A MOTORCYCLIST has died in a two-vehicle crash on the Sunshine Coast.
A car and a motorcycle collided at the intersection of Meta Street and The Esplanade at Mooloolaba on Saturday afternoon.
The motorcyclist died at the scene. There were no other injuries.
Police are investigating.
MULTIPLE fire crews are fighting a large bushfire threatening homes near Rockhampton.
The blaze broke out about 2.50pm on Saturday and is burning in the vicinity of Shamrock Street, Mount Morgan.
Crews are backburning to contain the fire and protect several properties.
TASMANIA'S major bushfires have been downgraded and a major highway has been re-opened as interstate crews get set to fly in to help the fire-fighting effort.
The Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) downgraded a fire at Bicheno in the state's east to advice level, the third most serious level for bushfires. It had been at the emergency warning level earlier on Saturday.
The Tasman Highway was reopened after the downgrade.
The development means there are no more emergency warning-level bushfires in Tasmania.
Fires at Nubeena, Forcett and Lake Repulse are listed in the watch and act category by the state fire service.
A crew of 65 Victorian firefighters is preparing to head to Tasmania on Sunday night for four days.
It is feared that more than a 100 properties have been lost in the fires.
The Forcett blaze on the Tasman Peninsula, east of Hobart, has claimed least 80 properties and left thousands of people isolated overnight.
Recreational and commercial vessels were used to bring in thousands of meals and other essential supplies and to evacuate people on Friday and Saturday.
Police said 600 people, many of them visitors to the area, were likely to spend a second night at convict ruins. There were 2000 people at a temporary refuge in Nubeena and another 100 at the Dunalley Hotel.
The road into the peninsula, the Arthur Highway, has been closed since Friday.
Acting police commissioner Scott Tilyard said he was hopeful some vehicles could be escorted from the peninsula.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard threw the federal government's support behind the firefighting and support efforts in Tasmania and said disaster assistance would start flowing in coming days.
Insurers declared the bushfire-hit towns a catastrophe and police powers were increased when the Tasman Peninsula was declared a serious-incident site.
Electricity company Aurora said it could take several weeks to restore power in some areas, with 300 poles down on the Tasman Peninsula.
Property losses have been huge, with 30 per cent of the buildings in the small community of Dunalley destroyed, including the school and police station.
At Connellys Marsh, 40 per cent of the buildings are gone, along with three houses at Copping and several at Primrose Sands.
Twenty houses have been lost around Murdunna and there are reports of more at Eaglehawk Neck.
No deaths or serious injuries have been confirmed, despite conditions comparable to 1967 when 2000 homes and 62 lives were lost.
BRITAIN'S biggest-selling tabloid, The Sun, has hit back at Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner's renewed claim over the disputed Falkland Islands in an open letter to her in a Buenos Aires newspaper on Friday.
A day after Kirchner published her own open letter in two British newspapers urging Britain to give up the South Atlantic islands, The Sun placed an advert in the Buenos Aires Herald warning Argentina to keep its "hands off" the Falklands.
"Until the people of the Falkland Islands choose to become Argentinian, they remain resolutely British," The Sun said in its reply to Kirchner, printed in English and Spanish in the English-language Herald.
"British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands dates back to 1765 - before the Republic of Argentina even existed."
The letter concludes: "In the name of our millions of readers, and to put it another way: 'HANDS OFF!'"
Home to 3000 people, the windswept islands have been administered by Britain since 1833 after a British expedition took formal possession of West Falkland in 1765, according to Britain's Foreign Office.
But the archipelago, known in Spanish as Las Malvinas, is also claimed by Argentina. The two countries fought a brief but bloody war in 1982 that left 255 British troops and 649 Argentinians dead.
Tensions between Britain and Argentina rose last year on the 30th anniversary of the conflict. Kirchner has clashed publicly with British Prime Minister David Cameron over the issue.
Cameron said on Thursday that the islanders had a strong desire to remain British and would have a chance to express their views in a referendum on their political status in March.
The islanders are expected to vote strongly in favour of continued union with Britain.
Census data released in September showed that 95 per cent of residents considered themselves to be either Falkland islanders, British, or from Saint Helena, another British overseas territory in the South Atlantic.
