western Australia's Great Southern Region as a plantation fire poses a possible threat to lives and homes.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services issued the warning for the eastern part of Narrikup at 6.50pm (WST) on Thursday after the fire started in a blue gum plantation.

"There is a possible threat to lives and homes as a fire is approaching the area and conditions are changing," it said in an advisory.

It urged affected residents to leave or get ready to actively defend their properties.

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Syria rebels assault northern airports

REBELS have launched assaults to try to take strategic airports in northern Syria.

Insurgents battled with troops on the perimeter of the Aleppo international airport on Thursday, besieging the nearby military Brigade 80 in an attempt to push through to the airport itself, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The United Nations on Wednesday said 60,000 people have been killed in the 21 months since Syria's rebellion started in March 2011.

The figure, described as "truly shocking" by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, was nearly a third higher than the toll previously given by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In other fighting on Thursday, hundreds of rebels from two hardcore Islamist groups, the Al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, fought soldiers around the Taftanaz airbase in the northwest province of Idlib, the British-based Observatory said.

The rebels had broken into the airport the day before after launching a car bomb at the main gate but were pushed back by the army.

The Aleppo facility is an important strategic prize in Syria's north, which is largely under rebel control.

The critical civilian transportation hub has been closed since Tuesday after repeated attacks by rebels, according to an airport official, who said it would reopen as soon as the army regained control of the surrounding areas.

Fighting in Aleppo city has been at a stalemate for months since opposition fighters launched a massive assault in mid-July.

Troops retaliated against rebel gains in the Aleppo area overnight, shelling insurgent strongholds in Sakhur district in the east of the city and the towns of Marea and Aazaz further north near the Turkish border.

Three rebels were meanwhile killed in combat with troops around the Deir Ezzor military airport, as fighting also broke out in the nearby provincial capital in the east of the country.

The armed opposition controls large swathes of land in the area stretching from Deir Ezzor city to Iraq in the east, including the Hamdan airport in the border town of Albu Kamal.

Near Damascus, deadly clashes broke out northeast of the capital while troops bombed Daraya to the southwest and brought in fresh reinforcements in an effort to regain control.

In the southeast, the army bombed Beit Saham near the Damascus airport road and the town of Maliha, where dozens were killed or wounded in an air raid on a petrol station the day before, according to the watchdog.

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Man flees scene after crashing stolen car

POLICE are searching for the driver of a stolen car who fled a crash in the ACT that left a man severely injured.

They say the wanted man was driving a stolen blue Ford Territory in Kambah when he struck a black Holden Commodore on Sulwood Drive about 5.45pm on Wednesday.

The Commodore caught fire after impact and the driver was trapped inside until passersby pulled him clear.

The driver of the stolen car fled the scene on foot while the injured man was taken to Canberra Hospital in a critical condition.

The wanted man is around 165cm tall and was wearing blue jeans and a dark shirt with white stripes, police said in a statement.

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Record number of Germans in jobs

THE number of people in Germany who have a job rose to a record high last year, even though growth momentum is slowing as the eurozone debt crisis hits the German labour market.

The number of people in work in Germany increased by 416,000 or 1.0 per cent to an annual average 41.5 million last year, the sixth annual record in a row, the national statistics office Destatis calculated on Wednesday.

"The rise in employment in the second half of the year was nevertheless not quite so strong as in 2011," the statisticians cautioned.

At the same time, the annual average jobless total declined by 162,000 to 2.34 million last year, Destatis said.

That meant the jobless rate - which measures the number of people out of work as a proportion of the working population as a whole - declined to an annual average 5.3 per cent for 2012 from 5.7 per cent in 2011.

December jobless data, calculated by the federal labour office, are scheduled to be published on Thursday.

AFP

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Iraq and Britain discuss prisoner swap

BAGHDAD and London are discussing a prisoner transfer deal that could see a British security guard convicted of murder in Iraq serve the remainder of his sentence in his home country, officials say.

