Conditions improve at NSW bushfire

MORALE among firefighters tackling a "big and messy" blaze that has destroyed more than 30 homes in northern NSW is improving as the odds begin to stack their way.

The fire, which has scorched 40,000 hectares and has a perimeter of more than 100 kilometres, is confirmed to have decimated at least 33 properties in the Timor Road area and more than 50 sheds.

But Steve Rayson, incident control manager at the RFS control centre in Coonabarabran, said conditions had "settled down substantially" overnight.

More than 100 firefighters were on the ground, supported by bulldozers, trucks and aerial teams.

Strike teams from out of the area were also arriving, arming the firefighting effort with more resources than ever before.

"We have got much more equipment than we ever had for this fire," Mr Rayson told AAP on Tuesday.

"We have a chance now to consolidate."

Despite house losses and locals bearing the brunt of the fire on Sunday, he said morale was good.

"It's obviously very tragic for people to have lost homes. We can't understate the impact that has had on the community.

"But morale is good because people can see that the cards are getting stacked in our favour."

But he said the situation can quickly shift.

Overnight in the outskirts of Coonabarabran a soft red hue sat on the the hills of the Warrumbungle National Park, as embers slowly cracked and spat.

While small pockets of fires were burning along Baradine and Budaldine roads, much of the surrounding landscape simply looked to be smouldering.

However, Mr Rayson said people shouldn't be deceived.

"You can have a fire like now which is not moving much at all because it is quite cool.

"But a changing wind strength and a fire which is nice can become an out of control monster very, very rapidly."

The biggest challenge facing firefighters is that the blaze has a large fire edge to monitor and control, he said.

It is expected that the RFS will move from property protection towards containing the blaze throughout Tuesday.

Some people in Baradine have returned home, with electricity also up and running for a number of properties, however almost 70 poles that were burnt by the blaze still aren't connected.

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US stocks mixed ahead of earnings

US stocks are mixed in opening trade ahead of a heavy week of earnings releases.

Six minutes into the trade on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 4.22 points, or 0.03 per cent, to 13,492.65.

The broad-based S&P 500 lost 0.73 point, or 0.05 per cent, at 1,471.32.

The Nasdaq Composite slipped 5.73 points, or 0.18 per cent, to 3,119.90.

The middling results in the US followed a strong day of trading in Asia, where markets were boosted by comments from China's state regulator that said the investment quota for foreigners in domestic equities could be increased tenfold.

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UK court approves ex-trader's extradition

A BRITISH court has approved the extradition of a former senior Credit Suisse trader to the United States to face charges over a $US540 million ($A514 million) fraud.

Kareem Serageldin, 39, is accused of distorting the value of mortgage securities while working at the Swiss banking giant during the financial crisis.

His case will now be passed to Home Secretary Theresa May, the interior minister, who has the final say over extraditions to the United States.

Prosecutors claim he conspired with two of his employees to hide the deteriorating condition of the housing market in 2007 in order to keep the value of bonds based on subprime mortgages artificially high and thereby fattening their bonuses.

Serageldin, a US citizen living in London who was the bank's global head of structured credit, was slated to receive more than $US7 million in pay before the company learned about the alleged fraud and withheld $US5.2 million.

He was arrested in September last year.

The alleged fraud, which prosecutors described last year at Westminister Magistrates Court as "a tale of greed run amok", was said to have contributed to the $US2.65 billion write-down that Credit Suisse announced in March 2008.

His lawyers did not contest the court's decision on Monday.

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UN urges focus on North Korea human rights

THE UN's top human rights official says as many as 200,000 people are being held in North Korean political prison camps rife with torture, rape and slave labour, and some of the abuses may amount to crimes against humanity.

For that reason, said Navi Pillay, the world body's high commissioner for human rights, nations must mount an independent probe into North Korea's human rights record.

The UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly, which includes all 193 member nations, have condemned North Korea's human rights record, but Pillay said stronger action is needed, including such a probe - one authorised by the United Nations but performed by experts independent of the UN system.

The stinging criticism and call from the world body's top human rights official for "a full-fledged international inquiry into serious crimes" in North Korea comes a year after Kim Jong Un became the new leader of the nuclear-armed Asian country upon the death of his father.

"There were some initial hopes that the advent of a new leader might bring about some positive change in the human rights situation," Pillay said on Monday. "But a year after Kim Jong Un became the country's new supreme leader we see almost no sign of improvement."

