TV reporter 'attacked' at Egyptian square

FRANCE 24 TV says its correspondent in Cairo has been "savagely attacked" near Tahrir Square after being seized by a crowd shortly after a live news report.

The state-funded, independent news channel said in a statement on Saturday that correspondent Sonia Dridi was attacked around 10:30pm a day earlier.

It said she was later rescued by a colleague and other witnesses.

France 24 said its employees were safe and sound "but extremely shocked" and that it will file suit against unspecified assailants.

The network and the French embassy are working to bring the correspondent home.

Tahrir Square was the epicentre of a popular uprising that toppled longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak last year.

It remains a key demonstration site for both allies and critics of new President Mohammed Morsi.

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UK protesters decry austerity drive

TENS of thousands of demonstrators have descended on the British capital in a noisy but peaceful protest at a government austerity drive aimed at slashing the country's debt.

Unions, anti-war campaigners, community groups and other activists poured down London's streets in a demonstration against reductions to public sector spending which officials are pushing through in order to rein in Britain's debt, which stands at more than STG1 trillion ($A1.56 trillion).

Although the austerity program has had some modest successes - the country's deficit has dropped slightly - the UK economy has shrunk for three consecutive quarters amid cuts at home and economic turmoil on the continent.

Brendan Barber, whose Trades Union Congress helped organise the march, said that the message of Saturday's protest was that "austerity is simply failing".

"The government is making life desperately hard for millions of people because of pay cuts for workers, while the rich are given tax cuts," he said.

Britain borrowed STG13 billion ($A20.25 billion) in September alone, and with other European countries - including next door neighbour Ireland - struggling to make good on their debt, and there is a general consensus that the UK budget needs to be rebalanced.

But the coalition government did little to endear itself with ordinary Britons when it reduced income taxes for the country's wealthiest citizens earlier this year.

And its leadership has struggled to fight perceptions of elitism which rankle many in this class-conscious country.

On Friday the Conservative Party's chief whip stepped down following a dispute over whether he'd described officers guarding the prime minister's official residence at Downing Street as "plebs" or warned them to "learn your (expletive) place".

News of Andrew Mitchell's resignation broke just as word was getting around that Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne had been spotted by a journalist sitting in a first class train carriage with a second class ticket.

Osborne paid for an upgrade, but story's humour was irresistible - newspapers lavished coverage on what many nicknamed "The Great Train Snobbery," and Osborne's misadventure was a talking point at the rally, which marched through the city beneath huge red and purple balloons emblazoned with union logos.

Some protesters shouted "no first class tickets here;" others booed as they passed Downing Street.

The marchers carried banners which read: "Cameron Has Butchered Britain", "24 Hour General Strike Now" and "No Cuts" as they marched through Whitehall towards Hyde Park.

They shouted "pay your taxes" as they passed a Starbucks coffee shop.

Police officers stood outside Starbucks, which has been involved in a row over its tax arrangements.

But unlike some rallies elsewhere in Europe which devolved into riots, Saturday's march appeared to go off without violence.

A police spokesman said there had been no arrests or incidents.

One group of children dressed up as government workers, including a nurse and a traffic warden.

Another child, dressed as a chef, held up a sign warning that Prime Minister David Cameron was "a recipe for disaster".

Ed Miliband, the leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, was among the speakers to address the crowd in London's Hyde Park, following the march.

Miliband accused the prime minister of "clinging" to policies which were not working.

He said the coalition was cutting taxes for millionaires and raising them for everyone else.

"It is one rule for those at the top and one rule for everyone else."

Miliband was booed by a small section of a rally in Hyde Park when he said Labour would have to make "hard choices" if it was in government.

He pledged that if he became prime minister he would tax bankers' bonuses, support the building of 100,000 houses and end the privatisation of the NHS.

Similar protests were also held in Belfast, Northern Ireland's capital, and Glasgow, Scotland's biggest city.

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Suicide bomber targets mosque in Iran

A SUICIDE bomb outside a Shi'ite mosque in Iran has killed two Basij militiamen and wounded five people, in an area that has been the target of deadly attacks by Sunni rebels in recent years, media reports say.

"Two Basijis were killed and five other people were wounded" when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the mosque in Chabahar, in Sistan-Baluchestan province, said Deputy Interior Minister Ali Abdollahi, according to ISNA news agency.

"A man wanted to commit a suicide attack at the Imam Hussein mosque, but the Basij and security forces spotted him. As they chased him, he detonated an explosives belt and was killed instantly," said Abdollahi.

He said that authorities were working to identify the assailant.

Media reported that three children figured among those wounded.

Official news agency IRNA said the "terrorist, who did not manage to enter the mosque, detonated his explosives belt few hundred metres away."

Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders Pakistan and home to a strong Sunni minority in overwhelmingly Shi'ite Iran, has been the scene of bloody attacks by the Sunni rebels from the group Jundallah.

Jundallah chief Abdulmalek Rigi was hanged in June 2010 after he was captured on board a plane that was forced by Iranian armed forces to land as it crossed the Islamic Republic's airspace.

Tehran accuses US, British and Pakistani intelligence of supporting the group.

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Court blames brain tumour on mobile

ITALY'S top court has ruled that a businessman developed a benign brain tumour because he held a mobile phone to his ear for hours daily for his job and deserves worker's compensation.

Innocente Marcolini, whose face is partially paralysed, argued that using cell and portable phones six hours a day for 12 years while dealing with clients in China and elsewhere overseas caused the tumour on the trigeminal nerve in his head.

His lawyers presented doctors who testified that excessive cell phone use increases risk of such tumours.

The impact of the ruling earlier this week is unclear. Numerous large scientific studies have failed to find a causal link between cellphones and brain tumours.

The World Health Organisation classifies mobile phones as "possible" carcinogens, in the same category as pesticides and coffee.

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US home sales dip 1.7% on tight inventory

US sales of previously occupied homes fell in September after hitting a two-year high in August, in part because there were fewer homes available for sale.

The National Association of Realtors says sales dipped 1.7 per cent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.75 million.

That's down from a rate of 4.83 million in August, which was the highest in more than two years.

Sales are still up 11 per cent from a year earlier, further evidence that the housing market is slowly recovering.

But sales remain below the more than 5.5 million that economists consider consistent with a healthy market.

The inventory of homes for sale fell in September to 2.32 million.

It would take 5.9 months to exhaust the supply at the current sales pace, the lowest sales-to-inventory ratio since March 2006.