Justice Minister Hassan al-Shammari has been invited to London to finalise and sign a memorandum of understanding over the transfer of convicts between the two countries, and while the deal would not solely affect Danny Fitzsimons, he would be a key beneficiary.

Fitzsimons became the first Western contractor to be convicted of a crime by an Iraqi court when he was sentenced to life in prison, equivalent to 20 years in jail under Iraqi law, in February 2011 for killing a Briton and an Australian in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone in August 2009.

"The British are insisting to make an agreement with Iraq, to take Danny Fitzsimons," justice ministry spokesman Haidar al-Saadi told AFP.

"We received an invitation from the (British) ambassador to go there and sign the agreement."

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a British diplomat told AFP the deal was "not targeted at any specific individual, but that's not to say he (Fitzsimons) won't benefit from it".

Fitzsimons, a former British soldier who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, had insisted throughout his trial that he had acted in self-defence during an alcohol-fuelled brawl.

He told the court in west Baghdad that fellow Briton Paul McGuigan and Australian Darren Hoare had burst into his room and pinned him down before pointing an M4 rifle at his face, prompting him to use his pistol to kill them. He also wounded an Iraqi guard before being detained.

Fitzsimons was the first Westerner to be tried in Iraq following the US-led invasion of 2003.

Foreign security contractors had not been subject to Iraqi law until the beginning of 2009, when a security agreement between the United States and Iraq lifted their immunity.

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Rebels attack airbase in northwest Syria

The new year in Syria has started with air strikes near Damascus and the closure of Aleppo airport. Source: AAP

REBELS have attacked Syrian regime troops stationed around an airbase in northwestern Syria, causing casualties on both sides.

Clashes between mostly jihadist rebel fighters and President Bashar al-Assad's forces at Taftanaz airbase in Idlib province killed four insurgents and an unknown number of soldiers on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

The rebel assault came after authorities announced the temporary closure of the international airport in Aleppo province on Tuesday, after days of attacks there by the insurgents who hold vast swathes of territory in northern Syria.

A local resident told AFP that the army was carrying out air raids around the Taftanaz base in an attempt to repel the multipronged attack headed by the Islamist groups the Al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham.

Fighting also broke out around the crucial Wadi Deif base, one of the last regime bastions in northwestern Syria, in a fresh jihadist-led bid to wrest control of the strategic post.

Insurgents captured the nearby town of Maaret al-Numan, located on the important Damascus-Aleppo highway, in October.

Near Damascus, regime forces bombarded districts to the southwest of the capital including Daraya, the site of a massacre last year, and where the army has been launching a fierce bid to regain control.

The observatory, which relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground to compile its tolls, reported that 104 people were killed nationwide on Tuesday, including 35 civilians.

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UK man shot dead at Thai NYE beach party

A 22-YEAR-OLD British tourist has been shot dead as he danced at a New Year party on one of Thailand's most famous islands after a fight between rival Thai gangs erupted on the beach, police say.

The holidaymaker was killed when a Thai man opened fire at a bar on the island of Koh Phangan in southern Thailand in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

"He was shot in the side while he was dancing on the beach," local policeman Lieutenant Colonel Somsak Noorod said, adding the area had been packed with revellers during the evening's New Year celebrations.

Police believe the gunman was aiming at members of a rival gang.

Phangan is a resort island in the Gulf of Thailand neighbouring Koh Samui and draws thousands of backpackers to its famous full moon parties.

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Bomb found near home of Delhi rape suspect

INDIAN police has arrested a man as he tried to plant a crude bomb near the home of one of the suspects in the New Delhi gang-rape case as a backlash against widespread sex crimes gathered steam.

As protests against harassment and violence against women continued, a chart-topping Indian rapper known for his sexually explicit lyrics also became embroiled in a growing campaign against sexism and misogyny in Indian society.

Yo Yo Honey Singh, whose hits include My Home My Village, saw his New Year's Eve concert in New Delhi cancelled following an online campaign which highlighted lyrics allegedly inciting abuse of women.

