UN sounds alarm over Myanmar boat people

The UN has raised the alarm over the rising number of boat people perishing in the Indian Ocean. Source: AAP

THE UN's refugee agency has raised the alarm over the rising number of boat people perishing in the Indian Ocean, including Rohingya Muslims fleeing communal strife in Myanmar (Burma).

"It is clear that for people fleeing violence and conflict in their homelands, this has become one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world," UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said on Friday.

In 2012, some 13,000 people took to smugglers' boats in the Bay of Bengal, of whom 500 died at sea when the vessels broke down or capsized, Mahecic said.

"Already in 2013, several thousand people are believed to have boarded smugglers boats in the Bay of Bengal," he added.

Among the most recent incidents, around 90 people are believed to have died of dehydration and starvation during a two-month journey.

Around 30 survivors were rescued last weekend by Sri Lanka's navy off that country's coast.

"The repeated tragedies at sea demonstrate the need for a co-ordinated regional response to distress and rescue at sea," Mahecic said.

Described by the UN as among the most persecuted minority groups in the world, Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya have for years trickled abroad to neighbouring Bangladesh and, increasingly, to Muslim-majority Malaysia.

Myanmar views its population of roughly 800,000 Rohingya as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and denies them citizenship.

Buddhist-Muslim unrest has left at least 180 people dead and more than 110,000 displaced in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine since June 2012.

"We are advocating with the Myanmar government to urgently address the root causes of the outflow," Mahecic said.

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Pope to quit Twitter after stepping down

The pope's official Twitter account will close after stepping down, Vatican Radio says. Source: AAP

THE pope's official Twitter account, which has more than two million followers in nine languages, will close next week when Benedict XVI leaves office, Vatican Radio said Friday.

After a high-profile launch on December 12 under the name @pontifex, the pontiff's online musings quickly attracted over 1.5 million followers in English. Around a million other users of the site subscribe to his feeds in Italian, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Polish, Arab and even Latin and a Chinese account had been planned.

"It seemed unimaginable one could continue to use a communication tool that is so popular and powerful during the Sede Vacante (Vacant Seat) period," Vatican Radio said.

The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics is expected to post his final tweet on February 27, when he will bid a farewell to ordinary Catholics at a general audience in St Peter's Square.

The account will then be closed on February 28 when Benedict formally steps down as pope, according to Vatican Radio.

No clear favourite has emerged yet to succeed Benedict but several cardinals tipped as possible candidates, including American Timothy Dolan, Odilo Scherer from Brazil and Gianfranco Ravasi and Angelo Scola from Italy, are active Twitter users within the Church.

Benedict's bold move to become the first pope to join the Twittersphere sparked heated debate at the Vatican and within the Church. Supporters said it was a useful way to reach a younger generation, but some observers were dismayed to see that his pious posts invited a stream of mockery.

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Vic police promise to target fire starters

Victorian police have promised to prosecute people who recklessly or carelessly cause bushfires. Source: AAP

PEOPLE who recklessly start bushfires would be liable to pay for the damage their actions cause, Victorian police have warned.

Police say they have already charged a number of people this summer with causing bushfires, some of which have destroyed property.

Arson Squad Senior Sergeant Jeff Maher said police would prosecute anyone found to be acting in breach of fire restrictions.

He said those prosecuted would be liable for the damage done and the cost of fighting the fire.

"These are not small amounts of money. We are talking about huge costs," Sgt Maher said.

He said an alarming number of fires had been started through potentially dangerous acts like using angle grinders and farm machinery.

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RBA plays down banks' smaller cuts

RESERVE Bank of Australia (RBA) has played down the difference between its own interest rate cuts and those made by commercial banks.

RBA governor Glenn Stevens on Friday told a parliamentary committee that banks' funding costs had gone up in past five years.

"The borrowers, I'm afraid they have to pay the cost of funding that the banks face," he said in Canberra.

"There's been a very intense debate over a few basis points in the movement in the gap between the cash rate and borrowing rates."

Mr Stevens said the banks' margins had fluctuated but had been in a reasonably narrow range for a number of years.

The RBA cut the cash rate four times in 2012, taking it to three per cent from 4.25 per cent.

