Sudan miner search ends, 100 believed dead

THE search for about 100 workers believed to have died inside a collapsed gold mine in Sudan's Darfur region has ended after nine rescuers also became trapped, a colleague of the miners said on Saturday.

"Today the searching has stopped because it was too dangerous," the man said from the scene of the tragedy in Jebel Amir district, more than 200 kilometres northwest of North Darfur state capital El Fasher.

The unlicensed desert mine began to collapse on Monday and several days later the stench of death was seeping out of the baked earth.

Nine rescuers disappeared on Thursday when the earth collapsed around them, the miner said, adding that eight bodies had been recovered.

It was not clear whether they were rescuers or miners.

Nobody else had been found, alive or dead, said the miner, who asked to remain anonymous.

"According to what I got from my people here yesterday, they didn't find anybody (else)," he told AFP on Saturday.

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Karzai denies CIA cash buys off warlords

CIA cash delivered each month to Afghan President Hamid Karzai office was not used to buy the support of warlords who could tip the country back into civil war, he says.

The US Central Intelligence Agency has secretly handed over tens of millions of dollars to Karzai's office over the last decade, the New York Times said recently in a revelation that provoked anger in both Washington and Kabul.

But Karzai said the bundles of cash, allegedly packed in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags, were used for health care and scholarships and that full receipts are issued to the Americans.

"This money was not given to warlords," the president told a press conference in Kabul.

"The major part of this money was spent on government employees such as our guards... it has been paid to individuals not movements.

"It is used for different issues such as treating patients, scholarships for youths... we give receipts for all these expenditures to the US government."

The New York Times alleged that some of the funds were used to bribe warlords into supporting Karzai's US-backed government as the international coalition tries to stabilise the country before NATO troops withdraw next year.

Warlords who fought against both the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the Taliban regime retain huge influence and many have close links to Karzai's government which rose to power after the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

With the NATO-led mission winding down after more than 11 years of fighting, the warlords look set to renew their battle for power in Afghanistan and the weak central government faces a tough challenge to impose stability.

Karzai, who is due to step down next year, declined to confirm how much his office received each month from the CIA and he repeated his gratitude to the US spy agency.

He said he had met on Saturday with US officials and asked them not to halt the cash despite protests in Washington and criticism from Afghan opposition groups.

"This is a valuable support to us. In Afghanistan's situation there is so much needed. It proves extremely helpful," the president said.

"This financial assistance should continue, we thank them for it."

Cash gifts fuel endemic corruption and this is a prime threat to Afghanistan establishing an effective state, critics of the government and the Americans claim.

When news of the CIA payments broke, Karzai immediately confirmed the reports and claimed they were part of the international aid effort to help his country recover from decades of war.

"This is an official deal between two governments," he said.

"I say that we should take every drop of money that comes to us so that our budget can be saved."

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Pakistan court extends Musharraf's remand

Pervez Musharraf's political party says it will boycott next week's historical Pakistan elections. Source: AAP

A PAKISTANI anti-terrorism court has ordered former military ruler Pervez Musharraf to remain in custody for a further two weeks ahead of his trial for unlawfully sacking judges during his rule, officials say.

"Pervez Musharraf's remand is extended for judicial lock-up for 14 days, he should be presented before the court on May 18," Judge Kausar Abbas Zaidi, ordered on Saturday.

Police had asked the judge to grant the custodial extension saying the investigation into Musharraf's activities was still under way.

Lawyers for Musharraf, who is locked in his own home, which has been declared a sub-jail while he is awaiting trial, filed a bail application in the court and the judge fixed a hearing for May 6.

The court was also asked if Musharraf's trial could be held inside his plush villa, citing security reasons, but the matter was left pending.

"It has been brought into my notice that the Chief Commissioner of Islamabad issued a notification for the jail trial, but approval from Islamabad high court is needed in this regard," the judge said.

Musharraf was placed in police custody at his home following his arrest on April 19, in an unprecedented move against a former army chief of staff ahead of key elections.

He was arrested for making a decision to sack judges when he imposed emergency rule in November 2007 - a move that hastened his downfall.

He also faces charges of conspiracy to murder opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in 2007 and over the death of a rebel leader during a 2006 military operation.

The retired general has been humiliated since returning in March from self-imposed exile to contest elections.

However, his party on Friday announced it will boycott next week's historic election after a court on Tuesday banned him from standing for the rest of his life.

The May 11 polls for the national and regional assemblies mark the first time that a civilian government completes a full-term and hands over to another at the ballot box, in a country that has been ruled by the military for half its life.

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Man dies after vehicle hits tree in Vic

A MAN has died after his vehicle hit a tree in Victoria's north west, the second road fatality in the state in one day.

Police believe the man was driving west on Polkemmet Road, near Horsham, when he lost control and died at the scene.

Emergency crews were called to the scene about 8.30pm (AEST) but police believe the incident happened on Saturday afternoon.

Victoria's road toll stands at 89 compared to 101 this time last year.

Earlier on Saturday, a motorcyclist died after colliding with a car in Victoria's northeast.

The man was travelling at Baranduda, near Wodonga, when he collided with a car turning onto the Kiewa Valley Highway on Saturday morning.

He died at the scene.

Three women who were in the car suffered minor injuries in the crash.

The man is yet to be formally identified.

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Hundreds protest China chemical plant

HUNDREDS of people have protested against a proposed chemical plant in southwest China, state media said.

Local residents have also accused authorities of preventing a similar protest in another city.

