Enforce IED ban, UN tells Afghan Taliban

THE UN has urged Afghanistan's Taliban leadership to enforce their ban on improvised explosive devices, a day after 19 wedding guests were killed by a roadside bomb in the north of the country.

"Although the Taliban... leader Mullah Omar banned the use of anti-personnel landmines in 1998, denouncing such weapons as un-Islamic and anti-human, anti-government elements continue to use" them, a UN statement said.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan "calls on the Taliban leadership to publicly reiterate a ban on these weapons and to stop their use", it said, adding that IEDs caused "devastating harm to civilians".

The call comes a day after a roadside explosion killed 19 civilians, most of them women and children who were on their way to a wedding party in Dawlat Abad district of the northern Balkh province.

A Taliban spokesman on Saturday denied their involvement in the incident, saying their fighters were not present in the area, a claim that was contested by the UN.

"Taliban operatives active in Dawlat Abad... are suspected of planting the landmine-like pressure plate IED, which is consistent with documented patterns and tactics of choice by the Taliban," the statement said.

According to an earlier UN statement, 1145 civilians were killed in the war in the first six months of this year, with 80 per cent of the deaths blamed on insurgents.

More than half were caused by roadside bombs.

Last year as a whole, a record 3021 civilians died in the war, the UN has said.

It blames insurgents for 80 per cent of the civilian casualties in 2012, saying pro-government forces, which include US-led NATO soldiers, were responsible for 10 per cent.

Women and children accounted for about 30 per cent of this year's casualties, again mostly victims of roadside bombs.

IEDs are also responsible for a large percentage of the deaths among the NATO force helping fight the Taliban.

The foreign combat troops are due to withdraw by the end of 2014.

AF

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Somali pirates free ship after 2 years

A PIRATE commander in Somalia says that a cargo ship has been freed after being held captive for nearly two years.

Hassan Abdi said on Saturday that a $US600,000 ransom was paid for the MV Orna on Friday.

But he said six hostages are still being held by the pirates on land.

Pirates shot and killed one of the ship's crew members in August over delayed ransom payments.

Abdi said that other ships towed the vessel away because it had run out of fuel.

The MV Orna, which is owned by a UAE company, was hijacked 400 nautical miles northeast of the Seychelles in December 2010.

Indian Ocean pirate hijackings are down drastically this year thanks to improved on-board defences, but pirates still hold six ships and some 170 crew members.

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Libya 'not fully liberated' after Gaddafi

THE new Libyan authorities say the country has not yet been "fully" liberated, exactly a year since the killing of Muammar Gaddafi and against the backdrop of clashes in one of his last bastions.

"The campaign to liberate the country has not been fully completed," Mohammed Megaryef, the head of Libya's national assembly, said in remarks broadcast on state television.

He singled out the oasis town of Bani Walid, scene of deadly clashes over the past week and one of the final strongholds of Gaddafi's dictatorial regime during the 2011 revolution that ousted and killed him.

Megaryef, president of the democratically elected General National Congress, gave a sombre assessment of the post-Gaddafi period and warned that remnants of the former regime still pose a threat.

He pointed to "delays and negligence" in the formation of a professional army and police force, and the failure to disarm and integrate former rebels into state institutions.

Megaryef stressed that delays in reactivating and reforming the judiciary had also hampered reconciliation in what marks a critical transition period for the oil-rich country.

"This situation has created a state of discontent and tension among different segments of society and contributed to the spread of chaos, disorder, corruption and weakness in the performance of various government agencies," Megaryef said.

This benefited "remnants of the former regime which have infiltrated the organs of the state, maybe even its leadership, and are plotting against the revolution with the help of others who are abroad".

The weakness of the state, he continued, has allowed groups with or without ties to the former regime to defy the law and carry out arbitrary arrests, torture, blackmail and looting.

"They even dared to establish their own prisons," Megaryef said in apparent reference to armed militias, some of which have their own detention centres and act as a law unto themselves.

Libya's top official reserved his sharpest criticism for the town of Bani Walid, which is seen by many as a hideout for regime loyalists and criminal gangs, and endorsed military operations there.

"Bani Walid's misfortune is that it has become a sanctuary for a large number of outlaws and anti-revolutionaries and mercenaries," Megaryef said.

Forces linked to the army, the majority of them former rebels, encircled the hilltop town this month in a bid to bring to justice the men who kidnapped and allegedly tortured an ex-rebel credited with capturing Gaddafi.

Fighting around Bani Walid this week has killed more than 10 people.

Megaryef stressed that the operations underway "do not target this brave city or its people, rather they target culprits, wanted people, the accused and infiltrators among its honourable residents".

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Gaddafi ex-spokesman arrested: Libya govt

THE office of the Libyan prime minister says that slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's former spokesman has been captured at a checkpoint outside the besieged town of Bani Walid.

The statement carried by the state news agency on Saturday says Moussa Ibrahim was captured by the forces of the interim Libyan government at a checkpoint in the town of Tarhouna.

The statement says Ibrahim is being taken to Tripoli to be questioned.

It didn't specify when he was captured.

The urbane, English-speaking Ibrahim became the voice of the regime in its final year, often appearing on television defending it.

