US public want guards in every school: NRA

THE largest US gun rights lobbying organisation is sticking to its call for placing armed police officers and security guards in every school as the best way to avoid shootings such as the recent massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association, said his organisation would push Congress to pay for more school security guards and would co-ordinate efforts to put former military and police offers in schools as volunteer guards.

"If it's crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," LaPierre said in a broadcast interview. "I think the American people think it's crazy not to do it. It's the one thing that would keep people safe."

LaPierre also refused to support any new gun control legislation and contended that any new efforts by Congress to regulate guns or ammunition would not prevent mass shootings.

His comments on NBC television's Meet the Press reinforced the position that the NRA took on Friday when it broke its week-long silence on the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

LaPierre's remarks on Friday prompted widespread criticism, even on the front page of the conservative New York Post, which had the headline: "Gun Nut! NRA loon in bizarre rant over Newtown."

The NRA's stand has been described by some lawmakers as tone-deaf.

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, says LaPierre blames everything but guns for a series of mass shootings in recent years.

"Trying to prevent shootings in schools without talking about guns is like trying to prevent lung cancer without talking about cigarettes," Schumer said.

The NRA plans to develop a school emergency response program that would include volunteers from the group's 4.3 million members to help guard children, and has named former federal politician Asa Hutchinson, an Arkansas Republican, as national director of the program.

Hutchinson said local districts should make decisions about armed guards in schools.

"I've made it clear that it should not be a mandatory law, that every school has this. There should be local choice, but absolutely, I believe that protecting our children with an armed guard who is trained is an important part of the equation," he told the American ABC's This Week.

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Kenya arrests 61 over tribal violence

KENYAN police have arrested 61 suspects over a brutal attack on a remote village in the southeast involving two rival communities that left 45 people dead including women and children.

Villagers were hacked to death and their homes torched in Friday's attack on Kipao village in the Tana River delta region, an area where deadly tribal violence killed another 100 people earlier this year.

Police said on Saturday they had arrested 56 people, including a policeman, in the wake of the onslaught, which they feared could further inflame tensions between the rival Orma and Pokomo communities in the area.

Another five were arrested in a late-night "security operation", a police officer said on condition of anonymity on Sunday.

Police attributed the killings to a disarmament operation in the area but the violence could also be linked to the election being held next March, the first since Kenya was gripped by deadly inter-ethnic killings after a December 2007 vote.

Police said the dead in Kipao included 16 children, five women and 10 men, along with 14 assailants.

The United States said on Saturday it condemned "in the strongest terms" the renewed violence between the communities in the Tana area, where conflicts have flared intermittently over access to land and water points.

Kenya votes on March 4 in its first election since the disputed 2007 vote, which led to the worst inter-ethnic violence since independence with more than 1100 people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Two of the candidates running for the presidency are Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who lost his bid in the 2007 vote, and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in the violence which shattered Kenya's image as a beacon of regional stability.

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NRA: Public wants armed guards in schools

NATIONAL Rifle Association executive Wayne LaPierre says the American people think it would be "crazy" not to put armed guards in every school, as the group has suggested in the wake of the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Mr LaPierre also contends that any new efforts by Congress to regulate guns or ammunition would not prevent mass shootings.

Mr LaPierre's comments on NBC's Meet the Press reinforced the position that the largest gun-rights lobby took on Friday when it broke its week-long silence on the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

That stand has described by some lawmakers as tone-deaf.

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, says Mr LaPierre blames everything but guns for a series of mass shootings in recent years.

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Turkey lifts NATO Israel veto

NATO member Turkey has agreed to lift its veto on non-military co-operation between the alliance and Israel, which it imposed over a deadly raid on a Turkish aid ship to Gaza in 2010, a diplomat says.

Ankara took the retaliatory measure after the Israeli army stormed the ship carrying humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip while it was in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, leaving nine Turks dead.

The decision to renew NATO links came at a December 4 meeting in Brussels of the 28-member alliance on a proposal by its Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the diplomat said on Sunday.

In return, several NATO allies of Israel agreed to drop a veto against co-operating with Turkey-friendly countries notably in the Arab world.

Turkey will agree to Israeli involvement in certain NATO activities but will maintain its ban on joint military manoeuvres, and Ankara reserves the right to bar activities with Israel on its own soil.

The agreement comes after NATO agreed early this month to deploy Patriot anti-aircraft missiles along the Turkish border with Syria.

Turkey's relations with its former ally Israel deteriorated sharply after the Gaza ship raid.

Israel has rejected Ankara's demands for an apology and compensation.

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Air strike on Syria bakery kills dozens

AN air strike near a bakery in the rebel-held town of Halfaya in the central Syrian province of Hama has killed dozens of people, a monitoring group says.

"Dozens of people were killed in an air strike on Halfaya," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, while activists in Hama said Sunday's raid had targeted a bakery in the town.

"In Halfaya, regime forces bombarded a bakery and committed a massacre that killed dozens of people, including women and children, and wounded many others," said the Local Co-ordination Committees, a grassroots network of activists.

