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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French army raid in Somalia leaves 19 dead

TWO French soldiers and 17 militants have been killed in a failed bid to free a French hostage held by Islamists in southern Somalia since 2009, French's defence minister says.

The overnight operation was launched by France's elite DGSE secret service, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a statement on Saturday.

He added that the raid was sparked by the "intransigence of the terrorists who have refused to negotiate for three and a half years and were holding Denis Allex in inhuman conditions".

But the al-Shabab militants denied Le Drian's assertion that they had killed the hostage, a secret agent whose alias is Denis Allex, adding that they would decide his fate in two days and issuing a stern warning to Paris.

Two French soldiers "lost their lives (and) 17 terrorists were killed" in the battle, Le Drian said, offering the "most sincere condolences" to the dead soldiers' families and praising the men for their "courage and remarkable work".

He said the families of the dead soldiers had been informed.

An al-Shabab statement said "in the end, it will be the French citizens who will inevitably taste the bitter consequences of their government's devil-may-care attitude towards hostages".

Sheikh Mohamed Abdallah, a local al-Shabab military commander, said: "Mujahedeen fighters defeated the so-called commandos of the French government who tried to rescue a hostage, and they (the commandos) left the bodies of several of their own at the site of the attack."

Abdallah is the commander of Bulomarer, where the raid allegedly took place.

The al-Shabab statement said the French carried away "several" of their dead.

"The helicopters attacked a house ... upon the assumption that Denis Allex was being held at that location, but owing to a fatal intelligence blunder, the rescue mission turned disastrously wrong.

"Several French soldiers were killed in the battle and many more were injured before they fled from the scene of battle, leaving behind some military paraphernalia and even one of their comrades on the ground.

"The injured French soldier is now in the custody of the mujahedeen and Allex still remains safe and far from the location of the battle."

A Bulomarer resident, Idris Youssouf, said: "We don't know exactly what happened because the attack took place at night, but this morning we saw several corpses including that of a white man.

"Three civilians were also killed in the gunfight," he said.

The French secret agent was kidnapped in Somalia in July 2009 along with a colleague who was freed the following month.

Four military helicopters were used in the raid on al-Shabab-controlled Bulomarer, some 110 kilometres south of the Somali capital Mogadishu, witnesses said.

Al-Shabab has lost its main strongholds in the south and centre of the country following an offensive launched in mid-2011 by an African Union force, but they still control some rural areas.

Allex appeared in a video in June 2010 appealing to Paris to drop its support for the Somali government.

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Measles alert in Brisbane and Mount Isa

RESIDENTS of Brisbane and Mount Isa could have been exposed to measles when a traveller returned from abroad with the disease, Queensland health officials say.

The traveller returned home from Asia on January 2 while still infectious with measles after picking up the disease overseas.

The infected person flew into Brisbane where they spent the day before flying to Mount Isa.

The Queensland Department of Health is urging anyone who was at the Brisbane International Airport abound 1am (AEST) on January 2 or in the the Brisbane CBD the same day to seek immediate medical advice if they feel unwell.

People at the city's domestic airport about 6am on January 3 or anyone who flew to Mount Isa that morning should also be on alert for symptoms.

Measles can be spread by droplets expelled during coughing or sneezing.

Early symptoms include fever, lethargy, a moist cough and sore and red eyes, followed a few days later by a red rash.

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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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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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China landslide kills dozens

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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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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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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Depardieu to face trial after no-show

Actor Gerard Depardieu could now face a prison sentence after failing to turn up in a French court. Source: AAP

ACTOR Gerard Depardieu will face trial for drunken driving after failing to show up before a French court on Tuesday for a hearing that would have allowed him to resolve the case out of court, French media reports said.

Depardieu, 64, who has admitted to driving his scooter drunk in Paris on November 29, was summoned to appear on Tuesday before a prosecutor to discuss his case. He had indicated he would plead guilty and accept a punishment proposed by the prosecution.

But the controversial actor, who travelled to Russia at the weekend to meet with President Vladimir Putin and receive a Russian passport, failed to show up to the hearing. His lawyer, Eric de Caumont, told reporters his client was "abroad for professional reasons."

Depardieu, who is embroiled in a highly public tax row with the French government, has admitted to the charges.

The actor, who is famous for his boozing, was caught drink driving after he crashed his scooter. A breathalyser test showed he had a blood alcohol level of 1.8 grams per litre, more than three times the legal limit.

Drunken driving carries a fine of 4,500 euros ($A5,664) and a sentence of up to two years in prison.

