Bushfire threatens rural homes in NSW

AT least two sheds have been destroyed by an out-of-control bushfire threatening dozens of properties on NSW's mid north coast.

An emergency warning was issued to around 110 homes in Upper Lansdowne at 3pm (AEDT) on Saturday, half-an-hour after the blaze broke out.

More than 10 hectares of bush have already been burnt.

NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) spokeswoman Bridie O'Connor said the fire was heading towards 30 rural properties on Gungully Road.

"We have got more than 20 firefighters there and they're being assisted by water bombing aircraft," she told AAP.

"Hopefully they're making good progress on it and the fire won't actually reach those homes."

Temperatures reached 38 degrees Celsius in the area earlier on Saturday, with wind gusts of up to 35km/h.

Fire crews are hoping a cool change slowly moving up the NSW coast will bring with it more favourable conditions later in the evening.

A handful of properties are also under threat from a grassfire burning out of control about 10km south of Casino.

The blaze began about midday (AEDT) and has already covered about 15 hectares.

"Grassfires can start really quickly and move three times as fast as bushfires, that's why it's managed to get to these properties as quickly has it has," Ms O'Connor said.

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Six Afghan police poisoned, shot dead

SIX Afghan policemen have been shot dead after being poisoned by colleagues in southern Afghanistan, officials say.

The shooting, which is the latest in a series by Afghan security personnel targeting their local and foreign colleagues, occurred in the Gereshk district of volatile Helmand province on Thursday.

"A cook and a policeman first food-poisoned their colleagues in their post, and after they fell unconscious they were shot dead," provincial spokesman Ahmad Zeerak told AFP on Saturday.

He said the policeman involved in the shooting had been arrested but the cook was still at large.

Farid Ahmad Farhang, a provincial police spokesman, confirmed the incident.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, according to purported spokesman Yousif Ahmadi, who said eight policemen were killed and their weapons seized.

Afghan police are the key force in supporting US-led NATO forces in a war against Taliban militants.

Afghanistan has witnessed a surge in insider attacks, often by Taliban spies, in which more than 50 foreigners and dozens of local forces have been killed by their colleagues this year.

The unprecedented number of insider killings comes at a critical moment in the 11-year war, as US-led NATO forces plan to hand security responsibility to the Afghans ahead of a withdrawal of combat forces by the end of 2014.

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21 killed in Iranian bus crash

A BUS full of students has reportedly overturned, killing 21 people in southwestern Iran.

Senior local police official Colonel Mohammad Reza Mehmandar, was quoted on state radio on Saturday as saying the driver lost control because of high speed in rainy weather.

Mehmandar said 23 others were injured in the accident.

They were rushed to hospitals for treatment.

The accident happened on Friday evening on the Izeh-Lordegan road, about 500km southwest of the capital Tehran.

Iran has one of the world's worst traffic safety records, with more than 400,000 accidents and about 20,000 deaths on its roads every year.

The tolls are blamed on high speed, unsafe vehicles, widespread disregard of traffic laws and inadequate emergency services.

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Archbishop warns of Adelaide church issues

SEVERAL Anglican Church congregations in Adelaide face rapid collapse over the next few years, Archbishop Jeffrey Driver says.

The archbishop has told the Anglican synod in Adelaide that 40 parishes are either "fragile" or "really struggling" because of falling numbers.

"The trajectory and demography of many of those parishes tells me that in five years' time, or even less, a number of those communities of faith will be at a point from which recovery will be difficult," he said in his address on Friday.

"The demography of many of our congregations suggests not so much a gradual decline as a rather rapid collapse over just a few years."

Archbishop Driver said the fall in membership would also affect incomes, diminishing the ability of the church to conduct mission work.

"Even now, the diocese has very limited funds or capacities to subsidise struggling parishes," he said.

"Local options for extra funding through commercial arrangements are limited and precarious."

Archbishop Driver said he did not want to suggest he had lost all hope.

"As a diocese we do not have the large resource base and spread of parishes enjoyed by other metropolitan dioceses," he said.

"But we do have an ability to become more pioneering and innovative where our smaller economies of scale allow for greater versatility."

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Zoo keeper crushed by elephant she raised

WHEN "miracle" elephant Mr Shuffles was born against the odds two years ago at Taronga Zoo, keeper Lucy Melo played an integral role in raising him.

