668 rhinos poached in S Africa in 2012

POACHERS slaughtered a record 668 rhinos in South Africa last year, up 50 per cent, as demand for their horns continued to surge on the black market in Asia, the government says.

More than three in five of the slaughtered pachyderms were from the vast Kruger National Park, South Africa's largest wildlife reserve and the country's top safari destination.

Five more animals have been killed since the start of the year, according to the environmental affairs ministry.

Poaching-related arrests climbed from 165 in 2010 to 267 in 2012.

South Africa is home to about three-quarters of Africa's 20,000 or so white rhinos and 4800 critically endangered black rhinos.

Authorities have launched inter-linking campaigns to slow the killings.

Soldiers and surveillance aircraft were deployed in the Kruger Park, while stricter criteria for rhino hunting permits sent applications tumbling 60 per cent to 90 in 2012, from 222 a year before.

Rhinos are victims of a booming demand for their horns, which some people in Asia think have medicinal properties. The medical claim is widely discredited.

South Africa and Vietnam last year signed a deal to tackle the trade.

The number of rhinos poached in the country has risen sharply from 13 in 2007 to 448 in 2011.

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Shifting Canada ice frees trapped whales

A CANADIAN village leader says about a dozen killer whales that were trapped under sea ice appear to have reached safety after the floating ice shifted on Hudson Bay.

Tommy Palliser said two hunters from Inukjuak village reported the water had opened up around the area where the cornered whales had been bobbing frantically for air.

Locals said the mammals had been trapped around a single, truck-sized breathing hole for at least two days.

Palliser said villagers had been planning to launch a rescue operation on Thursday.

But he said the winds seemed to shift overnight, pushing the floating ice further away from shore to open up the water.

Mayor Peter Inukpuk had urged the Canadian government to send an icebreaker.

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22 dead in Pakistan gas cylinder blast

A GAS cylinder has exploded at a religious gathering in Pakistan's northwestern Swat valley, killing 22 people and wounding more than 80, officials say.

The explosion took place at a weekly meeting of the local Tableeghi Jamaat (preachers' party) at its centre on the outskirts of Mingora, the main town in the district, regional police chief Akhtar Hayat said.

"According to initial reports it was a gas cylinder blast," another senior police officer, Gul Afzal Afridi, told AFP.

"The death toll has gone up to 22," local administration chief Kamran Khan told reporters at the Tableeghi centre. He said 87 people were wounded, 20 of them are in serious condition.

There were about 1500 people listening to the speech of a Muslim cleric at the centre when the cylinder exploded on Thursday, he said.

A bomb disposal unit was summoned to investigate, though there was no sign of any explosives at the blast site, he said.

Mingora is the town where internationally renowned Pakistani schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head in October last year in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban. She is recovering and undergoing further treatment in Britain.

The Pakistani Taliban seized much of Swat during a 2007-2009 insurgency, but the army declared the region back under control after an offensive in July 2009.

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Syria accuses peace envoy of bias

SYRIA'S government has accused UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi of "flagrant bias" against it after the veteran diplomat dismissed a mooted plan by President Bashar al-Assad as "one-sided".

"Syria is shocked by the statements of Lakhdar Brahimi, who has overstepped his mandate and exhibited a flagrant bias for those parties known to be conspiring against Syria and its people," the Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement broadcast by state television on Thursday.

Brahimi said on Wednesday that Assad's new road map for his embattled country is "more sectarian, more one-sided" than previous initiatives to end the nearly 22-month conflict in Syria that the UN estimates has left more than 60,000 people dead.

"What has been said this time is not really different and it is perhaps even more sectarian, more one-sided," the veteran diplomat said.

"What you need is reaching out and recognising that there is a ... very serious problem between Syrians, and that Syrians have got to talk to one another to solve it," he said.

Assad's three-step plan for a "political solution" in Syria, outlined in a speech to his supporters on Sunday, was swiftly rejected by the opposition and Western nations as being detached from reality.

The plan offered dialogue with the opposition to end the conflict - but only with elements he deemed acceptable, not rebel-affiliated groups he termed "killers" and "terrorists" manipulated by foreign powers.

Referring to the so-called Arab Spring that has swept the region since late 2010, Brahimi said: "Now people want to have a say in how they are governed. They want to take hold of their own future.

"In Syria in particular, what people are saying is that one family ruling for 40 years is a little bit too long."

The stinging comments came ahead of talks in Geneva on Friday between Brahimi and US and Russian officials.

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Victorians brace for severe fire risk

VICTORIANS face a day of severe fire danger on Friday with temperatures hovering around 40C and two troublesome blazes already burning.

Temperatures of 42C are expected in some areas, with Melbourne tipped to reach 37C, and northwesterly winds up to 50km/h forecast.