Libyan forces have surrounded Bani Walid, which they describe as a final bastion of sympathisers of Gaddafi's regime.

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Austerity not holding back Ireland: IMF

THE International Monetary Fund has denied austerity measures are to blame for the sluggish Irish economy, saying that other factors are keeping growth flat.

Greece, Portugal and Ireland are complaining that the Fund underestimated the economic and social impact of drastic spending cuts and tax hikes in the bailout programs, but a senior IMF official said that was not the problem in Ireland.

The pace of the EU-IMF rescue program "has struck an appropriate balance and continues to do so for the period ahead, enabling Ireland to make steady progress in reducing fiscal imbalances while protecting the still fragile economic recovery," Ajai Chopra, deputy director in the IMF's European Department, said in a statement.

"With overburdened bank, household and SME (small and medium sized business) balance sheets, and weak growth in trading partners, a number of factors besides fiscal consolidation have been a drag on growth in Ireland," he said.

The IMF recently admitted that it had underestimated in Greece how deep the "fiscal consolidation," or austerity measures, in its bailout plan would force the economy into recession.

Critics say the severity of the measures are to blame for Greece's inability to get back to growth.

At issue was a revision of its "fiscal multiplier," which IMF economists use to estimate the impact of various actions, like spending cuts, on the economy.

The admission that the IMF got it wrong in Greece has been taken up by other countries undergoing IMF-European Union bailouts, with countries arguing for easier adjustment terms to cope with slower-than-expected growth.

Ireland sought an 85-billion-euro ($A108.01 billion) EU-IMF rescue package in November 2010 after it was devastated by the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

As part of the rescue, Ireland agreed to painful austerity measures including spending cutbacks, state asset sales and tax hikes.

But growth has not returned as soon as hoped - last month the IMF forecast the Irish economy would expand a bare 0.4 per cent this year, if growth picks up in the second half as expected.

Since the IMF reassessed its multiplier, Irish officials have called for less austere reform requirements to encourage faster growth.

But Chopra argued that "in the current discussion of the impact of fiscal adjustment on growth, it is important to note that no single fiscal multiplier is applicable to all countries and circumstances".

"And although there is uncertainty around any estimate of multipliers, there is no compelling evidence that a higher multiplier was at work in Ireland than the one assumed under the program."

The IMF has been fighting pressure to ease austere reform terms in all the countries undergoing bailouts since the review of the multiplier.

On Thursday, IMF's Portugal mission chief Abebe Aemro Selassie told Lisbon that there is no way around a new, strong budget squeeze to reduce debt and return to capital markets.

In the face of public anger over tax increases, Selassie said it was "imperative" to press on with further measures.

"Debt remains high, and to ensure full recovery, the country needs to contain it," he warned.

"Portugal also needs to ensure that it can finance itself again at reasonable rates. This means that fiscal adjustment is imperative and needs to continue."

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ACT voters tipped to return Labor

ACT voters will head to the polls on Saturday, with Labor widely expected to be returned to power for an historic fourth consecutive term.

Betting markets were so sure the government would rack up another win, one bookmaker decided to pay out on Friday.

Sportsbet spokesman Shaun Anderson said his punters might as well enjoy their winnings a day early after Labor's odds to win firmed from $1.50 to $1.04 and support for the Liberals moved from $3.50 to $5.50.

Mr Anderson said 99 per cent of all bets Sportsbet took on the election had gone on Labor.

Labor appears set to keep its seven seats, leaving the Liberals with six in 17-member Legislative Assembly.

The ACT Greens emerged as kingmakers at the last election and are expected to continue in that role by retaining their four seats in this weekend's election.

Chief Minister Katy Gallagher's government has come under fire from the Liberal opposition for being "in coalition" with the Greens.

But Ms Gallagher says there have been plenty of times in the Legislative Assembly over the last term when the two parties disagreed.

Liberal leader Zed Seselja says territorians are disappointed with the Greens and ruled out offering them a ministry - unlike in 2008, when he put up both the deputy chief ministership and another ministry as incentives for their support.

Greens leader Meredith Hunter has told both sides her party is ready to negotiate, whatever the outcome.

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Bosnia scrap metal thief nicks iron bridge

A BOSNIAN scrap metal dealer raised his sights from stealing and illegally selling metal drain covers and made off with an entire iron bridge, local police in the northeast of the country say.

"A few hours after we were informed about this most unusual crime we detained a suspect, a man of 29, at his home," Mile Jurosevic of the police in Brcko in northeast Bosnia said.

"We also found in the courtyard in front of his house the metal structure of the bridge, cut in two to make it easier to transport."

He said that the bridge, which is 12 metres long and weighs several tonnes, was stolen on Wednesday night at Dizdarusa, a suburb of Brcko.

"The metal structure was unscrewed from its base and dragged several metres to the nearest road" before being loaded on to a truck, he said.

The bridge was in a farming area through which a small river runs and was regularly used by several families to reach their fields, Zejneba Pasalic, a local woman told the press.

She had been astonished to discover the disappearance of the bridge and alerted the police.

The bridge was built in the 1980s by local people using scrap railway tracks, she said.

Bosnia is one of Europe's poorest countries with an unemployment rate of 40 per cent.