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Narrow house opening as art work

THE new house is only 1.2 metres wide, but it comes with a bathroom, a kitchen and a bedroom, and its first tenant will move in this weekend.

Architect Jakub Szczesny designed the two-story aluminum and plastic house three years ago and it's been built in a narrow space between a pre-war house and a modern apartment block in downtown Warsaw.

The Foundation of Polish Modern Art helped him fund it.

At a news conference Friday, they said the first tenant will move in Saturday: Etgar Keret, an Israeli writer whose ancestors died in Poland during the Holocaust.

But other tenants will follow in a building considered an art work.

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US stocks lower as earnings disappoint

US stocks have opened lower as third-quarter earnings season served up disappointments from General Electric, McDonald's, Microsoft and Chipotle.

Thirty minutes into trade on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 95.17 points (0.70 per cent) to 13,453.77.

The broad-based S&P 500 lost 7.98 (0.55 per cent) to 1,449.36, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 17.95 points (0.58 per cent) to 3,054.92.

"There isn't any earnings-reporting momentum right now and guidance, when provided, has been generally cautious.

Against that backdrop, we can understand why the market has struggled to break through resistance," said Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com.

Revenue rather than profits disappointments in earnings reports grabbed the focus of investors.

Microsoft shares fell 1.9 per cent after it reported late on Thursday that it had rebounded from a first-time-ever loss the previous quarter, but revenues fell eight per cent and missed analyst forecasts.

General Electric (-3.2 per cent) reported earnings up eight per cent as margins widened, and predicted a double-digit earnings rise for the year, but revenues also missed expectations and the company lowered its revenues growth forecast for the year to three per cent from five per cent.

McDonald's lost 3.2 per cent as its profits fell and said worldwide sales were slipping this month.

Chipotle plunged 14.6 per cent after missing earnings targets despite a 20 per cent profit gain, and predicting flat-to-lower sales for 2013.

Google, which inadvertently released its quarterly report in the middle of trade on Thursday and saw its share price crash more than 10 per cent on the results, was back up 0.9 per cent in early trade on Friday.

US bond prices gained.

The yield on 10-year Treasurys fell to 1.79 per cent from 1.82 per cent on Thursday, while the 30-year dropped to 2.98 per cent from 3.00 per cent.

Bond prices move inversely to yields.

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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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At least 28,000 have disappeared in Syria

AT least 28,000 people have disappeared in Syria since the start of an anti-regime uprising 19 months ago, arrested by troops or pro-government militiamen, a global activist group says.

Avaaz said the forced disappearances was part of a "deliberate" campaign by the authorities to silence dissent against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

"Syrians are being plucked off the street by Syrian security forces and paramilitaries and being 'disappeared' into torture cells," Alice Jay, campaign director at Avaaz, said in a statement on Thursday.

"This is a deliberate strategy to terrorise families and communities," she said, adding that panic bred by forced disappearances helps silence anti-regime dissent.

Avaaz said at least 28,000 people have gone missing but that the number could be much higher.

"Human rights groups working inside Syria estimate that between 28,000 to 80,000 Syrians have been forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime over the past 19 months."

"The fate of each and every one of these people must be investigated and the perpetrators punished," said Jay.

"Nobody is safe."

Avaaz said it interviewed relatives of people who disappeared since the conflict erupted in mid-March last year and would hand over their testimony to the UN Human Rights Council, calling on the international body to investigate.

One woman, identified by Avaaz as Mais, said that she has concealed from her children the disappearance of her husband in the central province of Homs in February.

"The children need a father in their lives," Mais said. "They always ask me, 'Where is Dad? Who took him?' And I don't know how to respond. I have to lie to them. I tell them he is at work, that he is OK."

The sister of anti-regime protester Anas al-Shaghuri, 23, said he went missing in the coastal city of Banias in May last year and was reportedly handed over to security forces by someone he trusted.

He was tortured in detention, a fellow prisoners told the family, Avaaz reported.

Under international law, "the widespread or systematic practice of enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against humanity", said Avaaz.

Enforced disappearances in Syria are not new, according to Avaaz which says that some 7000 people who went missing during the rule of Assad's father and former president, Hafez al-Assad, are still unaccounted for.

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China's economic recovery taking shape

CHINA'S worst slump since the global financial crisis leveled out in the latest quarter and retail sales picked up in a sign an economic rebound is taking shape, adding to hopes for a global recovery.

The world's second-largest economy grew 7.4 per cent from the year before in the three months ending in September, data showed Thursday.

That was slower than the second quarter's 7.6 per cent growth but the decline was much gentler than in earlier quarters. Economists also pointed to quarter-on-quarter growth of 2.2 per cent, the biggest such gain in a year, as a sign of recovery.

"This confirms that the economy is rebounding," said Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist for Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong.

"There is no room and no need for further major stimulus."

The Chinese improvement came after unexpectedly strong U.S. housing starts boosted confidence that the world's biggest economy is mending after five years in the doldrums.

The U.S. Commerce Department said that builders started construction on new single-family houses and apartments at the fastest pace in more than four years.

The U.S. and Chinese numbers are rare good news for the world economy, which has slowed as Europe's chronic debt crisis worsened and the American economy stagnated.

Beijing has cut interest rates twice since early June and is injecting money into the economy through higher investment by state companies and spending on building subways and other public works.

But authorities have avoided a major stimulus after huge spending in response to the 2008 global crisis fueled inflation and a wasteful building boom.

Retail sales rose 14.4 per cent, accelerating from the first half's 14.1 per cent growth. Investment in factories and other fixed assets improved, rising 20.5 per cent in the first nine months of the year, up from a 20.2 per cent rate for the first eight months.

"We can see a clear sign of steady economic growth," said Sheng Laiyun, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics.

"There is a smaller margin of decline and some major indicators have been growing faster."

A rebound in Chinese growth would be good news for economies such as Australia, Brazil and African countries that supply its factories with iron ore and other commodities.

The slowdown over the past year and a half is due largely to government curbs imposed to cool an overheated economy and reduce reliance on exports by encouraging more domestic consumption. The slump worsened last year after global demand for Chinese goods plunged unexpectedly.

In line with the government's hopes, retailing and other service industries aimed at Chinese consumers are growing relatively strongly while manufacturing and heavy industry have been battered by weak global demand and government curbs on construction. The government says stronger activity in services industries has helped to limit job losses.

