'Catastrophic' fire risk ahead: NSW

SEVERE bushfire conditions are predicted to hit NSW on Tuesday, with temperatures set to soar to 43C in Sydney.

The hot and dry conditions have been labelled as "catastrophic" by authorities, with a total fire ban established statewide.

On Monday, teams from the NSW Rural Fire Service fought large blazes at Oura and Shoalhaven, continuing to monitor and contain the fires through the night.

An emergency alert telephone warning message was also launched by the NSW Rural Fire Service, sent to residents in the Illawarra, Shoalhaven and Southern Ranges regions, which are deemed high risk.

Across the state, all national parks and reserves will close on Tuesday due to the fire risk.

On Monday, rangers began visiting popular campsites, encouraging people to leave.

They will continue visiting sites on Tuesday morning, with a National Parks and Wildlife spokesman stating there would be no forced evacuations unless there was a fire emergency.

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Maldives girl faces flogging for sex

A 15-YEAR-OLD in the Maldives whose father is accused of repeatedly raping her and killing the resulting baby risks being flogged for "fornication" with another man under the nation's strict Islamic law, a police source says.

In the course of inquiries into the rape case, investigators say they unearthed evidence of the girl having had consensual sex with another man, which is an offence in the Indian Ocean holiday destination, the source told AFP.

Women, including minors, having consensual sex outside marriage can be charged in the Maldives, where convicts can be publicly flogged. Minors receive the punishment when they reach 18, the age of majority.

The child's stepfather is accused by police of repeatedly raping the girl and fathering a child by her which he subsequently murdered. The girl's mother has been charged with helping dispose of the infant's body, police said.

"We completed the investigation (into the murder of the infant) and gave a report to the prosecutor-general's office," Maldivian police spokesman Hassan Haneef told AFP by telephone.

He declined to give details saying that Maldivian common law did not allow the discussion of any case involving a minor.

The local Haveeru newspaper quoted an unnamed official from the prosecutor's office saying the fornication charge was unrelated to the rape, which had been separately dealt with.

The legal system of the Maldives, a nation of 330,000 Sunni Muslims known for its coral-fringed islands and sandy beaches, has elements of Islamic Sharia law as well as English common law.

The country carries out the flogging of women despite calls from the UN Human Rights Council to drop the practice.

In September, a Maldivian court ordered a public flogging for a 16-year-old girl who confessed to having pre-marital sex. Her 29-year-old lover was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The gang-rape last month in the Indian capital of a 23-year-old student who subsequently died has also sparked protests over crime against women in neighbouring South Asian nations including Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

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Fire threat worsens in Victoria

VICTORIA'S fire services will be stretched on two fronts on Tuesday - in the southwest, where it's feared the Kentbruck blaze could double in size because of strong winds, and in the north where temperatures will be in the 40s.

Fire services commissioner Craig Lapsley said the immediate concern was the bushfire in the southwest, where almost 500 firefighters are concentrated and which has burnt out 4000 hectares of pine plantation but was threatening the rural community of Drik Drik on Monday.

"It will be a fire that will be pushed with winds and we believe that it's got the potential to move a significant distance tomorrow, potentially block the Princes Highway and have further impacts on the rural community around Drik Drik and Dartmoor," Mr Lapsley said.

Plumes of smoke from the fire drifted over nearby Dartmoor and rural community of Mumbannar and was visible for kilometres.

Searing conditions in the north of the state has meant a severe fire danger rating along the South Australian border, along the Murray River and the border with NSW.

"It's going to be a severe day and, coupled with the weather that's in NSW, we will see the potential for fires to start early in the day and, without much time at all, they become uncontrolled fires, which is the major concern," Mr Lapsley said.

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Ahmadinejad aide replaced as news boss

A TOP aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has been jailed since September has been replaced as the head of Iran's state Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

Ali Akbar Javanfekr, who is being held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison, was succeeded by another Ahmadinejad adviser, Majid Omidi Shahraki, who led the president's Political and Security Affairs office, IRNA and other media reported on Monday.

Javanfekr was arrested on September 26 - just as Ahmadinejad was giving a speech in New York at the UN General Assembly - and is serving a six-month jail term in Evin.

He has been convicted of publishing material offensive to Islamic codes and public morality by allowing one of the state newspapers under his control to run articles questioning Iran's strict Islamic dress code for women.