Most of those cuts were not fully passed on when the major banks cut their standard variable lending rates.

After the RBA's most recent 25 basis point reduction in December, all four majors cut by only 20 basis points.

Mr Stevens repeated his point that the RBA had reduced the cash rate more than it would normally in order to compensate for the commercial banks' smaller reductions.

"I think the borrowers are paying approximately what we feel is the appropriate rate for the economic circumstances," he said.

"I can't fine tune that to the nearest basis point, but they're not hundreds of points from where we feel they should be.

"The gap between the cash rate and the whole structure at what banks borrow at, and lend at, has widened, in net terms, over five years.

"That's what global capital markets have handed to us and we can't make that go away."

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Gillard unfazed by bad poll numbers

PM Julia Gillard is confident Labor can still win the next election despite bad opinion polls. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard says she's not worried about the polls and still thinks she can win the next election.

Ms Gillard was commenting on this week's Nielsen poll that showed Labor's primary vote standing at just 30 per cent, down five points since December.

"There are published opinion polls weekly," she told ABC radio on Thursday.

"If I worried about the contents of every poll and the volatility between polls, I literally would not do anything else, so I don't."

The prime minister added that Labor could win the election in September.

Voters would have a clear choice between her government's "plan for the future" and the opposition's negativity.

"The choice that matters is not the choice that you gabble down the phone to someone who rings up from a polling company," Ms Gillard said.

"The choice that matters is when you're standing in a polling booth with a ballot paper in front of you."

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Gloomy ad market plagues Fairfax

Fairfax Media says gloomy conditions in the advertising market are still dragging on its revenues. Source: AAP

EMBATTLED media group Fairfax says gloomy conditions in the advertising market are still dragging on its revenues.

The group on Thursday reported a big rise in its first half net profit, thanks to the sale of its stake in Trade Me and its agricultural publishing business in the United States.

Fairfax's net profit rose to $386.3 million during the first half ended December 30 from $97.6 million in the previous corresponding period.

Excluding the businesses sold during the period, Fairfax recorded a net profit of $83 million, down from $135.7 million.

Revenue dropped to $1.1 billion from $1.2 billion, in line with analysts' expectations because of declining advertising income.

Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood said trading conditions remained tough, with December revenues down five per cent on the same period a year earlier.

Revenues for the first six weeks of the second half were nine to 10 per cent below the previous corresponding period.

"Continuing weakness in real estate and the national advertising market are providing a drag on group revenue, although there is considerable volatility from month to month," he said in a statement on Thursday.

"A sustained improvement in consumer sentiment is required in order to see an uplift in a number of our key advertising categories, and we note recent positive economic commentary in relation to the consumer economy."

Fairfax cut its fully-franked interim dividend to one cent a share from two cents a share.

Mr Hywood said Fairfax's financial performance during the first half was in line with expectations, given the challenging economic conditions.

The media group's transformation plan was also ahead of schedule, he said.

The embattled media group is in the middle of a four-year, $235 million cost-cutting program, which has included 1900 job cuts.

Mr Hywood said Fairfax's metropolitan media division, which includes the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, continued to be profitable, with rising circulation revenue.

However weakness in government spending, employment and real estate ads weighed on the performance of the group's regional and agricultural division.

Elsewhere, Fairfax's radio division lifted ad revenues 6.8 per cent in the first half.

Mr Hywood said Fairfax's net debt was now less than $200 million, allowing the group to invest in its businesses.

He said the group was on track to deliver annualised run-rate savings of $169 million by this June and $251 million in mid 2015.

"We are currently pursuing potential additional structural initiatives and cost savings beyond those currently envisaged under the Fairfax of the Future program," Mr Hywood said.

Fairfax shares were 1.5 cents lower at 53 cents at 1021 AEDT.

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Google shares top $US800 for 1st time

Google's shares have pushed past $A780.85 for the first time despite challenge from Microsoft. Source: AAP

INTERNET search king Google's shares have pushed past $US800 ($A780.85) for the first time despite a tough new challenge from Microsoft and looming European Union action over alleged privacy violations.