Pan Wenhao, a 25-year-old wedding photographer in the tourist town of Lijiang in China's southwest, said his photo studio's revenues are up 50 per cent compared with this time last year. He said tourism in Lijiang has grown by about 20 per cent from last year.

"I expect my business to be much better in the future and I am confident about that," Pan said.

But conditions are still tough for manufacturers that had relied mostly on exporting are now trying to sell more to China's own consumers.

Xie Jun, owner of Dongguan Jincai Real in the southern city of Dongguan, which manufactures headphones, mobile phones and computer accessories, said he is losing 100,000 to 200,000 yuan ($15,370-$30,700) a month and had to lay off 30 of his 100 employees. He began trying to make more sales in China a few years ago "but the market is limited."

"We get less business, and even if the factory is running, we cannot make money from that," Mr Xie said. "Most of the businesspeople I know here have the same problem as me."

China's expansion is strong compared with the United States and Japan, where this year's growth is forecast in low single digits, but the slowdown has been painful for companies that depend on high growth to drive demand for new factories and other goods.

The slump raised the risk of job losses and unrest, posing a challenge to the ruling party as it prepares for a once-a-decade handover of power to younger leaders.

The further quarterly decline had been expected after officials including President Hu Jintao warned that growth might slow further before recovering.

Premier Wen Jiabao, the country's top economic official, said growth appeared to be stabilising and expressed confidence China can meet its official targets for the year. Wen gave no growth forecast or a possible time frame for a recovery.

A Chinese recovery could help to boost demand for commodities but otherwise its contribution to global growth will be limited because the country meets much of its demand from its own factories, said Mr Kowalczyk. He said that was reflected in the relatively weak September import growth of just 2.4 per cent, well below the double-digit rates earlier this year.

"The impact on the rest of the world will be more psychological rather than real, major growth," he said. "But it is good to know the risks from China to the global economy are sharply lower."

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Meteor showers light up California sky

STREAKING fireballs lighting up California skies and stunning stargazers are part of a major meteor shower, and the show is just getting started, professional observers said.

The Oakland Tribune reports the exploding streaks were especially visible on Wednesday night over the San Francisco Bay area and other parts of Northern California, with reports of bright fireballs and loud booms from Santa Cruz County to Mendocino County.

"Happened to look over, saw like a crescent shaped object, reddish orange in color," Edward Pierce told KGO-TV. "As it went away it started getting larger. Kind of expanding."

Jonathan Braidman, an astronomer at Oakland's Chabot Space and Science Centre, told the station what Mr Pierce and others saw were small, car-sized pieces of rock and metal from the ashtray belt.

It crashed through the earth's atmosphere, "ionizing and setting the air on fire in its wake," he said.

National Weather Service forecaster Steve Anderson tells the Tribune that warm temperatures and cloud-free skies are making the bright lights more visible, a phenomenon that should only increase as the weekend approaches and the shower continues.

The fireballs are part of the large, fast Orionid meteor shower, so-named because it has the Orion constellation as a backdrop.

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TV network falls for 'celeb sperm' hoax

A CELEBRITY sperm bank? Maybe not yet.

A British television network says it was duped by an actor pretending to be the chief of celebrity paternity service Fame Daddy.

ITV's This Morning program carried an interview with a man identified as Dan Richards. He said his company would match women with famous and affluent sperm donors.

Today, the network said it had been misled.

Several newspapers also ran stories about Fame Daddy, whose slick website claims a roster of donors including an Olympic gold medalist and a Formula 1 driver.

But its promotional video posted on Twitter appears to be a spoof. "Are you unsuccessful in sport and business? Are you fat?" it asks. "Then I would advise you to please stop breeding."

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Pedestrian killed in crash north of Sydney

A PEDESTRIAN has been killed in a crash involving a fire truck and two cars north of Sydney.

Police said a Rural Fire Service (RFS) truck collided with two cars in the northbound lanes of the F3 at Berowra about 10.30pm (AEDT) on Thursday.

They said a person, believed to be a pedestrian, was found dead on the road at the scene of the crash.

The RFS truck had been responding to an earlier incident involving a semi-trailer and 18 cars on the F3 near the Hawkesbury River bridge, police said.

They said the male driver of the RFS truck, aged in his 30s, was taken to Hornsby Hospital.

The male driver of one of the cars was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital with head, internal and suspected spinal injuries.

The female driver of the other car was taken to Hornsby Hospital with minor injuries.

Northbound lanes on the F3 remain closed, with motorists warned to expect significant delays, police said.

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Land Rover rescue for Kenyan baby elephant

HOW do you pull a baby elephant out of a deep hole? A rope and a Land Rover.

Then the payoff: A frantic baby elephant sprints to mum.

A heartwarming video of the rescue in Kenya gained masses of viewers on Thursday. It shows a potentially dangerous face-off with the mother elephant and the struggle to get her eight-month-old calf out of an eight metre hole.

Vicki Fishlock of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants faced down the mother with her Land Rover.

After 30 minutes, her team pulled the baby out, and it then ran toward its mother.

Elephants across Africa are fighting for survival. Expanding human settlements is increasing the human-animal conflicts. Worse, elephants are being slaughtered by the thousands for their ivory tusks.

Elephant rescue video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?vJOHw7lX3Gu4

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TB 'global burden' remains huge: WHO

THE fight against tuberculosis is making progress but "the global burden" of the deadly disease remains enormous, the World Health Organisation said in its annual report.

The WHO has pledged to cut TB deaths to half the 1990 rate, a goal the agency said it was on track to achieve. And the number of new cases per capita was falling as well - down 2.2 per cent last year from 2010 and the year before.

The WHO also hailed innovations in diagnostics to detect the lung disease as well as the new drugs and new vaccine possibilities advancing through development stages.

But tuberculosis still sickened 8.7 million people around the world, killing 1.4 million of them, according to the 2012 report. And in Africa and Europe, mortality rates are not showing the declines seen elsewhere, and may not achieve the 50 percent drop by 2015.

Asia remained the hardest hit region, with nearly 60 per cent of the TB cases detected last year - two-thirds of which were detected in China and India.

A half million children under age 15 contracted TB and 64,000 died last year, the first time the WHO specified figures for children.

Perhaps most worryingly, identifying and treating multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis - around four per cent of new cases and 20 per cent of previously treated cases - remains hugely challenging.

Around the world, of those estimated to have the strains resistant to standard medications, only about one in five were notified. In China and India, that figure was even worse: fewer than one in 10 drug resistant cases were detected.

