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[OMEN]

Islamist insurgents firing grenades attacked Ugandan peacekeepers in Mogadishu, killing at least 10 people and injuring a dozen others in the crossfire, residents and officials said.

The overnight fighting came a day after a hardline Islamist leader linked to al Qaeda, Sheikh Hassan Abdullah Hersi al-Turki, said that rebels would continue to attack foreign troops including the African Union peacekeeping force.

"An unknown group attacked us, but we chased and killed two of them," AU force spokesman Barigye Bahouku said.

"First they fired four rocket-propelled grenades at us and then machine guns, but there were no casualties from our side. We have not killed any civilians but aimed at those who attack us using small arms."

A contingent of 1600 Ugandan peacekeepers and 600 Burundian troops, known as AMISOM, has been unable to stem mounting violence in Somalia.

Militants have routinely attacked Somali and Ethiopian troops since the Islamic Courts movement was ousted from Mogadishu in a short war in late 2006 and early 2007.

Last week, insurgents wounded five Ugandan soldiers. Kampala sent troops to the Somali capital in March 2007 to help bolster the struggling Somali government.

Residents said two mortars killed eight people and wounded nine others in the attack. A stray rocket-propelled grenade killed a further two people, witnesses said.

"Mortar shells from Ugandans killed all these people as Islamists were fighting from the gate of our building," witness Fatuma Olow told Reuters.

The Shabab militia - which the United States has labelled a terrorist organisation - claimed responsibility for the attack.

"Our mujahideen forces carried out an attack on the so-called AMISOM and our operation was successful," Shabab spokesman Mukhtar Ali Robow said.

"We had neither injuries nor deaths and we shall continue attacking them till Somalia is liberated."

On Tuesday night, clashes between insurgents and the police killed four people in western Mogadishu, residents said.

Thousands have been killed and nearly 1 million displaced in fighting since early 2007.

Reuters

[OMEN]

The 19-year-old daughter of a woman held captive in an underground dungeon in Austria for 24 years has woken from a coma.

Kerstin Fritzl had been in a coma since late last month after she was taken to hospital from the cellar she shared with her mother, Elisabeth, and two younger brothers.

The three children were fathered by Elisabeth's father Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned them in the dungeon beneath his family home.

Doctors had feared Kerstin might die when her organs began to fail earlier this month.

But they have now revealed that she opened her eyes at the weekend, sparking hope that she'll recover.

"In a world that was very dark, the Fritzls now have light," a source told the Daily Mirror newspaper in Britain.

"Elisabeth and family are very happy, but they know they mustn't get their hopes up too high.

"Kerstin's incredibly fragile. She'll be in bed a long time - probably months."

The 19-year-old has not yet managed to speak to doctors or her family.

"She moves when she feels pressure on her skin," the source said.

"Everybody's crossing their fingers this recovery will continue but nobody can predict it."

Authorities say Fritzl confessed to locking up his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years in the cellar below his home in Amstetten, Austria, repeatedly raping her and fathering seven children with her.

Investigators say he told them three of the children were raised in the cellar, three others were brought up above ground and one died in infancy.

DNA tests have confirmed Fritzl is the biological father of the six surviving children.

AAP

[OMEN]

Army-controlled media in Myanmar has praised the United Nations for its help to the 2.4 million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis, suggesting a thaw in the junta's frosty relationship with the outside world.

The English-language New Light of Myanmar said UN agencies took "prompt action" to provide relief supplies after the May 2 cyclone, which left 134,000 people dead or missing.

The paper, the generals' main mouthpiece, also softened the government's line that the immediate relief phase of the disaster was over, saying instead that "rescue and rehabilitation tasks have been carried out to some extent".

However, the junta arrested 20 people trying to march to the home of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, the day her latest year-long stretch of house arrest is due to expire, a witness and opposition sources said.

The arrests, and expected rolling-over of the 62-year-old Nobel laureate's detention order, are bound to create new tensions with Western nations who promised millions of dollars in cyclone aid at an unprecedented donor conference in Yangon on Sunday.

