Clashes 'near Damascus' after rebel gain

Syrian Rebels have taken control of a strategic airbase in north-western Syria, a watchdog says. Source: AAP

SYRIAN activists say the outskirts of the capital Damascus have been rocked by clashes a day after rebels seized a key regime airbase in the north.

The opposition British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two children and a man were killed when Mleha just southeast of the capital was bombarded, and that two rebels battling forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were also killed there.

The organisation says it relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground in Syria when compiling its reports and death tolls.

It said violence across the country on Friday claimed the lives of 86 people, among them 30 civilians.

Regime artillery also opened up on Beit Sahem south of Damascus, as well as Jdaidet Artuz and Daraya to the southeast, the group said on Saturday.

It reported that regime air raids on Rastan in the central province of Homs caused casualties, without giving an immediate toll of the dead and wounded.

One insurgent was also killed in clashes there, it added.

In the east of the country, a man was killed when artillery pounded Deir Ezzor, the Observatory said.

Among Friday's casualties were nine rebels, eight soldiers and two regime militiamen killed when insurgents overran the key Taftanaz air base in one of their most important military gains to date.

Capturing Taftanaz, from which regime forces launched deadly helicopter gunship sorties, eases the pressure on rebels who already control vast swathes of Syria's north and east.

"This is the largest airbase to be seized since the revolt began" nearly 22 months ago, the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman said on Friday.

The Observatory said government forces managed to evacuate most of the 60 helicopters deployed there, leaving behind 20 that are no longer serviceable.

The United Nations says more than 60,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict since March 2011.

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Malian troops, French, reclaim ground

French soldiers have come to the aid of the Mali government against al-Qaeda-linked militants. Source: AAP

MALIAN troops, backed by French aircraft, have reclaimed the central town of Kona from Islamist rebels within hours of a French intervention in support of government forces.

French airstrikes cleared the way for Malian forces to retake the town which the rebels had captured on Thursday on a march south from their northern strongholds, France Info radio reported on Saturday.

French President Francois Hollande announced on Friday that France had agreed to a request from Mali for military assistance to help drive back the rebels, who have been in control of the desert north for nearly a year.

Hollande said the "terrorists" threatened "Mali's very existence" as well as regional peace and security.

Elisabeth Guigou, president of parliament's foreign affairs commission, told French radio on Saturday that French troops had been deployed to protect French nationals.

France has around 6000 citizens in Mali, some of whom had begun arriving back in Paris on Saturday after the Foreign Ministry called on them to leave the country.

At least seven French hostages are also being held by the armed groups based in northern Mali.

Meanwhile, Malian President Dioncounda Traore declared a state of emergency on Friday night and called on Malians to reunite for the reconquest of territories occupied by the rebels.

France is the first European country to intervene in the nearly-one-year-old Malian conflict.

US officials have said Washington DC is considering joining in with intelligence and logistical support.

Hollande said that the intervention was in line with UN resolutions authorising the deployment of an African force in support of the Malian army and an EU military training mission.

The regional West African bloc ECOWAS, which is preparing the African force, praised the French intervention.

The intervention marks a turning point nearly a year after ethnic Tuareg and Islamist rebels took advantage of a coup in the capital Bamako to seize control of the ancient town of Timbuktu and two other towns.

Since then, the Tuareg rebels have become sidelined by ultraconservative Islamist factions, who have imposed strict Islamic law in the region, including stonings and amputations.

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Bahrain opens probe into labour camp fire

OFFICIALS have opened an investigation into the cause of fire that killed 13 people in a labour camp in Bahrain.

The official Bahrain News Agency says the public prosecutor's office is leading the probe into Friday's blaze in the capital Manama.

The report on Saturday said fire collapsed the roof of the three-story building used to house workers.

Special compounds for migrant labourers are common across the Gulf. For years, rights groups have pressed for better living conditions for the mostly South Asian workers.

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China landslide kills 22, dozens buried

A LANDSLIDE in southwestern China has killed at least 22 people, including seven from one family, with some two dozen others trapped, local authorities say.