Hundreds of people, including entire families, collect scrap metal which can be sold locally for 0.20 euros ($A0.25) a kilo.

The vanishing drain covers, stolen and sold on the local black market, pose a real problem for the local authorities.

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French racist posts to be pulled: Twitter

TWITTER has agreed to pull racist and anti-Semitic tweets under a pair of French hash tags after a Jewish group threatened to sue the social network for running afoul of national laws against hate speech, the organisation said.

The decision came a day after Twitter bowed to German law and blocked an account of a banned neo-Nazi group there.

The freewheeling social network is increasingly running up against European anti-discrimination laws, many of which date to the aftermath of the Holocaust by governments that acknowledged the contribution of years of hate speech to the Nazi attempt to annihilate the Jews.

Twitter's action, which was not carried out immediately, would mark a dramatic new stage for the company that has famously refused efforts to police its millions of users.

"Twitter does not mediate content," the company said in a statement.

"If we are alerted to content that may be in violation of our terms of service, we will investigate each report and respond according to the policies and procedures outlined in our support pages."

The company's policies require international users to comply with local laws regarding online conduct and acceptable content.

The French Union of Jewish Students, which planned to supply Twitter with a list of the offensive tweets to be pulled, said it would still file a formal complaint against the social network to bring the tweeters to justice.

The union held a conference call on Thursday night with Twitter executives in California.

The anti-Semitic tweets in French, which started October 10, included slurs and photos evoking the Holocaust, including one of a pile of ash and another of an emaciated Holocaust victim.

They were followed by offensive, anti-Muslim tweets.

On Thursday, Twitter blocked the neo-Nazi's account in Germany, although its tweets were still visible to any user whose settings include a different location.

The French-language tweets came from hundreds of users, not all of them necessarily in France.

Almost immediately after the French group announced its agreement with Twitter, tweets went up against what some users saw as an attack on freedom of expression - all using the hash tag that started the wave of racist posts on October 10.

Elie Petit, vice president of the group, dismissed the criticism: "I don't think a call for murder is freedom of expression," he said.

French law forbids all discrimination based on ethnicity, nationality, race or religion.

German law is more specific. Because of its Nazi past, the country has strict laws prohibiting the use of related symbols and slogans - like the display of the swastika, or saying "heil Hitler."

After the decision in Germany, Twitter's general counsel Alex Macgillivray said in a tweet that the site's administrators "never want to withhold content, good to have tools to do it narrowly and transparently."

In a statement, Jonathan Hayoun, the French group's president, said the group wasn't trying to be the "garbage collectors of the internet".

But, he added, "Twitter can't be a place of illegal expression".

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Yahoo to exit South Korea by end of year

YAHOO Inc says it will close its South Korean operations by the end of this year, citing a challenging business environment as it struggles to compete in a market dominated by local web portals.

"The Korean operation has been faced with a lot of challenges and has slowed Yahoo's overall business growth for the past few years," Yahoo Korea, which began operations in 1997, said in a statement.

It has been fighting an uphill battle against local web portals such as NHN Corp's Naver and Daum Communications which account for the vast majority of search traffic in South Korea.

As of September, Naver led the local portal market with a 52 per cent share, followed by Daum's 34 per cent.

Yahoo Korea had a 1.5 per cent share, according to South Korean market research data firm KoreanClick.

Its Korean website will be automatically linked to an English website from early next year, a Yahoo Korea official said.

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, has been struggling to compete globally against rivals such as Google Inc and more recently Facebook Inc.

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Forty-four TSA airport staff face firing

THE US Transportation Security Administration is proposing to fire 25 employees at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and to suspend 19 others as a result of an investigation into improper screening of checked luggage.

The TSA says the alleged screening failures were uncovered last year after surveillance cameras were installed in a screening room to check for possible thefts.

Eight employees were immediately fired in June.

The latest action raises to 52 the number of TSA employees at Newark caught up in the investigation. It represents the biggest single disciplinary action taken by the TSA at a U.S. airport.

The TSA says the latest group cited includes both screeners and managers who are accused of failing to effectively supervise their employees.

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Bloomberg to spend millions on candidates

MAYOR Michael Bloomberg is reaching into his very, very deep pockets to spend millions in the election home stretch on candidates - Republican and Democrat, alike - he feels will do the US good.

Bloomberg, whose personal wealth is estimated at $US25 billion ($A24 billion), said he will pony up at least $US10 million on candidates in tight election races and to promote his views in referendums on three subjects he holds dear: stricter gun control laws, same-sex marriage and improved education.

"Over the next three weeks, the mayor will be making an eight figure independent spending campaign that will support moderates on both sides of the aisle as well as independents who have shown a willingness to work in a bi-partisan fashion," said the statement on his website.

The New York City mayor said it was important for Americans to elect officials in Washington, in his state's capital, Albany, and around the country "who are willing to work across party lines to achieve real results".

Bloomberg, 70, now a political independent, was a Democrat before running for mayor as a Republican in 2001. He left the Republican party in 2007 and was re-elected for his third term as an independent.

Bloomberg founded the financial news agency that bears his name and is the 10th-richest person in the United States. He is scheduled to leave office next year.