Three weeks after the 190kmh winds and sea surge from Cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy delta, the UN says fewer than one in three of those most in need have received any aid.

Thousands of beggars are lining up along the roads, with droves of children shouting "Just throw something" at passing vehicles.

Witnesses say many villages have received no outside help, and waterways of the former Burma's "rice bowl" remain littered with animal carcasses and corpses, either grotesquely bloated or rotting to the bone.

The stench of death is widespread, as are the swarms of flies.

Much of the blame for the aid delay rests with the junta, which has been reluctant to admit a large-scale international relief effort for fear of loosening the vice-like grip on power the army has held since a 1962 coup.

However, top diplomats who helped co-ordinate Sunday's conference said there were small signs of the generals gradually overcoming their pride and paranoia and admitting outside help.

"I can sense that there is a sense of urgency," Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), told a news conference in the Thai capital on Tuesday.

"A sense of appreciation that the world, after all, is not all that hostile on some issues, particularly on humanitarian issues," Surin said.

Washington told the Yangon conference it was ready to raise its offer of $US20.5 ($NZ26.38) million in aid if the junta opened up, but added it was "dismayed" the generals went ahead with a constitutional referendum in the middle of the disaster.

The result - 92.5 per cent in favour on a turnout of 98.1 per cent in a poll held with no neutral monitoring - is unlikely to enhance the credibility of the generals' seven-step "roadmap to democracy", that is meant to culminate in elections in 2010.

After a promise to visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon by junta supremo Than Shwe that all foreign aid workers would be given full access to the delta, foreign aid workers have headed out of Yangon to test whether anything has changed on the ground.

Myanmar embassies are also granting more visas to aid workers, although the UN's World Food Programme, which is spearheading much of the emergency relief push, says it is coming up against reams of red tape at every turn.

"Yesterday was a record, red-letter day with seven visas applied for and seven issued," WFP spokesman Paul Risley said.

"But every step of the way has been difficult. Every step has required agreement with the government, clearance from the government, approval by the government of virtually all of our actions."

Reuters

[OMEN]

China is about to try to kick a 3 billion-a-day plastic bag habit. But breaking the addiction, in a bid to save energy and protect the environment, will be easier said than done.

The world's most populous nation on Sunday will join a growing list of countries, from Ireland to Bangladesh, that are aiming to change shoppers' habits when a ban on the production of plastic bags under 0.025 millimetres thick comes into force.

Ultra-thin bags are the principal target of the crackdown because they are typically used once and then discarded, adding to waste in a country that is increasingly conscious of the air and water pollution caused by its breakneck economic growth.

Shopkeepers will also be barred from handing out free plastic carrier bags except for fresh and cooked foods. Those breaking the law face fines and could have their goods confiscated.

China consumes 37 million barrels of what is now very expensive crude oil each year to churn out the 3 billion plastic bags that its 1.3 billion people use on average each day, according to official figures.

Ma Zhanfeng, secretary-general of the China Plastics Processing Industry Association, expects the ban to bite.

"Domestic demand for plastic bags will drop drastically from 1.6 million tonnes a year to around 1.1 million tonnes," said Ma, who has nearly 20 years' experience in the industry.

Bag makers have already felt the pinch from the looming restrictions. Some have even been forced out of business.

But Ning Rongju with Friends of Nature, a local non-governmental organisation, says all will depend on whether the new rules are enforced, especially in cities such as Beijing, where demand for bags in the capital's many markets is huge.

"The execution and monitoring of the law will actually determine the future of plastic bags," she said.

Xiao Ling, the mother of a 6-year-old boy, said her family was already in the habit of using nylon shopping bags. But she, too, was sceptical.

"Getting rid of all ultra-thin bags will take a long time," she said while out shopping at a Wal-Mart supermarket in Beijing.

For China's plastic processors, the curbs are the latest blow to a sector struggling with soaring raw material and labour costs, a rising exchange rate and an end to export tax rebates.