A GUNMAN with a semi-automatic pistol has killed seven people and wounded 11 others during a drug-fuelled rampage in a slum near the Philippine capital.
The ordeal, which ended when police shot the man dead, has again raised concerns about the country's lax gun controls after the week began with two children dying from bullets fired by revellers to celebrate New Year's Eve.
Two girls, aged three and seven, as well as a pregnant woman, were among the seven confirmed fatalities in Friday's rampage, according to police in Kawit town on the outskirts of Manila where the killings occurred.
"It was random. He would fire at anybody who crossed his path," investigating officer Arnulfo Lopez told AFP, adding the shooting spree lasted for about half an hour.
Residents of the rundown town hid in their homes and gardens as the man, a former low-level local politician named Ronaldo Bae, roamed through narrow streets and a market firing what police said was a .45 semi-automatic pistol.
"As we were hiding out in the muddy yard, I was thinking about my nephews and niece (in their house)," resident Edwin Lacorte told AFP.
"I wanted to go back. The children were crying for help but what can you do, the man has a gun."
Lacorte's niece was the murdered seven-year-old girl.
Bae lived in a nearby house and most of the victims were his neighbours.
One of the others killed was 56-year-old Alberto Fernandez, who was shot as he stood on his porch, according to the victim's brother-in-law, Lito Ronquillo.
Ronquillo spoke to AFP in the narrow street where the initial shootings took place. A bullet hole could be seen in a window above the porch where Fernandez died.
Bae then walked towards a nearby market, shooting more people before returning home where police demanded he surrender, according to Lopez, the local police officer.
"He opened fire on the police. So a gunbattle ensued which resulted in the death of the suspect," Lopez said.
Bae had once served on a local council but was also a known drug dealer and had been taking methamphetamines since New Year's Eve, said Juanito Victor Remulla, the governor of Cavite province which includes Kawit town.
Kawit police chief Superintendent Dionisio Borromeo also told reporters that "paraphenalia" used for methamphetamines, known locally as shabu, had been found at Bae's home.
Friday's shooting came after the New Year's Eve deaths of a seven-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy by celebratory gunfire triggered outrage and condemnation of the Philippines' poorly enforced gun laws.
TASMANIAN police are investigating reports of a death in a huge bushfire in the state's south that has destroyed homes, and damaged a school and an RSL club.
Police say up to 65 buildings could have been damaged or destroyed in the small community of Dunalley, 55 kilometres southeast of Hobart.
Damaged buildings include the local school, the RSL club, a service station and houses, ABC television reported.
Around 15 houses at nearby Boomer Bay could also have been lost as the impact of catastrophic fire conditions in southern Tasmania begins to emerge.
Tasmania deputy police commissioner Scott Tilyard said a team was on the ground to investigate a fire crew's concerns that a man may have been trapped while trying to defend his house.
"We can't at this early stage rule out that there has been loss of life," Mr Tilyard told reporters in Hobart.
He said around 50 people were awaiting the arrival of police boats to help them leave the waterfront near the top of the Tasman Peninsula where they had taken refuge.
The Tasman Peninsula, including the popular Port Arthur tourist destination, was completely cut off by the closure of the major Arthur Highway.
Around 600 people were taking refuge at temporary accommodation at Nubeena and 1500 people were reported to have visited the Port Arthur convict ruins on Friday.
"Those people are being looked after as best we can," Mr Tilyard said.
"The main thing is they are safe."
People had also been told to leave the beachside town of Dodges Ferry.
Fire crews were monitoring potential spot fires further south at Eaglehawk Neck and banking on a southerly change due late on Friday night to stop the fire from spreading.
Huge plumes of smoke were visible from Hobart as the island capital sweltered through its hottest day on record. The temperature reached 41.8C at 4.05pm (AEDT), the hottest it has been since record keeping started in 1883.
Winds gusting to 100km/h whipped up the two largest blazes that had started on Thursday; at Forcett, near Dunalley, and Lake Repulse near Mt Field National Park northwest of Hobart.
Tasmania Fire Service (TFS) Chief Officer Mike Brown said conditions on Friday had reached the catastrophic level in the rating system that was developed after the Black Saturday fires in Victoria.