The landslide on Friday buried 16 homes in the village of Gaopo in the southern province of Yunnan, the provincial government said on its website.

A total of 22 deaths had been confirmed so far, including the seven from a single family, it said, while 20 to 30 people were still buried. Emergency teams had rescued two villagers from the debris, it added.

Photos posted on the website showed rescuers in orange uniforms digging in wide swathes of clumpy mud against a backdrop of snow-covered, terraced hills.

A video posted on a Chinese social networking site appeared to show a group of villagers digging through thick mud and debris to uncover a body, which was carried away on a stretcher.

Yunnan province, which borders Myanmar and Laos among others, is a relatively impoverished area of China, where rural houses are often cheaply constructed.

Gaopo is in Zhenxiong county, about 550 kilometres northeast of the provincial capital of Kunming.

The mountainous area is prone to landslides. One in a neighbouring county in October killed 18 children, while two earthquakes in Yunnan in September - one of magnitude 5.7 - left 81 people dead and hundreds injured.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao made an overnight trip to the quake zone at the time to comfort survivors, many of whom had taken refuge in tents erected on a public square.

The province has experienced unusually low temperatures in recent weeks, as China suffers in what authorities have called its coldest winter in 28 years.

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Fears for Pakistan as blasts kill 125

A series of bombings have killed 115 people across Pakistan, including 81 who died in Quetta. Source: AAP

EXTREMIST bomb attacks killed 125 people in one of Pakistan's deadliest days for years, raising concerns about rising violence in the nuclear-armed country ahead of general elections.

Two suicide bombers killed 92 people and wounded 121 after they targeted a crowded snooker club in the southwestern city of Quetta on Thursday, in an area dominated by Shi'ite Muslims from the Hazara ethnic minority.

Extremist Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for what was the worst single attack ever on Shi'ites, who account for about 20 per cent of Pakistan's 180 million population.

It was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since twin suicide bombers killed 98 people outside a police training centre in the northwestern town of Shabqadar on May 13, 2011 - shortly after US troops killed Osama bin Laden.

Earlier on Thursday, a bomb detonated under a security force vehicle in a crowded part of Quetta, killing 11 people and wounding dozens.

A bomb at a religious gathering in the northwestern Swat valley killed 22 people and wounded more than 80, the deadliest incident in the district since the army in 2009 fought off a two-year Taliban insurgency.

At the snooker club, the first bomber struck inside the building then, 10 minutes later, an attacker in a car blew himself up as police, media workers and rescue teams rushed to the site, said police officer Mir Zubair Mehmood.

"The death toll is now 92. Some bodies were found from the blast site today," said police official Hamid Shakeel.

He said all but five of the victims had been identified and handed over to their families for burial later on Friday.

Nine police, three local journalists, several rescue workers and a spokesman for the Frontier Corps paramilitary were among those killed, officials said.

"We have collected two bags of body parts, including limbs, fingers, upper torsos, lower torsos, legs, feet," said Mohammed Raza, who works for a Hazara ambulance service.

Akbar Hussain Durrani, home secretary in the provincial government of Baluchistan, said more than 120 people were wounded.

The government has announced three days of mourning in Baluchistan, and compensation of two million rupees ($A19,500) to families of killed police officials and one million rupees to those of civilians.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility in telephone calls to local journalists. The group has links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and was involved in the kidnap and beheading of reporter Daniel Pearl in January 2002.

The attacks, coupled with violence in the northwest, revived warnings from analysts that an Islamist militancy could threaten national elections, expected sometime in May after parliament disbands in mid-March.

Polls would mark the first time an elected civilian government in Pakistan, for decades ruled by the military, completes a term in office and is replaced by another democratically elected government.

"The government is completely losing control over the situation. Events are taking place one after the other," security and political analyst, retired lieutenant general Talat Masood said.

"The disturbing law and order situation will have a very adverse effect on elections. The government seems to have no plans for security and nothing is being done for the safety of people who are being killed like flies."

