NSW gas prices to rise by 10 per cent

GAS prices are expected to rise by nearly 10 per cent next year, the NSW independent pricing tribunal is expected to announce.

The Independent Pricing and Remuneration Tribunal will on Tuesday report that the average gas bill will rise by an average of 9.5 per cent or more than $900 a year, according to News Ltd.

Volatility in the market for rising gas prices is being singled out as the major reason as to why prices will climb, IPART will report.

Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association of Australia's chief operating officer Rick Wilson said opposition to coal seam gas was also partly to blame.

The IPART report is also expected to reveal there will be a predicted six per cent drop in power bills in three years' time.

It should take the average household electricity price down to $2015 in 2015-16.

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Syria opposition names caretaker leader

THE Syrian National Coalition has named veteran dissident George Sabra as caretaker leader of the main opposition grouping, following the resignation of Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib.

Sabra "was assigned today to carry out the functions of the head of the Coalition until elections for a new president", the Syrian National Council, said in a statement on Monday.

The announcement came a day after the widely respected Khatib submitted his resignation for a second time, officially in protest over the failure of the international community to stop the conflict in Syria, which has killed at least 70,000 people.

Sabra, who until now led the Syrian National Council, will be the Coalition's caretaker leader until at least May 10, when the Coalition is scheduled to meet for leadership elections.

Sabra is a veteran communist opponent of the Damascus regime and one of the most prominent Christian members of the opposition.

He was imprisoned for eight years under the rule of President Bashar al-Assad's father and predecessor Hafez.

He was subsequently detained after the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, and secretly left Syria in early 2012 to help contribute to the formation of the opposition.

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Titanic bandmaster letter fetches $138,000

A LETTER written by the bandmaster of the Titanic who carried on playing as the doomed ship sank has sold at auction for STG93,000 ($A138,000).

Wallace Hartley, 33, has become a key figure of the disaster as - together with his seven other band members - he carried on playing until the very last moments.

The violinist, who travelled as a second-class passenger on Titanic, wrote a letter to his parents as the ship set off from Southampton on April 10, 1912.

Experts estimated that the letter would fetch around STG50,000 but a bidding frenzy saw the hammer go down at STG93,000 at Henry Aldridge and Son in Devizes, Wiltshire on Saturday.

Hartley, from Colne in Lancashire, wrote: "Just a line to say we have got away all right. It's been a bit of a rush but I am just getting a little settled.

"This is a fine ship & there ought to be plenty of money on her. I've missed coming home very much & it would have been nice to have seen you all if only for an hour or two, but I couldn't manage it.

"We have a fine band & the boys seem very nice. I have had to buy some linen & I sent my washing home today by post. I shall probably arrive home on the Sunday morning.

"We are due here on the Saturday. I'm glad mother's foot is better."

The band, and Hartley in particular, have been depicted as the ship's heroes in virtually every genre, including postcards, song sheets, books, stage and films, for carrying on playing while the Titanic went down.

Titanic left Southampton on April 10, 1912 on the start of a journey that ended in tragedy in the cold North Atlantic four days later, with the loss of more than 1500 lives.

Hartley's letter is written on adjoining sheets of on-board Titanic stationary with company watermark and is hand-dated by Hartley on April 10, 1912.

The note also bears the red embossed White Star Line house burgee.

Hartley did not survive the sinking ship and his body was later recovered and returned to his home town of Colne, where he received a large funeral.

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EU eases Syria oil embargo to help rebels

EUROPEAN Union foreign ministers have eased an oil embargo against Syria with the aim of helping rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Under the deal, European firms seeking to import Syrian crude or invest in the energy sector would ask for authorisation from their government, which in turn would confer with Syria's opposition National Coalition to secure its agreement.

"With a view to helping the Syrian civilian population ... a member state may authorise the purchase, import or transport from Syria of crude oil and petroleum products", but only after consulting with the Syrian opposition, a statement said.

The decision to ease the 2011 EU oil embargo will enable EU companies on a case-by-case basis not only to import Syrian crude but also to export oil production technology and investment cash to areas in the hands of the opposition.

This first easing in two years of harsh sanctions against the Assad regime aims to help tilt the balance in the conflict.

The 27-nation bloc slapped a ban on investments in Syrian oil in September 2011, followed by a ban on imports of oil in December, depriving the regime of a major source of cash.

Exports of crude provided up to a third of its hard currency earnings, with the EU buying 95 per cent of it.

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Six killed in Russia hunting shop shooting

AN armed former convict has killed six people, including a 14-year-old girl, in a broad daylight shooting at a hunting shop in the Russian city of Belgorod, police say.

The man, apparently armed with a hunting rifle, killed three salespeople at the shop and two passers-by outside the premises in the southern city close to the border with Ukraine, regional police spokesman Yevgeny Kamalov said from Belgorod.

Another woman was wounded in the head and died later in intensive care, the regional council based in Belgorod, around 700 kilometres south of Moscow, said in a statement.

The assailant, who police said was born in 1981, fled in a BMW which he then abandoned. The area around the shooting scene has been cordoned off by police.

The Moscow-based Investigative Committee named the assailant as Sergei Pomazun, a resident of Belgorod who had a theft conviction and was released from prison in 2012.

"Currently, an active search is going on to detain the suspect," regional police said in a statement.

Another regional police spokesman, Alexei Pomorov, said a group of investigators had been dispatched to the city from Moscow to assist with the investigation.

Police refused to speculate about the possible reasons for the shooting.

"We do not know whether it was a conflict because there's no one we can ask: everyone's dead," Pomorov told AFP.