"We reached catastrophic fire danger ratings at times during this afternoon," Chief Officer Brown told reporters.
"I don't think we're quite out of the woods yet."
The threat posed by the second major fire, which authorities suspect was started by a campfire, had eased by Friday night.
A grass fire at Epping in the state's north had been contained, but reports had emerged of a property being lost near Bicheno on the east coast.
Mr Brown said the change would bring lower temperatures and higher humidity but little rain.
"Tonight we still consider that there's a serious danger," he said.
Acting premier Bryan Green said the state government would provide whatever emergency assistance was needed and would liaise with the federal government.
Authorities say smoke is likely to be visible for several hours and people sensitive to it should stay indoors.
A MAN has been charged after police allegedly uncovered thousands of pornographic images of children while executing a search warrant at a northern NSW unit block.
Police said Thursday morning's raid at Nambucca Heads led to the seizure of Apple Mac computers, portable hard drives, floppy discs and compact discs.
A 57-year-old Nambucca Heads man was arrested at the scene and has been charged with possessing child pornography.
He was refused bail and will appear in Kempsey Local Court on Friday.
A FIRE that destroyed two Ghost Gums painted by renowned Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira may have been deliberately lit, police believe.
The fire started around the trees on Larapinta Drive 16km from Alice Springs about December 30, causing them to topple over.
The trees were a stopping point for admirers of Namatjira's watercolour depictions of the Australian outback.
The Northern Territory's Minister for Indigenous Advancement, Alison Anderson, said on Thursday the loss of the trees would sadden many Territorians.
"The twin Ghost Gums were a wonderful reminder of his connection to the land and many who visited the site would have felt a connection to this great Territorian," she said in a statement.
Ms Stowe said the Department of Lands, Planning and the Environment notified police who believed the fire may have been deliberately lit.
"Only recently work was done around the trees to try and protect them from fires and allow as much moisture as possible to get to their roots," she said.
Born at Hermannsburg in the territory in 1902, Namatjira held his first exhibition in 1938 and painted for the following two decades, earning international acclaim before his death in 1959.
A LEADING insurance company says natural disasters cost the industry $US65 billion ($A62.20 billion) last year and Superstorm Sandy accounted for nearly two-fifths of the total.
However, Munich Re AG said on Thursday total insured losses from natural catastrophes were down from a record $US119 billion in 2011, when devastating earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand cost the industry dear.
The company said total economic costs in 2012 from natural disasters - including uninsured losses - amounted to $US160 billion, compared with the previous year's $US400 billion.
Sandy was blamed for at least 120 deaths when it battered eastern coastline areas at the end of October.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were the hardest-hit states.
Munich Re estimated insured losses from Sandy at $US25 billion and total losses at $US50 billion.
IN a scene voted the all-time favourite by James Bond fans, 007 is strapped to a table, a laser beam creeping towards his crotch. He asks his adversary: "Do you expect me to talk?"
Goldfinger exclaims: "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die."
A poll of 2500 people in the homeland of her majesty's secret service were asked to name the best scene in a 007 film, with the sequence from 1964's Goldfinger emerging a clear winner with 10.3 per cent of votes.
On hearing the result, current Bond Daniel Craig acknowledged the scene "would take some beating".
The survey was conducted by Sky Movies HD at the end of 2012, a year which celebrated half a century of Bond films.
A SPERM donor in Kansas is fighting a state effort to force him to pay child support for a child conceived through artificial insemination by a lesbian couple.
William Marotta, 46, told The Topeka Capital-Journal he's "a little scared about where this is going to go, primarily for financial reasons".
When he donated sperm to Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner in 2009, Marotta relinquished all parental rights, including financial responsibility.
When Bauer and Schreiner filed for state assistance this year, the state demanded the donor's name so it could collect child support for the now three-year-old girl.
The state contends the agreement between Marotta and the women is not valid because Kansas law requires a doctor to perform artificial insemination.
TEN people, including four children, have died in a stampede during a religious gathering at a sports stadium in Luanda, the Angolan capital.
Angop, the Angolan news agency, cited officials as saying on Tuesday 120 people were also injured.
The incident happened on New Year's Eve when tens of thousands of people gathered at the stadium and panic ensued.