More than 200 protesters gathered in the city of Kunming to protest against plans for a factory which will produce paraxylene (PX), a toxic petrochemical used to make fabrics, China's official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

Around 1,000 people described as "onlookers" surrounded the protesters, some of whom wore face-masks and held banners, the report said.

Police also lined the streets of Chengdu, the capital of southwest China's Sichuan province, after locals planned a protest against a nearby chemical plant on Saturday, residents told AFP.

"There were a lot of police outside government offices, public spaces and important crossroads in the city," one resident surnamed Liu said, adding that fliers posted around the city in recent days had called for a protest.

"The fliers said the chemical plant has a big impact on people's health," he said.

The government responded with notices calling on people not to demonstrate, Liu said.

Photos posted online showed ranks of police lining the city's streets.

Local police on Saturday morning announced that they would be carrying out an earthquake protection drill, a claim dismissed by thousands of internet users.

"It's about preventing the protest," one user of the popular social networking website Sina Weibo wrote.

Locals online said that the protest did not take place.

China has seen a number of urban demonstrations against proposed chemical plants in recent years, in what analysts have identified as a rising trend of environmentally-motivated "not in my backyard" protests in China.

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Pakistan election candidate shot dead

A CANDIDATE running for parliament in next week's historic Pakistani election has been shot dead along with his three-year-old son after praying in a mosque in Karachi, police say.

It is the first time that a national assembly candidate has been killed in Pakistan's election campaign. Campaigning has been marred by Taliban threats and attacks, which have killed 62 people since April 11, according to an AFP tally.

The May 11 polls for the national and regional assemblies mark the first time that a civilian government completes a full-term and hands over to another at the ballot box, in a country that has been ruled by the military for half its life.

Saddiq Zaman Khattak was a businessman and a candidate for the Awami National Party (ANP), the leading secular party in Pakistan's ethnic Pastun northwest. A party leader said he had received threats.

"He was returning from a mosque after saying his Friday prayers with his three-year-old son when gunmen on a motorbike opened fire. Both were killed," police spokesman Imran Shaukat told AFP.

Senior ANP leader Bashir Jan confirmed the attack and the deaths.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the Taliban has directly threatened the ANP and the two other main parties in the outgoing government, branding the democratic elections un-Islamic.

Karachi, a city of 18 million people, contributes 42 per cent of Pakistan's GDP but is rife with politically and ethnically linked violence.

Friday's assassination brings to three the number of constituencies where the May 11 election will now be delayed because candidates have been killed.

A man standing for the secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in the Sindh provincial assembly, of which Karachi is the capital, was shot dead in the southern city of Hyderabad on April 11.

An independent candidate for the Baluchistan provincial assembly was also killed in the southwestern town of Jhal Magsi on Tuesday.

Karachi has seen a string of attacks on the election campaign.

Late on Thursday, a bomb wounded at least five people near an election office for MQM, the party that dominates Karachi.

Three bombs, two of which targeted MQM and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), killed three people and wounded 49 others on Saturday.

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Fears over man-made hybrid bird flu virus

IMMUNOLOGISTS are concerned about the "dangerous" work of Chinese scientists in creating a hybrid bird flu virus able to spread in the air between guinea pigs, and now living in a lab freezer.

The team from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Gansu Agricultural University have written in the journal Science that they have created the new virus by mixing genes from H5N1 "bird flu" and H1N1 "swine flu".

H5N1, transmitted to people by birds, is fatal in about 60 per cent of cases but does not transmit between humans - a characteristic so far preventing a pandemic.

Some argue hybrid studies like these shed light on how the virus could mutate in nature to cause a human epidemic, and may help us prepare.

Since 2003, H5N1 has infected 628 people, killing 374, according to the World Health Organisation.

H1N1, which erupted in Mexico, is highly transmissible and infected a fifth of the world's population in a 2009-10 pandemic, but is about as lethal as ordinary flu.

The new mutant virus was easily transmitted between guinea pigs through respiratory droplets - which the Chinese team said proved the deadly H5N1 virus may need but a simple genetic mutation to "acquire mammalian transmissibility".

Flu hybrids can arise in nature when two virus strains infect the same cell and exchange genes in a process known as reassortment, but there is no evidence that H1N1 and H5N1 have done so yet.

Some observers fear science is putting mankind at risk by pre-emptively creating such mutants.

"These are manmade viruses, they have never been made in Nature. They are now sitting in a freezer," virology professor Simon Wain-Hobson of France's Pasteur Institute told AFP.

He pointed to a laboratory leak of foot and mouth, a cattle disease, which caused an outbreak in Britain six years ago.

It was unclear how the flu hybrid, which is not deadly in guinea pigs, would affect people - but Wain-Hobson warned: "These could be pandemic viruses.

"That is, if there was ever an error or they got out or there was a leak or whatever, this could infect people and cause anywhere between 100,000 and 100 million deaths."

Wain-Hobson and others fear the risk may far outweigh the scientific value of the research.

The findings held little value for finding a vaccine or treatment that would take years to develop - probably long after an outbreak, they argue.

"The record of containment in the highest containment laboratories is not good. There have been repeated leaks," said Robert May, a former president of Britain's Royal Society of science.

"You do not do these things unless there is some call of extreme emergency," he said.

"We are encountering a real and present danger with extremely dubious benefits to the public."

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Eurozone recession to continue in 2013: EU

RECESSION in the crisis-hit eurozone will continue unabated for the rest of the year with unemployment remaining at record levels, the EU warns, though signs of recovery could emerge in 2014.