His 2007 track Prostitute refers to him having violent sex with a woman after he forces her to "dance naked" and includes the line: "You will scream and run but where can you go... I will take your life".

The furore over the rap star comes as the country comes to terms with the December 16 gang-rape in which a 23-year-old medical student was repeatedly assaulted and violated with an iron bar while being driven around in a bus for 40 minutes.

She died from internal injuries in a Singapore hospital at the weekend and her ashes were immersed Tuesday in the holy Ganges river by her family near their native village in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

The unnamed girl, whose parents had sold land to fund her studies, had been out to the cinema with her boyfriend when she was lured onto the bus by a gang of reportedly drunk joyriders.

Sexual violence and gang-rapes are commonplace in India, but the case has brought simmering anger - particularly among young urban women - to the boil and led to protests in the capital and calls for the death penalty for rapists.

Police said they had arrested a 37-year-old man on Tuesday in the narrow by-lanes of a slum in southwest Delhi after he allegedly tried to plant a crude bomb near the house of one of six suspects detained by police for the Delhi rape.

The low-grade device was filled with explosives usually used in firecrackers, a police official said.

Protests in India, which continued on Monday and on New Year's Eve, have also spilled to other parts of the world with people taking to the streets in Hong Kong, Islamabad, London and Kathmandu.

On Tuesday, about 30 women's rights activists protested outside the Indian consulate in Hong Kong, urging authorities to enact tougher laws to punish sex crimes.

The government, which has faced a wave of anger, has set up a panel headed by a former chief justice to recommend changes to the criminal law dealing with sexual crimes.

The panel, which was set up last week, had already received more than 17,000 suggestions until Monday, The Indian Express newspaper reported.

Also on Tuesday, the Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said the six suspects for the gang-rape risked the death penalty if found guilty and the case against them appeared very strong.

"We have a solid case with very good evidence... a magistrate has recorded the victim's dying declaration and we have a prime witness, the girl's friend, who has identified the rapists," Shinde told The Economic Times newspaper.

The victim's boyfriend, whom friends said she intended to marry, tried to prevent the rape and is likely to give crucial evidence during what is expected to be a fast-tracked trial.

Police are to file charges and present their evidence against the suspects - five men and a minor - on Thursday.

Delhi police have said their probe is almost complete, pending the arrival of an autopsy report from doctors in Singapore and the conclusions of forensic experts.

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Pope prays for peace at New Year mass

POPE Benedict XVI prayed for the "gift of peace" this year, condemning the inequality between rich and poor and "unregulated financial capitalism" at a New Year's mass in St Peter's Basilica.

The Pope spoke of "hotbeds of tension and confrontation caused by the growing inequality between rich and poor and the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mentality also expressed by unregulated financial capitalism."

But he also said that humanity had "an innate vocation for peace" and quoted from the Biblical passage: "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God."

Peacemakers "are like the yeast in the dough - they allow humanity to grow according to God's design," he said.

The Roman Catholic Church celebrates New Year's Day as World Peace Day.

The Pope later addressed a crowd in St Peter's Square with his traditional Angelus prayer and invoked the blessing of the Virgin Mary "like a mother blesses her children who are about to set off on a voyage."

"A new year is like a voyage. With the light and grace of God, may it be a voyage of peace for every person and every family, for every country and for the whole world," he said.

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Attacks down but Iraq in 'low-level war'

VIOLENCE in Iraq dropped in 2012, data shows, but insurgents proved they were still capable of mounting waves of attacks and a watchdog warned the country was still in a "low-level war".

The warnings, which come after the first full year since American forces completed their withdrawal in December 2011, were punctuated by a series of nationwide shootings and bombings on New Year's Eve in which 28 people were killed and nearly 100 wounded.

The latest violence came just days ahead of a major Shi'ite commemoration ceremony, and after more than a week of non-stop anti-government rallies in Sunni-majority areas where demonstrators allege targeting of their community by Iraq's Shi'ite-led authorities.