The plastic bag industry is highly segmented, with factories in almost every province.

One major centre is Taizhou, a city in southeastern Zhejiang province where more than 10,000 manufacturers of plastic products enjoy sales of 40 billion yuan ($NZ7.37 billion) each year, according to the Taizhou Plastic Industry Association.

Chen Jiazeng, the group's director, admitted that "small factories might ignore the rule and keep making ultra-thin bags" as long as they can make money.

The prospect that some underground manufacturers will turn a blind eye to the law is especially unsettling for smaller firms.

Taizhou Xinxing Plastic Packing Co Ltd, which employs 300 people and has annual sales of about 15 million yuan, mostly from plastic bags, is considering switching to other plastic goods.

"The new policy will make plastic bags even more expensive," Su Xiaobing, the company's sales manager, explained. "We won't have any price advantage then."

Fear of illegal competition is shared by big manufacturers such as Huiqiang in central Henan province, whose plastic bags all conform with the new national standards.

A sales manager who gave only his surname, Xue, said his firm had no quarrel with the policy but was worried about how it would be implemented.

"We're afraid we'll see small underground plants continuing to make ultra-thin bags if there is demand for them," Xue said. "We risk losing our market share by following the rules."

Reuters

[OMEN]

Jodie Power's brain was "so fried" by drugs, and her malice towards Mercedes Corby was so great, she thought she could lie in the witness box and get away with it, a court has been told.

Closing Ms Corby's defamation case against the Seven Network today, barrister Stuart Littlemore QC attacked Ms Power's credibility, labelling her a "doper" who would sell out her own children for drugs.

Ms Corby, the sister of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby, is suing Seven over interviews with Ms Power, screened last February, in which she claims she was falsely portrayed as a drug dealer and smuggler.

"She's no drug dealer, she's no drug smuggler and she's in no way involved with drugs," Mr Littlemore told the court.

Ms Corby was a "courageous" and honest Australian mother of three children, Mr Littlemore said, while her former best friend had been shown as a "shamefully irresponsible" woman who was driven by a lust for money and fame and hatred for the Corby family.

Ms Power used her mother's pension to daily take drugs whilst holidaying in Thailand and had been proven as a liar under oath, he said.

"When you come to judge her credibility, it's impossible to put too much emphasis on the fact that Jodie Power has been proved to have lied on oath for her own financial gain," Mr Littlemore said.

Ms Power was given $A100,000 ($NZ123,426) and two all-expenses paid overseas holidays for her story, he said, money which Seven was never likely to see again.

"They're not going to get blood out of a stone, or a stoner," Mr Littlemore quipped.

"This was a woman with no job, no prospects of a job, no money, no savings... two boys to look after and drug dealers to pay.

"If there was one thing crystal clear to Jodie Power, it was this: no show, no dough."

Mr Littlemore told the court Ms Power would "even lie about lying" if she thought she could get away with it.

He also questioned Ms Power's public claims at the time the show was screened that she would use the money to repay donors to Schapelle Corby's fighting fund, and to feed a starving African village.

"The donors got not one cent and the little African village didn't even get a second-hand penis pipe," Mr Littlemore said, prompting titters from the public gallery.

Ms Power had contradicted and corrected herself in the witness box on a number of issues, including regarding her claims Ms Corby's brother, Michael, had regularly sold her drugs at a time when he was only a schoolboy, Mr Littlemore argued.

"Perhaps her drug abuse has left her in a fog about where she was and what she was doing," he said.

"Ms Power's brain is so fried, her malice is so great, that she tried to tell you this story."

To call Ms Power a whistleblower was a "nonsense", Mr Littlemore said.

"Whistleblowers are not paid, in fact they usually lose their jobs," he said.

"Whistleblowers don't go to Channel Seven, they go to the authorities."

The trial continues before Justice Carolyn Simpson.

AAP

[OMEN]

Sexual abuse of children by aid workers and peacekeepers is rife and efforts to protect young people are inadequate, said a report published today.