Economic output in the 17-nation area - home to 340 million people and a global rival to the United States, Japan and emerging giants - will shrink by 0.4 per cent this year, the European Commission said on Friday, worse than the 0.3 per cent forecast in February and after a 0.6 contraction last year.

Record unemployment in the single currency area will endure, the Commission's spring forecasts showed, with strong divergence between richer eurozone states to the north and members to the south mired in deep recession.

Repeating its last estimate, the Commission said eurozone joblessness this year would hit a record 12 per cent and 11 per cent across the whole 27-member EU. The rates vary hugely, with an alarming 27 per cent in Spain and a low 4.7 per cent in Austria.

"In view of the protracted recession, we must do whatever it takes to overcome the unemployment crisis in Europe," EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Ollie Rehn said in statement accompanying the Commission's latest economic forecast for the eurozone and full European Union.

"In Spain and Greece unemployment rates are at unbearably high levels," Rehn said at a news conference.

France, which has barely avoided recession despite significant headwinds, will in the end shrink by 0.1 per cent in 2013 as weakness in household demand, a key economic driver, finally takes its toll. France will then rebound to 1.1 per cent growth in 2014, the data said.

But France will widely miss its commitment to meet the EU's 3 per cent of GDP deficit ceiling and will post a 3.9 per cent deficit this year and 4.2 per cent shortfall next year.

Spain will continue a hard slog from its crisis, brought on by the 2008 implosion of a decade-long housing bubble, and should contract by 1.5 per cent in 2013 before reversing to 1.4 per cent in growth in 2014.

But Spanish public finances will remain dire well into next year with a government deficit of 6.5 per cent in 2013 expected to worsen in 2014 to 7.0 per cent as certain measures expire.

The crisis will be hugely felt in recently bailed out Cyprus where output is expected to contract by 8.7 per cent this year in the wake of a severe restructuring of the island nation's key banking sector, including a controversial "haircut" on deposits.

The Cypriot recession will prolong into 2014 and beyond, the Commission said, with the economy expected to contract by an overall 15 per cent between 2012 and 2015.

In a rare glimpse of encouragement, the Commission saw recovery in Greece by the end of the year after six consecutive years of recession. The country is forecast to eke out 0.6 per cent growth in 2014, after contracting sharply by 4.2 per cent this year.

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Boston bombing suspect's remains claimed

The body of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev will be released to his family. Source: AAP

A FUNERAL home has claimed the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a gunbattle with police after an intense manhunt.

Department of Public Safety spokesman Terrel Harris said on Thursday a funeral home retained by Tsarnaev's family had picked up the 26-year-old's remains.

Authorities are now closer to being able to make public Tsarnaev's cause of death.

The medical examiner determined Tsarnaev's cause of death on Monday, but officials said it wouldn't be disclosed until his remains were released and a death certificate was filed. It was unclear whether the death certificate had been filed.

Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell, who has been living with her parents in Rhode Island, learned this week that the medical examiner was ready to release his body and wanted it turned over to his side of the family, her lawyer Amato DeLuca said days ago.

Tsarnaev's uncle Ruslan Tsarni, of Maryland, said on Tuesday night the family would take the body.

"Of course, family members will take possession of the body," Tsarni said.

After a hearse believed to be carrying Tsarnaev's body departed Boston, television stations reported that their helicopters followed it to the Dyer-Lake Funeral Home in North Attleboro.

About 20 protesters gathered outside the funeral home. An Associated Press photographer later saw a hearse leaving the home escorted by two police cars.

Dyer-Lake funeral director Tim Nye told The Sun-Chronicle newspaper late on Thursday that the body was only brought to his funeral home temporarily and was transported to another facility, but he didn't say where.

"He is not at our funeral home and we won't be handling final arrangements," Nye said.

Tsarnaev, who had appeared in surveillance photos wearing a black cap and was identified as Suspect No. 1, died three days after the bombing.

The April 15 bombing, using pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails, ball bearings and metal shards near the marathon's finish line, killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Authorities said Tsarnaev and his younger brother later killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer and carjacked a driver, who later escaped.

Authorities said that during the gunbattle with police, the Tsarnaev brothers, ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago, set off another pressure cooker bomb and tossed grenades before the older brother ran out of ammunition.

Police said they tackled the older brother and began to handcuff him but had to dive out of the way at the last second when the younger brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, drove a stolen car at them. They said the younger brother ran over his brother's body as he drove away from the scene to escape.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured later, wounded and bloody, hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston backyard. He is in a federal prison and faces a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill.

The Tsarnaev brothers' mother insists the allegations against them are lies.

Three of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's friends, college classmates, were arrested on Wednesday and accused of helping after the marathon bombing to remove a laptop and backpack from his dormitory room before the FBI searched it.

A top Republican senator on Thursday asked President Barack Obama's administration to explain how one of the students entered the United States without a valid student visa.

Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, in a three-page letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, asked for additional details about the student visa applications for Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, college roommates from Kazakhstan charged with obstruction of justice in the marathon bombing case, and how Tazhayakov was allowed to re-enter the United States in January.

Tazhayakov was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth when he left the US in December. In early January, his student visa status was terminated because he was academically dismissed by the university.

Peter Boogaard, a DHS spokesman, said on Wednesday that when Tazhayakov arrived in January Customs and Border Protection had not been alerted that he was no longer a student. Boogaard said the department was working on a fix to the student visa system.

The third student arrested, Robel Phillipos, was charged with willfully making materially false statements to federal law enforcement officials during a terrorism investigation.