"A MiG (jet) has attacked! Look at (President Bashar al-) Assad's weapons. Look, world, look at the Halfaya massacre," says an unidentified cameraman shooting an amateur video distributed by the Observatory.

The footage showed a bombed one-storey block, and a crater in the road beside it.

Bloodied bodies lay on the road, while others could be seen in the rubble.

Men carried victims out on their backs, among them at least one woman, the video showed.

On Monday, rebels launched an all-out assault on army positions across Hama, which is home to strong anti-regime sentiment.

Earlier in the year, rights groups accused government forces of committing war crimes by dropping bombs and using artillery on or near several bakeries in the northern province of Aleppo.

One of the bloodiest attacks was on a bread line in the Qadi Askar district of Aleppo city on August 16 that left 60 people dead, according to local hospital records.

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Japan PM steps up pressure on central bank

JAPAN'S incoming prime minister Shinzo Abe has stepped up pressure on the Bank of Japan to set a two per cent inflation target, threatening to change a law guaranteeing the bank's independence if it does not agree.

Speaking on Fuji Television on Sunday, Abe said the BoJ's central policy board must back his proposed inflation goal at its next meeting in January.

"If unfortunately it refuses to agree to it, we have to amend the BoJ law, reach an accord (between the government and the bank) and we will have the policy," Abe said.

The law, called the Bank of Japan Act, spells out the central bank's duties and guarantees its independence.

The act also says the bank should work with the government to make sure "its currency and monetary control and the basic stance of the government's economic policy shall be mutually compatible".

Abe also said the BoJ should be held responsible for expanding employment, a point he had stressed during his recent election campaign.

The hawkish leader of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party is expected to take office on Wednesday, following a landslide victory in national elections last weekend.

Abe has already criticised the central bank for not doing more to stoke Japan's economy - which may have slipped into a recession in the third quarter - and has advocated "unlimited" easing measures, drawing a mixed response from economists.

But the market has welcomed his rhetoric, boosting the Nikkei index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in recent weeks.

The central bank's policy board met on Thursday and expanded an existing asset-buying program to pump money into the market, but kept interest rates unchanged at between zero and 0.1 per cent.

BoJ governor Masaaki Shirakawa told a news conference on Thursday his board would review their one per cent inflation goal, but made no direct mention of the two per cent inflation target.

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Families want truth of 'Libyan Lockerbie'

THE families of the 157 passengers and crew who died aboard a Libyan Airlines flight, which reportedly crashed with a fighter jet over Tripoli airport 20 years ago, never believed it was an accident.

"Every single one of us was convinced from the beginning that this was not an accident. If we had been under any other leader, perhaps we would have believed it," said Sharif Noha, 39, who lost his father.

His doubts stem from the fact that Libya was ruled at the time by mercurial dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who eventually admitted his country was behind the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 243 passengers and 16 crew.

The world has paid much attention to the Lockerbie bombing, which also killed 11 people on the ground in the Scottish town, but few know that another tragedy shook Libya almost exactly four years later.

Many in Libya believe Flight LN1103 was downed on December 22, 1992 on the orders of the Gaddafi regime in a bid to win international sympathy in the face of Western sanctions and to deflect attention from the Lockerbie anniversary.

For 20 years they grieved in silence and alone.

But the suspicion that the "accident" was manufactured persisted, feeding on details such as the similar dates and flight numbers, and the knowledge that the crew of the MiG allegedly involved in the crash both survived.

"It was reported as a mid-air collision but it was all orchestrated. The MiG never crashed into it," said Felicity Prazak, who remains determined to get to the bottom of how her British husband died 20 years ago.

"This is Libya's unknown atrocity," she said.

Noha stressed: "It was clearly linked to Lockerbie."

One theory is that the Boeing 727 was packed with explosives. Another is that it was shot down by a warplane as it prepared to land because the explosives failed to detonate over the Mediterranean as planned.

The 2011 revolution that toppled the Gaddafi regime has opened an unprecedented opportunity for the families of the passengers to meet, compare notes, collect evidence and perhaps finally achieve closure.

The new authorities tell them there is a real commitment to establish the truth, to punish anybody who was involved and to provide compensation for the families.

"We now have a chance to know the full truth of who was behind this crime," said Mohammed Megaryef, the president of the Libyan national assembly, during a remembrance ceremony held on Saturday.

Hamida Hussein, an elderly woman who came to the event in a wheelchair, remains tearful for the two sons she believes she lost to the Gaddafi regime - one in a notorious 1996 prison massacre and the other on Flight LN1103.

But the thought of finally establishing the truth brings a smile to her weathered face.

"I thank God for giving me a life long enough to see the day when the truth comes out and the tyrant is gone," she said.

One of the few people to have at least a partial picture of what happened that fateful day is surviving MiG pilot Abdel Majid Tiyyari. He insisted in an interview with AFP that he took the fall for a crime he did not commit.

The former air force major said: "I was accused of violating my altitude and climbing to the altitude of the Boeing 727, causing the collision and the death of 157 passengers. But in fact I was flying according to procedure."

Tiyyari insisted he only saw the "detached tail" of the Boeing a split second before a shudder hit his aircraft from below, sending it into a nose spin, which he and his colleague barely survived by ejecting.