A total fire ban has been declared statewide and two districts, the Wimmera and north central, have been rated areas of extreme fire danger.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Tracey Malmborg said Victoria will bake under high temperatures until a change sweeps the state late in the afternoon.

"We're anticipating a very hot, dry and windy day across Victoria and there could also be some lightning around," Ms Malmborg said.

A southwesterly change is expected to push through the Wimmera to Melbourne around 4pm (AEDT).

There are 12 fires in Victoria, with two of concern to authorities, Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said.

Fire crews hope to have a fire at Kentbruck in the far southwest contained by 8am on Friday.

Crews will also keep a close eye on a fire at Goroke in the Wimmera region, which began on Tuesday and became active again on Thursday.

Friday's late change will carry over into a mild weekend, but Ms Malmborg expects the temperature to warm up again into next week.

"That relentless ball of hot air is forecast to be dragged back down across Victoria later again next week so we could see fire dangers becoming elevated again and, unfortunately, there is no significant rainfall inside that timeframe."

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NSW fires to 'go gangbusters' on Friday

FIREFIGHTERS say bushfires burning across the state could "go gangbusters" on Friday as more scorching weather bears down on NSW.

A statewide total fire ban is in place for Friday as authorities brace for temperatures to reach the low- to mid-40s in some parts of the state.

NSW Rural Fire Service said the hot forecast meant there would be no reprieve from the around 100 fires burning across NSW late Thursday night, of which 16 remained uncontained.

An RFS spokeswoman told AAP strong winds forecast for Friday would exacerbate the fire threat.

"The fires, given they're already burning, they may well and truly go gangbusters."

Three fires had caused major concern on Thursday night, the RFS advised.

Around 150 firefighters worked to contain the Deans Gap fire about 12km east of Sussex Inlet, in the Shoalhaven.

In the state's southwest, the Cobbler Road fire in the Jugiong area, near Yass, was burning close to properties, with about 90 firefighters at the scene.

The Yarrabin fire burning in the Kybeyan Valley 20km east of Cooma had burnt 9,400 hectares by Thursday night, the spokeswoman said.

"Firefighters are concerned that the hot weather Friday and Saturday is going to have a negative impact on that fire."

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US stocks higher after strong Chinese data

US stocks have opened higher after stronger-than-expected Chinese trade data that boosted growth hopes for the world's second-biggest economy.

After 25 minutes of trade on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 39.47 points, or 0.29 per cent, at 13,429.98.

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 6.11 points, or 0.42 per cent, to 1,467.13.

The Nasdaq Composite gained 15.30 points, or 0.49 per cent, at 3,121.11.

China said its trade surplus surged 48.1 per cent in 2012 from the previous year, helped by a 7.9 per cent rise in exports. The strong trade data lifted Asian and European stock markets.

On Wall Street, news that Nokia boosted its fourth-quarter earnings guidance and that Ford doubled its quarterly dividend lent support to US stocks, said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.

On the downside, Tiffany & Co released an earnings warning, while Morgan Stanley downgraded Microsoft, O'Hare said.

US jobless claims rose by 4,000 last week to come in at 371,000, the government reported, above the 364,000 estimated by analysts.

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UK detective guilty in hacking scandal

A SENIOR British counter-terrorism detective has been found guilty of trying to sell information to Rupert Murdoch's News of the World tabloid.

Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn was charged with misconduct for allegedly phoning the newspaper and offering to pass on information about whether London's police force would reopen its stalled phone hacking investigation.

Prosecutors said the newspaper did not print a story based on her call and no money changed hands.

However, they said, she had committed a "gross breach" of the public trust by offering to sell the information.

She was accused of trying to ruin the inquiry by leaking information to the press.

Prosecutor Mark Bryant-Heron told the jury Casburn "sought to undermine a highly sensitive and high-profile investigation at the point of its launch" and accused her of malicious behaviour.

Casburn, 53, who managed the Metropolitan Police terrorist financing investigation unit, had denied the charges.

She admitted contacting the newspaper but denied she offered confidential information or sought payment.

Jurors at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday found her guilty of one count of misconduct.

She is the first person convicted in the hacking scandal since the police investigation was reopened in 2011.

She will be sentenced later this month.

The long-running phone hacking scandal has led to dozens of arrests. It involved allegations of illegal snooping on celebrities, crime victims, politicians and others.

Murdoch closed the News of the World tabloid after many of its misdeeds were exposed.

Tim Wood, the News of the World news editor who took Casburn's call, told the court she had expressed concern that counter-terrorism resources were being diverted to the phone hacking investigation.

He said she also complained of interference from former deputy prime minister John Prescott, a hacking victim and vocal Murdoch critic.

"The one thing that stands out in my mind is the fact that she kept going on about Lord Prescott," Wood said. "Her saying that he was pressing for them to put charges on the News of the World; and she was saying that she felt it was wrong that he was interfering in the scandal, so to speak, and she resented that."

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