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Indonesia jails two foreigners over drugs

AN Indonesian court has sentenced a German man and a South African woman to life in prison for attempting to smuggle drugs into a resort island in two separate cases, a judge says.

Rolf Oskar Josef Schweikert, 57, was caught trying to smuggle 3.7 kilogrammes of hashish into the island of Lombok, just east of Bali, in October as he arrived on a Silk Air flight from Singapore.

He was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday at the district court in the city of Mataram, judge Pastra Joseph Ziralluo told AFP on Friday.

Kathlyn Dunn, 28, was arrested arriving on a Silk Air flight from Singapore two days before the German, attempting to smuggle in 2.6 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine, said the judge.

She "was given the same sentence" on Wednesday, Ziralluo said. However, he stressed that the court had not made any connection between the cases and the pair were tried separately.

The two were both charged with "attempting to import drugs", but they avoided the maximum sentence of death by firing squad.

Customs officials found hashish in the lining of Schweikert's suitcase with a street value of $US730,000 ($A715,370), while Dunn was caught with crystal methamphetamine valued at $US500,000.

Indonesia enforces some of the stiffest drug laws in the world. In March, it resumed executions after a hiatus of several years when a Malawian drug smuggler was put to death.

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I'll ditch the NDIS levy: Palmer

Clive Palmer says there is no justification for raising the Medicare Levy to help pay for the NDIS. Source: AAP

CLIVE Palmer says his United Australia Party would abolish the increase in the Medicare Levy designed to help pay for the national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) if it is elected at the September election.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced on Wednesday the levy would rise 0.5 percentage points to two per cent from July 2014.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said on Thursday the coalition would consider the rise.

But Mr Palmer says there is "no justification" in raising the levy.

"Mr Abbott and Ms Gillard are incompetent and this is resulting in this increase of the Medicare levy," he said in a statement on Thursday.

He said both leaders had resorted to increasing taxes to pay for their policies.

"When the United Australia Party takes government at the next federal election, any increase in the levy will be abolished," Mr Palmer said.

The Medicare levy increase will raise about $3.3 billion a year - less than half the $8 billion or more to run the care scheme each year when it begins full operation from 2018/19.

It will add $350 a year to the tax bill of a person earning $70,000 a year.

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UN sounds alarm on record Arctic ice melt

THE Arctic's sea ice melted at a record pace in 2012, the ninth-hottest year on record, compounding concerns about climate change underscored by extreme weather such as Hurricane Sandy, the UN weather agency says.

In a report on the situation in 2012, the World Meteorological Organisation said on Thursday that during the August to September melting season, the Arctic's sea ice cover was just 3.4 million square kilometres.

That was a full 18 per cent less than the previous record low set in 2007.

WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud dubbed it a "disturbing sign of climate change."

"The year 2012 saw many other extremes as well, such as droughts and tropical cyclones. Natural climate variability has always resulted in such extremes, but the physical characteristics of extreme weather and climate events are being increasingly shaped by climate change," he said.

"For example, because global sea levels are now about 20 centimetres higher than they were in 1880, storms such as Hurricane Sandy are bringing more coastal flooding than they would have otherwise," he added.

October's Hurricane Sandy killed almost 300 people and caused major destruction in the Caribbean before developing further strength and causing tens of billions of dollars in damage and around 130 deaths in the eastern United States.

Typhoon Bopha, the deadliest tropical cyclone of the year, hit the Philippines twice in December, sparking floods and landslides which killed more than 1,000 people.

The WMO said that the 2012 global land and ocean surface temperature was estimated to be 0.45C above the 1961-1990 average of 14.0C.

That marked the ninth warmest year since records began in 1850 and the 27th consecutive year that the global land and ocean temperatures were above the 1961-1990 average, it underlined.

Jarraud noted that the rate of warming varies from year to year due to a range of factors, including the El Nino and La Nina weather phenomena - which see warming and cooling, respectively, in the Pacific Ocean - as well as volcanic eruptions.

Last year's warming came despite a cooling La Nina at the beginning of the year.

"The sustained warming of the lower atmosphere is a worrisome sign," said Jarraud.

"The continued upward trend in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and the consequent increased radiative forcing of the Earth's atmosphere confirm that the warming will continue," he added.

Above-average temperatures were observed across most of the globe's land surface areas, most notably North America, southern Europe, western Russia, parts of northern Africa and southern South America, the WMO noted.

Nonetheless, cooler than average conditions were observed across Alaska, parts of northern and eastern Australia, and central Asia, it said.

Precipitation also varied, with drier-than-average conditions across much of the central United States, northern Mexico, northeastern Brazil, central Russia, and south-central Australia.

Northern Europe, western Africa, north-central Argentina, western Alaska, and most of northern China were meanwhile wetter than average.

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Major Australian exhibition in London

THE British are being encouraged to overcome their "shameful ignorance" of Australian art by attending the most extensive exhibition of Australian works ever shown in the United Kingdom.

It was revealed on Thursday that the Prince of Wales will be the patron of the September exhibition which is simply called Australia.

"People in this country have been, historically, shamefully ignorant of Australian art," Royal Academy of Arts chief executive Charles Saumarez Smith said at the press launch in London.

"The exhibition will be, for everyone in this country, a great revelation."

The exhibition includes indigenous and non-indigenous art from 1800 to the present day.

It focuses on the influence of landscape and was several years in the making.

"There has never been an exhibition like this before," co-curator Kathleen Soriano from the Royal Academy said.

"This survey is long, long overdue."

The last major UK exhibition of Australian art was in the 1960s but it focused on contemporary works only.

The academy last hosted an Australian exhibition in the early 1920s.