But a senior official in the Quetta administration, Mohammad Hashim, denied sectarian violence had any bearing on elections.

"Incidents of sectarian violence have been taking place in the country for more than a decade. It may have an affect on law and order. I don't think it will have an impact on elections. It's not political, it's sectarian," he said.

Human Rights Watch said 2012 was the deadliest year on record for Shi'ites in Pakistan and the government's failure to protect them "amounts to complicity in the barbaric slaughter of Pakistani citizens".

Baluchistan has long been a flashpoint for attacks against Shi'ites and Hazaras, and suffers from a separatist insurgency and Islamist militancy linked to a domestic Taliban insurgency concentrated in the northwest.

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Nastassja Kinski shocked by sister's abuse

ACTRESS Nastassja Kinski says she's proud of her half-sister Pola for coming forward with allegations that she had been repeatedly raped by their father, the late German film icon Klaus Kinski.

Pola Kinski, 60, said in a magazine interview ahead of the release of a memoir on Saturday that the mercurial actor, who died in 1991, had sexually abused her throughout her childhood.

Nastassja Kinski, who achieved the Hollywood fame with films such as Cat People and Tess that eluded her father, wrote in the German daily Bild that she had wept when she read Pola's account.

"My sister is a hero because she has freed her heart, her soul and thus her future from the burden of this secret," the 51-year-old wrote.

"I stand by my sister, I stand behind her. I am deeply horrified. But I am proud of the strength she has shown in writing this book."

Nastassja Kinski said she hoped the book would raise awareness of child abuse and encourage other victims to tell their stories.

"A book like Pola's helps all children, youths and mothers who are afraid of fathers, who swallow their fear and hide everything away in their souls," she said.

"Just because someone calls himself a father, as in this case, does not mean that he is a father. The horror has taken place nevertheless. Even fathers do horrible things."

She added: "There is always help - all children should know that."

Nastassja Kinski, who lives in California, is the daughter of Kinski's second wife Brigitte. Pola's mother was his first wife, singer Gislinde Kuehbeck.

Pola said Klaus Kinski, who was already notorious as a brilliant but tyrannical force in European cinema, began abusing her at the age of five and raped her for the first time when she was nine.

The assaults continued until she was 19, she alleged in an interview this week with Stern magazine.

The volatile but prolific star of Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God and a frequent collaborator of German director Werner Herzog "ignored all protests" by his young daughter, she charged.

"He just took what he wanted," she said, adding that as a youngster, she lived in constant fear of his angry outbursts.

She said she aimed to go public with her allegations to put a stop to the idolising of her famous father.

"I was sick of hearing, 'Your father! Great! Genius! I always liked him'," she said.

"Since his death, this adulation has only got worse."

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Fire and rain hammer NZ's South Island

AT least four houses have been destroyed on the southern outskirts of Christchurch as a grass fire, fanned by strong winds, tore through hedgerows, nurseries, farm buildings and a chicken farm.

Despite heavy rain around most of the South Island this week, dry conditions and a strong northwester hampered firefighters' efforts to contain a big fire around the Shands Road area in Prebbleton on Thursday afternoon.

Ten people were reportedly rescued from the area as one house was destroyed by fire and three were in flames.

Cordons were preventing residents returning to their houses, while helicopters and firefighters tried to quell the fire.

They had it under control by 8pm (1800 AEDT) but were expected to continue dampening down through the night. Hedges were still smouldering.

Selwyn District Mayor Kelvin Coe said it was the biggest fire he had seen in the district.

"Some evacuations were rather hastily done, but everyone has been accounted for," he told AAP.

As well as the four houses, a number of structures, such as storage sheds and nurseries had suffered.

Mr Coe was unsure if the affected chicken farm had housed any birds.

Several families would spend the night elsewhere until the damage to their houses could be assessed on Friday, he said.