He says he spent 42 months behind bars for a "collision that never happened".

Tiyyari is convinced that a professional analysis of the flight records would show conclusively that the evidence was tampered with and reveal discrepancies in the reported altitudes of the two aircraft.

He is keen to quash rumours that he shot down the Boeing, stressing the MiG model he was flying with a colleague in training was not equipped with a missile carrier or gunsight.

"There are a lot of rumours but I have a lot of answers," he said. "The key to finding out what happened to the Boeing is determining what caused the separation of the tail unit."

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Business confidence at record highs: CBA

OPTIMISM among mid-sized Australian businesses has hit record highs in the lead-up to Christmas, a quarterly survey has found.

Commonwealth Bank's future business index rose to 9.3 in December, from 4.3 in September.

The survey focuses on companies with a revenue of $10 million to $100 million, assessing their outlook on business conditions and challenges, projected revenue, investment plans and how prepared they are to cope with volatile conditions in the next six months.

The index first hit 9.3 in March this year, and was its highest ever score.

Almost half (45 per cent) of the companies surveyed said they were well-prepared for future business conditions, while 31 per cent said they thought conditions would improve in the next six months.

However, they expressed concern about rising energy costs in Australia, and a potential economic slowdown in Asia.

Looking at individual sectors, transport and logistics, business services and information, and media and technology were the most confident.

The least confident included manufacturing, wholesale trade and mining - with the latter reporting a significant drop.

Commonwealth Banks executive general manager of corporate financial services Symon Brewis-Weston said that despite the confident reading, most firms were approaching 2013 with caution.

"We're finding that its something of a wait-and-see period for the mid-market," he said.

"The feeling is that while companies expect a moderate decline in costs and they're feeling more prepared for the future, there is little appetite for investment and major changes.

"Companies are placing less emphasis on growth at the moment and ensuring they have the financial support required for any unforeseen challenges in the future."

The index showed moderate optimism among the states and territories, with Victoria and Tasmania recording steady confidence, both rising to 14 from 6.2.

Meanwhile, New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory were the only regions in decline, both falling to six from 10.4.

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More Aussies could avoid stroke: experts

MANY stroke sufferers miss out on a lifesaving de-clotting drug and four in 10 get treated in general wards rather than specialist stroke units, an advocacy group says.

Stroke is Australia's second-largest killer and many of the 350,000 survivors live with a disability and struggle with basic daily tasks such as eating and cooking.

The National Stroke Foundation is lobbying the federal government and opposition to commit to a $198 million action plan to boost services and increase awareness of how to prevent stroke and recognise the signs of stroke.

Chief executive Erin Lalor says many patients who attend hospital with stroke don't get access to de-clotting thrombolysis drugs that must be administered within four hours.

"If the hospital is too slow or people delay presentation to hospital they can't have it," she told AAP.

"It's a lifesaving drug."

She said four in 10 people were treated for stroke in general wards, rather than specialist units, and this increased their chances of death or disability.

A number of major hospitals, particularly in Queensland, don't have specialist stroke units, Dr Lalor said.

As part of the plan, the foundation wants the government to spend $121 million extra over three years to fund more stroke units and boost the quality of existing care.

They want a national rollout of a pharmacy health-check program, currently funded by the NSW and Queensland governments, which involves a free blood pressure and diabetes check. Pharmacists then advise people whether they need to go to their GP for more testing.

When Lina Brohier had a stroke in 2008 at age 31, a transient ischemic attack followed, making her dizzy, heavy and voiceless.

The attack passed and she didn't go to the doctor.

"If there was more information and advertising about stroke maybe people like me would be prevented from having a stroke," she told AAP.

"You think ... it's not going to happen to me; it's something that happens to old people."

The stroke left her with no muscle movement on the right side of her body.

After extensive rehabilitation and occupational therapy, Ms Brohier made a full recovery.

Dr Lalor said people over the age of 45 should be able to get an integrated check for their risk of stroke, heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease when they visit their GPs.

She said there also needs to be more support for people living with stroke, as well as their carers.

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Italy's recovery tipped to start in 2013

ITALY'S economic recovery is likely to begin in the third or fourth quarter of 2013, the central bank governor says, urging any new government to continue reforms and cut red tape for businesses.

"Our analyses suggest that there is a higher than 50 per cent probability that the turnaround will come in the third or fourth quarter of 2013," Bank of Italy chief Ignazio Visco said in an interview with La Stampa newspaper.

Visco also said there had been a "significant" lowering of tensions on the debt market for Italy in recent months due to the return of foreign investors and Italian banks that enabled the treasury to sell long-term bonds.

Asked about a possible recourse to European Central Bank assistance on the bond market, Visco said this was not on the cards since "the current conditions are less tense".

He cautioned, however, that "political and economic uncertainty is a burden" and said that "the fruits of austerity must not be wasted".

"The only way is to continue and reduce the negative effects that the reforms could have on certain sectors and at certain times," he said.

"The efforts made must not be for nothing. We have to decisively seek greater efficiency and reduce the limits on entrepreneurs," he added.

Italy is expected to go to the polls in February.

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