"Major efforts are needed to improve treatment success rates among patients" with the drug-resistant strains of TB, the WHO said.

Medical aid group Medicins sans Frontiers concurred, with TB advisor Grania Brigden saying the newest report "reinforces that multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is an escalating public health emergency.

"Yet the global response is abysmal, with levels of testing and treatment remaining shockingly low," Ms Brigden said, with only one in 20 patients tested. Even when diagnosed, she added, the survival rate is less than 50 per cent.

"We continue to struggle every day with inadequate tools and drugs to tackle the disease," which is increasing in prevalence in the places they work, she said.

But Ms Brigden said the good news is the new TB drugs "on the horizon for the first time in nearly half a century."

Medical journal "The Lancet" was similarly disheartened, arguing in an editorial published to coincide with the WHO report that "insufficient attention and funding over several decades have allowed the global epidemic to remain a deep scar on the reputation of global health."

"The existing control approach has taken a short-term view with heavy reliance on treatment and cure, but the health systems of many countries have simply been ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of managing tuberculosis, a fact proven by the escalating rates of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant strains of TB," it continued.

While recognizing shortfalls, the WHO was nevertheless positive about the TB battle.

"In the space of 17 years, 51 million people have been successfully treated and cared for according to WHO recommendations. Without that treatment, 20 million people would have died," Mario Raviglione, director of the WHO Stop TB Department, said in a press release.

"This milestone reflects the commitment of governments to transform the fight against TB."

But the WHO said more money is needed for continued and improved progress to treat and control TB outbreaks, saying it is $US3 billion short of the $US8 billion necessary. And an additional $US1.4 billion is required for research and development to reach the necessary $US2 billion.

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Syria battles rage as 2 sides weigh truce

SYRIAN forces have bombarded opposition belts in the country's battle-scarred north, as both sides indicated they are ready to explore a truce proposal floated by peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

Warplanes targeted a rebel blockade of a highway in Idlib province which has halted the regime's efforts to get reinforcements to Aleppo, theatre of intense fighting for the past three months, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The early morning air raids also targeted the Idlib town of Maaret al-Numan and nearby villages, which fell to the rebels a week ago as they pushed their quest to create a northern "buffer zone" abutting Turkey, the watchdog said.

The fighting raged even as Brahimi, who arrived in Beirut on Wednesday on the latest leg of his regional tour aimed at ending the conflict in Syria, appeared to have won tentative support from both sides for a ceasefire during the four-day Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday starting on October 26.

The Syrian foreign ministry said it looked forward to talks with Brahimi on the ceasefire proposal he has been promoting on his tour, which has included stops in Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq.

But spokesman Jihad Maqdisi stressed the rebels and their backers would also need to be involved.

"In order to succeed in any initiative, it takes two sides," Maqdisi said in answer to a question from AFP.

"The Syrian side is interested in exploring this option and we are looking forward to talking to Mr Brahimi to see what is the position of other influential countries that he talked to in his tour," he said.

"Will they pressure the armed groups that they host and finance and arm in order to abide by such a ceasefire?"

The opposition Syrian National Council said it expected the rebel Free Syrian Army to reciprocate any halt to the violence but that it was up to the government to act first.

"We would welcome any halt to the killings but we think the appeal needs to be addressed first to the Syrian regime, which has not stopped bombarding Syrian towns and villages," SNC leader Abdel Basset Sayda told AFP.

Rebel fighters "are only acting in self-defence, so it is normal that they would halt hostilities when the war machine does so," he added.

Brahimi was expected to discuss the truce proposal in his talks on Wednesday in Beirut with Lebanon's leaders, among them President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Najib Mikati and parliament speaker Nabih Berri.

His office had earlier said the envoy had appealed for Iranian help to broker the truce.

"He reiterated the call by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for a ceasefire and a halt to the flow of arms to both sides. A ceasefire, he said, would help create an environment that would allow a political process to develop."

The UN chief had previously called for a unilateral government ceasefire to be matched by the rebels afterwards, but that idea was rejected by Damascus as its troop losses mount.

On the battlefront, fighting raged near Maaret al-Numan even as the warplanes were carrying out their bombings raids, the Britain-based Observatory said.

It said the violence erupted early on Wednesday when rebels attacked a six-tank convoy of government troops in the town of Maarhtat as it was making its way to reinforce the nearby Wadi Deif army base, the largest in the region.

At least five people were killed across Aleppo province, including in the city of the same name, as government forces pounded the area and clashed with rebels who fired rockets into an army base, the Observatory said.

The Observatory - which relies on a network of activists, medics and lawyers for its information - says some 33,000 people have been killed since the revolt began in March last year, among them 2300 children.

A UN commission investigating rights abuses in the wartorn country warned that foreign militants fighting in Syria "could contribute to an increased radicalisation."

"The presence of foreign militants, radical Islamists or jihadists, worries us very much," commission head Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told reporters in New York, estimating there were hundreds of foreign combatants on the ground in Syria.

"Their presence can contribute to radicalisation... this presence is particularly dangerous in a very volatile conflict," he said.

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UK doctor in court over Syria kidnaps

A BRITISH trainee doctor appeared in a London court on Wednesday charged with kidnapping two Western journalists in Syria.

Shajul Islam, 26, is accused of being part of a jihadist group that held photographers John Cantlie from Britain and Jeroen Oerlemans of the Netherlands at a Syrian camp between July 17 and 26.

Islam was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport on October 9 after arriving on a flight from Egypt with his 26-year-old wife and one-year-old daughter, the court heard.

His wife was also arrested but was released without charge on Tuesday.

Islam, from east London, appeared at the short hearing wearing a black jacket with a grey shirt and tie. He spoke only to confirm his name, date of birth and address.

The court heard he had studied medicine at two London hospitals and had left Britain in June.

Islam was remanded in custody and is next due to appear at London's Old Bailey court on November 2.

Cantlie, who was abducted with Oerlemans while covering the fighting between President Bashar al-Assad's regime and rebel fighters, had said his captors included a man who said he was a doctor with Britain's National Health Service.

Writing in the Sunday Times newspaper in August, Cantlie said he and Oerlemans were held by some 30 Islamic militants from countries including Britain, Pakistan and Chechnya.

Both photographers suffered gunshot wounds when the Free Syrian Army, the main rebel movement, freed them from their captors.

"I ended up running for my life, barefoot and handcuffed, while British jihadists - young men with south London accents - shot to kill," he wrote.