Police on Thursday night were warning people to stay away from the low-lying bank areas of all Canterbury rivers, after they received reports that a large surge of water was visible from the air moving down the Waimakariri River.

Inspector Trevor Cross of police southern communications later said the surge may have actually been a combination of more flow and discoloured water.

However, Canterbury rivers were still very high and people should stay away from river banks and mouths, he said.

It followed "mini tornadoes" in Kaikoura in the morning, one ripping the roof off a house.

Further north, Air New Zealand cancelled nine regional flights in and out of Wellington as gales blasted the capital.

However, the MetService says the wet and blustery weather is set to turn more benign on Friday.

It had predicted gusts of up to 150km/h in some parts of Canterbury on Thursday and gusts of 140km/h in Wellington, Wairarapa and the Marlborough Sounds.

One wind gust of 230km/h was recorded at the Mt Hutt summit, while there have been gusts of about 120km/h in the Wellington suburb of Kelburn.

More than 15,000 lightning strikes had been detected in one 24-hour period between Wednesday and Thursday.

The New Zealand Transport Agency says all South Island roads closed by slips and washouts on Thursday are expected to be reopened on Friday, as contractors work to clear slips, repair washouts and clear debris.

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NSW police hunt 'armed and dangerous' man

POLICE are hunting a fugitive they believe is armed and dangerous in the state's west.

A search is underway for Peter James Rowley, 35, who is on the run after he evaded police about 3pm on Thursday by fleeing into bush off the Castlereagh Highway, near Coonamble.

Rowley is wanted in relation to numerous serious domestic violence offences and has access to at least two firearms, police said in a statement on Thursday night.

They warned the public not to approach Rowley, who's described as caucasian, 170cm tall, and solidly built.

He also has a mullet style haircut, many tattoos, and sports a long red goatee beard, police said.

He was last seen wearing a dark coloured shirt, with his right arm bandaged.

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Two Swiss trains collide, 17 injured

TWO passenger trains collided at a train station in northern Switzerland during morning rush hour on Thursday, injuring at least 17 people.

"At least 17 people have been injured. Nine have been hospitalised," Anja Schudela, a local police spokeswoman in the canton of Schaffhouse, told the Blick daily's online edition.

Police said that none of the injuries were serious, according to local daily Schaffhauser Nachrichten.

Initial reports said up to 30 people were injured in the collision.

The crash occurred around 1730 (AEDT) when one crowded train rammed into the side of another at the Neuhausen-am-Rheinfall train station near the German border, the SBB rail company said.

Some 220 rescue workers had been mobilised, and after about two hours all the passengers had been evacuated, police told reporters.

The locomotive of one of the trains, a double-decker that had been heading for Winterthur in the canton of Zurich, had derailed when it was hit by a regional train.

A rescue train that was sent in to help put it back on the track also carried rescue personnel to help with any injuries, SBB spokesman Jean Philippe Schmidt told AFP.

The cause of the crash remained unclear, he said.

"The train hit the emergency breaks and everyone was thrown out of their seats," one of the passengers told the 20minutes.ch website.

"One person was bleeding heavily from the head," he added.

Another passenger told the online paper that he had seen "an old lady lying unconscious on the ground who was bleeding a lot".

A number of ambulances and fire engines were on site.

The train station was closed for the remainder of the day, and rail traffic between Schaffhouse and Dachsen in Zurich, as well as between Schaffhouse and Jestetten in Germany has been halted, according to SBB.

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Cat shot with arrow in WA

A YOUNG boy has found the body of a cat which had been shot with an arrow in the garden of his home at Bunbury in Western Australia.

The cat was taken to a local veterinary surgery for treatment but was found to be dead on arrival.

According to the RSPCA, the cat was shot with either a longbow or compound bow on either Saturday or Sunday.

"People may want to lock their animals inside at night time as an extra precaution," RSPCA Chief Executive David van Ooran said.

"RSPCA is also concerned that this happened in a built-up area where there are other animals and children around as this person is clearly a danger to the public.