Google's shares hit $804.00 in early trade on the Nasdaq exchange on Tuesday, pushing the company's market valuation to $US265 billion ($A258.65 billion), after rising 13 per cent from the beginning of 2013 and 33 per cent over the past 52 weeks.

Around 11 am (0300 AEDT Wednesday) the shares were at $801.71, up 1.1 per cent.

On January 22 Google reported firm 2012 fourth-quarter gains, with profit up 6.7 per cent from a year earlier at $US2.89 billion. For the full year Google's earnings grew 10 per cent to $US10.74 billion, on revenues topping $US50 billion.

Several analysts strengthened their recommendations for the shares with price targets ranging from $800 to $900, the latter from Cantor Fitzgerald.

But the company faces fresh challenges.

In a new push for its Outlook email service, Microsoft has launched a negative ad campaign against Google, asking readers if they have been "Scroogled" by Google's use of personal data from users of its Gmail service.

"Think Google respects your privacy? Think again," the Microsoft ads say.

"Google goes through every Gmail that's sent or received, looking for keywords so they can target Gmail users with paid ads."

Microsoft says its Outlook service will not scan emails to target online ads.

On Monday, France's CNIL data protection agency said that European data privacy regulators intended to take action against Google after it failed to follow their orders to comply with EU privacy laws.

"At the end of a four-month delay accorded to Google to comply with the European data protection directive and to implement effectively (our) recommendations, no answer has been given," said CNIL.

National authorities responsible for enforcing data protection laws in the EU said they plan to set up a working group to "coordinate their coercive actions which should be implemented before the summer."

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Toll lifts first half profit by 21%

TOLL Holdings says cost cutting and improving efficiency will drive earnings in its underperforming global freight-forwarding business in the near future.

The transport and logistics group on Wednesday reported a 21.2 per cent lift in net profit to $192 million in the six months to December 31, from $158 million in the prior first half.

Managing director Brian Kruger said Toll was not assuming any material improvement in economic conditions in the second half of the financial year.

"All in all, while we've got a few challenges to manage, at this stage of the year, we believe we will deliver a second half operating result that is ahead of the same period last year," Mr Kruger said.

Toll's first half result included a $52 million gain on the sale of its vehicle distribution, and refrigerated line haul and warehousing businesses.

Toll also booked a $30 million impairment charge on its marine logistics operations in Asia.

Toll's shares were 26 cents, or 4.62 per cent, higher at $5.89 at 1343 AEDT.

Mr Kruger described the first half results as very credible, given ongoing challenging market conditions.

"With Toll global forwarding, it really was a case of two steps forward, two steps back," he said.

Higher revenues in global forwarding reflected higher ocean carrier freight rates, but ocean freight volumes fell due to lower demand.

The division's earnings fell by $2 million.

Mr Kruger said Toll had started building global forwarding four years ago, mostly by making acquisitions.

The acquired businesses had different back-office processes and systems and only in the past six to 12 months had Toll turned its mind away from making another acquisition to improving the operating system and lifting productivity.

"We're well progressed with that at the moment. That is going to drive significant earnings improvements in global forwarding over the coming years," Mr Kruger said.

Toll was continuing to look at bolt-on acquisitions in global forwarding but in the past six months had not been able to find the right acquisition at the right price.

Mr Kruger said Toll was continuing to consider its options for the underperforming Toll global express business in Japan, otherwise known as Footwork Express but would not be pursuing a full sale of that business.

"We do believe that there are partial restructures or other alliances with local Japanese companies that may provide an avenue for us to improve returns from this business," Mr Kruger said.

A review of Toll Marine Asia, which transports thermal coal, had resulted in a decision to sell just over half of the business - vessels that were either just breaking even or making losses.

"We've already sold eight of those 38 vessels at pretty close to their book value. We expect to sell the balance over the rest of this calendar year," Mr Kruger said.

The sales proceeds would be about $30 million less than their current carrying value - hence the writedown in the first half results.

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End of Labor-Greens deal 'welcomed'

THE end of the Labor-Greens alliance is good news because every government that's climbed into bed with the minor party has ended up losing office, a former Labor minister says.

Australian Greens leader Christine Milne says Prime Minister Julia Gillard's government has walked away from an agreement with the Greens it forged after the last election in 2010 when there was a hung parliament.