Unlike in the United States, access to firearms is restricted in Russia and mass shootings are relatively rare.

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Merkel says Germany not seeking 'hegemony'

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected the idea that her country is seeking "hegemony" in the European Union, but insists members need to cede some national sovereignty for the greater good.

Merkel says Germany always seeks to make joint decisions in co-ordination with France and the other members of the 27-nation bloc.

"Germany has a ... sometimes complicated role because we are the largest economy - we are not the richest, but we are the largest," Merkel said at a book launch and panel talk with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday.

"Therefore Germany will only act together with the others - hegemony is totally foreign to me."

Merkel said the EU tended to find solutions "when we are looking into the abyss" but also needed to work toward greater unity in calmer times.

She said members should be willing to give up some national sovereignty and accept that "Europe has the last word in some areas".

Merkel said Europe needed even closer co-operation to succeed amid tough global competition and to avoid decline, pointing to her personal experience growing up in the former communist East Germany.

"Look, I've experienced the collapse of a country, the GDR," she said, referring to the German Democratic Republic. "The economic system failed under the aegis of the Soviet Union.

"What I really don't want is to look on, eyes open, as Europe as a whole slips back. I would find that absurd, we have all the skills in our hands."

Angry protesters on the streets of debt-mired eurozone countries such as Greece, Cyprus and Portugal argue that Merkel is imposing austerity-driven prescriptions against the crisis that are choking off economic growth and killing jobs.

In the austerity-versus-economic-stimulus debate, Merkel said "growth has become a mirage. Growth doesn't come from saving - and I don't favour an approach of only saving - but growth is created from structural reforms. That is also Germany's experience."

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Doctor's daughter who wed 'bomber'

THE wife of one of the Boston Marathon bomb suspects is a doctor's daughter who apparently led the life of a typical American high school student before she converted to Islam.

Katherine Russell Tsarnaev is said to have enjoyed a comfortable middle-class American childhood and was pictured in a school yearbook posing in a slim-fitting tank top, her long dark hair cascading over bare shoulders.

But she abandoned this lifestyle after meeting Tamerlan Tsarnaev and swiftly adopted the hijab as she devoted herself to his beliefs.

However, she was kept in the dark over his alleged deadly intentions and only discovered he was a suspect when she saw a news report on the terror atrocity on television, her lawyer Amato DeLuca said.

The eldest of three daughters, her background was said to have been characterised by conventional American family values.

Known to her friends as Katie, she was raised as a Christian by her father - an emergency physician - and mother, who worked as a nurse.

She was brought up in a detached house in North Kingstown, an attractive and affluent town in Rhode Island, south of Boston, before she reportedly moved on to Suffolk University, in Boston.

It was while studying there that friends introduced her to her future husband who was then an apparently promising boxer and athlete.

The pair began to date following their first meeting at a nightclub and, at some point after this, she converted to Islam.

By then, their relationship was described as being intense.

The pair married in 2009 or 2010, DeLuca said. She left university around this time, apparently without graduating.

When asked why she opted to change her life so dramatically, her lawyer said: "She believes in the tenets of Islam and of the Koran. She believes in God."

According to reports, Russell Tsarnaev stood by her husband when he was arrested for violently assaulting her in 2009 at their Massachusetts home.

The widow was pictured collecting belongings from the house she shared with her husband at the weekend, dressed in black and wearing a headscarf and sunglasses.

Tamerlan, 26, and his brother, Dzhokhar, 19, were accused of planting the bombs near the marathon finish line last Monday. The Chechen siblings, from southern Russia, are alleged to have killed three people and injured more than 180 others.

DeLuca said Russell Tsarnaev never suspected her husband but had not seen much of him in recent days because she was working between 70 and 80 hours, over seven days a week, as a home health care aide while he looked after their toddler daughter.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was said to have been at home when his wife left for work on Friday - the day he was killed in a getaway attempt and the last day she saw him alive.

When asked whether Russell Tsarnaev felt anything was amiss following the bombings, DeLuca said: "Not as far as I know."

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EU ends Myanmar sanctions

EU foreign ministers have agreed to lift the last of the bloc's trade, economic and individual sanctions against Myanmar (Burma), hailing "a new chapter" with the once pariah state.

"In response to the changes that have taken place and in the expectation that they will continue, the Council (of ministers) has decided to lift all sanctions with the exception of the embargo on arms," said a statement approved without a vote on Monday.

"The EU is willing to open a new chapter in its relations with Myanmar/Burma, building a lasting partnership," it added.

The European Union began easing sanctions against Myanmar a year ago as the military, in power for decades, progressively ceded power to civilians and implemented wholesale reforms of the economy.

Ministers noted, however, that there were "still significant challenges to be addressed", in particular an end to hostilities in Kachin state and improving the plight of the Rohingya people.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Monday that Myanmar has waged "a campaign of ethnic cleansing" against Rohingya Muslims, citing evidence of mass graves and forced displacement affecting tens of thousands.

HRW Asia head Phil Robertson said lifting the sanctions was "premature and regrettable", warning the move lessens leverage over Myanmar.

In April last year, foreign ministers agreed to a one-year suspension of measures targeting almost 500 individuals and more than 800 firms to bolster a reform process which the same month saw opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's election to parliament.

Among the sanctions, hundreds of people were targeted by a travel ban and asset freeze, while on the economic front the EU had barred investments and banned imports of the country's lucrative timber, metals and gems.

During a visit to Brussels last month, the first by a Myanmar head of state, President Thein Sein urged the EU to lift sanctions, saying "we are one of the poorest countries in the world".

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