The 2013 exhibition brings together works from the most important public collections in Australia.

Works by artists including Albert Namatjira, Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Arthur Boyd, Brett Whiteley and Tracey Moffatt will be on display in London.

Controversial photographer Bill Henson will also be featured.

Judy Watson has been commissioned to create a new sculpture that will be displayed in the academy's courtyard.

Based on a bowerbird's mating structure it will be a larger version of an existing Watson work.

It will stand 6m high as opposed to the 2m-tall Fire and Water in Canberra.

"I'm hoping people will experience the strangeness of this structure encircling them and inviting people to walk through it," Watson told AAP.

The Australian government has contributed $200,000 towards the exhibition.

There's also $50,000 for other Australian events, such as screenings of indigenous films, on the sidelines.

Deputy high commissioner Andrew Todd says the government is "immensely proud" of the show.

"Artists can portray through moving images or still images a real sense of the history, the nature and the dilemmas that Australia faces," Mr Todd told AAP.

"This exhibition brings together iconic works of art from the past and works of art that will be iconic into the future."

The BBC will broadcast a three-part series on Australian art to coincide with the London exhibition.

The series will be presented by former Art Gallery of NSW director Edmund Capon.

The exhibition, organised in partnership with the National Gallery of Australia, opens on September 21 and will run until early December.

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Nationals WA president stands down

COLIN Holt has stood down as The Nationals' West Australian president because of his increasingly heavy parliamentary workload.

Mr Holt, who held the position for four years, was last month appointed parliamentary secretary to the minister for training and workforce development Terry Redman and is also leader of The Nationals WA in the Legislative Council.

David Eagles has accepted the role of acting state president until the party's state conference in August.

Meanwhile, several nominations were received for the party's new candidate for the federal seat of O'Connor, currently held by retiring MP Tony Crook, before the close of nominations on Tuesday.

While the party's policy is to not name nominees, one that is known is William "Chub" Witham, who worked as a geologist in the Goldfields and is well known in the Great Southern region.

The successful candidate will be ratified at the State Council meeting on May 25.

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US boy, 5, accidentally shoots sister dead

A FIVE-YEAR-OLD boy playing with a rifle given to him as a gift accidentally shot dead his younger sister, officials say, thrusting the issue of US gun violence back into the spotlight.

The boy's two-year-old sister was pronounced dead after being rushed to a hospital following the shooting on Tuesday in rural Kentucky, police said.

Cumberland County Coroner Gary White on Wednesday identified the girl as Caroline Starks and said the children's mother was cleaning the house at the time and had stepped outside onto the porch.

"She said no more than three minutes had went by and she actually heard the rifle go off. She ran back in and found the little girl," White said.

The .22 calibre rifle had been given to the boy last year and was kept in the corner of a room. The parents didn't realise a shell had been left in it.

"It's a Crickett," White told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "It's a little rifle for a kid. ...The little boy's used to shooting the little gun."

An autopsy was set to be conducted but White said he expects the shooting will be ruled accidental.

"Just one of those crazy accidents," White said.

"Down in Kentucky where we're from, you know, guns are passed down from generation to generation," White said. "You start at a young age with guns for hunting and everything."

What is more unusual than a child having a gun, he said, is "that a kid would get shot with it."

The Crickett is just one of many child-sized rifles on the market and is sold with the tag line 'My First Rifle.'

It comes in a number of child-friendly barrel designs and colours, including hot pink for little girls. A host of accessories are also available, like story books and a gun-toting beanie baby of the rifle's mascot, a cartoonish cricket.

"It's a normal way of life, and it's not just rural Kentucky, it's rural America - hunting and shooting and sport fishing. It starts at an early age," said Cumberland County Judge Executive John Phelps. "There's probably not a household in this county that doesn't have a gun."

In Cumberland County, as elsewhere in Kentucky, local newspapers feature photos of children proudly displaying their kills, including turkey and deer.

It was the second fatal shooting involving minors in America this week.

The Anchorage Daily News reported that a five-year-old girl in a remote Alaska community had been shot and killed by her eight-year-old brother on Monday. The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately clear.

The United States has been embroiled in a heated debate over gun control and gun culture in the wake of a horrific December shooting at a school in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 26 young children and educators.

President Barack Obama has pushed for tougher federal gun laws to require universal background checks on gun buyers and called for a ban on assault weapons like the one used in Newtown.

But last month, his background check proposal - condemned by the powerful National Rifle Association as an infringement on Americans' constitutional right "to keep and bear arms" - failed to muster the necessary 60 votes needed to clear the US Senate.

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Nigeria bloodbath cover up: rights group

WITH satellite images showing massive destruction in the Nigerian town of Baga, Human Rights Watch says it fears the military is trying to cover up abuses that should be investigated.

Clashes between soldiers and Boko Haram Islamists have sparked massive fires leaving nearly half the town destroyed.

The Red Cross says 187 people were killed in the fighting, while an area senator puts the toll at 228.

The military has pushed back aggressively against these reports and fiercely denies claims soldiers fired on civilians or deliberately torched scores of homes.

After meeting with senior military officials tasked with probing the carnage, President Goodluck Jonathan said on Tuesday "there is a lot of misinformation being peddled about the situation".

He says the reported death tolls "cannot be substantiated" and it is impossible that more than 1000 homes were destroyed.

"Satellite images of the town analysed by Human Rights Watch ... identify 2275 destroyed buildings, the vast majority likely residences, with another 125 severely damaged," the rights group said in a statement on Wednesday.