But, just before 11.30am (AEDT) on Friday in the elephant barn at the Sydney harbourside zoo, the Asian elephant calf "challenged" Ms Melo and pinned her against a bollard.

Ms Melo, the zoo's 40-year-old senior elephant keeper, was crushed and is fighting for her life in Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital.

"I am very, very concerned about the staff member that has been hurt, as are all of the team at the zoo," Taronga Zoo director and chief executive Cameron Kerr told reporters.

Ms Melo is in a critical but stable condition.

The elephant, who weighed more than 500kg at his first birthday, earned the nickname Mr Shuffles because his early attempts at walking resembled the shuffle of an elderly man.

On Friday Ms Melo was engaged in a routine training session to teach the elephants how to wash.

Two other keepers heard her cries and moved the elephant away.

Ms Melo was still conscious and talking when paramedics arrived but lapsed into unconsciousness and had a cardiac arrest for about five minutes.

A second crew of paramedics managed to get her heart beating again before rushing her to Royal North Shore Hospital in a critical condition.

The zoo said it didn't know why the two-year-old elephant challenged Ms Melo, who was part of the team that went to Thailand to bring Taronga's five Asian elephants to Sydney.

"Since the herd arrived in 2006, three calves have been born and Lucy has been part of raising the calves and looking after the extended family," the zoo's website says.

Both the zoo and Workcover NSW are investigating the incident.

Mr Kerr said the public were not at risk during the incident, which happened as part of a "normal animal washing routine".

It is not the first time in Australia that an elephant has turned on its handler.

In 2007, Stardust Circus worker Ray Williams, 57, was found dead in the elephant Arna's enclosure at Yamba, in northern NSW.

An interim post-mortem examination found Mr Williams suffered a broken back and a ruptured aorta and died from "severe blunt trauma".

A year later after undergoing health and behavioural assessments, Arna found a permanent home at Taronga Western Plains Zoo.

According to Taronga's website, Ms Melo has worked at the zoo since 2004, following stints in the United States at Houston Zoo, Rio Grande Zoo and Disney's Animal Kingdom.

In a article on its website Ms Melo said: "Every day I work with animals is amazing, but the highlights are definitely the births of our elephant calves.

"I enjoy the one-on-one relationships that I have with the elephants ... They truly give you unconditional love."

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Berlusconi denies 'Bunga Bunga' parties

ITALY'S former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has denied at his trial hosting raunchy parties, having sex with an underage prostitute and abusing his powers by pressuring police.

Berlusconi is accused of paying for sex with Moroccan exotic dancer Karima El-Mahroug, better known as "Ruby the Heart Stealer", when she was 17.

He is also charged with abusing his position as prime minister by telling police to release her when she was arrested for petty theft in May 2010.

"I never had an intimate relationship of any kind with her," the 76-year-old told the court, adding: "I was sure she was 24, as she herself said."

"I can exclude with absolute certainty that there were ever scenes of a sexual nature," he said, referring to parties at his villa near Milan.

The "Bunga Bunga" - described by many of his female guests as a type of lap dance that Berlusconi enjoyed - was "only a joke I used to tell which then got picked up by the press", he told the court's three female judges.

"There has been a lot of fantasising about the parties I held in my private residence with clear defamatory intent and intrusion into my private life."

"They were just dinners in which I monopolised the attention, singing, talking about sport, politics and gossiping," he said.

Referring to his phone call to a Milan police station when El-Mahroug was arrested, Berlusconi said he "never put pressure on Milan police".

He said he had wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident because he thought she was the niece of then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

The charge of exploiting an underage prostitute in Italy carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison and abuse of power up to 12 years.

The trial began in April 2011 and was one of the last in a series of scandals that helped precipitate Berlusconi's downfall in November last year.

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Ten to axe newsroom jobs

TEN Network Holdings is set to axe about 100 jobs from its newsroom after poor television ratings led to a full year net loss of almost $13 million.

Staff at the television network were briefed on the redundancy program on Thursday as Ten chief executive James Warburton detailed reasons behind Ten's full year loss.

"One of those key communications is a change program that we are driving through our news and operations division," Mr Warburton said in a presentation.

"Discussions around the details of that plan as I said are starting today with our staff but it will involve a voluntary redundancy program."

Ten's newsrooms around Australia look set to bear the brunt of the staff cuts.

Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) federal secretary Chris Warren said discussions with Ten indicated the network was looking to cut about 100 journalists, camera and producer positions, or about one-third of its national newsroom.

While state-based bulletins with their own presenters would remain, Mr Warren said the changes would result in fewer local stories being produced, as well as the loss of local perspectives on big national stories.

"We are very disappointed, both for the journalists who work there and the community at large," Mr Warren said in Thursday.

"There will be a significant loss of local voices in Australia."

Mr Warren said Ten had asked for expressions of interest for those seeking voluntary redundancy by the end of next week.

Mr Warburton said a key part of the review, which commenced earlier in 2012 and was ongoing, included looking at new ways to gather and present news through "rapidly changing technology in all parts of the news process".

Confirmation of a voluntary redundancy program came as Ten reported a $12.9 million net loss for the 12 months to August 31, 2012, compared with net profit of $14.2 million in the prior corresponding period.

Ten's television network, which generates the bulk of earnings, suffered a 14.5 per cent fall in revenue amid soft ratings.

Ten has struggled so far in calendar 2012, with shows such as Everybody Dance Now - hosted by Ten director Lachlan Murdoch's wife Sarah Murdoch - The Shire and I Will Survive failing to fire.

The weak ratings have hit advertising revenue.

Industry figures showed Ten had just 25.5 per cent of the capital city television advertising market in the six months to June 30, 2012, well behind Seven's 40 per cent and Nine's 34.5 per cent.

And data for September suggested Ten's advertising share had dropped further, to about a 20 per cent share.

Independent media commentator Peter Cox said he had never seen numbers so low.

Mr Cox said efforts to reduce costs were unlikely to offset the substantial decline in revenue Ten was suffering through.

"Even if they got five per cent cuts in costs the decrease in revenue easily outweighs that which would a very dangerous combination," Mr Cox said.

"I don't see anywhere in the results today that would show they could claw their way out."

Ten shares closed 0.5 cents, or 1.6 per cent, lower at 30.5 cents.

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Former child soldier jailed over WA crash

A 29-YEAR-OLD learner driver has been jailed for at least four years for causing a crash that killed a 40-year-old Queensland woman and left five others injured.

Guelor Lutumba was driving a family friend to Perth Airport on New Year's Day this year when he tried to overtake a truck.

His vehicle collided head-on with another car.

Lutumba, a former child soldier in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was sentenced in the Perth District Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to eight charges including dangerous driving causing death.

His mother needed assistance from ambulance officers after collapsing outside the court.

Lutumba was sentenced to six years' prison and must serve four years before being eligible for parole.

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US court to rule on Bible verse banner

A GROUP of teenage Texas cheerleaders is expecting to hear whether they will be allowed to continue displaying Bible verses at high school football games.

The cheerleaders at Kountze High School sued school district officials who told them to stop using scripture - such as, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" - on banners displayed at football games.

The district banned the use of religious messages after a complaint that the messages violated a constitutional prohibition on government establishing a religion.

State District Judge Steve Thomas issued an injunction allowing the cheerleaders to continue using Bible verses until he made a decision.

He set a hearing for Thursday, when he was expected to rule on the cheerleaders' case.

The Texas attorney-general has filed court papers to intervene in the lawsuit, calling the district's prohibition an infringement on the cheerleaders' rights to free speech.

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Weak marketing hampered Swan: publican

BIG brewers like Lion and Fosters hardly bother marketing smaller brands like Swan, which has led to the beer's fall in popularity, a Perth publican says.

The hotelier, who doesn't want to be named, has made the comment with Lion announcing the closure of its Swan Brewery in the city's southern suburbs in favour of making Swan and Emu beer in South Australia and Tasmania.

The publican of 18 years said on Wednesday Emu in particular had plunged in popularity in recent years but there was a hard core of Swan Draught drinkers who would taste the difference in the water from other states.

"Water dissolves minerals in different regions around the world and makes it taste different," he told AAP.

"It's all to do with the water quality."

He said he expected Swan and Emu would eventually disappear as the big brewers pushed top sellers like Tooheys New and Carlton Draught.

The publican said it was a shame WA was losing a manufacturer just when it needed to diversify beyond the resources sector but the state was at least leading the nation in microbrewing.

It also didn't make sense that Swan and Emu would from April be transported thousands of kilometres to WA, a market of nearly two million people, despite a society-wide push to reduce carbon emissions.

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