The mayor does not shy from controversial moves, such as his recent decision to fight obesity by limiting the size of individual soft drink portions sold in restaurants.

And the man does not mince his words. He has been highly critical of the tone of the current US presidential campaign.

On Wednesday he described as "gibberish" President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney's responses, at their second debate earlier this week, to a question on banning assault weapons.

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Australia wins UN Security Council seat

AUSTRALIA has won its bid for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr attended a meeting in New York overnight for a secret ballot of the UN's 193 members.

Rwanda and Argentina have also won seats on the Security Council.

Australia, which needed at least 129 votes and was relying heavily on African, Caribbean and Pacific Island nations for support, received 140 votes.

Australia's Western Europe and Other Group competitors Luxembourg registered 128 and Finland 108.

It is the fifth time Australia will serve on the Security Council, the two-year tenure commencing at the start of 2013.

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Mali Islamists destroy more saints' tombs

ISLAMISTS controlling northern Mali are destroying more Muslim saints' tombs in the ancient city of Timbuktu, witnesses say, in the latest attack on the world heritage sites considered blasphemous by the jihadists.

"Currently, the Islamists are in the process of destroying the tombs of Kabara," a neighbourhood in the south of the city, a witness said on Thursday, adding there were three ancient tombs in the area.

"They are destroying the first tomb with pickaxes and other tools and saying they are going to destroy all the tombs," he said.

Another resident confirmed the report and said the Islamists, some of them armed, had arrived in the area in three vehicles.

In July, Islamists from Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) - an armed group that controls Timbuktu along with al-Qaeda's North African branch, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb - drew condemnation for smashing seven tombs of ancient Muslim saints as well as the "sacred door" to a 15th-century mosque.

Once considered one of Africa's most stable democracies, Mali has descended into chaos since a March coup that overthrew the government of president Amadou Toumani Toure.

A number of Islamist groups including al-Qaeda's north African branch capitalised on the power vacuum to seize the country's vast desert north, an area larger than France.

For more than six months, the Islamists have been imposing their strict version of sharia on areas under their control, arresting unveiled women, stoning an unmarried couple to death, publicly flogging smokers and amputating suspected thieves' limbs, according to residents and rights groups.

Islamists also destroyed tombs in the northern towns of Goundam and Gao in September.

Ansar Dine began their campaign of destruction after UN cultural organisation UNESCO put Timbuktu on its list of endangered world heritage sites.

They have also threatened to destroy the city's three ancient mosques, one of which dates back to 1327.

The latest destruction came after the UN Security Council last week passed a resolution asking West African nations to speed up preparations for an international military intervention to reclaim northern Mali, giving them 45 days to lay out detailed plans.

The Economic Community of West African States has said it has 3000 troops on standby for an intervention in the north.

Politicians from northern Mali called on Thursday for urgent Western military intervention to remove the Islamists.

"There must be an urgent intervention of Western forces," Elhadj Baba Haidara, the head of a group representing elected officials in the north, told journalists in Paris, warning that delays were giving the Islamists time to consolidate their hold on the region.

"They have ways of indoctrinating the population, with fear, with conviction, with force or with money," said Haidara, the elected deputy for Timbuktu.

But plans for an intervention remain divisive in Mali, which is deeply fractured since the coup.

Some 2000 people took to the streets in the Malian capital Bamako on Thursday to protest plans for a foreign intervention.

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UK starts secret agent apprenticeships

HOW'S this for a job title - secret agent's apprentice?

The British government is recruiting teenage apprentice spies and codebreakers without university degrees in a bid to deepen the talent pool of its intelligence services for the era of cyberterorrism and cyberwarfare.

Foreign Secretary William Hague announced the program on Thursday in a speech at Bletchley Park, Britain's World War II code-breaking headquarters.

"Young people are the key to our country's future success, just as they were during the war," Hague said.

"It will be the young innovators of this generation who will help keep our country safe in years to come against threats which are every bit as serious as some of those confronted in the Second World War."

The Foreign Office said the apprenticeship program aims to find up to 100 new recruits for GCHQ - Britain's electronic surveillance agency - and the MI5 and MI6 and intelligence services. The idea is to expand recruitment of spies beyond the traditional method of a discreet "tap on the shoulder" at university.

The program will be open to bright 18-year-olds with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and even computer gaming. They will undergo a two-year course of university classes, technical training and work placements before starting full-time jobs.

High-school students will also be invited to take part in a "national cipher challenge" competition intended to inspire pupils to consider careers in mathematics and cybersecurity.

The Foreign Office said the goal was to "harness the expertise of its young people, who have grown up with a world of social media, global connectivity and interactive gaming, to make sure we can tackle the threats and challenges of the 21st century."

Hague also said the government was donating STG480,000 ($A751,760) toward restoration of Bletchley Park, a complex of buildings and wooden huts northwest of London where hundreds of mathematicians, cryptologists, crossword puzzle experts and computer pioneers worked to crack Nazi Germany's secret codes. Historians say their work shortened World War II by as much as two years.

Bletchley Park's guardians are fundraising to restore the site and turn it into a museum.