"This sort of behaviour is of real concern to the RSPCA and police because case studies in the past have shown that animal cruelty is a warning sign that the offender has the potential to commit future similar crimes on human beings."

Anyone with any information can contact the RSPCA's cruelty complaint line on 1300 278 3589.

AAP alb

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Fires cause $1m in NSW stock losses

BUSHFIRES caused $1 million in stock losses in NSW before the heatwave threat spread north and brought a temporary easing of furnace conditions.

Authorities breathed a sigh of relief as the gravest day of fire threat in the state's history passed on Tuesday with no one killed or injured, and just one house lost - near Cooma in the Kybeyan Valley in southern NSW.

But 135 fires remained alight on Wednesday, 30 of them uncontained, after burning through a total area of 345,000 hectares.

On Wednesday evening, 30 fires continued to burn uncontained, with NSW Rural Fire Service crews focusing on a fire with a 44km perimeter at Dean's Gap near Nowra, a 16,000 hectare scrub fire near Yass and a 9000-hectare blaze in the Kybeyan Valley, near Cooma.

More than 151 firefighters and 27 trucks are working to contain the Dean's Gap fire burning to the south of Sussex Inlet Road, near Shoalhaven, which is a potential threat to the village of Sussex Inlet and the township of Wandandian.

Meanwhile, police are investigating a fire near Lithgow which has destroyed about 40,000 hectares, which may have been deliberately lit.

So far, five people - including three teenagers - have been charged in relation to starting fires across the state.

One, a 76-year-old man, is alleged to have started a bushfire after using his angle grinder near Mudgee.

Cooler weather in southern NSW helped an estimated 2000 firefighters stay on top of a volatile situation on Wednesday, but authorities are gearing up for a busy weekend, with sweltering conditions forecast to return on Friday.

The cool reprieve was expected to be short-lived, with temperatures forecast to climb back over 40 degrees on Friday.

NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said authorities were braced for more dangerous conditions over the weekend.

"We're looking at deteriorating weather on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So the temperatures will be elevated again," he told reporters in Sydney.

"We're going to go into another hot spell and we're looking at potentially three days of that."

The bushfire threat made its way towards northern NSW on Wednesday, but Mr Rogers said authorities were pleased that conditions had not deteriorated as feared.

"We've had the high temperatures in the north of state, but we simply have not had the fire activity that we got in the southern part of the state yesterday."

Premier Barry O'Farrell said the fact that Tuesday had passed without loss of life or homes was a "remarkable tribute" to the planning of the RFS and other emergency services.

He said an estimated 10,000 sheep had been lost in the Yass shire alone, equivalent to $1 million of losses to farmers.

NSW had learned from the devastating 2009 Victorian fires, Mr O'Farrell said on a tour of the Yass shire.

"Whether it's the neighbourhood safety places, the early warnings, the bushfire survival plans and the clarity around whether to come and whether to go, we have learned those lessons," he said.

As three teenage boys charged with deliberately lighting a fire in Sydney's west were released on bail, Mr O'Farrell backed a suggestion from Yass Shire mayor Rowena Abbey that firebugs should be made to face the terrible consequences of fires.

Ms Abbey said arsonists should be made to help put down animals injured in fires they lit.

Mr O'Farrell said he was angry and expressing "community frustration" that the three teenagers were released immediately.

"I still think that keeping them in overnight, for two nights, might have helped sink the message in," he said.

NSW residents in 37 communities fire-affected communities will be able to access emergency natural disaster assistance.

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Turkey agrees on PKK peace plan: reports

THE Turkish government and jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan have agreed on a roadmap to end a three-decade-old insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, media reports say.

The deal was reached during a new round of talks between Ankara and Ocalan and aims to have the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) lay down arms in March, private news network NTV and Radikal newspaper reported.

An initial cessation of hostilities was to evolve into a fully-fledged ceasefire agreement over the following months, they said, without revealing their sources for the reported breakthrough.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government recently revealed that the intelligence services had for weeks been talking to Ocalan, who has been held on the island prison of Imrali south of Istanbul since his capture in 1999.