On Tuesday the prosecution had been expected to discuss a punishment with him that, had he accepted, would have been quickly confirmed by a judge.

His absence from the meeting means he must now stand trial in a criminal court, Le Figaro newspaper and other media quoted his lawyer as saying.

Depardieu has been in the headlines for the past month, since it emerged that he had taken up residency in Belgium to avoid France's punishing wealth taxes.

A war of words erupted after Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault labelled his move to the Belgian village of Nechin, two kilometres from France, "pathetic."

Stung by the remarks, Depardieu announced plans to renounce his French citizenship. Shortly afterwards, Putin stepped in with the offer of shelter in his country, which Depardieu made a show of accepting during a visit last weekend.

During the trip, he visited the remote region of Mordovia, famous for its concentration of gulags. Local residents presented him with two kittens among other gifts and invited him to make his home there.

The visit transformed Depardieu, once one of the France's best loved actors, into an object of derision.

In an interview on Monday in the Swiss city of Zurich, where he attended FIFA's Ballon d'Or ceremony, he denied he was turning his back on his homeland.

"I have a Russian passport, but I remain French and I will probably have dual Belgian nationality," he told L'Equipe 21 sports channel.

"If I'd wanted to escape the taxman, as the French press say, I would have done it a long time ago."

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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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Bahrain court upholds life terms

BAHRAIN'S highest court has upheld jail sentences against 20 opposition figures - including eight sentenced to life in prison - in a decision likely to touch off more street protests in the violence-wracked Gulf nation and bring renewed criticism from its Western allies.

The group includes a rights activist who staged a 110-day hunger strike last year to protest the verdicts and is part of widespread crackdowns on dissent since an Arab Spring-inspired uprising began nearly two years ago in the strategic island kingdom, which is home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet.

Bahrain's majority Shi'ites, who have led sporadic unrest in past decades, claim they face systematic discrimination at the hands of the Sunni monarchy. Bahrain's rulers have offered some reforms, including giving more powers to the elected parliament, but protest leaders say they fall short of demands for a role in key government affairs.

More than 55 people have died in the unrest since February 2011 and many opposition leaders and activists have been arrested, including the group of 20 charged with "plotting to overthrow" the ruling system.

Defence lawyer Jalil al-Aradi said the court refused to reconsider the sentences or convictions, which were originally handed down in 2011 by a military-led tribunal created under temporary martial law-style rules. The group has claimed they faced abuses while in custody.

Among the eight sentenced to life is rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who staged a more than three-month hunger strike last year in protest. The other 12 have sentences ranging from five to 15 years, with seven convicted in absentia.

The case has brought international pressure on Bahrain, including efforts by Denmark to free al-Khawaja, who also holds Danish citizenship. Scattered protests broke out in Bahrain shortly after the court decision, which could close all further appeal options.

"The Bahrain regime is pushing its human rights crisis closer to the edge," said Brian Dooley, director of the human rights defenders program at US-based Human Rights First.

Last year, the official Bahrain News Agency said the charges include "plotting to overthrow the regime" and having "foreign intelligence contacts" - a reference to Shi'ite powerhouse Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon. Bahraini leaders have accused Iran of having links to the protesters. Tehran has strongly criticised crackdowns against Shi'ites in Bahrain, but denies any active assistance.

A government statement at the time said the court "provided all assurances of a fair trial" and allowed defence lawyers full access to the defendants. It also said they received "full medical care" in prison.

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BBC's Hall denies sex abuse charges

VETERAN BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall has appeared in court to plead not guilty to the sexual abuse of three girls.

The 82-year-old former It's A Knockout star gave his full name as James Stuart Hall when he was called before the bench for the brief hearing at Preston Magistrates' Court.

Hall was asked by the clerk of the court if he understood that he faced three separate charges of indecent assault and if he wanted to enter a plea.

He replied: "Yes I do. Not guilty to all three charges."

Hall was allowed to sit down in the witness box while further details of the charges were given.

Joanne Cunliffe, prosecuting, said the case should be sent to crown court because they are too serious to be dealt with at magistrates' court.

Outlining the charges she said Hall is alleged to have fondled the breast of one girl, then aged 16 or 17, between September 1, 1974 and December 31, 1974 in Blackpool.

On a second occasion he is alleged to have molested a nine-year-old girl by touching some time between January 1, 1983 and December 31, 1983 and the third alleged indecent assault is that he kissed a 13-year-old girl on the lips, on an occasion between July 1, 1984 and September 27, 1984.

None of the alleged victims can be named for legal reasons.