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Worst grape harvest in half century

DROUGHT, frost and hail have combined to ravage Europe's wine grape harvest, which in key regions this year will be the smallest in half a century, vintners say.

Thierry Coste, an expert with the European Union farmers' union, said that France's grape harvest is expected to slump by almost 20 per cent compared with last year. Italy's grape crop showed a 7 per cent drop - on top of a decline in 2011.

"Two big producing nations, France and Italy, have not known a harvest so weak in 40 to 50 years," Mr Coste said. "All the major producing nations have been hurt."

France's Champagne and Burgundy regions were hard hit by weather conditions that particularly affected the prevalent Chardonnay grape, used to make the world's most famous sparkling wine and the luxurious whites from those regions.

In places where vintners were already facing a small margin of profit, many could be facing survival problems, said Mr Coste of the Copa-Cogeca union.

"In certain regions, there will be many vintners in big difficulties because of the collapse of the harvest," he said.

The European wine harvest automatically has a global impact since it accounts for some 62 per cent of the worldwide wine production.

In Europe, about 2.5 million families live off the wine sector. It makes the dependency on the vagaries of weather a sometimes cruel business.

Drought hit the Mediterranean rim hard this year, Mr Coste said. As a cooperative leader in southern France's Herault region, he should know.

"First and foremost, climate change or not, we see that we have ever more dry spells," he said. Making matters worse is that even winter was dry this time.

"It was almost zero (degrees Celsius) in the south."

In the northern wine regions, it was the inverse, with cold and wet weather wreaking havoc. Hail in particular hurt the crops.

"Natural phenomena happened all at the same time to make sure the harvest is so small," Mr Coste said.

French figures show that in Champagne the harvest could decline by 40 per cent, with Bourgogne Beaujolais expected to decline 30 per cent. Bordeaux would get away lightly with a drop of 10 per cent.

Mr Coste said there may be an upside to the bad harvest - it is not a bitter one when it comes to taste. The quality of the wine produced will be good as it is expected to be more concentrated.

"When it comes to quality, we are looking at a good year," Mr Coste said.

While some price increases were on the cards, Mr Coste hoped they could be contained.

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US embassy staff in Stockholm return

US embassy staff in Stockholm have returned to their workplace after a suspect envelope prompted an evacuation earlier in the day.

"The personnel has been allowed to go back to the embassy," embassy spokesman Jeff Anderson told AFP.

Staff and members of the public had been evacuated during a "preliminary investigation", he said.

Swedish police said on their website that a patrol had been sent to the embassy after "a letter with unidentified contents had arrived at the embassy".

"It's a substance one would not expect to receive," Stockholm police spokesman Albin Neverbery said.

News agency TT said the letter contained an unidentified white powder, but police would not confirm the report.

"When it comes to a sensitive location like an embassy, we take no chances," Neverbery said, adding that police had no information about any threats issued against the US mission.

"A police bomb squad has taken care of the envelope. We're securing the site."

The US mission in Stockholm has some 170 employees.

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Greece, Spain 'in depression': Stiglitz

GREECE and Spain are in "depression, not recession", Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said, blaming tough austerity measures for their downward economic spiral.

Mr Stiglitz also said that the IMF was "a little too optimistic" in its forecast last week that the euro zone economy would shrink by 0.4 per cent in 2012 and rise by 0.2 per cent next year.

"I'm more pessimistic than they are (about growth)... I see significant risk of continuing turmoil," he said in New Delhi on the sidelines of a conference held by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

"Spain and Greece are in depression, not recession. That impact was brought about by austerity" with the countries now trapped in a vicious cycle of spending cuts and slumping growth, he said.

Mr Stiglitz, who served as a top advisor to former US president Bill Clinton, was speaking on the eve of a key two-day summit of EU leaders in Brussels that will seek to address the eurozone crisis.

"Austerity is bringing Europe down and diminishes chances of making things work," said the Nobel laureate who is a professor at New York's Columbia University.

Unemployment in nearly bankrupt Greece is at 25.1 per cent as its economy contracts and it negotiates with lenders about more budget cuts.

In Spain, the jobless rate is 24.6 per cent with the government unveiling new spending curbs as it seeks to fend off another bailout that would bring more foreign supervision of the Spanish budget.

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Big Bird wants out of debate

WHAT do a Navy mum, Big Bird and AARP have in common? They want US President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney to leave them alone.

Both candidates are encountering cross words from third parties they've mentioned in their campaign ads, stump speeches and debate zingers.

The creator of TV show Friday Night Lights asked Mr Romney to stop using the show's slogan "Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can't lose".

The mother of a former Navy SEAL killed in Libya also asked him to stop talking about her son on the trail.

Seniors group AARP and the producers of "Sesame Street" have asked Mr Obama to quit mentioning them in ads.

Reporters for NBC have asked both candidates to stop using footage of them in ads.

Legal experts say candidates are protected by free speech unless they are explicitly claiming a false endorsement.

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Architect Oscar Niemeyer in hospital

BRAZILIAN architect Oscar Niemeyer, who is aged 104, has been in the hospital since the weekend, a hospital spokesman said.

An official at the Samaritano hospital in Rio said no official bulletin on Mr Niemeyer's condition has been released.

In May of this year he was hospitalised for pneumonia and dehydration.

