THE European Central Bank has decided to leave its main refinancing rate at a historic low of 0.75 per cent, despite worries about slow growth and the strength of the euro.
ECB watchers had not expected the central bank to ease borrowing costs in the euro area this month, but analysts said they would listen to see what central bank chief Mario Draghi had to say later on Thursday about the recent strong rise of the euro exchange rate.
COAL train drivers at the centre of a 48-hour rail stoppage say the dispute is about their right to be represented by a union.
Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) national secretary Bob Nanva says the stoppage is about the right of rail freight workers to collectively bargain through their union.
"Pacific National has tried to frustrate the legitimate right of this workforce to collectively bargain," Mr Nanva said in a statement.
"The company's recent behaviour has now made today's strike as much about our right to stand up for ourselves as it is about this particular EBA (enterprise bargaining agreement).
"Through the course of this dispute Pacific National has offered inducements to employees who don't take part in industrial action and threatened a lower pay offer for those who do," he said.
RTBU members employed by Pacific National Coal, a division of the stock exchange listed company Asciano, began their 48-hour strike at midnight on Thursday.
The RTBU and Pacific National Coal could not agree earlier in the day on a new enterprise agreement for 800 workers, despite the involvement of the Fair Work Commission and discussions with Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten.
The strike threatens the delivery of 600,000 tonnes of coal worth more than $55 million at current prices by Pacific National, while disrupting the 20 to 30 per cent of the state's coal it does not haul because of about 40 idle trains blocking lines.
The RTBU started negotiations last year by asking for pay rises over three years of nine, seven and seven per cent.
Pacific National responded with four per cent a year for three years.
The workers rejected the offer but Pacific National reduced its offer to three per cent from this week, which led to an escalation of the proposed strike action from 24 hours to 48 hours.
AAP understands the union has reduced its claim to seven, five and five per cent.
Most of the workers, who include train drivers, maintainers and terminal operators, are paid a base rate of $63,000 a year, but the company says the average fully trained train driver earns $105,000, including overtime.
A PILOT has been rescued after his helicopter crashed while fighting a bushfire in Tasmania, where emergency bushfire warnings have been downgraded.
Strong wind gusts earlier fanned a fire burning at Molesworth in the Derwent Valley, with the Tasmanian Fire Service (TFS) issuing an emergency alert for the area, warning residents it was likely too late to leave and to activate their bushfire survival plan.
The TFS warned the fire danger rating in Molesworth, in the state's south, was still very high but had downgraded the emergency warning to a watch and act alert on Thursday night.
The Molesworth fire terrain has made parts of it inaccessible to the crews working in the area, with four helicopters being used as water-bombers.
One of the firefighting pilots, a 52-year-old Hobart man, crashed into a clearing near the bushfire before being rescued about 5pm (AEDT).
Police said the man was airlifted to the Royal Hobart Hospital for assessment and was shaken by the incident but not seriously hurt.
Two schools in the area, Collinsvale and Molesworth Primary Schools, will remain closed on Friday.
The TFS said the fire had impacted on Suhrs Road, Fehlbergs Road, Valley Road and Collins Cap Road to Springdale Road and may impact on the areas of Myrtle Forest Road and Old Springdale Road within the next six to 12 hours.
The TFS says there may be embers, smoke and ash falling on Molesworth, Glenlusk and Collinsvale.
A watch and act alert is also in place for an out-of-control blaze near Franklin in the Huon Valley, south of Hobart, with the area on a high fire danger rating.
A watch and act alert had also previously been put in place for a fire at Lefroy near George Town, in the state's north, with the area on a low to moderate fire danger rating.
A total fire ban has been declared for the northern and southern regions of Tasmania for Friday.
The fire ban covers Break O'Day, Dorset Flinders, George Town, Launceston, Meander Valley, Northern Midlands, West Tamar, Brighton, Central Highlands, Clarence City, Derwent Valley, Glamorgan, Spring Bay, Glenorchy, Hobart, Huon Valley, Kingborough, Sorell, Southern Midlands and Tasman.
THE federal government will make sure people know how much money is really coming from the controversial new mining tax - if the tax commissioner agrees, Treasurer Wayne Swan says.