A total of 144 people were killed across Iraq last month, including 40 policemen and 15 soldiers, and 360 others were wounded, according to figures compiled by AFP based on reports from security and medical officials.

The monthly death toll was near 2012's low of 136 set in October.

And data released by Iraq's ministries of health, interior and defence said 2,174 people were killed throughout last year, sharply lower than in previous years, particularly compared to the height of the country's brutal sectarian war from 2005 to 2008 when tens of thousands were killed.

But Britain-based monitor group Iraq Body Count put the overall death toll at 4,471, more than double the official figures, though the last three months of 2012 represented a record low.

It warned in its annual report that "the country remains in a state of low-level war ... with a 'background' level of everyday armed violence punctuated by occasional larger-scale attacks designed to kill many people at once."

"2012 has been more consistent with an entrenched conflict than with any transformation in the security situation for Iraqis in the first year since the formal withdrawal of US troops," it said.

US troops withdrew in December 2011, though a small contingent of around 150 soldiers remains as part of a bilateral agreement to help train and supply Iraq's security forces.

Baghdad's police and military are widely agreed to be largely able to maintain internal security, but are not expected to be fully capable of defending Iraq's borders, airspace and waters until 2020.

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Over it - banish the term fiscal cliff

SPOILER alert: This story contains words and phrases that some people want to ban from the English language. 'Spoiler alert' is among them. So are 'kick the can down the road,' 'trending' and 'bucket list'.

A dirty dozen have landed on the 38th annual List of Words to be Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.

The nonbinding, tongue-in-cheek decree released on Monday by northern Michigan's Lake Superior State University is based on nominations submitted from the United States, Canada and beyond.

Spoiler alert, the seemingly thoughtful way to warn readers or viewers about looming references to a key plot point in a film or TV show, nevertheless passed its use-by date for many, including Joseph Foly, of Fremont, California.

He argued in his submission the phrase is "used as an obnoxious way to show one has trivial information and is about to use it, no matter what."

The phrase receiving the most nominations this year is 'fiscal cliff', banished because of its overuse by media outlets when describing across-the-board federal tax increases and spending cuts that economists say could harm the economy in the new year without congressional action.

University spokesman Tom Pink said that in nearly four decades, the Sault Ste. Marie school has "banished" around 900 words or phrases, and somehow the whole idea has survived rapidly advancing technology and diminishing attention spans.

Nominations used to come by mail, then fax and website, he said, and now most come through the university's Facebook page. That's fitting, since social media has helped accelerate the life cycle of certain words and phrases, such as this year's entry 'YOLO' - "you only live once."

"The list surprises me in one way or another every year, and the same way every year: I'm always surprised how people still like it, love it," he said.

As usual, the etymological exercise - or exorcise - only goes so far. Past lists haven't eradicated 'viral,' 'amazing,' 'LOL' or 'man cave' from everyday use.

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Sydney's firework go off with a roar

Sydney's lord mayor says the city is spending $6.6 million on its New Year's Eve event. Source: AAP

SYDNEY'S skyline has exploded in gold, pink, green and blue as part of the traditional New Year's Eve family-oriented curtain raiser.

The ten minute spectacular at 9pm (AEDT)- which illuminated the city and dazzled spectators - is a warm-up for the city's midnight show-stopper.

Under balmy and clear skies, tens of thousands of revellers lined Darling Harbour and other viewing hotspots, and about 1.5 million filled the harbour foreshore.

As streams of incandescent colour shot into the heavens, families on picnic blankets cheered and clapped along with others aboard luxury yachts.

Colours streamed from four barges situated around the harbour, with gold flashes cascading like tinsel as a gold butterfly-like design lit up the bridge.

At one stage fireworks fell from the structure like a waterfall, with the display reaching a kaleidoscopic climax of green, red and blue fireworks.

"It was all great, amazing," said Lee Whittaker, from Denistone, who brought her kids Mel and Leon with her.