Mr Niemeyer is considered the father of Brazilian architecture. He took part in the design of the Brazilian capital Brasilia in 1960, among 600 other works around the world over the course of his storied career.

Mr Niemeyer currently has some 20 projects underway in several countries.

He won the Pritzker prize, likened to the Nobel for architecture, in 1988.

The master's only daughter, Anna Maria Niemeyer, died of emphysema in June at the age of 82.

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Beyonce to star in Super Bowl show

ALL the single ladies will be watching the upcoming Super Bowl along with football lovers.

That's because Beyonce is the halftime show performer.

A source familiar with Super Bowl XLVII said the Grammy-winning diva will take the stage at the halftime show on Feb. 3, 2013, at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.

The source spoke on condition of anonymity because that person wasn't authorised to publicly reveal the information.

The official announcement is expected today, the source said.

Beyonce, whose pop and R&B hits include Crazy in Love, Irreplaceable and Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), has won 16 Grammy Awards.

The 31-year-old sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004 in her hometown of Houston, Texas when the New England Patriots defeated the Carolina Panthers.

Madonna performed at halftime at this year's Super Bowl in February with guests CeeLo Green, Nicki Minaj, LMFAO and M.I.A. The New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in a thrilling rematch of the contest four years earlier. Her performance was seen by 114 million people, a higher average than the game itself, which was seen by an estimated 111.3 million people, according to Nielsen.

If Beyonce's performance at the Pepsi NFL Halftime Show features collaborations, it could likely include husband-rapper Jay-Z and her Destiny's Child bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.

New Orleans last hosted a Super Bowl in 2002, making next year's game the first NFL championship in the city since Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of the Louisiana Superdome in 2005. Pepsi is returning as the sponsor for the halftime show since doing so in 2007 when Prince performed.
 

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AMWU boss to tour Hunter factory

THE Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) will visit a factory in the NSW Hunter Valley on Wednesday as part of a national tour aimed at boosting jobs in the embattled sector.

AMWU National Secretary Paul Bastian said with 125,000 jobs lost in manufacturing since 2009, the Hunter Valley visit was part of a push to bolster employment in the sector.

He said this was especially important given some 85,000 manufacturing jobs were still at risk across Australia.

The union would visit the Varley Engineering factory to discuss the issues facing manufacturing in the Hunter, he said.

Varley is one of the Hunter region's oldest manufacturing companies and supplies a range of engineering products, including defence, aerospace and transport equipment.

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Jeweller offers rifles with rings

HAVE you spent your life hunting for the perfect wife? Maybe you have met the one but are feeling gun shy?

An Iowa jeweler is offering free rifles for husbands-to-be who spend at least $US1999 ($1953) on an engagement ring at his store near Iowa City.

Jeweller Harold van Beek told KCRG near Cedar Rapids that he wanted to "do something for the boy who doesn't like to hunt for diamonds but likes to hunt for deer".

The deal at Jewelry By Harold in North Liberty starts on Thursday and will run through the end of October.

The rifle offer is subject to Iowa laws on gun ownership. Those barred include felons and addicts.

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Apple sets date for 'iPad mini launch'

APPLE is sending out invitations to reporters for an event next Tuesday, where it's expected to announce the release of a smaller iPad.

The invitation to the venue in San Jose, California, doesn't hint at what's will be revealed, but media and analyst have said for months that Apple has an "iPad mini" in the works.

The tablet is thought to be about half the size of the regular iPad and to start at $US249 ($243) or $US299.

Apple founder Steve Jobs derided the idea of a smaller tablet two years ago, but Amazon.com Inc. has had some success with its Kindle Fire, which is half the size of the iPad and starts at $US159. Analysts believe Apple wants to tackle that competition with its own similarly sized tablet.

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Half of all wetlands destroyed since 1900

AN alarming 50 per cent of the world's wetlands have been destroyed in the last 100 years, threatening human welfare at a time of increasing water scarcity, a new report says.

Wetlands serve as a source of drinking water and provide protection against floods and storms, yet they have been decimated to make space for housing, factories and farms or damaged by unsustainable water use and pollution.

"In just over 100 years we have managed to destroy 50 per cent of the world's wetlands," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program.

"It is a startling figure," he said at a UN conference in Hyderabad.

The report, compiled by an ongoing research project entitled TEEB, or The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, said coastal wetland losses in some regions, including Asia, have been happening at a rate of 1.6 per cent per year.

"Taking mangroves as an example, 20 per cent (3.6 million hectares) of total coverage has been lost since 1980, with recent rates of loss of up to one per cent per year," the report said.

"We need wetlands because our existence, our food and our water is at stake," said Ritesh Kumar of the environmental group Wetlands International.

Wetlands are known to cover about 13 million square kilometres of the Earth's surface, and are a natural sink for Earth-warming carbon dioxide, act as fish nurseries and are important tourist attractions.

In the United States alone, wetlands are estimated to provide $US23 billion ($A22.53 billion) worth of storm protection every year, the report said.

The report was released at a conference of the UN Convention on Biodiversity, where environment ministers will hold three days of talks from Wednesday to try to raise funds to stop the decline of Earth's natural resources.