Faustino Sebastiao, spokesman for the national firefighters department, says those who died were crushed and asphyxiated.
The event in the southern African nation was organised by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, an evangelical group founded in Brazil.
In western Africa, a crowd in Ivory Coast stampeded after leaving a New Year's fireworks show early on Tuesday, killing 61 people and injuring more than 200.
POLICE have arrested dozens of revellers for trying to smuggle drugs into the Summadayze music festival in central Melbourne.
A total of 77 men and seven women were detected with illicit substances - primarily cannabis, ecstasy and amphetamines - at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Tuesday.
Police gave 70 of those caught drug diversions, and charged six with drug-related offences.
Senior Sergeant Mark Pilkington said it was frustrating so many had ignored police warnings.
"It's disappointing that despite the warnings, some people still choose to ignore the risks of drug use," Snr Sgt Pilkington said.
"These drugs are dangerous. They are manufactured by criminals with no regard to peoples' safety."
THE international airport in Syria's second city of Aleppo has been temporarily closed due to repeated attacks by rebel fighters.
"There have been continued attempts by opposition militants to target civilian aircraft, which could cause a humanitarian disaster," an airport official told AFP on Tuesday.
The official said the critical transportation hub would be closed for a "very short period of time" while the army worked to regain control of surrounding areas where large numbers of rebels have set up base.
Fighting in Aleppo, located in the largely rebel-held north of Syria, has been at a stalemate for months since opposition fighters launched a massive assault on the former commercial hub in mid-July.
IRAN'S navy has issued dozens of warnings to foreign planes and warships that approached its forces during a five-day sea manoeuvre near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Admiral Amir Rastgari said naval and air defence forces on 30 occasions hade warned off reconnaissance planes, drones and warships belonging to "extraregional forces" that approached the drill, using a term that the Islamic Republic commonly employs to refer to the militaries of the US and its allies.
The five-day naval drill, dubbed Velayat-91, is Iran's latest show of strength in the face of mounting pressures over its disputed nuclear program. The West suspects it may be aimed at producing nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.
Iran has threatened to close the strait over Western sanctions but has not repeated the threats lately. The strait is the passageway for one-fifth of the world's oil supply.
Rastgari said the aircraft and warships heeded the warnings and stayed away.
"Various reconnaissance aircraft that sought to penetrate into the drill area were given warnings by the navy and the Khatam-ol-Anbia (air defence force)," he said.
"Subsequently, the intelligence planes and drones distanced from the area after receiving the warnings."
Iran has used the manoeuvres to highlight its newly developed weapons systems.
State TV said Ghader (Capable), a sea-launched anti-ship missile with a range of 200 kilometress, was among the weapons used in the final day of navy drills on Tuesday.
The Ghader missile was delivered in late 2011 to the Iranian military and the powerful Revolutionary Guard's naval division, which is assigned to protect Iran's sea borders. Iranian officials say the missile can skim the sea to avoid detection and can sink large warships.
Iran's growing arsenal includes short- and medium-range ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting targets in the region such as Israel and US military bases in the Gulf.
The Iranian government began a military self-sufficiency program in 1992 under which it produces a large range of weapons including tanks, missiles, jet fighters, unmanned drone aircraft and torpedoes.
The manoeuvres cover nearly one million square kilometres from the Strait of Hormuz to the northern part of the Indian Ocean, including the Sea of Oman.
ASIAN markets fell in New Year's Eve-shortened trade as hopes that US lawmakers will reach a deal to avert the fiscal cliff faded just a day before a deadline.
However on Monday there was some bright news out of China, where a survey by HSBC showed manufacturing activity hit a 19-month high in December.
Hong Kong closed flat, edging down 9.67 points to 22,656.92, but it closed out the year 22.91 per cent higher.
Sydney closed 0.48 per cent lower, shedding 22.4 points to 4,648.9, although the index is up 14.60 per cent over the past 12 months.
Wellington was 0.35 per cent lower, shedding 14.39 points to 4,066.51, but adding 24.51 per cent for 2012.
In the afternoon Shanghai surged 1.12 per cent.
Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila were all closed for public holidays.
Despite the losses on Monday all the region's stock markets ended the year higher, with Bangkok the standout performer, surging almost 36 per cent, while Shanghai was the weakest, adding less than three per cent over the 12 months.
Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill ended Sunday without reaching a compromise over a deficit-cutting budget that would be less painful than the deep spending cuts and tax hikes due to take effect on Tuesday.
Leaders remained locked in talks that appeared to be making little headway, with each side blaming the other as analysts warned the measures could tip the economy into recession.
Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that, despite through-the-night talks, negotiators were still a long way from success, with Democrats not responding to a "good faith offer" from his party.
Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed talks were at a standstill, adding: "There is still significant distance between the two sides, but negotiations continue."
If talks fail on Monday President Barack Obama has demanded a vote on his fallback plan that would preserve lower tax rates for families on less than $250,000 a year and extend unemployment insurance for two million people.
But Stan Shamu, a market strategist at IG in Sydney, said he expected some sort of plan to come out.
"No one knows how this will play out, but the most likely scenario is a patch-up deal to avoid a fiscal catastrophe in the New Year," he told Dow Jones Newswires.
On currency markets the euro rose to $US1.3207 from $US1.3217 in late US trade Friday, but the US dollar rose to 86.06 yen from 85.98 yen. The Japanese unit continued to be weighed by expectations the country's central bank will unveil fresh monetary easing measures next month.
The euro bought 113.67 yen from 113.62 yen.
News out of Beijing was better, however, with banking giant HSBC saying its final purchasing managers' index (PMI) of the year hit 51.5, up from 50.5 in November and a fourth straight month of improvement.
A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the key sector, while one below signals shrinkage.
The figures reinforce recent indications that the world's second-largest economy is finally emerging from its slumber.
"Such a momentum is likely to be sustained in the coming months when infrastructure construction runs into full speed and property market conditions stabilise," Qu Hongbin, HSBC's chief economist for China, said in the release.
On oil markets New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, shed 28 cents to $US90.85 a barrel and Brent North Sea crude for February slipped one cent to $US110.61.
Gold was at $US1,660.60 at 0445 GMT compared with $US1,658.90 late Friday.
SPOILER alert: This story contains words and phrases that some people want to ban from the English language. 'Spoiler alert' is among them. So are 'kick the can down the road,' 'trending' and 'bucket list'.
A dirty dozen have landed on the 38th annual List of Words to be Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness.
The nonbinding, tongue-in-cheek decree released on Monday by northern Michigan's Lake Superior State University is based on nominations submitted from the United States, Canada and beyond.
Spoiler alert, the seemingly thoughtful way to warn readers or viewers about looming references to a key plot point in a film or TV show, nevertheless passed its use-by date for many, including Joseph Foly, of Fremont, California.
He argued in his submission the phrase is "used as an obnoxious way to show one has trivial information and is about to use it, no matter what."
The phrase receiving the most nominations this year is 'fiscal cliff', banished because of its overuse by media outlets when describing across-the-board federal tax increases and spending cuts that economists say could harm the economy in the new year without congressional action.
University spokesman Tom Pink said that in nearly four decades, the Sault Ste. Marie school has "banished" around 900 words or phrases, and somehow the whole idea has survived rapidly advancing technology and diminishing attention spans.
Nominations used to come by mail, then fax and website, he said, and now most come through the university's Facebook page. That's fitting, since social media has helped accelerate the life cycle of certain words and phrases, such as this year's entry 'YOLO' - "you only live once."
"The list surprises me in one way or another every year, and the same way every year: I'm always surprised how people still like it, love it," he said.
As usual, the etymological exercise - or exorcise - only goes so far. Past lists haven't eradicated 'viral,' 'amazing,' 'LOL' or 'man cave' from everyday use.
Sydney's lord mayor says the city is spending $6.6 million on its New Year's Eve event. Source: AAP
SYDNEY'S skyline has exploded in gold, pink, green and blue as part of the traditional New Year's Eve family-oriented curtain raiser.
The ten minute spectacular at 9pm (AEDT)- which illuminated the city and dazzled spectators - is a warm-up for the city's midnight show-stopper.
Under balmy and clear skies, tens of thousands of revellers lined Darling Harbour and other viewing hotspots, and about 1.5 million filled the harbour foreshore.
As streams of incandescent colour shot into the heavens, families on picnic blankets cheered and clapped along with others aboard luxury yachts.