Kallya Alffonso, from Maroubra, said festivities in Sydney were much better than her native Brazil.

"Sydney is a very pretty city, the Harbour Bridge and Opera House make it looks spectacular," she said.

"It's the spirit too, everybody is here together, and it's just the whole atmosphere."

Event organisers estimate a record 130,000 people packed Sydney's Darling Harbour for the 9pm display.

"There is definitely more people here than last year," organiser Sal Sharah told AAP.

"We've had great weather and a great lead up to this evening."

The early show was greeted with cheers from the thousands of spectators at Lady Macquarie's Chair, many of whom had waited much of the day under a hot sun.

"I think they were awesome," said nine-year-old Nell Whittaker.

"I loved the sparkle effect, and they were really loud too."

A much-hyped show-stopper is then set to wow the world at midnight.

All eyes are on Sydney, one of the first major cities to ring in the new year, with more than a billion people expected to tune in to watch the $6.6 million party worldwide.

Many local partygoers are only now emerging to gather at pubs and clubs in time for midnight.

Others will cram onto rooftops or gather in backyards for a VB and sausage sambo to say goodbye to 2012

Celebrations in Sydney dwarf rival cities, with only 100,000 attending Paris fireworks, while 700,000 revellers gather for festivities in London.

Pop princess Kylie Minogue, chosen as the event's creative ambassador, will be honoured with a one-of-a-kind sparkling musical note firework at the turn of the year.

The semiquaver will be one of 100,000 individual pyrotechnic creations this year, including brand new koala, octopus and hand images up in lights.

People going to the CBD to watch the fireworks have been urged to leave their cars behind and take public transport, with road closures in place and extra + and buses laid on for the night.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge will be closed in both directions from 11pm on Monday to 1am on Tuesday.

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UK singer remanded on child sex charges

ROCKER Ian Watkins has reappeared before a Welsh court to face allegations of plotting to rape a baby girl.

The 35-year-old vocalist, whose band Lostprophets has sold more than 3.5 million records worldwide, was arrested with two women earlier in December.

As well as being charged with conspiring to rape a child under the age of 13, Watkins faces five other sex abuse charges.

They include conspiring to engage in sexual activity with two young children as well as making, downloading and distributing child pornography and accessing "extreme pornography" - relating to animals.

During a previous hearing at Cardiff Magistrates Court, Watkins' legal team said the Last Summer singer would be denying the charges against him.

He was remanded in custody over the Christmas period with two women - who face similar child sex charges.

The pair, aged 20 and 22, cannot be named for legal reasons.

On Monday Watkins and his co-defendants appeared in Cardiff Crown Court via video-link.

All three only spoke to confirm their names at the preliminary hearing, a formality in the legal process, which lasted less than 10 minutes.

Watkins was refused bail and remanded in custody with a plea and case management hearing scheduled at Cardiff Crown Court for March 11.

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Iran tests weapons near Strait of Hormuz

IRAN'S navy says it has test-fired a range of weapons during ongoing manoeuvres near the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for one-fifth of the world's oil supply.

The Monday report by the official IRNA news agency quotes exercise spokesman Admiral Amir Rastgari as saying the Iranian-made air defence system Raad, or Thunder, was among the weapons tested.

Iran says the system fires missiles with a range of 50km, capable of hitting targets at 22,000m.

He said torpedoes and underwater and surface-to-surface rockets were also successfully tested.

The drill began Friday and ends Wednesday. It's one of a number of exercises Iran holds annually.

Iran has in the past said it might close the strait over Western sanctions, but has not made such threats recently.

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East Timor hailed a UN success

TROOPS sent by Australia and New Zealand have all gone home and only a handful of United Nations police will be left when the UN flag comes down in East Timor's capital of Dili after six years.

"As of Monday, the liquidation team will be there. They are the ones who are unscrewing all the lightbulbs," said Ameerah Haq, UN under-secretary general and former head of the UN mission in East Timor.