The Senate ordered the tax commissioner this week to reveal how much money, if any, has flowed from the minerals resource rent tax (MRRT).
Treasury forecast that the tax on the super profits of iron ore and coalminers would raise $2 billion this financial year, but analysts believe that's unlikely.
Despite calls to reveal the amount, the government has been insisting the commissioner can't reveal the tax receipts of mining companies for legal reasons.
Mr Swan said the government believed any MRRT revenue data should be published but says it is up to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to decide.
"If the ATO assesses it can provide information specifically about MRRT revenue from the second quarter to the government, then we will ensure it is made public," he said in a statement on Friday.
Protecting the confidentiality of individual taxpayers was essential, the Treasurer said. "But I believe there is a case to examine whether large and multinational businesses should have the same level of confidentiality about the taxes they have paid."
Mr Swan said revenues from the mining tax had taken a massive hit because of ongoing uncertainty in the global economy, volatile commodity prices and the high Australian dollar.
"MRRT is a profits-based tax that raises more revenue when profits are higher and less when they are lower; that's the whole point of the tax," he said.
Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury said earlier this week the government was looking into how corporate tax laws could be made more transparent.
THE Queensland police union is calling for tougher laws to send risk-taking pregnant women into safe houses in an effort to monitor their behaviour.
In a submission to the Queensland Child Protection Inquiry, the union says the rights of an unborn child should be considered ahead of the mother, The Australian reports.
Union president Ian Leavers says the state should be able to intervene in cases where children are at risk of foetal alcohol syndrome and drug addictions.
"Those children also deserve the right to a full life and health and should not be disadvantaged simply because of the actions or inaction of their birth mother," he says in the submission.
"The state must have the ability to intervene and protect the unborn child when its mother refuses, or is incapable or unwilling to do so."
Mr Leavers said tougher laws would complement the criminal code, which provides for a charge of killing an unborn child or grievous bodily harm for any person who violently kills or harms an unborn child.
The submission expresses views of frontline police who work in child protection, Mr Leavers says in the document.
The inquiry is headed by former Family Court judge Tim Carmody, who is expected to release his final report in April.
INTERNATIONAL Criminal Court judges have demanded Libya hand over Muammar Gaddafi's former spy chief Abdullah Senoussi to face charges of crimes against humanity.
The latest broadside in the legal tug-of-war between The Hague-based ICC and Tripoli over where Senoussi and Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam should be tried repeated a demand for Senoussi to be handed over.
The ICC "orders the Libyan authorities to proceed to the immediate surrender of Mr Senoussi to the court", said a ruling issued on Wednesday and made public on Thursday.
The ICC has the option of calling on the United Nations Security Council to take action.
The ICC is mulling a Libyan request to put Senoussi and Gaddafi on trial there, while the ICC itself wants to try them on charges of crimes against humanity committed in the conflict that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The ICC, which was mandated by the UN Security Council to investigate the Libyan conflict, issued arrest warrants in June 2011 for both Gaddafi and Senoussi on charges of crimes against humanity.
Lawyers for the two accused have said they will not get a fair trial in Libya.
A MAN has been charged after he allegedly shot into a home on the NSW south coast.
The 26-year-old man was arrested at a house in Nowra on Thursday, after he allegedly fired several rounds into a home on McKay Street, Nowra in December last year.
No one was injured in the shooting.
Police seized a rifle, double shortened double barrel shotgun and Taser, which had all been stolen, while also locating a shotgun and ammunition.
The man has been charged with two counts of possess unauthorised firearm and one count of possess shortened firearm.
He has been refused bail and will face Nowra Local Court on Friday.
US stocks have opened slightly lower as the market takes a breather from the aggressive buying that has characterised most of 2013 so far.
Five minutes into trade on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 14.86 points, or 0.11 per cent, lower at 13,971.66.
The S&P 500 index dropped 0.28 point, or 0.02 per cent.
The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.20 point, or 0.01 per cent.
Thursday's trading followed a middling session on Wednesday when markets concluded the day little-changed.
The S&P 500 is already up six per cent this year "and there has been a litany of warnings from pundits that the market is due for a pullback", said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.
"The latter view, however, has often been couched with the acknowledgment that there is a lot of frustrated money on the sidelines waiting to buy on weakness," O'Hare added.