Louise Straw, defending, told District Judge Peter Ward there would be no objection to the case being sent to the Crown Court, where the matter would go before a jury.

District Judge Ward granted Hall bail on condition that he lives at his home address in Prestbury Road in Wilmslow, Cheshire, and that he has no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 17.

"You do understand that?" he asked Hall.

"Yes, of course," the defendant replied.

Hall was bailed until April 16 for a next appearance at Preston Crown Court.

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Value in traditional baby tips: professor

PRAMS should be pushed aside in favour of carrying babies upright to aid quicker development, says a lauded scientist.

Traditional child-rearing techniques dating back to primitive tribes can offer valuable tips for modern parenting, Pulitzer prize-winning professor Jared Diamond said in his new book, The World Until Yesterday.

Quickly comforting a crying baby, letting babies sleep next to their parents, regular physical contact, and carrying them upright facing outwards "may result in a more self-assured child", the US academic wrote.

"I have worked with traditional New Guinea peoples for 50 years," Prof Diamond said in an interview published by British tabloid the Daily Express.

"Many other westerners have worked with other traditional societies, including the pygmies of African rainforests and the Piraha Indians of Brazil. We are struck by how emotionally secure, self confident, curious and autonomous the members of those small-scale societies are, not only as adults but already as children.

"That's surely as a result of how they are raised as children."

The theory coincides with a rise in popularity of papoose carriers, which commonly see youngsters held on mum or dad's chest, facing forward.

"We moderns can learn from what worked well for such a long time," father-of-two Prof Diamond said.

"It is only relatively recently that some of these practices became unfashionable.

"I suggest that it is time to consider some of them seriously again."

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Irukandji sting suspected on Fraser Island

AN eight-year-old with a suspected irukandji sting has been winched off Fraser Island and airlifted to hospital.

The Gold Coast girl was stung on her right arm while swimming at Awinya Creek on the western side of Fraser Island on Monday.

She suffered severe pain, nausea and abdominal cramping.

The AGL Action Rescue Helicopter attended the scene, where the child and her mother were winched up to the helicopter.

The girl was airlifted to Hervey Bay Hospital and is in a stable condition.

In the past nine days, the AGL Action Rescue Helicopter has flown to the aid of seven people suffering jellyfish stings while swimming on the western side of Fraser Island.

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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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Assad outlines new Syria peace plan

SYRIAN President Bashar Assad has outlined a new peace initiative that includes a national reconciliation conference and a new government and constitution but has demanded regional and Western countries stop funding and arming rebels first.

Assad ignored international demands for him to step down and said he is ready to hold a dialogue with those "who have not betrayed Syria".

Syrian opposition forces, including rebels on the ground, are likely to reject Assad's proposal.

They have repeatedly said they will accept nothing less than the president's departure, dismissing any kind of settlement that leaves him in the picture.

"We are in a state of war. We are fighting an external aggression that is more dangerous than any others, because they use us to kill each other," he said.

He stressed the presence of religious extremists and jihadi elements among those fighting in Syria, calling them "terrorists who carry the ideology of al-Qaeda" and "servants who know nothing but the language of slaughter."

Assad was speaking on Sunday in a rare address to the nation, his first since June. He spoke to a packed hall at the Opera House in central Damascus, and the audience frequently often broke out in cheers and applause.

Wearing a suit and tie, the president spoke before a collage of pictures of what appeared to be Syrians who have been killed since March 2011.

The internet was cut in many parts of Damascus ahead of the address, apparently for security reasons.

As in previous speeches, Assad said his forces were fighting groups of "murderous criminals" and jihadi elements and denied that there was an uprising against his family's decades-long rule.

He struck a defiant tone, saying Syria will not take dictates from anyone but urged Syrians to unite to save the country.

"The first part of a political solution would require regional powers to stop funding and arming (the rebels), an end to terrorism and controlling the borders," he said.

He said this would then be followed by dialogue and a national reconciliation conference and the formation of a wide representative government which would then oversee new elections, a new constitution and general amnesty.

However, Assad made clear his offer to hold a dialogue is not open to those whom he considers extremists or carrying out a foreign agenda.

"We never rejected a political solution ... but with whom should we talk? With those who have extremist ideology who only understand the language of terrorism?" he said.

"Or should we with negotiate puppets whom the West brought. ... We negotiate with the master not with the slave."

As in previous speeches and interviews, he clung to the view that the crisis in Syria was a foreign-backed agenda and said it was not an uprising against his rule.

"Is this a revolution and are these revolutionaries? By God I say they are a bunch of criminals," he said.

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