The UN played a key role in the birth of East Timor, officially known as Timor Leste. It organised the 1999 referendum that ended 24 years of Indonesian occupation in which an estimated 183,000 people died through conflict, starvation or disease.

It helped run East Timor until 2002 when an independent government took over.

For many Timorese leaders it was a national humiliation to seek UN help in 2006 when soldiers sacked from the army launched a mutiny which sparked factional violence that left dozens dead and 150,000 people in makeshift camps.

"You don't want to say that a country learned by crisis," said Haq, but in this case there was "good benefit" from the Timorese seeing in a few days the burning, looting and destruction threatening all they had built in the past seven years.

"They just saw it collapse before their eyes and it was like: we did this to ourselves," she told AFP.

"It was a watershed moment in their experience."

The UN was able to make an impact because it was the East Timorese government which asked for help and working in a country the size of Timor was not like bringing peace to Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"In Timor, everything happened as it should," Haq said. "We had great access to the leadership, we had complete freedom of movement within the country."

The country has now had two relatively calm presidential elections, the 3000-strong police force has been retrained district by district, and the judiciary reformed.

Haq said she had seen political tensions boil up again. There were times when she would tell political leaders to "tone down the rhetoric".

"They would always tell me 'we all struggled together, we all saw what happened in 2006'," she said.

"They always assured me they would always stop short of the trigger. I learned to have confidence in that."

The big powers are now taking a more intense look at East Timor, which has significant oil and gas reserves even though it remains one of the most impoverished countries.

As a result US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited in September and China built the presidential palace and military headquarters.

Brazil is also a key source of aid while Cuba has trained hundreds of Timorese doctors.

Haq said East Timor knows that it must now concentrate on lifting the half of the 1.1 million population living below the poverty line.

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Syrian troops hit Homs, kill 23 children

SYRIAN regime forces have pressed a fierce offensive in Homs after overrunning a key neighbourhood of the central city, according to a watchdog, which also listed 23 children killed in violence across the country.

The latest bloodletting on Sunday came after international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned in Moscow that Syria was facing a choice between "hell or the political process" after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army, after Saturday seizing the Deir Baalbeh district in fighting which left dozens dead, fired off barrages of rockets into surrounding rebel-held neighbourhoods on Sunday as it sought to capitalise on its victory.

Troops also bombarded the nearby opposition stronghold of Rastan.

The Britain-based Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of activists and medics in civilian and military hospitals, said the final death toll from Saturday's clashes had not been finalised due to communications difficulties in the area.

A video released by the Syrian Revolution General Commission, a grassroots network of anti-regime activists, showed the bodies of nine male victims from Deir Baalbeh lying on the ground, their faces bloody and mutilated.

The authenticity of the video could not immediately be verified.

Near the capital on Sunday, loyalist troops carried out air raids on towns along the eastern outlying belt and on Daraya in the southwest, while fighting between rebels and the army erupted in the northeastern and southwestern suburbs.

The Observatory said 13 children were among the victims of bombardments in and around Damascus on Saturday, while 10 children were killed in air strikes across Aleppo province, including on rebel-held Aazaz near the Turkish border.

Analysts said the surge in air strikes by Syrian forces were a desperate attempt by President Bashar al-Assad's regime to reverse rampant gains by rebel fighters, especially in the north of the country.

Meanwhile, rebels made further advances on Sunday in the battle for the Hamidiyeh military post in the northwest province of Idlib which they stormed the previous day, the watchdog said.

During Sunday's clashes, three insurgents were wounded by machinegun fire, while warplanes raided a nearby village, the Observatory said.

A takeover of the Hamidiyeh post would pave the way for a rebel offensive against the nearby Wadi Deif base, one of the government's last outposts in the north.

Opposition fighters, mostly from the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, have been closing in on the base since overrunning the nearby town of Maaret al-Numan in early October.

In the south, a rebel was killed on Sunday in battles for control of several small border crossings along the regime-held frontier with Jordan, the Observatory said.