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Wounded Pakistani girl lands in UK

A PAKISTANI teen shot in the head by the Taliban for promoting girls' education and criticising militants has arrived in Britain, where she is to get specialised care.

The attack on 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai a week ago horrified people across Pakistan and abroad.

Pakistan's military said doctors recommended Malala be shifted to a center in the UK that has the ability to provide "integrated" care to children with severe injuries.

Malala arrived in Britain on Monday afternoon local time.

She is to be taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in central England, which is also home to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is designated as one of the country's 16 major trauma centres.

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Thousands of Aust kids going hungry: SFFA

THOUSANDS of Australian children are suffering from hunger, health organisations have warned as they mark World Food Day on Tuesday.

The Sydney Food Fairness Alliance (SFFA) has urged the NSW government to do more to help.

"If we don't acknowledge that this is a serious issue, we can't work out ways to address it. We are calling on NSW politicians to take action because of the future impact on health and health costs," said SFFA president Liz Millen.

There are currently 680,000 people in the state going hungry every year, half of whom are children, according to a recent report from FoodBank Australia.

FoodBank NSW CEO Gerry Andersen said charitable agencies do not have enough food to supply the "working poor" families who struggle to feed their children.

The SFFA and the Australian Health Promotion Association is holding a World Food Day forum at NSW Parliament House on Tuesday to discuss food insecurity.

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South African strike talks stall

EFFORTS to end a rash of gold mine strikes that have strangled South African production have run into deadlock with no further talks planned, leaving tens of thousands of workers facing the threat of dismissal.

Mine owners and union officials reported on Monday that last-gasp talks to end weeks of rolling wildcat strikes had failed, after rank-and-file workers rejected a wage deal reached by negotiators and no further proposal was forthcoming.

After the talks broke down, employer group the Chamber of Mines declared "it is not in a position to make any further proposals", leaving it up to individual companies to find their own way out of a crisis that has seen tens of thousands of workers illegally down tools.

"One of the avenues could be the dismissal of strikers," chamber official Elize Strydom said. Another route, she said, was "retrenchment" or a radical restructuring of mine operations.

"Some companies - marginal companies in particular - have been closed and not producing for so long that they now probably need to be closed."

Tens of thousands of gold workers have been on strike for more than a month in South Africa's mines, most of them located near the commercial hub of Johannesburg.

The often violent strikes over pay have strangled production in the country, which accounts for around seven per cent of global output.

The National Union of Mineworkers told owners: "Dismissals would not be a solution to the current challenges facing the industry and that it would only serve to fuel emotions that are already high and inflame the situation further."

Workers indicated last week they could not support the wage deal, saying it was not up to their demand for salaries of roughly 12,500 rand ($A1400) a month.

The latest offer would have seen monthly wages and bonuses go up to between 7000 and 10,000 rand.

There are growing fears about the impact the labour unrest will have on the South African economy, the biggest and most advanced on the continent.

The mining industry as a whole accounts directly and indirectly for 19 per cent of economic output and employs 1.3 million people in the mines and related sectors.

Already the platinum sector, which has suffered a wave of strikes since August, saw a 2.6 per cent drop in output that month. The toll for the gold sector and for the broader economy has yet to be quantified.

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Iraq attacks kill at least 10

A SPATE of shootings and bombings targeting Iraqi security forces north of Baghdad has killed at least 10 people, while a prisoner on death row has escaped from police custody south of the capital.

The attacks, which killed five policemen and three anti-Qaeda militiamen and left more than 20 people wounded on Monday, came after Iraqi police were targeted on Sunday night.

The heaviest toll came in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, 175km north of Baghdad.

Gunmen attacked a checkpoint in the town centre, killing two policemen and wounding two more before fleeing the scene, a security official said. A doctor confirmed the toll.

Also in Tuz Khurmatu, a car bomb at one of the main entrances to the town killed a policeman and wounded six other people - five civilians and a policeman, the officials said.

In another gun attack, militants broke into the home of two brothers, both of them anti-al-Qaeda militiamen, in the desert region west of the city of Samarra, which lies around 110km north of Baghdad.

Another Sahwa fighter was killed by a magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to his car in the town of Hawijah, 230km north of Baghdad, security and medical officials said.

A bombing in the main northern city of Mosul, and a shooting just south of the city, left two people dead - a policeman and a young child - and three civilians wounded, security and medical officials said. Both attacks targeted security forces.

And in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, two car bombs near the provincial government headquarters killed a policeman and wounded eight other people, a security official said. A hospital doctor confirmed the toll.

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Syria denies use of cluster bombs

THE Syrian army has denied using cluster munitions and said it did not possess the weapon in its arsenal, in a statement published by state news agency SANA.

"Some news outlets that are complicit in the bloodletting in Syria have been publishing false reports that the Syrian army has been using cluster bombs against armed terrorists," it said, adding the military "does not have this kind of weapon".

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Students prepare to take HSC

THE time has come to put pen to paper as thousands of Year 12 students start their Higher School Certificate exams.

The first HSC exams, in English, begin across NSW on Monday morning.

Students taking the standard and advanced papers will be put to the test, as well as those enrolled in the English as a Second Language (ESL) course.

