NSW Greens criticise park hunting plans

THE Greens say it's no surprise the bureaucrat overseeing the introduction of recreational hunting in NSW's national parks had previously criticised such a plan.

Office of Environment and Heritage head Sally Barnes recently issued assurances about the controversial change, which the government says will be strictly regulated to ensure safety for park visitors.

But in 2008, when she was deputy director-general of the Environment Department's parks and wildlife group, Ms Barnes wrote in a report that hunting would "annihilate" wildlife management rules.

She also said it would damage NSW's environmental credentials and questioned how recreational hunting for feral pest control could be compatible with opening parks to visitors, Fairfax reported on Saturday.

The introduction of recreational hunting follows the O'Farrell government's deal with the Shooters and Fishers Party last year over passage of its electricity privatisation laws.

On Saturday NSW Greens environment spokeswoman Cate Faehrmann said it was not surprising Ms Barnes had slammed such a move.

"I doubt you could find anyone who works for the Office of Environment and Heritage who could say recreational hunting in National Parks is a great idea while passing a lie detector test," she said.

"Anyone who cares about conservation knows in their heart that this is a rotten deal for the people of the NSW and for national parks. Sally Barnes is no exception."

Ms Faehrmann said the focus needed to be on the government, "which has sold out the people of NSW by doing deals with gun-loving extremists".

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Police appeal for clues to Sydney fires

POLICE are hunting a firebug or bugs who set fire to rubbish bins at four different unit blocks in Sydney's west.

Firefighters extinguished the blazes outside the units on Guildford Road in Guildford early on Saturday morning.

The first started about 4.50am (AEDT) in bins that were moved to the front of a unit block, damaging an area of grass and a small tree.

At 5.30am bins at another unit block were found on fire and almost immediately a third fire in bins was found in the garden of another unit block.

The fourth fire was found just after 6am in bins in the underground car park of a unit block.

Investigators have seized CCTV footage from several locations.

Police have appealed to anyone with information on the fires to contact them.

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US cinema reopens after Batman shooting

THE Colorado cinema where 12 people were killed and dozens injured in a shooting rampage last year has reopened with a sombre remembrance ceremony and a screening of the latest Hobbit film for survivors - but the pain was too much, the idea too horrific, for many Aurora victims to attend.

"We as a community have not been defeated," Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan told victims, officials, and dozens of police officers and other first responders who filled half the theatre's seats at the ceremony on Thursday.

"We are a community of survivors," Hogan declared. "We will not let this tragedy define us."

Pierce O'Farrill, who was wounded three times in the shooting, said: "It's important for me to come here and sit in the same seat that I was sitting in. It's all part of the healing process, I guess."

O'Farrill walked to an exit door inside the cinema where he remembers the shooter emerging. "The last time I saw (the gunman) was right here," he said.

James Holmes, a former neuroscience PhD student, is charged with 166 felony counts, mostly murder and attempted murder, in the July 20 shooting at the former Century 16 - now called the Century Aurora. A judge has ordered Holmes to stand trial, but he won't enter a plea until March.

Several families boycotted what they called a callous public relations ploy by the theatre's owner, Cinemark.

They claimed the Texas-based company didn't ask them what should happen to the theatre. They said Cinemark emailed them an invitation to Thursday's reopening just two days after they struggled through Christmas without their loved ones.

"It was boilerplate Hollywood - 'Come to our movie screening'," said Anita Busch, whose cousin, 23-year-old college student Micayla Medek, died at the theatre.

The remembrance was followed by a private screening in the former theatre nine of the fantasy film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

"We certainly recognise all the different paths that people take to mourn, the different paths that people take to recover from unimaginable, incomprehensible loss," Governor John Hickenlooper said at the ceremony.

"Some wanted this theatre to reopen. Some didn't. Certainly both answers are correct," Hickenlooper said.

Cinemark planned to offer free movies at the multiplex to the public over the weekend, then permanently reopen it on January 25.

Vanessa Ayala is a cousin of Jonathan Blunk, a 26-year-old Navy veteran and father of two who was killed. Ayala said she believed the multiplex should have been torn down and, perhaps, turned into a park. At the very least, she said, the auditorium where the shooting occurred should have become a memorial.

Cinemark reportedly spent $US1 million on renovations. Before it did, it allowed survivors and families to visit the theatre. Jacqueline Keaumey Lader, a US Marine and Iraq war veteran, did so.

"It does help significantly," Lader said. "It's taken the power away from the place."

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Victoria's Licola still cut off by fire

THE bushfire threat facing the eastern Victorian town of Licola has been downgraded, but the community remains isolated.

Licola was placed under an emergency warning when a large bushfire threatened the town on Friday morning, but it was downgraded to a watch and act advice on Friday afternoon.