"Not a Syrian in sight. This wasn't what I had expected."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that 33,000 people have been killed in Syria since the revolt against Assad began in March last year.

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Poor Intel, IBM earnings lower US stocks

US stocks fell in opening trade on Wednesday after two days of solid gains, dragged down by disappointing earnings from Intel and IBM.

Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 46.02 points (0.34 per cent) to 13,505.76.

The broad-based S&P 500 slipped 0.79 (0.05 per cent) to 1454.13, while the tech-rich Nasdaq fell 11.47 (0.37 per cent) to 3089.70.

Intel shares fell 3.4 per cent and IBM 4.0 per cent after their disappointing third-quarter reports following the close of trade on Tuesday.

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Woman 'gives birth on subway train'

IT was a very unusual delivery on a Philadelphia subway line.

Police say a woman riding the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority's Broad Street line told officers she gave birth aboard a northbound train Tuesday afternoon.

KYW-TV reports transit police Officer Loyd Rodgers and his partner gave the stork a helping hand after the woman approached them at the Olney station. Nestled in her clothing was her baby boy, umbilical cord still attached.

Mr Rodgers wrapped the newborn in a blanket and called for medics.

He says all activity in the busy subway station halted as riders snapped pictures and congratulated the new mom.

Mother and baby are doing fine at a hospital. The new mom's name wasn't released.

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Five dead in arson-homicide at bar

Police investigate at Fero's Bar and Grill in Denver where the bodies of a man and four woman were discovered after firefighters extinguished a fire at the bar. Police believe the fire was lit to cover up a multiple homicide. Source: AP

DENVER police believe a bar was set fire to hide the slayings of the five people found inside who apparently were killed by other means.

The blaze at Fero's Bar & Grill was reported around closing time at 2 a.m. Wednesday, Police Chief Robert White said.

Firefighters responding to the fire found four women and one man dead inside the bar. Police don't think they died in the fire.

"The business has obviously been set on fire, an arson, I'm guessing, to mask the homicide that occurred inside," said police Commander Ronald Saunier.

"There is just trauma, enough information to believe that we have a homicide that occurred here. They didn't perish in the fire."

The bar is located in a strip mall about five miles south of downtown Denver on one of the city's busiest streets, Colorado Boulevard. It serves bar food and a few Asian dishes. Other businesses in the strip mall include a check cashing store.

The bar's owner couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

The five are believed to be the only ones in the bar when the fire started - other than whoever is responsible for their deaths -so police are asking anyone else who was at the place earlier to come forward, as investigators try to piece together what happened.

The victims haven't been identified. Autopsies were expected to be completed later in the day.

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US stocks rise; Citigroup sinks

CITIGROUP shares fell 0.3 per cent to $36.55 on Tuesday as US markets opened after the shock resignations of chief executive Vikram Pandit and chief operating officer John Havens for unexplained reasons.

But US stocks were generally higher following widespread gains in European and Asian markets and better-than-expected earnings from Johnson & Johnson and Goldman Sachs.

Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 54.98 points (0.41 per cent) to 13,479.21.

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 5.96 points (0.41 per cent) to 1446.09, while the tech-rich Nasdaq added 8.93 points (0.29 per cent) at 3073.11.

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Two Indonesian police found murdered

TWO policemen have been found murdered in central Indonesia, national police say, a week after they disappeared while investigating an alleged terrorist training camp.

"The two missing policemen were found dead with their throats slit. They were discovered buried together in a hole," national police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar told reporters.

He said the bodies were discovered in the mountains in central Sulawesi's Poso district, where thousands were killed in outbreaks of sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians between the late 1990s and mid-2000s.

Poso has since been described by police as a hotbed for terrorism.

A national police source told AFP the officers had been investigating an alleged militant training camp linked to Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT), declared a terrorist organisation by the United States in February.

JAT was founded in 2008 by the cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, considered the spiritual leader of the al-Qaeda-linked network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).

JI is blamed for numerous deadly attacks on Indonesian soil in the past decade, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people, mostly foreigners. Last Friday marked 10 years since that attack, the nation's deadliest.

Police in 2010 discovered a JAT training camp in Aceh on the island of Sumatra and said the militants were planning Mumbai-style gun attacks on high-profile Indonesians.

Indonesia has led an intensive decade-long crackdown on terrorism, crippling the JI network with deadly police raids, executions and imprisonment.

But experts say that known JI figures are assisting small but violent terror networks that also aspire to an Islamic caliphate.

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SAfrica hip hop star convicted of murder

A COURT in South Africa has found a hip hop star guilty of the murder of four schoolchildren in a case that raised emotions in the nation.

Molemo Maarohanye, best known by his stage name Jub Jub, faced charges of murder and attempted murder stemming from a March 8, 2010 drag race in which he and his co-accused drove cars that ploughed into a group of schoolchildren, killing four and seriously injuring two. The crash happened in Soweto, not far from the magistrate's court where they would be charged.

A magistrate ruled that the men had been driving under the influence of drugs, finding both guilty on four counts of murder and on two counts of attempted murder.

"The death of the deceased occurred as a result of the driving of those vehicles and as such the accused are convicted of driving their vehicles while under the influence of drugs," the magistrate said.

The case against Jub Jub, 32, was followed closely in South Africa, where many families worried the hip hop star and his co-accused, Themba Tshabalala, would not be convicted because of their wealth. Jub Jub is one of the most recognisable artists in South Africa. Thousands of high school students protested during his bail hearing in May and riots erupted when he was granted bail. Some family members of the victims threatened to assault him after the case was postponed.

Families of the victims were overwhelmed with emotion after the decision was delivered, with one woman losing consciousness and schoolchildren breaking into tears, according to the South African Press Association.

Jub Jub will be sentenced in November.

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Clover Moore backs chosen successor

SYDNEY Lord Mayor Clover Moore says her farewell speech after resigning as an MP was like being at "your own funeral", as she handed the baton on to the man she hopes will replace her.

Ms Moore stepped down last month after 24 years at Macquarie Street, having been forced out by laws adopted by the government of NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell that ban councillors from sitting in parliament.

Speaking at Alex Greenwich's campaign launch, she said she was "really proud" to endorse his bid to replace her as an independent in the NSW parliament.

On preparing her final speech to parliament, Ms Moore admitted: "It was a bit like attending your own funeral.

"You put together the things you had done over the years - and I thought, this is pretty good."

She added that she was "grateful" that Mr Greenwich was standing for the seat so that he could hopefully continue her work.