On its website, it posted images depicting aerial shots of the town on April 6 against those of the same neighbourhoods on April 26, 10 days after the clashes.

The before-and-after images appear to show scores of newly burnt buildings.

"The glaring discrepancies between the facts on the ground and statements by senior military officials raise concerns that they tried to cover up military abuses," the group added.

Human Rights Watch further called on the International Criminal Court to probe the events in Baga as part of the preliminary investigation the court launched in 2010.

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Virgin pushes back Tiger deal deadline

Virgin Australia has pushed back the completion of its takeover of Tiger Airways until July. Source: AAP

VIRGIN Australia has pushed back the completion of its takeover of Tiger Airways Australia until July.

Virgin said it had extended the date to conclude the 60 per cent purchase of Tiger Australia from its Singaporean parent to allow the remaining conditions of the deal to be met.

"As a result, it is expected that, subject to the satisfaction of the final conditions, the transaction will complete by mid-July 2013," Virgin said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange on Wednesday.

When the proposed 60 per cent purchase was announced in October 2012, Virgin said it aimed to complete the transaction by the final three months of 2012/13.

While the deal has already been given the green light by the competition watchdog, it is yet to receive Foreign Investment Review Board approval.

The Tiger purchase would give Virgin a low-cost airline to compete against Qantas-owned budget carrier Jetstar.

At the same time, it would leave Virgin to battle it out with Qantas for corporate and business travellers.

On Monday, former Qantas executive Rob Sharp was named as Tiger Australia's new chief executive.

At 1428 AEST, Virgin shares were steady at 45.5 cents.

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IBM makes tiny molecule movie

SCIENTISTS have taken the idea of a film short down to new levels. Molecular levels.

IBM says it has made the tiniest stop-motion movie ever - a one-minute video of individual carbon monoxide molecules repeatedly rearranged to show a boy dancing, throwing a ball and bouncing on a trampoline.

Each frame measures 45 by 25 nanometres - there are 25 million nanometres in an inch - but hugely magnified, the movie is reminiscent of early video games, particularly when the boy bounces the ball off the side of the frame accompanied by simple music and sound effects.

The movie is titled A Boy and His Atom.

Videos showing atoms in motion have been seen before but Andreas Heinrich, IBM's principal scientist for the project, said Tuesday this is the first time anything so small has been manoeuvred to tell a story.

"This movie is a fun way to share the atomic-scale world," Heinrich said. "The reason we made this was not to convey a scientific message directly, but to engage with students, to prompt them to ask questions."

Jamie Panas of Guinness World Records said Guinness certified the movie as "Smallest Stop-Motion Film."

IBM used a remotely operated two-ton scanning tunnelling microscope at its lab in San Jose, Calif., to make the movie earlier this year. The microscope magnifies the surface over 100 million times. It operates at 450 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (268 degrees below zero Celsius).

The cold "makes life simpler for us," Heinrich said. "The atoms hold still. They would move around on their own at room temperature."

Scientists used the microscope to control a tiny, super-sharp needle along a copper surface, IBM said. At a distance of just 1 nanometre, the needle physically attracted the carbon monoxide molecules and pulled them to a precisely specified location on the surface.

The dots that make up the figures in the movie are the oxygen atoms in the molecule, Heinrich said.

The scientists took 242 still images that make up the movie's 242 frames.

Heinrich said the techniques used to make the movie are similar to what IBM is doing to make data storage smaller.

"As data creation and consumption continue to get bigger, data storage needs to get smaller, all the way down to the atomic level," he said.

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China officials holding 'sauna parties'

CHINESE officials have been holding secret sauna parties and spiking their plastic water bottles with alcohol in trying to beat a crackdown on extravagance.

"Constant reports of saunas held at farm houses" were evidence of a growing culture of "low key extravagance" that was damaging the new president's anti-corruption campaign, the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party reported on Wednesday.

Officials have been filling mineral water bottles with expensive liquor and storing upmarket cigarettes in boxes belonging to cheaper brands, the report said.

China's new leaders have stressed austerity as they try to rein in extravagant feasts and luxury spending, with newly-installed President Xi Jinping vowing to crack down on corruption among high and low ranking officials.

Xi has said corruption could lead to the Communist party's downfall, and it often incites public anger, with 50 percent of Chinese ranking official graft "a very big problem", according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

The recent campaign has driven some officials away from expensive hotel restaurants, but led others to hold covert feasts in private clubs or even government canteens, the People's Daily said on its front page.

China has no laws requiring officials to publicly disclose their assets, creating greater opportunities for graft.

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Oil prices drop on weak Chinese data

WORLD oil prices have slid on weak Chinese and US economic data and ahead of the latest weekly snapshot of energy inventories in the United States.

Brent North Sea crude for delivery in June fell 80 cents on Wednesday to stand at $US101.57 a barrel in London midday deals.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for June shed 75 cents to $92.71 a barrel.

"Crude oil prices retreated... on Wednesday with Brent sliding lower below $101 per barrel, as disappointing Chinese PMI manufacturing data weighed on market sentiment," said Myrto Sokou, senior research analyst at Sucden brokers.

Manufacturing activity in China slowed slightly in April from the previous month, official data showed, in a sign of further weakness in the world's second-biggest economy.

The purchasing managers' index (PMI) dropped to 50.6 in April, down from 50.9 the month before, according to the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP).

The PMI is a widely watched indicator of the health of the Chinese economy, with a reading above 50 indicating expansion while anything below that points to contraction.

Oil prices had meanwhile slumped on Tuesday after an index on US manufacturing activity in the Chicago area unexpectedly dived into contraction territory in April.