The town's only access route, Licola Road, remains closed to all traffic.

A spokeswoman at the State Control Centre said firefighters were now focusing on the town of Glen Falloch, around seven kilometres south of Licola.

"The fire is still creating spot fires approximately one to two kilometres ahead of the fire front," the spokeswoman told AAP.

Licola, 254km east of Melbourne, is a small village at the southern gateway to the Alpine National Park.

The township is owned entirely by the Lions Clubs of Victoria and southern NSW, the club says.

Licola Wilderness Village program manager Cherry Wake said the village, which operates a school adventure camp and caravan park, evacuated visitors on Thursday night.

"Last night we evacuated about 61 children and 15 adults," she told AAP on Friday.

About 10 staff and 20 caravan park residents remained in the village, Ms Wake said.

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Pakistan calls for India talks on Kashmir

Pakistan's foreign minister has called for talks with India to ease tensions in the Kashmir region. Source: AAP

PAKISTAN'S foreign minister has called for talks with her Indian counterpart to ease tensions over deadly clashes in the disputed Kashmir region.

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said in New York that 10 days of fighting over the unofficial border had "created questions" but added that Pakistan was "open" to dialogue between the foreign ministers to end the dispute.

Khar spoke as India's military said it had reached an "understanding" with Pakistan to "de-escalate" tensions in Kashmir, which has been the cause of two of the three wars between the neighbours since 1947.

Pakistan says three of its troops have died in three incidents since January 6.

India says two of its soldiers have been killed, one of them beheaded, in hostilities along the Line of Control (LOC) frontier in the Himalayan region.

Khar, who on Tuesday accused India of "warmongering", was again critical of tough Indian statements made as tensions have risen again. But she again called for dialogue.

"Unfortunately this LOC incident has obviously created questions, but we still believe that dialogue must be the means to resolve this or any issue," Khar said at the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank.

"We will be open to a discussion, a dialogue, at the level of the foreign ministers to be able to resolve the issue of cross-LOC incidents and to re-commit ourselves to the respect for the ceasefire."

Khar added that "Pakistan is fully committed" to a Kashmir ceasefire agreed to in 2003.

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Third man charged over NSW drug murders

TWO more people have been charged over the murder of a suspected drug dealer from the NSW Illawarra region.

Darko Janceski, 32, was shot multiple times in the front yard of his Berkeley home on April 14 last year and died in hospital.

A 27-year-old man was arrested just after 9am (AEDT) on Wednesday at a home at Horsley and charged with being an accessory before the fact to murder and participating in a criminal group.

He was refused bail to face Wollongong Local Court later on Thursday.

A 24-year-old man was arrested earlier in the day at Horsley and charged with the same offences. He will also face court on Thursday.

On Tuesday, police charged Matthew Paul Wiggins, 24, from Blackbutt, with Janceski's murder and charged Robert Nikolovski, 38, from Cordeaux Heights, with organising the alleged hit.

Wiggins was refused bail and will reappear in Wollongong Local Court on January 23, while Nikolovski was expected to appear in court on Thursday.

Police allege Wiggins rode to Janceski's house on a trail bike and spoke with him before firing three shots into his chest and torso.

Police are also investigating the fatal shooting of two of his rivals who, like Janceski, were believed to have been involved in standover activities and the distribution of amphetamines and cocaine.

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Popularity written in Rudd's tea leaves

POPULAR sentiment might not have returned Kevin Rudd to the Labor leadership but it is keeping his tea blend on supermarket shelves.

While he turned out not to be the caucus' cup of tea, a year ago the people voted Mr Rudd's blend the winner of Twining's Australian afternoon tea competition.

His campaign included tweeted reminders to vote and a video featuring his cat Jasper, now dead, taste-testing the aromatic blend.

The teabags hit the shelves soon afterwards, with a portion of the profits going to RSPCA, Mr Rudd's charity of choice.

Now the company has announced the blend will continue to fill tea cups around the country.

"We're thrilled to announce that we did listen to your many pleas and can confirm it is here to stay due to popular demand," Twinings said in a statement on Wednesday.

Mr Rudd said he was pleased sales of his blend would continue supporting the RSPCA.

But he also reflected that "a man's got to have some success some time".

Asked to describe his blend as a sitting federal politician, Mr Rudd said it was a mixture of shadow treasurer and Rudd mate Joe Hockey and Health Minister Tanya Plibersek.

"It's probably described as a masculine-feminine tea," he told reporters in Sydney.

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India warmongering says Pakistan

INDIA is "warmongering" over deadly clashes in the disputed Kashmir region, Pakistan's foreign minister said Tuesday while calling for talks to end the new hostilities.