The study by charity Save the Children UK said there were significant levels of abuse in emergencies, much of it unreported and unless the silence ended, attempts to stamp out exploitation would "remain fundamentally flawed".

Accusations of sexual abuse by United Nations peacekeepers and aid workers around the world have increased in recent years and the UN is investigating claims against its soldiers in hotspots such as Haiti, Liberia, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The report said while the UN and some non-governmental organisations were stepping up efforts to address the problem, a global watchdog should be established this year to monitor attempts to tackle abuse and champion effective responses.

Save the Children based its findings on visits last year to Haiti, Southern Sudan and Ivory Coast. It held 38 focus group discussions with 250 children and 90 adults, followed up by in-depth interviews with some and desk-based research.

The study found a huge range of exploitation and abuse: children trading sex for food, forced sex, verbal sexual abuse, child prostitution, child pornography, sexual slavery, sexual assault and child trafficking.

The focus groups identified children as young as six as having been abused, although most were aged 14 to 15.

UN peacekeepers were identified as the most likely perpetrators by 20 of the 38 groups, although a total of 23 humanitarian, peacekeeping and security organisations were associated with sexual abuse in the three countries.

"All humanitarian and peacekeeping agencies working in emergency situations, including Save the Children UK, must own up to the fact that they are vulnerable to this problem and tackle it head on," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.

More than half of the participants in the study identified incidents of sexual touching and forced sex. Of these, 18 and 23 per cent respectively recalled 10 or more such incidents.

"They especially ask us for girls of our age. Often it will be between eight and 10 men who will share two or three girls. When I suggest an older girl, they say that they want a young girl," a 14-year-old boy who works at a peacekeeping camp in Ivory Coast told the Save the Children research team.

And the report said official UN statistics appeared to underestimate the scale of abuse, probably because so much of the exploitation was not reported by victims.

"Clearly there is a significant disparity between the low levels of abuse cited in these statistics and the high levels suggested in field investigations and other evidence," it said.

Save the Children said there were many reasons why abuse was not reported: fear of losing material assistance, threat of retribution, stigmatisation, negative economic impact, lack of legal services, resignation to abuse, lack of information about how to report abuse and, crucially, lack of faith in a response.

Anecdotal evidence from all 38 focus groups suggested there was an endemic failure to respond to reports of abuse.

"Many UN agencies and NGOs working here feel they cannot be touched by anyone," said an aid worker in Ivory Coast.

- Reuters

[OMEN]

Groups that monitor Islamic websites say al Qaeda in a new video will urge jihadists to use biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West.

There was no evidence of a direct threat or that the group had obtained weapons of mass destruction, US intelligence officials said.

Spokesman Richard Kolko said the FBI sent out an alert to US law enforcement agencies about the video, expected in the next 24 hours.

"We got information the tape is coming," said Kolko. "We sent out an alert to law enforcement to let them know the tape was coming."

The alert was a routine precaution sent to 1800 US law enforcement agencies, he said.

There is no sign that al Qaeda has acquired the capability to use weapons of mass destruction, a US intelligence official said on Tuesday evening.

"At this point there isn't evidence they've obtained it," the official said on condition of anonymity. "But it's clearly their intent and it's something we need to be aware of and concerned about."

The official declined comment on the FBI alert.

Kolko said the information about the al Qaeda call to jihadists was gleaned from organisations that monitor Islamic militant websites.

Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are linked to the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington that killed about 3000 people, and the Oct. 12, 2002, bombing on the tourist island of Bali when 202 people died.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Police will never give up trying to discover the full extent of crimes perpetrated by "evil" child killers Valmae Beck and Barrie Watts, despite Beck's death, Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson says.

Beck, who was jailed for life over the brutal torture and murder of 12-year-old Noosa schoolgirl Sian Kingi, died last night in Townsville Hospital, in the state's north, aged 64.

She underwent heart surgery three weeks ago and was placed in an induced coma but never fully regained consciousness.