Syria and Jordan share a 370-kilometre-long border which hundreds of people cross on foot every day to escape the bloody civil war that the Observatory says has killed at least 45,000 people.

Brahimi on Saturday held talks with Lavrov on his end-of-year bid to accelerate moves to halt the Syria conflict.

He painted a stark picture of Syrian neighbours Jordan and Lebanon being overrun by a million refugees should heavy fighting for the seat of power break out in Syria's five-million-strong capital.

If this fighting "develops into something uglier ... (refugees) can go to only two places - Lebanon and Jordan", Brahimi said.

"So if the alternative is hell or the political process, we have all of us got to work ceaselessly for a political process," he said.

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Russia investigates Moscow plane crash

RUSSIAN medics have begun identifying the bodies of four crew killed when a passenger jet careened off the runway of a Moscow international airport and smashed into a highway.

Rescue workers recovered the flight recorders from the four-year-old Tu-204 of tycoon Alexander Lebedev's Red Wings airlines late on Saturday as Russia began mourning its latest post-Soviet crash.

"The plane touched down in the proper landing area but for some reason was unable to stop on the strip," Federal Air Transport Agency chief Alexander Neradko said in televised remarks.

A bigger loss of life was averted only because the 210-seat liner was empty except for eight crew on their return from a charter flight to the Czech Republic.

Mobile-phone footage of the accident posted on the internet showed large chunks of debris hurtling over the highway and smashing into cars speeding on the highway whose drivers had to make sudden emergency stops.

The jet split into three pieces and required the temporary shutdown of both the Kiev Highway and Vnukovo, Moscow's third-largest airport and the site of a special terminal for Kremlin officials.

A security source said investigators had brushed aside poor weather conditions or pilot error and were focusing on technical problems with the Tupolev as the most likely cause.

"According to preliminary information, the Vnukovo catastrophe may have been caused by problems with the plane, which became exposed in difficult weather conditions," the unnamed official told the Interfax news agency.

Witnesses said heavy gusts accompanying a light snowfall were swirling over the airport at the time the plane came in for landing on Saturday afternoon.

Red Wings owner Lebedev - a billionaire famous for his critical view of the Kremlin and his ownership of the London Evening Standard and The Independent in Britain - said the jet had passed a meticulous check in November.

"Plane number 47 had accumulated 8500 flight hours and underwent its last serious check on November 23," Lebedev tweeted.

He also suggested that traffic controllers' initial refusal to authorise landing - requiring the plane to complete several circles over Vnukovo - might have been a contributing factor.

"All machinery has its limits, even when it is new," Lebedev wrote.

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French paper to publish comic on Mohammed

A FRENCH weekly known for publishing cartoons of Prophet Mohammed to the ire of conservative Muslims says it plans to release a comic book biography of Islam's founder that will be researched and educational.

Satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has on several occasions depicted Islam's prophet in an effort to defend free speech and defy the anger of Muslims who believe depicting Mohammed is sacrilegious.

"It is a biography authorised by Islam since it was edited by Muslims," said Charlie Hebdo's publisher and the comic's illustrator, who goes by the name Charb.

"I don't think higher Muslim minds could find anything inappropriate," Charb said on Sunday.

The biography will be published on Wednesday and was put together by a Franco-Tunisian researcher known only as Zineb, Charb said.

The publisher said the idea for the comic book came to him in 2006 when a newspaper in Denmark published cartoons of Mohammed, later republished by Charlie Hebdo, drawing angry protests across the Muslim world.

"Before having a laugh about a character, it's better to know him. As much as we know about the life of Jesus, we know nothing about Mohammed," Charb said.

In September, Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of a naked Mohammed as violent protests were taking place in several countries over a low-budget film made in the United States that insults the prophet.

In 2011 Charlie Hebdo's offices were hit by a firebomb and its website pirated after publishing an edition titled "Charia Hebdo" featuring several Mohammed cartoons.

Charb, who has received death threats, lives under police protection.

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