Colours streamed from four barges situated around the harbour, with gold flashes cascading like tinsel as a gold butterfly-like design lit up the bridge.
At one stage fireworks fell from the structure like a waterfall, with the display reaching a kaleidoscopic climax of green, red and blue fireworks.
"It was all great, amazing," said Lee Whittaker, from Denistone, who brought her kids Mel and Leon with her.
Kallya Alffonso, from Maroubra, said festivities in Sydney were much better than her native Brazil.
"Sydney is a very pretty city, the Harbour Bridge and Opera House make it looks spectacular," she said.
"It's the spirit too, everybody is here together, and it's just the whole atmosphere."
Event organisers estimate a record 130,000 people packed Sydney's Darling Harbour for the 9pm display.
"There is definitely more people here than last year," organiser Sal Sharah told AAP.
"We've had great weather and a great lead up to this evening."
The early show was greeted with cheers from the thousands of spectators at Lady Macquarie's Chair, many of whom had waited much of the day under a hot sun.
"I think they were awesome," said nine-year-old Nell Whittaker.
"I loved the sparkle effect, and they were really loud too."
A much-hyped show-stopper is then set to wow the world at midnight.
All eyes are on Sydney, one of the first major cities to ring in the new year, with more than a billion people expected to tune in to watch the $6.6 million party worldwide.
Many local partygoers are only now emerging to gather at pubs and clubs in time for midnight.
Others will cram onto rooftops or gather in backyards for a VB and sausage sambo to say goodbye to 2012
Celebrations in Sydney dwarf rival cities, with only 100,000 attending Paris fireworks, while 700,000 revellers gather for festivities in London.
Pop princess Kylie Minogue, chosen as the event's creative ambassador, will be honoured with a one-of-a-kind sparkling musical note firework at the turn of the year.
The semiquaver will be one of 100,000 individual pyrotechnic creations this year, including brand new koala, octopus and hand images up in lights.
People going to the CBD to watch the fireworks have been urged to leave their cars behind and take public transport, with road closures in place and extra + and buses laid on for the night.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge will be closed in both directions from 11pm on Monday to 1am on Tuesday.
SYRIAN regime forces have pressed a fierce offensive in Homs after overrunning a key neighbourhood of the central city, according to a watchdog, which also listed 23 children killed in violence across the country.
The latest bloodletting on Sunday came after international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned in Moscow that Syria was facing a choice between "hell or the political process" after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army, after Saturday seizing the Deir Baalbeh district in fighting which left dozens dead, fired off barrages of rockets into surrounding rebel-held neighbourhoods on Sunday as it sought to capitalise on its victory.
Troops also bombarded the nearby opposition stronghold of Rastan.
The Britain-based Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of activists and medics in civilian and military hospitals, said the final death toll from Saturday's clashes had not been finalised due to communications difficulties in the area.
A video released by the Syrian Revolution General Commission, a grassroots network of anti-regime activists, showed the bodies of nine male victims from Deir Baalbeh lying on the ground, their faces bloody and mutilated.
The authenticity of the video could not immediately be verified.
Near the capital on Sunday, loyalist troops carried out air raids on towns along the eastern outlying belt and on Daraya in the southwest, while fighting between rebels and the army erupted in the northeastern and southwestern suburbs.
The Observatory said 13 children were among the victims of bombardments in and around Damascus on Saturday, while 10 children were killed in air strikes across Aleppo province, including on rebel-held Aazaz near the Turkish border.
Analysts said the surge in air strikes by Syrian forces were a desperate attempt by President Bashar al-Assad's regime to reverse rampant gains by rebel fighters, especially in the north of the country.
Meanwhile, rebels made further advances on Sunday in the battle for the Hamidiyeh military post in the northwest province of Idlib which they stormed the previous day, the watchdog said.
During Sunday's clashes, three insurgents were wounded by machinegun fire, while warplanes raided a nearby village, the Observatory said.
A takeover of the Hamidiyeh post would pave the way for a rebel offensive against the nearby Wadi Deif base, one of the government's last outposts in the north.
Opposition fighters, mostly from the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, have been closing in on the base since overrunning the nearby town of Maaret al-Numan in early October.