Mr Greenwich returned the compliment by telling Ms Moore: "You are my political hero. Someone who has taught me so much about working with people."

He said he was inspired by the City of Sydney and its diverse electorate.

"I will be a loud voice and I will work hard for you," the gay marriage advocate promised supporters at a fund-raising dinner in Potts Point, Sydney.

After her speech, Ms Moore told AAP: "It's a great relief to me that I have Alex - but it's also a great sadness what happened."

She said she had confidence in the 31-year-old Mr Greenwich, adding: "He is an intelligent, honourable person who will work very hard for the city, and that's a great consolation for me."

Mr Greenwich said he was feeling positive about the October 27 by-election.

"There seems to be collective rage at the O'Farrell government and the neglect of Sydney," he told AAP after his speech.

He admitted he had "huge shoes to fill" and that if he succeeds, he faces "not a very welcoming working environment", however, describing the parliament as "a bear pit full of toxic negativity".

Liberal candidate Shayne Mallard, a former City of Sydney councillor, and Greens candidate Chris Harris, are also standing in the by-election.

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Breast cancer mortality at 'historic low'

BREAST cancer mortality is currently at historically low levels, with 43 deaths from the disease per 100,000 women in Australia.

But three women in their 50s and 60s die each day from the disease, which is the second most common cause of cancer-related death for women after lung cancer.

More than 1.7 million women had a mammogram through Breast Screen Australia in 2009/10, according to the figures from the Australian Institute of Health and welfare (AIHW) published on Wednesday.

About 55 per cent of the target group - women aged 50 to 69 - were screened that year.

Participation rates remain steady at between 55 and 57 per cent since 1997. Reporting only began the previous year when 52 per cent of the target group participated.

Deaths in the main target group have dropped 37 per cent since national screening was introduced in 1991, from 68 to the current historic low of 43 deaths per 100,000 women.

About 19 women aged 50 to 69 are diagnosed with breast cancer every day.

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Citigroup CEO Pandit steps down

Vikram Pandit has stepped down as CEO of Citigroup, saying it was time for someone else to take the helm of the banking giant. Source: AFP

VIKRAM Pandit has abruptly stepped down as CEO of Citigroup, surprising Wall Street, after steering the bank through the 2008 financial crisis and the choppy years that followed.

Mr Pandit's replacement, effective immediately, is Michael Corbat, the current CEO of Citigroup's Europe, Middle East and Africa division, the bank said. Mr Corbat has worked at Citi and its predecessors since he graduated from Harvard in 1983, it said.

Mr Pandit will also relinquish his seat on Citi's board of directors. And a second top executive also resigned as part of the shake-up: President and Chief Operating Officer John Havens, who also served as CEO of Citi's Institutional Client Group.

The news shocked Wall Street, a day after the bank reported strong third-quarter earnings. Mr Pandit is credited with slimming the bank by selling businesses, removing it from government ownership after a bailout in 2008 and righting its balance sheet after billions in losses on bad mortgage investments made before he took the helm.

Today, Citi is the US' third-largest bank, with $US1.9 trillion ($1.85 trillion) in assets, according to the US Federal Reserve. It trails only JPMorgan Chase, with $US2.3 trillion, and Bank of America, with $US2.1 trillion.

But Mr Pandit's massive pay packages have raised the ire of investors. Some in government believed the bank was too slow to address its problems as they emerged in the months before the crisis in September 2008.

Citigroup offered no explanation for the sudden departure of its two top executives. On Monday, the bank announced earnings that beat analysts' expectations, after stripping out one-time items like a big write-down it had to take because it got less money than it had hoped when it negotiated to sell its stake in its retail brokerage.

Investors were pleased with the results and sent the stock up more than 5 per cent Monday, rising $US1.91 to close at $US36.66.

"He's done pretty much all he can do to turn the bank around," said Daniel Alpert, managing partner at the New York investment bank Westwood Capital Partners LLC. It will be hard for big banks to boost their share prices because of intense pressure from regulators to simplify their businesses, he said.

"There is some meaning to quit while you're ahead," Mr Alpert said, noting that it's harder for executives to win massive pay packages when a company's stock is flat-lining.

In April, Citigroup shareholders rejected the bank's proposed pay deals for executives including Mr Pandit. It was the first time shareholders dinged a Wall Street bank under a provision of the 2010 financial overhaul law that gives them a non-binding vote on executive pay.

Fifty-five per cent of the shareholders objected to deals including the $US15 million that Pandit received last year, in addition to $US10 million in retention pay. He had accepted a token $US1 in compensation in 2010.

The retention pay was to vest in 2013, as an incentive for Mr Pandit to stay on as CEO. A bank spokeswoman could not comment immediately on whether he would receive any of that money.

In March, Citigroup surprised observers by failing its stress test, the Federal Reserve's annual checkup for banks. The Fed said Citi, unlike any of its peers, did not have enough capital to raise its stock dividend and still withstand a financial crisis worse than 2008.

Mr Pandit, 55, said in a statement that "now is the right time for someone else to take the helm at Citigroup" after the bank "emerged from the financial crisis as a strong institution."

Mr Pandit joined Citigroup in 2007 when the hedge fund he founded was acquired by the bank. He quickly rose to CEO in December 2007. Earlier, he had ascended to head of investment banking at Morgan Stanley before leaving in 2005 to form the hedge fund.

A native of India, Mr Pandit attended Columbia University at 16 and completed a bachelor's degree in three years. He earned a doctorate in finance in 1986.

Mr Pandit faced harsh criticism after Citigroup took $US45 billion in US government bailout money in the 2008 credit crisis. It is widely believed that other, stronger banks were forced to take billions in bailout money to divert attention from Citigroup, whose financial situation was more precarious.

The U.S. Treasury sold the last of its stake in the company in December 2010.

In October 2011 the company agreed to pay $US285 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled buyers of a complex mortgage investment just as the housing market was starting to collapse.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Citigroup bet against the investment in 2007 and made $US160 million in fees and profits. Investors lost millions.

Citigroup neither admitted nor denied the SEC's allegations in the settlement.

Goldman Sachs paid $US550 million to settle similar charges and JPMorgan Chase paid $US153.6 million. All the cases have involved complex investments called collateralised debt obligations. Those are securities that are backed by pools of other assets, such as mortgages.

In December 2011, Mr Pandit announced the company would eliminate 4500 jobs to cut costs. The cuts represented about 1.5 per cent of its global workforce of 267,000. When he was first hired in 2007, the company had 375,000 employees.