Javanfekr and other Ahmadinejad aides have long been targets for Iran's hardline judges and ultra-conservative lawmakers who see them as attempting to undermine religious principles.

Ahmadinejad became locked in a public row with judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani over getting access to Evin prison. He eventually was able to see Javanfekr last month when the aide was briefly taken to hospital for what reports said was a "heart condition".

The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) has a network of domestic bureaux and several correspondents in other countries.

Omidi Shahraki is the fifth IRNA head to be named since Ahmadinejad took power in 2005.

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Fire-weary Tasmania faces more anxiety

SEVERE bushfire conditions are predicted to continue in Tasmania, where a man has been accused of starting a 10,000 hectare blaze.

A total fire ban has been declared for Tuesday, with strong northerly winds predicted across the state.

Police said a 31-year-old New Norfolk man would be charged under the Fire Services Act, after leaving his unextinguished campfire unattended last week.

The campfire turned into a massive inferno, which has consumed more than 10,600 hectares and had not been contained on Monday evening.

Over 100 properties have been destroyed since last week, concentrated in the fishing village of Dunalley.

No deaths from the fires have been reported, but emergency services crews are conducting property-to-property searches for human remains.

Police say many people are still unaccounted for.

The focus of the state's efforts turned to the northwest corner on Monday, where a watch and act alert was in place for the residents of Mawbanna.

Similar warnings have been issued for the Lake Repulse and Tasman Peninsula fires.

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Restaurant bill sparks deadly Indian riot

A ROW over an unpaid restaurant bill in a western Indian city has escalated into a riot between Hindus and Muslims that's left four people dead and 175 injured.

The unrest broke out in Dhule in Maharashtra state on Sunday, special inspector-general Deven Bharti told AFP.

Four rioters were killed by police firing while 113 policemen were among the injured, he said.

Bharti said investigations were still under way, but it appeared a quarrel over a restaurant bill had provoked a mass brawl that left shops smashed, motorbikes burned and glass strewn across the streets.

Previous riots between Hindus and Muslims in Dhule broke out in October 2008, leaving 10 dead.

"The restaurant owner was from one community and the customer from the other," Bharti explained, declining to name the parties involved.

"The customer went and took 50 people from his community and assaulted the restaurant owner, and people from the owner's community also gathered and started arsoning and rioting," he said.

Bharti said the police had used sticks, tear gas and plastic bullets before resorting to live ammunition to quell the trouble.

The area was put under a curfew that continued on Monday and was "peaceful and under control", he added.

Hindus make up about 80 per cent of India's population, while some 13 per cent are Muslim.

Sporadic, isolated clashes between the two groups still break out 65 years after the Indian subcontinent was carved into the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and secular yet Hindu-majority India after the end of British rule.

India saw mass riots between Hindus and Muslims 20 years ago - triggered when Hindu zealots demolished a mosque in the town of Ayodhya - that left more than 2000 dead, mostly Muslims.

A decade later another 2000 people died in riots between the two groups in Gujarat state.

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Orthodox Patriarch urges Russians to adopt

THE head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has urged Russians to adopt orphans in a Christmas message after Russia banned adoptions by citizens of the United States.

"I would like to talk especially about children in these days," said the Patriarch in a Christmas message posted on the website of the Russian Orthodox Church and broadcast on national television.

The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on January 7 according to the Julian calendar.

"We have a lot of children who don't have parents. Even when their parents are still alive. And how important it is that our people should gladly, with a special feeling of gratitude to God, take orphans into their families.

"As it is Christmas time, I would like to ask everyone who could take an important step in life of adopting orphans, of supporting orphans. Take this step: we should not have orphans in our country," said Kirill.

"Those who don't have parents should find parents among good, honest, caring people."

His statement appeared to respond to wide public dismay at a highly controversial new law signed by President Vladimir Putin last month that bans adoptions by US citizens.

Putin has said that Russia is threatened by "ruin" if the outflow of orphans abroad continues.

US families adopted nearly 1000 Russian children last year and are the number one foreign destination of the country's orphans.

The bill has sparked anger not only among potential adoptive parents but among those who see it as motivated by politics rather than concern for the children.

Pro-Kremlin lawmakers put together the draft legislation in a matter of days in response to a new US law sanctioning Russian officials implicated in the 2009 prison death of the anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

The legislation caused contention even among top officials, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets both publicly expressing opposition.

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