The government is expected to reciprocate the ceasefire by granting wider rights to Turkey's Kurdish minority, whose population is estimated at up to 15 million in the 75-million nation, according to unofficial figures.

The rebels also want the release of hundreds of Kurdish activists held in prisons over links to the PKK as well as the recognition of Kurdish identity in Turkey's new constitution, according to media sources.

But Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) warned the talks were not at the stage of fully-fledged ceasefire negotiations, arguing Ocalan would have to be freed first and given a chance to consult the grassroots.

"The conditions between the parties are just not equal," BDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas told fellow MPs on Tuesday.

"And by that, no, I do not mean Erdogan going into Imrali."

Officials have not confirmed the details of the roadmap published in the media.

Hopes of a breakthrough on the Kurdish issue were heightened when two Kurdish MPs were allowed to visit Ocalan last week for the first time.

Around 45,000 people are believed to have been killed in the fighting between Turkish security forces and the rebels, who took up arms in 1984 under Ocalan's command, to obtain self-rule in the Kurdish-majority southeast.

Previous talks floundered after the PKK leadership demanded the release of Ocalan.

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Vietnam tries 14 activists for subversion

FOURTEEN Vietnamese accused of links to a banned US-based opposition group went on trial Tuesday on charges of attempting to overthrow the communist government.

The defendants, who include Catholics, bloggers and students, appeared in a provincial court in Nghe An, about 300 kilometres south of Hanoi, a court clerk told AFP, declining to provide further details.

They are accused of being members of the Viet Tan group, which is labelled by Hanoi as a terrorist organisation.

If convicted the 14 -- who are aged between 24 and 55 -- could in theory face the death sentence, although the Communist regime has never executed anyone for anti-state activity.

The authoritarian country's state-controlled media made no mention of the trial, which overseas activists said was one of the largest of its kind.

Charges of spreading anti-state propaganda and attempting to overthrow the regime are routinely laid against dissidents in a country where the Communist Party forbids political debate.

The defendants are part of a group of 17 people who have appealed to the UN's working group on arbitrary detentions to intervene on their behalf. The three others were sentenced in May for spreading anti-state propaganda.

The detainees have suffered various violations of human rights according to Stanford Law School lecturer Allen Weiner who is assisting with their petition to the UN.

"Most of the petitioners have been jailed for an extended period of time without meaningful judicial process," he said in a statement.

"Those petitioners who have been brought to court have been convicted after perfunctory hearings lasting only a few hours," he added.

Activists on Tuesday posted photos online showing hundreds of police surrounding the courtroom in Nghe An, saying that several people who had turned up to support the detainees had been harassed and detained.

Rights group say dozens of peaceful political activists have been sentenced to long prison terms since Vietnam, a one-party state, launched a fresh crackdown on free expression in late 2009.

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What's that smoke smell over Brisbane?

THE smell of smoke blanketing Brisbane and beyond tonight is the result of a large bushfire on Bribie Island.

Winds blowing from the north are carrying the smoke down south.

Senior forecaster with the Bureau of Meteorology Rick Threlfall said he wouldn't be surprised if the bush fire smell was apparent right to the New South Wales border.

"Winds are coming from the north east and bringing the smoke down from Bribie Island," he said.

"The smoke smell could go for a long while; the winds are fairly fresh at the moment."

He said smoke from the large bushfire on the island would be "probably a few thousand feet up" where winds were blowing at 50km/h.

"So that's carrying the smoke quiet a long way," Mr Threlfall said.

Overnight the winds will slightly change and move to the north-west which may take some of the smell away.

But if the fire is still burning tomorrow afternoon the winds will blanket Brisbane with the smell again.

Queensland Fire and Rescue spokesman Brett Finnis said communication centres were receiving a lot of 000 calls about the smell of smoke.

"The smokes going through Samford and the Gap at the moment. They're getting a lot of false alarms in Brisbane because of the smoke."