Pillay's statement was based on extensive research submitted by a special investigator for the 47-nation Human Rights Council based in Geneva and meetings she held there in December with two survivors of the prison camps, said Pillay's spokesman, Rupert Colville.

A UN report in September by special rapporteur Marzuki Darusman said some 150,000 to 200,000 people are estimated to be imprisoned in six North Korean camps for alleged political crimes. Pillay said she found "their personal stories were extremely harrowing" after meeting with the two survivors.

"They described a system that represents the very antithesis of international human rights norms. We know so little about these camps, and what we do know comes largely from the relatively few refugees who have managed to escape from the country," Pillay said.

"The highly developed system of international human rights protection that has had at least some positive impact in almost every country in the world, seems to have completely bypassed" North Korea.

She said the camp system involves "rampant violations, including torture and other forms of cruel and inhumane treatment, summary executions, rape, slave labour, and forms of collective punishment that may amount to crimes against humanity".

Living conditions are reported to include scarce food, little to no medical care and inadequate clothing.

"One mother described to me how she had wrapped her baby in leaves when it was born, and later made her a blanket by sewing together old socks," Pillay said.

While the world's focus remains on North Korea's nuclear program and its rocket launches, Pillay said, those important issues "should not be allowed to overshadow the deplorable human rights situation ... which in one way or another affects almost the entire population and has no parallel anywhere else in the world".

Pillay said North Korea also has used the death penalty to punish minor offences and abducted South Korean and Japanese nationals over the years.

North Korea's mission to the United Nations in Geneva, which was given a copy of the report before its publication on Monday, did not have an immediate public response to it.

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Ruby avoids testifying in Berlusconi trial

AN Italian court has turned down a request from former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's defence for his trial for underage sex to be suspended until after February elections.

A Moroccan-born exotic dancer at the centre of the case, however, will not be testifying after Berlusconi's lawyers said they were taking her off their list of witnesses for the defence.

Berlusconi, who has launched his sixth election bid in two decades, is accused of paying for sex with Karima El-Mahroug in 2010 at his mansion near Milan when she was just 17 and he was the prime minister.

The 20-year-old, who used the working name "Ruby the Heart Stealer", would have been testifying in court for the first time.

The curvaceous brunette arrived in a black coat looking demure amid a scrum of photographers and cameramen outside the courtroom in Milan on Monday.

Judges said her written testimony, in which she referred to wild "Bunga Bunga" parties hosted by Berlusconi, will still be considered in the case.

Court attendance by El-Mahroug had been in doubt after she missed two previous hearings in December saying she was on a long holiday in Mexico.

The trial is only the latest in a series of legal proceedings against the irrepressible media tycoon, who has managed to avoid any definitive convictions.

Making his request for the trial to be suspended, lawyer Niccolo Ghedini said this was to avoid the proceedings being "exploited" for political ends.

But prosecutor Ilda Boccassini said: "I ask that this trial be allowed to go ahead because a trial cannot be suspended because of a campaign."

Elections "are not a legal question to be considered by this court", she said.

Italians take to the polls on February 24-25 and the trial is headed for a verdict next month.

Prosecutors have accused the defence of deliberately trying to draw out the sex trial to avoid a verdict before the election.

Berlusconi has risen in the ratings since taking to the airwaves with his campaign but some observers say a conviction could end his career.

He faces up to three years in prison on the sex charge as the age of consent in Italy is only 14, but sex with an under-18 prostitute is a crime.

He is also accused of abusing his official powers by pressuring police to release El-Mahroug when she was arrested for petty theft - a charge that carries a maximum prison sentence of 12 years.

His defence says Berlusconi thought El-Mahroug was a niece of then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident.

The 76-year-old, who is also appealing a one-year prison sentence for tax fraud, is unlikely to go to prison even if convicted since sentencing guidelines in Italy are very lenient for over-70s.

Berlusconi denies having sex with El-Mahroug, saying he only gave her money so she could set up a beauty parlour and avoid prostituting herself.

"I never had an intimate relationship of any kind with her," he said in October in his second appearance at the trial, which began in April 2011.

"I was sure she was 24, as she herself said," Berlusconi said.

He said the soirees she attended were "burlesque contests" and "elegant dinner parties".

According to transcripts of her questioning by investigators leaked in the Italian press, El-Mahroug said Berlusconi enjoyed lap dances from naked girls at parties that he called "Bunga Bunga" - a term that has since become notorious.

El-Mahroug has also denied a liaison with Berlusconi but was recorded in a leaked telephone wiretap telling a friend that he had said to her: "Ruby I'll give you anything you want, I'll turn you into gold, just hide everything."