Markets were awaiting the release Wednesday of US energy stockpiles data, as well as the outcome of key central bank policy meetings this week, with expectations that stimulus will keep flowing in a bid to prop up economic growth.

The US Federal Reserve's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will wrap up a two-day meeting Wednesday. It is widely expected to maintain its ultra-low interest rates and $85 billion-a-month bond purchasing program.

The European Central Bank will unveil its latest interest rate decision Thursday. Most analysts predicted the ECB will cut its key interest rate, which is already at an all-time low of 0.75 per cent.

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Eyewitness recounts brawl on Everest

A MOUNTAINEER on Everest has described the "terrifying" scene of two famous European climbers fighting with Nepalese guides in a high-altitude brawl that has sparked a police investigation.

Ueli Steck, a Swiss national who holds climbing records, and Simone Moro of Italy, who has climbed Everest four times, were approaching the 7470-metre Camp Three on Saturday when the bust-up occurred.

The American eyewitness, speaking to AFP by telephone and on condition of anonymity, said on Monday Steck and Moro were asked to wait on the mountain while a group of Nepalese rigged up some ropes.

The Europeans, accompanied by a photographer recording their attempt to climb the 8848-metre mountain by a new "undisclosed" route without supplementary oxygen, ignored the request and carried on, the eyewitness said.

"The Sherpas told the team not to climb above them while they were fixing the ropes, but they did it anyway. Then some ice fell and hit the Sherpas, which made them angry," he said.

Later in the day, a furious mob of Nepalese stormed up towards the climbers' tents and pelted them with stones until the men came outside, after which a loud argument ensued and punches were allegedly thrown.

"After a while the mob left, and the climbers packed up and walked past us down - as far as we knew they were leaving the mountain," the eyewitness added. "It was terrifying to watch - they nearly got killed."

Police near the world's highest mountain are investigating the incident, local officials told AFP.

"We were told our clients disagreed with the instructions of the Sherpa guides and went ahead over some icy terrain," said Anish Gupta of Cho-Oyu Trekking, the Kathmandu-based company that organised the Europeans' expedition.

"We understand that at some point the foreign climbers kicked some ice back and it hit one of the Sherpa guides, causing the fight to start," Gupta told AFP.

According to the climbing company, the men have since descended from the upper stretches of the mountain.

Raj Kumar, a police constable in Lukla, told AFP that Steck spent the night at a hospital near the airport in the town but was "totally normal" and did not show any sign of injuries.

On Monday morning, Steck flew in a helicopter back to Everest's base camp to rejoin Moro, who had remained on the mountain. The pair are reportedly mulling whether to try again to reach the summit.

AFP was unable to reach the European climbers for comment. Their trekking company said they did not have mobile phones.

However, Moro, in a statement on his website describing events, said it was "highly unlikely" that any ice had fallen as a result of his group. He said he had been attacked by an "out-of-control mob".

"They became instantly aggressive and not only punched and kicked the climbers, but threw many rocks as well," said the statement.

The statement added that Moro's group had caused no interference for the Sherpas who were fixing the ropes, which they do each year so that hundreds of other summit hopefuls can access the mountain.

Police near the world's highest mountain are investigating the incident and mediation meetings between the climbers and the local Sherpas took place on Monday afternoon, local officials told AFP.

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Budget spending not sustainable: Garnaut

Professor Ross Garnaut says Australians have to acknowledge the mining boom days will end. Source: AAP

ALL Australians have to accept the government cannot continue to provide services that it cannot afford in the long-term, a former senior economics adviser to former Prime Minister Bob Hawke says.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard told a conference on Monday that budget revenue in 2012/13 will be $12 billion less than forecast because of the continued strength of the Australian dollar.

As the end of the mining boom approached, Australians would have to deal with less revenue flowing into government coffers, Professor Ross Garnaut said.

"It depends on whether we can accept restraint all around in the interest of avoiding recession and avoiding high unemployment," he told ABC television.

Prof Garnaut, an adviser to Mr Hawke from 1983 to 1985, said federal governments had been spending the temporary largesse from the resources boom since it began in 2003.

"That has led to expenditure levels and cost levels in Australia that are substantially higher than is sustainable in the long term," he said.

Prof Garnaut said successive governments, coalition and Labor, had been spending too much since the prices of Australia's exports rose compared to imports - except for the year following the global financial crisis in 2008.

How Australia would endured the bumpy economic ride would depend on the central bank's setting of interest rates, on how governments set their spending and revenue plans, and on the community being ready to accept reforms to lift productivity in a high-wage economy, Prof Garnaut said.

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Spanish inflation falls as demand dries up

SPAIN has reported a fall in annual inflation in April as energy costs tumbled and demand dried up in the recession-hit economy.

Consumer prices over the year to April climbed just 1.5 per cent, after a 2.6-per cent advance the previous month, according to preliminary data from the National Statistics Institute released on Monday.

When compared with March, prices in the eurozone's fourth largest economy were up just 0.1 per cent.

Falling fuel and electricity prices dragged down the annual inflation rate, which was adjusted to smooth out the impact of seasonal blips, the institute said.

Spain's inflation rate shot higher after the government raised the sales tax in September last year so as to boost state revenues and help curb the annual public deficit.

But prices have been kept in check by the feeble demand for goods and services in the shrinking economy, which has left more than 27 per cent of the workforce searching for a job.

Rafael Pampillon, economist at IE Business School, tipped a decline in retail sales in April after a "spectacular fall" in March, when they plunged by 8.9 per cent after correcting for seasonal variations.