Gerry Hand, who was immigration minister under former prime minister Paul Keating, said on Tuesday the agreement should have been broken the day it was signed.

Mr Hand said Labor should stand alone on its own two feet.

"Every time a government gets into bed with the Greens, they lose office. So this is a welcome relief to us," he told Sky News.

"If you look at the history, the Liberals did it in Tasmania. The Labor Party did it in Tasmania. And each time they lost office. This is a good thing for the Labor Party."

Former NSW Liberal opposition leader Kerry Chikarovski agreed.

"This is the best news the prime minister has had in weeks," she said.

Voters saw the agreement as Labor doing the bidding of the Greens, she said.

A spokesman for Anthony Albanese, leader of the government in the House of Representatives, said it would be business as usual for the government because none of the crossbenchers were ever guaranteed a vote on any piece of legislation.

"We will continue to do what we have been doing for the last two-and-a-half years and that's negotiating with the cross-benchers to get our legislation through," Mr Albanese said.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said Senator Milne was only doing a bit of product differentiation.

"It is the government that has made the major environmental reforms," he told reporters in Brisbane.

"We can do plenty of product differentiation ourselves.

"We are the ones who brought in a carbon price successfully and we are the ones who have made major breakthroughs in Tassie forests and the Murray-Darling."

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie says the Greens "so-called" withdrawal of support for the federal government is nothing like his decision to end his agreement with Labor.

"When I withdrew support for the government some 13 months ago I made it quite clear that it meant I no longer guaranteed supply or confidence to the government," Mr Wilkie said in a statement.

"That remains the case and I am genuinely unaligned.

"The Greens' position, as is I understand it, is to continue to provide certainty of supply and confidence."

Senate opposition leader Eric Abetz said Senator Milne's "diatribe" added to the chaos surrounding the federal government.

"The Greens have worked out how toxic the Labor brand is and are trying to distance themselves from it," the senator said in a statement.

He said the Greens wanted to "have their cake and eat it", with Senator Milne saying the party would still guarantee supply.

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Maid held for allegedly abusing baby

MALAYSIAN police say an Indonesian maid has been detained for allegedly abusing a four-month-old baby by violently tossing him around like a doll.

National television late on Monday showed closed-circuit television footage of the 24-year-old maid sitting down, flipping the boy into the air and throwing him repeatedly on the floor.

The baby's mother, Nina Suraya Sulaiman, told The Star newspaper she was having breakfast nearby when she saw the incident on her mobile phone, which was linked to the CCTV.

A police official who declined to be named as he isn't authorised to give a statement said on Tuesday that the baby has been hospitalised and the maid arrested.

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Armenia votes in presidential election

ARMENIANS have begun voting in presidential elections already marred by the non-fatal shooting of an opposition candidate and the lack of any high-profile alternative to incumbent Serzh Sarkisian.

Monday's poll will test the small Caucasus nation's democratic credentials two decades after the Soviet Union's collapse -- a period defined by persistent tensions with neighbouring Azerbaijan and a friendship with Russia.

The authorities are above all hoping for a peaceful process that will improve the country's prospects of European integration, after the disputed presidential elections that brought Sarkisian to power in 2008 ended in clashes in which 10 people died.

Sarkisian has called for the elections to be "exemplary" and stressed that the resource-poor nation of three million had "no future" if its polls cannot correspond to European standards.

Most opinion polls give Sarkisian a strong lead and the fractured opposition forces have failed to find a common challenger to the incumbent leader.

The leading challenger is 54-year-old former minister Raffi Hovanissian. He was born in the United States and practised law in Los Angeles before moving to Armenia following its devastating earthquake of December 1988.

The Soviet-era dissident Paruyr Hayrikyan -- the target of the failed assassination attempt last month that nearly delayed the polls -- and ex-premier Hrant Bagratian are the other main figures among Sarkisian's seven challengers.

The Gallup International Association shows Sarkisian on course to win 68 per cent of the vote against Hovanissian's 24 per cent. Hayrikyan has single-digit approval ratings.

International observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe are monitoring the voting which is due to end at 1600 GMT.