El-Mahroug has said ran away from her immigrant family in Sicily when she was just 14 after suffering physical abuse at the hands of her father.

According to some reports she was then spotted by one of Berlusconi's ageing cronies at a beauty contest and was called to entertain the prime minister.

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Firefighters set for more NSW fire battles

FIREFIGHTERS in central western NSW will continue to battle a large 40,000 hectare bushfire on Tuesday that has destroyed at least 33 homes.

The fire in the Warrumbungle National Park has led to evacuations from the nearby town of Coonabarabran, and has also claimed 50 farm sheds.

It is burning in a northerly direction in the Bugaldie area, the RFS said on Tuesday.

Acting Premier Andrew Stoner said on Monday a wind change had removed the threat to Coonabarabran, but the fire could still threaten settlements to the north of the national park.

Additional RFS crews are being deployed to the area ahead of deteriorating weather conditions later in the week.

The RFS said another fire was burning northeast of Coonabarabran along the Newell Highway but was not threatening properties.

The bushfires were among 146 blazes burning across the state, which were being tackled by almost 800 firefighters, 208 trucks and 78 aircraft.

So far the state's bushfires have scorched more than 500,000 hectares of bush, scrub and grass - as much land as the greater Sydney basin, RFS spokeswoman Laura Ryan told AAP.

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Taronga elephant attack review complete

TARONGA Zoo is set to release its findings after an investigation into an elephant attack that nearly crushed a zoo keeper to death.

Lucy Melo spent 12 days in a Sydney hospital in October last year after she was pinned to a bollard by the two-year-old elephant calf, Pathi Harn, formerly known as Mr Shuffles, during a routine training exercise.

She was conscious when paramedics arrived, but lapsed into unconsciousness and had a cardiac arrest for about five minutes.

After a spell of convalescence at Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital, Ms Melo was given the all clear to return home.

The Taronga Zoo Life Sciences Division conducted an investigation into the events surrounding the attack, and will release its findings on Tuesday morning.

Shortly after the attack, an animal behaviour expert told AAP that Mr Shuffles may have been testing Ms Melo's authority.

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Toyota regains global auto sales crown

TOYOTA has regained the global sales crown lost when the 2011 Japanese tsunami devastated its supplies as US rival General Motors' share of the global market shrank.

Toyota first overtook GM as the world's biggest carmaker in 2008, a position GM had held for 77 years in a row.

A year later, GM was forced to restructure under bankruptcy protection and has shed a number of unprofitable brands.

While the largest US automaker is once again making record profits, its sales have been hit by a deep downturn in Europe, the reduction in its offerings and a decision not to chase market share with costly incentives and low-margin fleet sales.

GM said its share of the global auto market fell 0.4 points to 11.9 per cent in 2012 despite sales that grew 2.9 per cent to 9.2 million vehicles.

It has hung onto the No.2 spot in worldwide sales, but German rival VW - which aspires to be the world's biggest automaker by 2018 - is not far behind with sales up 11 per cent in 2012 to 9.07 million.

Toyota maintains a much larger lead and has forecast its 2012 sales will jump 22 per cent to 9.7 million vehicles.

"Last year was a breakout year for us in a number of ways," said Jim Lentz, head of Toyota Motor Sales USA.

While it's great to be back on top again, Lentz said: "It's not that big of a deal."

"I don't really look at the global sales crown very much," he told AFP on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show.

"I'm sure we'll have a cup of coffee and say wasn't that great but by lunch we'll have forgotten about it and be back to business."

While Toyota also set new records for vehicle production, sales and vehicle launches in the United States last year, Lentz said the key measure is how the company connects with customers.

"The important number is how we're doing with retail customers," Lentz said, noting that the Toyota brand was the No.1 US retailer in 2012 as sales grew 27 per cent.

The group's total US sales topped two million vehicles and captured 14.4 per cent of the US market, placing it in second place behind GM's fleet-fuelled 17.9 per cent stake.

GM's international operations - Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East - posted the biggest gains, with sales up 10.1 per cent at 3.6 million while its share was flat at 9.5 per cent.

Sales fell 8.2 per cent in Europe to 1.6 million vehicles, while GM's share narrowed by 0.2 points to 8.5 per cent, the biggest US automaker said in a statement.

North American sales rose 3.2 per cent to just over three million, though GM's share of its home market fell 1.5 points to 16.9 per cent.

Sales in South America shrank 1.9 per cent to just over a million vehicles, while GM's share of the region fell 0.8 points to 18 per cent.

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