In the south, a rebel was killed on Sunday in battles for control of several small border crossings along the regime-held frontier with Jordan, the Observatory said.
Syria and Jordan share a 370-kilometre-long border which hundreds of people cross on foot every day to escape the bloody civil war that the Observatory says has killed at least 45,000 people.
Brahimi on Saturday held talks with Lavrov on his end-of-year bid to accelerate moves to halt the Syria conflict.
He painted a stark picture of Syrian neighbours Jordan and Lebanon being overrun by a million refugees should heavy fighting for the seat of power break out in Syria's five-million-strong capital.
If this fighting "develops into something uglier ... (refugees) can go to only two places - Lebanon and Jordan", Brahimi said.
"So if the alternative is hell or the political process, we have all of us got to work ceaselessly for a political process," he said.
TROOPS sent by Australia and New Zealand have all gone home and only a handful of United Nations police will be left when the UN flag comes down in East Timor's capital of Dili after six years.
"As of Monday, the liquidation team will be there. They are the ones who are unscrewing all the lightbulbs," said Ameerah Haq, UN under-secretary general and former head of the UN mission in East Timor.
The UN played a key role in the birth of East Timor, officially known as Timor Leste. It organised the 1999 referendum that ended 24 years of Indonesian occupation in which an estimated 183,000 people died through conflict, starvation or disease.
It helped run East Timor until 2002 when an independent government took over.
For many Timorese leaders it was a national humiliation to seek UN help in 2006 when soldiers sacked from the army launched a mutiny which sparked factional violence that left dozens dead and 150,000 people in makeshift camps.
"You don't want to say that a country learned by crisis," said Haq, but in this case there was "good benefit" from the Timorese seeing in a few days the burning, looting and destruction threatening all they had built in the past seven years.
"They just saw it collapse before their eyes and it was like: we did this to ourselves," she told AFP.
"It was a watershed moment in their experience."
The UN was able to make an impact because it was the East Timorese government which asked for help and working in a country the size of Timor was not like bringing peace to Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"In Timor, everything happened as it should," Haq said. "We had great access to the leadership, we had complete freedom of movement within the country."
The country has now had two relatively calm presidential elections, the 3000-strong police force has been retrained district by district, and the judiciary reformed.
Haq said she had seen political tensions boil up again. There were times when she would tell political leaders to "tone down the rhetoric".
"They would always tell me 'we all struggled together, we all saw what happened in 2006'," she said.
"They always assured me they would always stop short of the trigger. I learned to have confidence in that."
The big powers are now taking a more intense look at East Timor, which has significant oil and gas reserves even though it remains one of the most impoverished countries.
As a result US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited in September and China built the presidential palace and military headquarters.
Brazil is also a key source of aid while Cuba has trained hundreds of Timorese doctors.
Haq said East Timor knows that it must now concentrate on lifting the half of the 1.1 million population living below the poverty line.
A FRENCH weekly known for publishing cartoons of Prophet Mohammed to the ire of conservative Muslims says it plans to release a comic book biography of Islam's founder that will be researched and educational.
Satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has on several occasions depicted Islam's prophet in an effort to defend free speech and defy the anger of Muslims who believe depicting Mohammed is sacrilegious.
"It is a biography authorised by Islam since it was edited by Muslims," said Charlie Hebdo's publisher and the comic's illustrator, who goes by the name Charb.
"I don't think higher Muslim minds could find anything inappropriate," Charb said on Sunday.
The biography will be published on Wednesday and was put together by a Franco-Tunisian researcher known only as Zineb, Charb said.
The publisher said the idea for the comic book came to him in 2006 when a newspaper in Denmark published cartoons of Mohammed, later republished by Charlie Hebdo, drawing angry protests across the Muslim world.
"Before having a laugh about a character, it's better to know him. As much as we know about the life of Jesus, we know nothing about Mohammed," Charb said.
In September, Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of a naked Mohammed as violent protests were taking place in several countries over a low-budget film made in the United States that insults the prophet.
In 2011 Charlie Hebdo's offices were hit by a firebomb and its website pirated after publishing an edition titled "Charia Hebdo" featuring several Mohammed cartoons.
Charb, who has received death threats, lives under police protection.