A naturalised US citizen, Mr Pandit lives in New York with his wife and two children.

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Romania to limit foreign land buy-ups

ROMANIA plans to impose strict conditions on foreigners buying agricultural land to protect local farmers and prevent speculation, Agriculture Minister Daniel Constantin says.

The left-wing government will either cap the number of hectares that a foreigner is allowed to purchase or request that the buyer has farming experience, Constantin says.

"We must take steps to protect Romanian farmers from the European ones, who have more money," the minister said on Monday. "But on the other hand, Romania's agriculture needs investment, so we must also create favourable conditions to attract investors."

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has also unveiled plans for new legislation to prevent foreigners from buying agricultural land.

Orban on Saturday told a meeting of young farmers that similar rules applied in countries such as France or Austria.

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Costa Concordia captain in court

THE captain of the cruise ship that crashed into an Italian reef has appeared in court to hear the evidence against him, while hundreds of passengers who survived the deadly shipwreck and the families of those who died in it showed up just "to look him in the eye".

The case of Francesco Schettino, 51, was of such enormous interest that a theatre had to be turned into a courtroom in the Tuscan city of Grosseto to accommodate all those who had a legitimate claim to be at the closed-door hearing on Monday.

Wearing dark glasses and a suit, Schettino used a back entrance to slip into the theatre, making no comment to reporters outside. Lawyers said he listened intently to the proceedings inside, where his lawyers raised some objections to the evidence being submitted.

Thirty-two people died after Schettino, in a stunt, took his Costa Concordia cruise ship off course and brought it close to the Tuscan island of Giglio on the night of Jan 13. The ship ran aground and capsized. Schettino then became a lightning rod for international disdain for having left the ship before everyone was evacuated.

Hearings this week will help decide whether the judge will order a trial for Schettino, who is accused of manslaughter, causing the shipwreck and abandoning ship while passengers and crew were still aboard. He denies the accusations and hasn't been charged. Any trial is unlikely to begin before next year.

More than 1000 survivors, victims' relatives and their lawyers attended the hearing on the evidence against Schettino and eight others accused in the shipwreck, including crew members and officials from Concordia owner Costa Crociere.

"We want to look him in the eye to see how he will react to the accusations," said German survivor Michael Liessen, 50, who attended the hearing along with his wife.

A key question is how much of the blame should Schettino himself bear, and how much responsibility for the disaster lies with his crew and employer, Costa Crociere, a division of the Miami-based Carnival Corp.

Last month, court-appointed experts delivered a 270-page report of what went wrong that night based on an analysis of data recorders, ship communications equipment, testimony and other evidence.

The experts, who included two admirals and two engineers, laid most of the blame for the collision with the reef and the botched evacuation on Schettino. But they also noted that not all crew members understood Italian, not all had current safety and evacuation certifications, and not all passengers had had the chance to participate in evacuation drills.

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9/11 mastermind back in court

HEARINGS for the self-proclaimed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants got under way at Guantanamo Bay ahead of their trial.

It was a second appearance for him at the special tribunal known as military commissions on the US naval base.

Mohammed and four alleged co-plotters face the death penalty if convicted for the attacks on the United States 11 years ago that left 2976 people dead.

With prosecutors refusing to reveal information deemed classified and holding parts of the debates behind closed doors, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) rights group and 14 media groups have urged complete transparency.

At issue are the torture and abuse the five men said they suffered at the hands of US authorities, and the classified status that President Barack Obama's administration says covers details of the suspects' treatment, citing national security concerns.

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Britain, Scotland sign independence deal

BRITISH Prime Minister David Cameron and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond have signed an agreement to hold a referendum in 2014 on Scottish independence.

TV pictures showed the two men signing the agreement in Edinburgh on Monday.

"The referendum agreement has been signed," a spokeswoman for Cameron's Downing Street residence told AFP, following talks in Edinburgh between Cameron and Salmond, who leads the pro-independence Scottish National Party.

The referendum could lead to the United Kingdom breaking up after 300 years, leaving only England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the union.

Cameron strongly opposes a Scottish breakaway and the signing of the terms fires the starting gun on two years of campaigning pitching the leaders on opposite sides.

After months of negotiations, the deal is expected to give Scotland's administration the power to hold a vote in the final quarter of 2014, offering Scots a straight yes-or-no question on leaving the United Kingdom.

But support among Scots for independence appears to be slipping, with a survey by pollsters TNS-BMRB released last week showing 28 per cent in favour and 53 per cent opposed.

Cameron said: "I want to be the Prime Minister that keeps the United Kingdom together, but I believe in showing respect to people in Scotland.

"The people of Scotland voted for a party that wanted to have a referendum on independence. I've made sure, showing them respect, that we can have that referendum in a way that is decisive, that is legal, that is fair but crucially is one single simple question, whether Scotland wants to stay in the United Kingdom or go.

"This is going to be a cross-party campaign; there are many other parties, the Labour party, the Liberal Democrat party as well as the Conservative party, and people who belong to no party at all who care passionately about this issue.

"Let now the arguments be put and let's make all the arguments about why the United Kingdom is better off together. We're stronger together around the world, we're safer together here at home, we're better off together, our economies are stronger.

"Not just that Scotland I believe is better off in the United Kingdom but the United Kingdom, England, Wales, Northern Ireland are better off with Scotland being part of this family, so I'll be arguing to keep the family together.

"This is an important day for the United Kingdom, but you can't haul the country of the United Kingdom against the will of its people. Scotland voted for a party that wanted to hold a referendum."

Speaking at a press conference, Salmond said: "It paves the way for the most important decision our country of Scotland has made in several hundred years.

"It is, in that sense, an historic day for Scotland and a major step forward in Scotland's home rule journey."

The First Minister said securing an agreement on the process of the referendum meant there would be "respect" for the outcome "whatever it is". It also allows the SNP to now deal with the "substantive" arguments involved in devolution, he added.

Salmond added: "Do I believe that independence will win this campaign? Yes, I do. I believe we'll win it by setting out a positive vision for a better future for our country economically and also, crucially, socially."

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Orangutan rescue in Indonesia

A CONSERVATIONIST group says a Sumatran orangutan has been rescued from an isolated area of forest in western Indonesia.

The Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme says the adult male, weighing around 90 kilograms, was found in Aceh province and evacuated safely over the weekend. He was named Seuneam, after the nearest village to where he was found.