"These small shops and supermarkets are competing in a ferocious market. And to be able to compete and sell when demand has collapsed, when consumption falls, they have to cut prices. There is no choice," Pampillon said.

"As long as the Spanish economy remains in recession, it is unlikely that inflation will able to continue rising," the analyst said, adding however that he did not expect Spain to fall into deflation.

Spain has been battling recession since the end of 2011 and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's right-leaning government is forecasting 1.3-per cent economic contraction in 2013. The unemployment rate is expected to stay above 25 per cent until 2016.

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Bangladesh garment industry calls for meet

BANGLADESHI textile bosses have pleaded with Western clothing giants to keep doing business with them after nearly 400 people died in a factory collapse as hopes of finding more survivors faded.

The tragedy has once again focused attention on the poor safety conditions in the $US20 billion ($A19.53 billion) Bangladeshi garment industry, which is the world's second biggest after China.

Britain's Primark and Spain's Mango have acknowledged their products were made in the block. Italy's Benetton acknowledged having its clothes made in Rana Plaza recently, but claimed it was a "one-time order".

Worried that Western firms could look elsewhere, manufacturers met with representatives of leading brand names on Monday in a bid to assure them about safety standards.

Shahidullah Azim, a vice president of the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association which represents more than 4500 factories, said firms such as H&M, Gap, C&A and Li and Fung would be present at the meeting in Dhaka.

"We want to assure them that we're taking action to prevent a repeat of such tragedies," said Azim.

"We'll seek their understanding and will also request them not to cancel orders and shipments," he told AFP. "We need their help - they are part of us."

A fire at another factory last November in the industrial hub of Ashulia, where clothing for the likes of Walmart was being made, killed 111 people.

The industry accounts for 80 per cent of the country's exports and more than 40 per cent of the country's industrial workforce.

A typical textile worker earns less than $40 a month, with most working around 10 hours a day, six days a week.

Managers at all of the country's garment factories gave workers the weekend off in the hope that anger over the disaster would subside.

But police and unions said there was a mass walk-out in Ashulia, which is on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka, soon after the reopening on Monday morning and workers then began a protest march.

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European stocks advance on Italy news

EUROPEAN stock markets have risen, with sentiment bolstered by a new government in Italy, while investors also eyed this week's upcoming interest rate decisions, dealers say.

In late morning deals on Monday, London's FTSE 100 index of top companies added 0.01 per cent to 6,427.29 points, Frankfurt's DAX 30 gained 0.39 per cent to 7,845.32 points and the Paris CAC 40 rose 0.72 per cent to 3,837.67.

The euro hit a one-week high at $US1.3100. It later stood at $US1.3081, up from $US1.3029 late in New York on Friday. The US dollar dipped to Y97.80 from Y97.99.

Milan's FTSE Mib stocks index meanwhile jumped 1.43 per cent to 16,802.38 points as the market also won support after a successful bond auction.

"It's a nice start of what is definitely going to be an interesting week," said Gekko Markets analyst Anita Paluch.

"Markets are in green led by Italian optimism, where newly sworn government is set to tackle country's economic problems."

Italian borrowing rates fell sharply in a five- and 10-year debt auction on Monday, after the swearing-in of a new coalition government ended a two-month stalemate and brought fresh hope to the recession-hit country.

The government raised 3 billion euros ($A3.84 billion) in 10-year bonds at a rate of 3.94 per cent compared with 4.66 per cent on March 27.

Italy also raised three billion euros in bonds due to mature in 2018 at a rate of 2.84 per cent, compared with 3.65 per cent at the last similar auction on the same date.

"Yields on five and 10-year debt fell to two and a half year lows at the debt auction, a clear signal that investors feel much more relaxed about the situation in Italy than they have for a long time," noted Alpari analyst Craig Erlam.

Later this week, on Thursday, the European Central Bank will unveil its latest interest rate decision.

Most analysts predict that the guardian of the euro will cut its key interest rate, which is already at an all-time low level of 0.75 per cent.

The ECB may also decide to launch new measures to kick-start bank lending to businesses.

Also this week, on Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve will announce the outcome of its latest monetary policy meeting.

"The main focus this week will be on the Fed and ECB but as recent economic numbers have painted a fairly moribund picture of global economy investors will be predicting a dovish tone from policy makers," said Mike McCudden, head of derivatives at online stockbroker Interactive Investor.

Adding pressure on the ECB to make moves to boost the economy was data showing confidence in the 17-state eurozone fell sharply in April.

The combined reading of business and consumer confidence, released by the European Commission, fell 1.5 points from March to 88.6 points because of an especially souring mood in the services sector.

European Union-wide, the index fell even more strongly, down 1.8 points to 89.7 points, the data showed.

"April's (commission) consumer and business survey supports other evidence that the eurozone is experiencing its longest recession on record," said Jennifer McKeown of Capital Economics.

In earlier Monday deals, Asian equities were mixed after US economic growth data came in below forecast owing to deep federal spending cuts.

With Tokyo and Shanghai closed and the May Day bank holiday coming up on Wednesday, trading was quiet, while there were few other catalysts to drive activity.

Hong Kong rose 0.15 per cent and Sydney closed up 0.56 per cent, while Seoul ended down 0.20 per cent.

The main focus was last Friday's release in Washington of data showing the world's biggest economy expanded 2.5 per cent in the January-March quarter.

While the figures from the Commerce Department marked a solid rebound from 0.4 per cent growth in the previous three months, they were lower than the 2.8 per cent economists had predicted.

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