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Driver avoids jail for hitting mum, baby

A DRIVER whose car mounted a kerb and struck a mother and her baby in Sydney's inner-west has avoided jail and instead been sentenced to 50 hours of community service.

Bryce James Wayland, 27, of Queenscliff, was last year convicted of negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm after his car struck Emma De Silva and her newborn at St Peters in March 2011.

In sentencing Wayland at the Downing Centre Local Court, magistrate Graeme Curran said Ms De Silva had suffered a range of serious injuries.

"Her life and the lives of those around her have been irrevocably wrecked as a result of her brain injury," he told the court.

But he said Wayland was remorseful about the accident, with the man's parents saying their once "happy, carefree and diligent" son had become withdrawn and depressed.

Wayland had previously told the court the accelerator pedal of his Lexus sedan was caught under the floormat and he swerved to avoid a bus before mounting the kerb and hitting the mother and baby.

Magistrate Curran said he accepted that this had happened and found that Wayland's level of culpability was low.

He sentenced the engineering graduate to a community service order, saying he didn't think a term of imprisonment was appropriate.

Wayland, who suffers from Crohn's disease, also had his drivers' licence suspended for 15-months.

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Moon church mass wedding in Korea

THOUSANDS of Unification Church followers have been married in a mass wedding in South Korea - the first since the death of their "messiah" and controversial church founder Sun Myung Moon.

Some 3500 identically-dressed couples - many of mixed nationality who had met just days before - took part in the ceremony at the church's headquarters in Gapyeong, east of the capital Seoul.

Mass weddings, some held in giant sports stadia with tens of thousands of couples, have long been a signature feature of the church and one that "Moonie" critics have pointed to as evidence of cult underpinnings.

Sunday's event carried a special resonance, with Moon's 70-year-old widow Hak Ja Han presiding for the first time without her husband who died five months ago, aged 92, of complications from pneumonia.

The church's mass weddings began in the early 1960s and originally involved just a few dozen couples. Over the years they grew in size and attracted international media attention.

In 1997, 30,000 couples tied the knot in Washington, and two years later around 21,000 filled the Olympic Stadium in Seoul.

Nearly all were personally matched by Moon, who taught that romantic love led to sexual promiscuity, mismatched couples and dysfunctional societies.

Many were married just hours after meeting for the first time, and Moon's preference for cross-cultural, international marriages means that they often shared no common language.

In recent years, matchmaking responsibilities have shifted towards parents, but 400 of the church members married on Sunday had chosen to be paired off a few days before at an "engagement ceremony" presided over by Moon's widow.

"Yeah, I was pretty nervous," admitted Jin Davidson, a 21-year-old student from the United States, whose Australian father and Japanese mother were matched by Moon.

"Then all of a sudden she popped up in front of me, and I said OK," Davidson said of his Japanese bride-to-be, Kotona Shimizu, also 21.

"We struggle a little to communicate right now, as I speak no Japanese at all, and she only speaks a little English, but we see it as an exciting challenge and proof of our faith," he said.

Those who choose to be matched by the church must confirm under oath that they are virgins, and after their wedding the couple must refrain from sexual relations for a minimum of 40 days.

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Quake shakes central Italy

A small earthquake has hit the area in Italy which suffered a deadly earthquake in 2009. Source: AAP

A 4.8-MAGNITUDE quake hit central Italy late Saturday, shaking apartment buildings in the centre of Rome and spooking citizens in the region of Abruzzo, struck by a killer quake in 2009.

The quake hit Frosinone, between the capital and the southern city of Naples, at a depth of 10.7 kilometres according to Italy's Geophysics Institute. No injuries or damage to buildings were reported.

The tremors sparked panicked calls in the Abruzzo region to the emergency services. The medieval town of L'Aquila was hit in 2009 by a 6.3-magnitude quake which killed 309 people, and ruined buildings still scar the landscape.

Inhabitants in villages in the national park in Abruzzo raced out of their houses in panic, according to Italian media reports.

Earlier on Saturday, three Italian builders and a technician were found guilty of multiple manslaughter after a dormitory they had restored and safety approved collapsed during the L'Aquila quake, killing eight students.

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