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar spoke out after Pakistan reported another of its troops had been killed in Kashmir while India's prime minister has warned there can be no "business as usual" between the neighbours.

"We see warmongering," Khar said at the Asia Society in New York where she hit out a statements by Indian politicians over the new tensions.

"It is deeply disturbing to hear statements which are upping the ante, where one politician is competing with the other to give a more hostile statement," Khar added.

India says two of its soldiers have been killed in Kashmir, one beheaded, since January 6. Pakistan says three of its troops have been killed in that time, the latest on Tuesday.

The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought three wars since their independence in 1947, two of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir. But Khar said the neighbours had to get over their "narrative of hostility" from the past six decades.

"The doors to dialogue are open," Khar said. "We need to meet at any level, I think we need to call each other, we need to become mature countries which know how to handle their truth."

The minister again denied Indian accusations that Pakistani forces had beheaded one of two soldiers that India says were killed in Kashmir on January 8. She said an inquiry had found "no evidence" of the deaths.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier called the beheading of an Indian soldier "unacceptable" and added there could be no "business as usual" with Pakistan.

"As I read statements coming in from the highest levels of government (in India) I can just say that we are deeply disappointed and I can say on behalf of my government that we feel that the dialogue process should be uninterrupted and uninterruptable," Khar said.

She added that there was "warmongering coming in from the other side of the border which is I thought the thing of yesteryears and thing that we had put behind us."

The Pakistan government "has invested deeply in the last four years to building a peaceful relationship with India," the foreign minister added.

"I represent a government which has taken political risks to reach out to the Indians and to give them a clear message when we say we mean business when we say we want a different type of relationship," Khar said.

"What you see in India is currently not living up to that and I hope that we will both show a deep abiding commitment to a normalised peace process, to a normalisation of relations," Khar said.

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California school shooting suspect charged

A 16-YEAR-OLD student who was teased by his California high school classmates for his red hair, social awkwardness and bookish appearance was charged as an adult for allegedly wounding a classmate with a shotgun and trying to target another.

Bryan Oliver pleaded not guilty on Monday to two counts of premeditated attempted murder and three counts of assault with a firearm in the attack on Thursday at Taft Union High School that left another 16-year-old wounded.

"The severity of the actions, the injuries to the victim, that a firearm was used. Those are the things we considered," said Mark Pafford, the chief deputy district attorney of Kern County.

The potential penalty for just one count of premeditated attempted murder with a firearm is 32 years to life, Pafford said. If he had been charged as a juvenile and convicted, he would be held until his 23rd birthday.

Oliver had been bullied by the two classmates he allegedly targeted, according to a witness who knows the teen.

"They called him a 'ginger' and said gingers don't have souls," said Morgan Alldredge, a friend of both Oliver and one of the targets, who was in the classroom during the shooting.

"I was his friend. I don't know why people picked on him. He was misunderstood."

A next-door-neighbour whose son tutored Oliver in college prep classes described him as a "genius" who was relentlessly bullied by other students in the remote San Joaquin Valley town.

Others told The Associated Press that he further ostracised himself by making inappropriate statements, almost for shock value.

On Thursday morning, witnesses say, Oliver walked into a science classroom just as his classmates were finishing an oceanography test and quickly fired one round from a Winchester 12-gauge shotgun, striking a 16-year-old student athlete in the chest. He sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

A second round was fired at students trying to flee, but no one was struck. Alldredge said Oliver then spoke his first words: "All I want is Jacob", referring to Alldredge's ex-boyfriend, whom she said had teased the suspect in the past.

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Woman on drugs cocktail killed son: police

A VICTORIAN woman who killed her son when her car hit a tree was "smashed" on a cocktail of prescription drugs, a court has heard.

Mandy Stevenson, 39, had five different prescription drugs in her system and was falling asleep at the wheel when she lost control of the car on the Colac-Murroon Rd at Murroon on July 6, 2011, police allege.

The crash also seriously injured three children.

A tree penetrated the driver's side rear door and passenger compartment pinning Stevenson's 17-year-old son between the tree trunk and the back of the driver's seat.

The son died before he could be removed from the vehicle.

Three other passengers, including Stevenson's other son, who was 10 at the time, and two children from other families were seriously injured.

Stevenson, of Box Hill, who faces 10 charges including culpable driving causing death, was bailed on strict conditions by Magistrate Peter Reardon including that she not drive and report to police daily.

Stevenson applied for and was granted bail on Tuesday in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

Police Detective Sergeant Chris Carnie told the court one of the injured children, a 14-year-old boy, described Stevenson as "smashed" when she arrived at the house of the other injured child shortly before the crash.