Mr Atkinson, who led the Kingi investigation in 1987, today said Beck, who changed her name to Fay Cramb, had taken secrets to the grave including those around the murder of Helen Mary Feeney, a 31-year-old student killed in late 1987, and possibly others.

But he said police would not give up on learning the extent of the crimes perpetrated by Beck and her "psychotic killer" husband.

He said Watts was now the sole keeper of the couple's secrets and police would seize any opportunity to encourage him to come clean.

Watts was acquitted of Ms Feeney's murder in 1995 but last year promised to reveal her resting place before reneging.

"He's our last hope now," Mr Atkinson said.

"No one else can provide that information now that Valmae Beck is deceased. But we won't give up on that and if there's any window of opportunity at all we will pursue that."

But he acknowledged the probability of ever learning the truth was stacked against police.

"I don't want to sound pessimistic with that but on balance it's probably more unlikely than likely, but we'll always keep trying," he said.

Mr Atkinson said that while police knew of the deaths of Sian and Helen, and the attempted abduction of two nurses and a woman from a shopping centre - all in 1987 - he was positive there were more victims.

"Given the fact that (Beck and Watts) were so active, so ruthless, so organised, I find it difficult to believe that the only things they did were the ones we know about," he said.

He said the positive was that Beck had fulfilled her sentence of "life in prison" and justice had been served.

However, acting Chief Superintendent Alan Bourke, who also worked on the Kingi case, said he feared Watt, who is serving a life sentence, would one day be released.

"He was the principal person that was instigating these acts for his sexual gratification," Supt Bourke said.

"(He was) simply a predator out there preying on people and I'm of fervent belief he has showed absolutely no remorse in relation to any of these crimes at all.

"And my fear is that if he is ever released in society he will re-offend."

AAP

[OMEN]

China has evacuated more than 150,000 people living below a swollen lake formed by this month's devastating earthquake in the mountainous province of Sichuan.

The Tangjiashan lake was created when landslides caused by the May 12 earthquake blocked the Jianjiang river above the town and county of Beichuan, near the epicentre of China's most destructive earthquake in decades.

The official death toll from the 7.9 magnitude quake was raised on Tuesday to 67,183, and was certain to rise further as 20,790 are listed as missing. The quake injured nearly 362,000 people and new aftershocks toppled 420,000 houses and injured dozens on Tuesday.

Downstream from the lake, residents were evacuated overnight as engineers dug a diversion channel to prevent flooding.

"According to contingency plans, up to 1.3 million people from 33 townships of Mianyang city could be relocated if the lake barrier collapses entirely," the China Daily said in its online edition.

The water level in the lake, one of 35 "quake lakes" formed by the tremor and holding the volume of about 50,000 Olympic-size swimming pools, has kept rising and the giant sluice would not be ready for another week, the China Daily quoted experts as saying.

Immediately below the lake, the river runs in a loop between flattened high- and low-rise buildings, but threatens communities downstream which held evacuation drills on Tuesday.

In Tianlin village, among the first to be flooded if the lake bursts, gongs and loudspeakers directed 680 villagers to rush to surrounding hills within 20 minutes.

"The flood will sweep our village in five or six hours if the dam collapses," the village head was quoted as saying.

The lake water level was 727.09 metres on Tuesday, only 24.21 metres below the lowest part of the unstable landslip barrier, according to the Mianyang City Quake Control and Relief Headquarters.

In the last century, about 5,500 people have been killed by flash floods after barrier lakes burst through dams made by landslides, according to a 2004 paper by geologists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In 1786, the breach of a landslide dam 10 days after a major earthquake killed about 100,000 people in Sichuan.

The region along the faultline is densely packed with dams, raising concerns that if either the quake lakes or the weakened dams burst, the rush of water could cause other dams to fail.

Apart from the threat of flooding disasters, officials are trying to stave off epidemics as the temperature rises and the rainy season approaches.

A massive relief effort, which involves providing food, tents and clothing for millions and the reconstruction of housing and infrastructure, is expected to take up to three years.

Reuters