In Brisbane today the top temperature was 30.1C at 2pm while Ipswich peaked at 32.7C.

The Gold Coast was a little cooler at 28.8C and Maroochydore hit 29.8C.

Birdsville was the hottest in the state at 43.2C at 4pm.

Brisbane is predicted to hit 37C tomorrow.

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Winehouse inquest confirms alcohol death

A new inquest into the death of British singer Amy Winehouse is set to begin in London. Source: AAP

A BRITISH court holding a second inquest into the death of Amy Winehouse has confirmed the singer drank herself to death.

The inquest was held for a second time after the coroner in the first inquest was found to lack the proper qualifications.

The British soul singer was found dead at her London home in July 2011 at the age of 27. An inquest later that year found that the star had died from accidental alcohol poisoning.

The coroner later resigned after her qualifications were questioned. She had been hired by her husband, the senior coroner for inner north London.

Tuesday's hearing at St Pancras Coroner's Court had been expected to reach the same conclusion about the cause of death.

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Indian rape case - judge closes trial

The father of the gang-rape victim has revealed his daughter's identity to a British newspaper. Source: AAP

AN Indian magistrate has ruled to exclude the media from pre-trial hearings or the trial of the five men accused of raping and killing a young student in the Indian capital, a police official says.

Magistrate Namrita Aggarwal on Monday upheld the prosecutor's request that the media be barred from attending the proceedings, according to police spokesman Rajan Bhagat.

Hundreds of journalists, lawyers and onlookers had jammed the courtroom where the five were to appear.

The Monday hearing was expected to result in the case being sent to a special "fast-track" court.

Indian courts are notoriously slow, with some cases dragging on for decades. The trial is expected to begin in the coming days. Indian rape trials are normally closed to the media.

Authorities have charged the men with murder, rape and other crimes that could bring them the death penalty. The crime caused nationwide outrage, leading to massive protests.

A sixth suspect, who is 17 years old, was expected to be tried in a juvenile court, where the maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility.

Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan said last week that a DNA test confirmed that the blood of the victim matched bloodstains found on the clothes of all the accused.

On Sunday, two of the defendants offered to become "approvers", or informers against the others, according to reporters present at the hearing. The two were presumably seeking lighter sentences.

The companion of the student recounted in a television interview last week how the pair was attacked for 2 1/2 hours on a New Delhi bus before being thrown on the side of the road, where passersby ignored them and police debated jurisdiction issues before helping them.

The student died weeks after the December 16 attack at a hospital in Singapore.

The attack has led to calls for tougher rape laws and reforms of a police culture that often blames rape victims and refuses to file charges against accused attackers.

The nation's top law enforcement official said the country needs to crack down on crimes against women.

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Britain's oldest man dies

BRITAIN'S oldest man has died, aged 110 years and 63 days, friends have said.

Reg Dean, a former United Reform Church minister, died on Saturday, according to an announcement by the Dalesmen Male Voice Choir in Derbyshire.

He was the choir's life president, and helped to found the group in the 1980s.

Mr Dean, a former Army chaplain and teacher, survived two World Wars and witnessed 24 British prime ministers come and go.

He was born in Tunstall, Staffordshire, on November 4 1902, and became Britain's oldest man in June 2010 after the death of Stanley Lucas, 110, of Cornwall.

During the Second World War, Mr Dean was stationed in Burma in the Far East, but continued his work as a minister until he retired at the age of 80.

The father-of-one, from Wirksworth in Derbyshire, moved to the county in 1947, after living for a short period in Stratford-on-Avon.

In 1958 he became a teacher at Herbert Strutt School in Belper, Derbyshire, where he worked for 10 years.

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Country mansion for William and Catherine

PRINCE William and wife Catherine will receive a majestic country home as a gift from the Queen, British media reports.

The 30-year-old heir to the throne and his pregnant bride are in line to receive the heritage-listed Anmer Hall on the sovereign's Sandringham Estate, where the royal family traditionally spends Christmas.