There are 73,397 students enrolled in at least one HSC course in the state, according to the Board of Studies.

Over the next 19 days, they will sit papers at more than 760 centres, both in Australia and around the world.

The first exams are the ones with the highest number of students registered, with 68,111 taking at least one English course. It is the only compulsory HSC subject.

The next most popular course is mathematics, which has 53,942 students enrolled.

The written exams, which account for 50 per cent of results in most courses, will continue until November 8.

Tom Alegounarias, president of the Board of Studies, wished this year's students well in a message on the board's website, telling them their hard work would be "worth it".

"My hope is that students don't see the HSC as an end point, but rather use it as a springboard to their life experiences as an adult," he said.

The HSC is the highest educational achievement in secondary education in NSW.

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Skydiver prepares to break sound barrier

AUSTRIAN extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner has started his ascent to 37 kilometres above Earth, hoping to make a death-defying free fall that could make him the first skydiver to break the sound barrier.

Baumgartner has taken off in the New Mexico desert in a pressurised capsule carried by a 55-storey ultra-thin helium balloon that is expected to take nearly three hours to climb into the stratosphere.

Baumgartner will jump into a near vacuum with no oxygen to begin what is expected to be the fastest, farthest free fall from the highest-ever manned balloon.

Any contact with the capsule on his exit could tear the pressurised suit, a rip that could expose him to a lack of oxygen and temperatures as low as minus 57C.

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UK probes ex-brass over political access

BRITAIN'S defence ministry has announced it is investigating whether retired senior officers broke any rules after they were recorded by undercover journalists as appearing to offer to lobby the government on behalf of defence companies.

The Sunday Times said officers, including former head of the army General Richard Dannatt and former defence procurement chief Lieutenant General Richard Applegate, had boasted about their access to ministers and senior officials. The paper posted some of its recordings online.

In one, Admiral Trevor Soar, is heard to say he had to "be slightly careful of lobbying ministers", but he could "basically ignore" restrictions on meeting with officials.

The officers deny wrongdoing, and the newspaper did not suggest they had broken any laws. Retired personnel are allowed to work for the private sector two years after leaving the military.

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said the revelations were "deeply damaging to the individuals", but he denied retired officers had any influence on decisions about military purchases.

He told the BBC that if retired officers were using their access to politicians "for commercial purposes then we will have to tighten it up or maybe even shut it down. That is something we will now look at."

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Dozens of bodies found near Damascus

DOZENS of corpses have been found in a hospital morgue in the Syrian province of Damascus, a monitoring group says, adding the circumstances of the deaths are not immediately clear.

"We know they were shot dead, most likely during clashes with the army," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said on Sunday.

"Most likely, the corpses belong to rebel fighters, but we cannot currently confirm that."

Amateur video posted on YouTube by activists showed piles of men's bodies in a morgue.

The bodies were found in an area southwest of Damascus between Moadamiyat al-Sham and Daraya, scene of a vicious army assault and battles with rebels, leading up to a massacre of more than 500 people in Daraya at the end of August.

"The bodies may belong to fighters killed in fighting in the area over the course of recent months," said Abdel Rahman.

Syria's revolt began in March last year as pro-reform protests but morphed into an armed insurgency when demonstrations were brutally crushed.

Most rebels, like the population, are Sunni Muslims in a country dominated by a minority regime of Alawites, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

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Syria using cluster bombs: rights group

AN international human rights group says it has obtained new evidence that Syrian troops are using cluster bombs - widely banned munitions that pose a grave risk to civilians because they burst into bomblets over large areas and often linger on the ground, detonating only when touched.

Steve Goose of US-based Human Right Watch says cluster bombs "have been comprehensively banned by most nations, and Syria should immediately stop all use of these indiscriminate weapons that continue to kill and maim for years".

Human Rights Watch has previously reported cluster bomb remnants found in Homs and nearby Hama.

"Syria's disregard for its civilian population is all too evident in its air campaign, which now apparently includes dropping these deadly cluster bombs into populated areas," said Goose.

Syrian government officials had no immediate comment.

Human Rights Watch said Syrian activists posted at least 18 videos from October 9-12 showing remnants of the bombs in or near several towns, which included the central city of Homs, the northern cities of Idlib and Aleppo, the countryside in Latakia, and the eastern Ghouta district near the capital Damascus.

Many were on a north-south highway that has been the scene of fighting in recent days.

Human Rights Watch said the munitions in the video were Soviet-made. Before its collapse, the Soviet Union was a major arms supplier to Syria.

It is nearly impossible to independently verify such reports in Syria, where journalists' movement is restricted and the government keeps a tight-lid on news related to the revolt, which it blames on a foreign conspiracy.

The report said the cluster bomb canisters and submunitions displayed in the videos "all show damage and wear patterns produced by being mounted on and dropped from an aircraft".

Some residents confirmed in interviews that helicopters dropped cluster bombs near their homes on October 9, the group said.

The group did not have information if the munitions had caused any casualties.

Human Rights Watch "is deeply concerned by the risks posed by the unexploded submunitions (bomblets) to the civilian population, as men and even children can be seen in the videos handling the unexploded submunitions in life-threatening ways", according to the report.

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