"(The boy) has described Mandy's driving as s*** and she was falling asleep at the wheel with her head dropping a couple of times," Sgt Carnie told the court.

Tests conducted at Geelong Hospital showed Stevenson had five drugs in her system including methadone, Oxycodone and Xanax, police allege.

A report from doctor Angela Sungaila of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine said the combination of drugs was likely to "cause enhanced impairment so as to render a person incapable of proper control".

Stevenson will next appear in court for a committal mention on January 30.

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Two hurt in prison van crash

TWO people have been injured after a van transporting prisoners crashed in the Perth suburb of Success.

The van was involved in a crash with a car on North Lake Road early on Monday morning, with two ambulances called to the scene.

A St John's ambulance spokesman confirmed two people required hospital treatment, with one taken to Royal Perth Hospital and another to Fremantle.

WA's Department of Corrective Services would only confirm an incident had occurred involving one of their vehicles, which had to be towed from the scene.

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NSW bushfire destroys 28 homes

Twenty-eight homes have been destroyed by a "dangerous and large" bushfire in northern NSW. Source: AAP

A "PERFECT storm" of a fire in northern NSW has destroyed 28 homes, with firefighters expecting that number to rise.

The fire has burned through 40,000 hectares near the Warrumbungle National Park.

After Sunday's destructive rampage it remained uncontained on Monday, with a 100km front, although no further properties were immediately under threat.

But Rural Fire Service (RFS) Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers told reporters the number of homes destroyed was expected to increase as crews inspected burnt-through areas.

He said 40 farm sheds had also been lost along with many livestock, much fencing and farm machinery.

"There was just absolutely no stopping that fire," Mr Rogers said.

He said the wind shifted to the south at the worst possible time, creating "perfect storm" conditions for a fire that burnt "with such a ferocity we haven't seen in years".

Mr Rogers said evacuations were absolutely necessary and police had enforced that.

"The speed in which it developed and moved was absolutely frightening and I had genuine fear for people's lives," Mr Rogers said.

Acting Premier Andrew Stoner said NSW had been through "a hell of a week with bushfires" and it was not over yet.

He said that while a wind change had removed the threat to the town of Coonabarabran, it could threaten settlements to the north of the national park.

Mr Stoner said it was "miraculous" that the main building and telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory were not destroyed though the Australian National University facility was damaged in the fire.

He paid tribute to "heroic" firefighters who prevented any loss of human life in the fire.

About 170 fires remain burning across the state, with nearly 40 of them uncontained.

Mr Rogers said the Warrumbungle fire was believed to have been started by lightning, along with about 100 other fires in NSW on the weekend.

He said the plume from the fire went 14km into the air and embers were being blown 5km ahead of the fire front.

It would be some time before firefighters contained the fire so many evacuees, including those who lost homes, were not being allowed back in at this stage, Mr Rogers said.

Mr Rogers said firefighters knew people who lost homes were hurting but he urged them to be patient until it was deemed safe for them to return to their properties.

He urged everyone in a bushfire-prone area to prepare a bushfire survival plan.

"When you're full of adrenalin you do not make good decisions," he said.

Mr Rogers said he continued to be concerned about the fire danger in the entire northeast quadrant of NSW, apart from coastal areas that had received recent rain.

Mr Stoner said an assessment of damage costs had not been done, but "at the very least" it would be hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Volcano erupting in Russia's Far East

A VOLCANO erupting in Russia's Far East is sending plumes of gas and ash high into the sky and creating a lava lake.

The Plosky Tolbachik volcano is located in Kamchatka peninsula, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest residential areas.

Gennady Karpov, a volcano expert at Russia's Academy of Sciences in the Far East, said: "There were no lava lakes at Kamchatka volcanos before now. We have never seen this before."

Plosky Tolbachik has emitted jets of hot lava up to 200 metres high.

Its last eruption had occurred in November after the volcano was dormant for almost 40 years.

Russian officials say the current eruptions are not likely to end any time soon but that they aren't affecting flight patterns over Russia.

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Mubarak questioned over alleged gifts

Hosni Mubarak has been interrogated over gifts he allegedly received from the Al Ahram newspaper. Source: AAP

OUSTED president Hosni Mubarak has been interrogated over gifts worth millions of Egyptian pounds he allegedly received from the country's top newspaper as a show of loyalty while he was in power.

Mubarak is serving a life sentence after being convicted for failing to stop killings of protesters during 2011 uprising.

He was moved to a Cairo military hospital last month after slipping inside a prison bathroom and injuring himself.

A security official says Mubarak was questioned on Saturday over watches, pens, bags, belts and jewellery he reportedly received from the official Al Ahram newspaper.

Mubarak's lawyers and the newspaper could not immediately be reached for comment.

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