The group said on Monday that Seuneam was trapped for several days in a forest surrounded by palm oil plantations and isolated from the rest of the surviving orangutan population in the Tripa swamp area.

The forest was home to about 3000 critically endangered orangutans in the 1990s. Today it has just 200, the world's densest population.

There are only 6600 Sumatran orangutans left in the wild.

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China begins air carrier training

CHINA has begun flight training on its first aircraft carrier, with photographs posted on websites showing navy pilots practising touch-and-go landing exercises.

Military enthusiast websites have posted pictures of a J-15 fighter-bomber executing the manoeuvre, in which the plane makes brief contact with the flight deck before flying on.

It wasn't clear on Monday when the pictures were taken, and they did not appear on the Defence Ministry's website or in official media.

The exercises are the latest move to provide a combat capability for the carrier, which was launched last month without aircraft or an accompanying battle group. The next step would be the launching and recovery of aircraft, a much trickier process that may be years away.

Chinese-produced Z-8 helicopters have also been practising take-offs and landings on the carrier. Both aircraft are based on Russian and French designs. Chinese pilots are believed to have been practising carrier operations on mock flight decks located inland.

The carrier is the former Soviet navy's unfinished Varyag, which was towed from Ukraine in 1998 minus its engines, weaponry and navigation systems. Christened the Liaoning, the province where its home port is located, the ship began sea trials in August last year following years of refurbishment.

The carrier's launch underscores China's ambitions to be a leading Asian naval power amid sharpening conflicts with its neighbours over disputed island chains in the South China and East China Seas.

Beijing hasn't said what exact role it intends the carrier to fill other than helping safeguard China's coastline and sea links. The Liaoning has also been portrayed as a kind of test platform for the future development of domestically built Chinese carriers.

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Turkey bars Syrian civilian flights

TURKEY'S foreign minister says the country has barred its air space to Syrian civilian flights.

Ahmet Davutoglu said on Sunday that Turkey had made the decision because the Syrian regime, which is battling an insurgency, was "abusing" civilian flights by transporting military equipment.

He says Syria's government was notified of the decision on Saturday.

Last week, Turkey forced a Syrian plane to land and confiscated what it said was military equipment on board. Russia said the plane was carrying spare radar parts, while Syria accused Turkey of piracy.

Syria announced on Saturday that it was closing its air space to Turkish flights.

But Davutoglu said on Sunday: "The Syrian announcement has no value for us."

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Woman dies in Qld motorcycle crash

A 57-YEAR-OLD woman has been killed in a motorcycle crash in Queensland.

The Ducklo woman was riding her motorbike on the Warrego Highway, east of Bowenville, when it collided with two cars on Sunday afternoon.

The highway was closed for nearly seven hours and the forensic crash unit from Queensland Police is investigating.

Anyone with information on the circumstances of the collision is urged to contact police.

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20 shot dead outside Nigeria mosque

ARMED robbers have opened fire on a group of people as they left prayers at a mosque in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna, killing about 20, a military spokesman says.

A resident reported the gunmen were disguised in police uniforms as they stormed the mosque in the village of Dogon Dawa just before sunrise on Sunday, shooting both those still worshipping within the building as well as some outside.

"It is a clear case of armed robbery," Lieutenant Colonel Sani Usman told AFP, confirming the shooting. "The last time I spoke with my (contact) in the area, he said it was 20 people dead."

Religiously divided Kaduna has seen waves of sectarian violence in recent months.

Suicide bombings at three churches in June that were claimed by Islamist group Boko Haram sparked reprisal violence by Christian mobs who killed dozens of their Muslim neighbours, burning some of their victims' bodies.

Muslim groups also formed mobs and killed several Christians.

Usman however told AFP that the latest attack was linked to a running feud between a group of "bandits" and a vigilante group in Dogon Dawa.

The thieves had tried to rob some residents earlier in the week but were repelled, he said, adding that the robbers returned to the village on Sunday and carried out what he termed a "revenge" attack.

Asked about a potential religious element in the shootings, he said only that "the victims were coming from prayers" at the mosque.

Village resident Dauda Maikudi told AFP that thieves regularly target the area as Dogon Dawa falls along a main road frequently used by traders carrying goods and cash between the north and south of Africa's most populous country.

"It was a pre-dawn raid," he said. "The attackers ..., some of them dressed in police uniform, came into the village. They killed eight worshippers in the mosque and killed 13 other residents in the village."

"We believe they were armed robbers because this area has been bedevilled with armed robbers for years," he added.

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Thousands of UK troops to exit Afghanistan

BRITAIN'S defence secretary says thousands of troops will leave Afghanistan next year, a major reduction in UK forces there.

Britain has said 500 of its 9500 troops in Afghanistan will be withdrawn this year, and all will be brought home by the end of 2014, when international troops are due to hand security over to Afghan forces.

But it has not announced exactly how many will come home in 2013.

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday that he planned "a significant reduction in force numbers by the end of next year".

He told the BBC that "thousands, not hundreds" of troops would be withdrawn late in 2013, "but I would not expect it to be the majority of our forces".

Since 2001, 433 British troops have died in Afghanistan.

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Five dead on Vic roads over the weekend

THE death of a man late on Sunday night has taken to five the number of people who died on Victoria's roads over the weekend.

In the latest death, police believe the man lost control of his car before it hit a tree on the Henty Highway near Heywood, in Victoria's southwest, just before 11pm (AEST).

An off-duty nurse and emergency services worked to save the man but he died at the scene.

A 58-year-old man died in a quad bike accident on Sunday afternoon at Murchison, in central Victoria, while in the early hours of Sunday morning a man was killed when his car veered to the other side of the road in Doncaster and hit a tree.

On Saturday, a female passenger aged in her 60s, died after a station wagon plunged off a road in southwestern Victorian and hit a tree.

And a newborn baby died on Saturday after its mother was involved in a car crash at Point Cook on Tuesday and she gave birth prematurely.

Their deaths take the state's road toll to 223 - five more than for the same time last year.

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'Space jump' team begins inflating balloon

THE team working with an extreme athlete who hopes to become the first skydiver to break the sound barrier is inflating the balloon that is designed to lift him to the stratosphere.

Felix Baumgartner has donned his high-tech pressurised suit and is on board a capsule that will be lifted by the balloon near Roswell, New Mexico

The former Austrian paratrooper's jump was postponed twice last week because of high winds.

Mission control officials say the 30 million cubic foot balloon will be fully inflated by 10am local time (3am AEDT), when the three-hour ascent is expected to begin.

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