William spent time at the 10-bedroom late-Georgian mansion as a boy, when it was being leased by family friends, the Daily Express newspaper reported.

There is a swimming pool, tennis court, stable block, conservatory and even a bell tower at the property, which is set at the end of a gravel driveway, close to a church and about 3km from Sandringham House.

While a source said the property has been "earmarked" for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, it is unlikely the popular royals will take up residence for some years, with the current lease due to expire in 2017.

Late in 2012 William and Catherine will move into a freshly-renovated apartment at London's Kensington Palace, which will become their official city residence.

The Cambridges currently have a country house in Wales, close by the base where William works as a search and rescue helicopter pilot. They also have a cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace.

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Vic firefighters winning Kentbruck battle

A woman has been charged with deliberately starting a bushfire in Melbourne's southeast. Source: AAP

FIREFIGHTERS are at last getting on top of a major blaze burning in Victoria's southwest as more hot weather arrives this week.

While temperatures remained high in the north of the state on Sunday, cooler temperatures in the south have helped authorities contain blazes.

Firefighters battling the huge blaze at Kentbruck, in the state's southwest, are getting it under control as it continues to issue massive plumes of smoke.

The fire, which began in a pine plantation, has burned over 2700 hectares and smoke haze is visible throughout western Victoria.

Motorists have been warned that thick smoke may restrict visibility along the Princes Highway between Greenwald and the South Australian border, with drivers are asked to reduce speed accordingly.

Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said crews and aircraft worked on the Kentbruck fire on Sunday, with the aim to get it under control before the weather heats up again.

"Tuesday is the day that has the northerly strong winds and again Friday. They are the two critical days, but we could still have fires on other days that could still do damage," he told reporters in Melbourne.

"It is a week that people need to stay vigilant about fires in Victoria."

On Sunday evening, the water bombing helicopter Elvis helped bring a grass fire under control at Little River, near Geelong.

Mr Lapsley urged people to dob in arsonists.

His comments came as an 18-year-old woman was charged with deliberately starting a fire in Melbourne on Saturday.

She was arrested at the scene of the fire, which was burning on an embankment near Warrigal Road at Ashwood about 9.45pm (AEDT) on Saturday.

Emergency crews quickly extinguished the blaze.

The woman has been charged with intentionally causing a bushfire and recklessly endangering life and was bailed to appear in Dandenong Magistrates Court on April 29.

Mr Lapsley said the Country Fire Authority (CFA) will continue to monitor the Fireready app and CFA website on Monday to ensure people have access to information they need.

Many people had trouble accessing the site during hot weather on Friday.

The site will again be tested with temperatures set to be above 40c in the north of the state on Monday, while Melbourne is expecting 32C.

North-eastern parts of the state are already sweltering, with the towns of Wangaratta, Yarrawonga and Rutherglen reaching 42C on Sunday.

A fire burning near Ensay, in east Gippsland, was brought under control on Saturday afternoon.

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Bulgarians celebrate Epiphany with icy dip

THOUSANDS of young men are plunging into icy rivers and lakes across Bulgaria to retrieve crucifixes cast by priests in an old ritual marking the feast of Epiphany.

By tradition, a wooden cross is cast into the water and it is believed that the person who retrieves it will be freed from evil spirits.

In the central city of Kalofer, 350 men in traditional dress waded into the icy Tundzha River with national flags. Led by the town's mayor and encouraged by a folk orchestra and homemade plum brandy, they dance and stomp the rocky riverbed.

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Assad outlines new Syria peace initiative

SYRIAN President Bashar Assad has outlined a new peace initiative that includes a national reconciliation conference and a new constitution.

Assad, however, says the initiative can only take roots after regional and Western countries stop funding what he called militant extremists fighting to overthrow him.

Assad spoke on Sunday in a rare speech addressing the nation, his first since June.

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

He struck a defiant tone, saying Syria will not take dictates from anyone.

His initiative is likely to be rejected by opposition forces and rebels, who insist he must step down.

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