Wave of attacks kills at least 17 in Iraq

A WAVE of attacks in Baghdad and north of the Iraqi capital has killed at least 17 people and wounded 168 others, officials say.

The deadliest attack on Wednesday struck in the ethnically-mixed northern city of Kirkuk where a car bomb detonated by a suicide attacker killed at least 10 people and wounded 140 others, according to provincial health chief Sadiq Omar Rasul.

Another suicide car bombing in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, meanwhile, killed two people and wounded 26 others while three separate attacks in Baghdad left five people dead.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks but Sunni militants including al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq regularly carry out waves of violence in a bid to destabilise the government and push the country back towards the sectarian violence that blighted it from 2005 to 2008.

The latest attacks come a day after the killing of a Sunni Iraqi MP in a suicide attack west of Baghdad, with Ayfan al-Essawi's funeral expected to be held in Fallujah later on Wednesday.

The violence comes amid a political crisis that has pitted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki against his erstwhile government partners just months ahead of key provincial elections.

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Wal-Mart to buy more US-made goods

US retailer Wal-Mart says it will buy more US-made goods in a bid to support the nation's economy. Source: AAP

WAL-MART, the world's biggest retailer, says it will spend $US50 billion ($A47.53 billion) more on US-made goods and boost hiring of military service veterans to support the nation's economy.

Wal-Mart Store's retail chains in the United States, Walmart and members-only Sam's Club, will buy an additional $US50 billion worth of domestic products over the next 10 years, the company said.

Wal-Mart noted that two thirds of its spending on products for Walmart US already goes to US products.

The US goods included in the latest move include sporting goods, apparel basics, storage products, games, and paper products.

It pledged to help promote US production in "high potential" areas like textiles, furniture and higher-end appliances.

The nation's largest employer also announced plans to hire more than 100,000 military veterans over the next five years.

Beginning on May 27, this year's Memorial Day holiday, it will offer a job to any honorably discharged veteran within the first 12 months of his or her leaving active duty.

"Taking action on the economy is our responsibility as Americans, but it's also our opportunity as retailers," Walmart US president and chief executive Bill Simon said at an annual retail industry convention, according to the text of his speech.

"We in this room can invest. We can grow, and we can hire -- and we can use the power of what we buy and sell to make a difference."

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company employs about 1.4 million people in its Walmart chain.

Wal-Mart shares were up 0.6 per cent to $US68.71 in afternoon trade in New York.

The move follows a rise in domestic production by several US companies in the past several years, due in part to rising wages for production abroad and a desire to bring output closer to clients.

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European stocks open weaker

EUROPE'S main stock markets slid at the start of trading on Wednesday, with London's FTSE 100 index of top companies down 0.30 per cent at 6099.26 points.

Frankfurt's DAX 30 index fell 0.19 per cent to 7661.61 points and in Paris the CAC 40 declined 0.10 per cent to 3693.75.

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McClellan kiboshes confidentiality clauses

Peter McClellan says the royal commission into child sex abuse has powers to compel for evidence. Source: AAP

THE head of the royal commission into child sex abuse says he will not hesitate to investigate alleged assaults that are the subject of confidentiality agreements.

Fronting the media with his five co-commissioners for the first time since they were appointed last week, Justice Peter McClellan said non-disclosure agreements would not stop the commission inquiring into institutional responses to child sex assault.

He indicated the likelihood of a lengthy wait for victims and their families anticipating the start of public hearings, saying the evidence gathering process would take months.

"Our task is complex and it will take significant time," Justice McClellan said.

"It may be some months before the progress of the commission is apparent to the public."

But Justice McClellan immediately moved to allay the concerns over the commission's handling of confidentiality agreements.

"The commission is aware that there has been considerable public discussion about the powers the commission has to inquire into matters which are the subject of confidential agreements," he said.

"We wish to emphasise that under the Royal Commission Act, the commission has powers to compel the production of evidence, including documents.

"We will not hesitate in an appropriate case to exercise those powers."

He said the commission would be based in Sydney but that the six commissioners would sit in different parts of the country.

Assisting Justice McClellan are former Queensland police commissioner Bob Atkinson, former Victorian president of the Children's Court Justice Jennifer Coate, Productivity Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald, consultant psychiatrist Professor Helen Milroy and former West Australian senator Andrew Murray.

Justice McClellan said the public should be reminded the commission was not a prosecuting body, nor was it able to award compensation to victims.

Given the sensitivity of the issues involved, there could at times be "constraints" on the inquiry, he said.

"Our investigative processes will be utilised to receive and consider what we expect to be accounts by individuals that tell of their experience," he said.

"This may mean that proceedings will take place in private, and real names may not be used."

He said where possible, the commission would proceed in public.

The commission has set up a phone hotline for victims of sex abuse to call and leave their personal details.

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Two charged over Illawarra gangland murder

TWO men have been charged in connection with the murders of three rival drug dealers from the NSW Illawarra region and police say they have identified the other alleged killers.

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

He and the other two victims were involved in local standover tactics and the distribution of amphetamines and cocaine, police say.

All of the men are of Macedonian background.

"This is the underbelly of the Illawarra region," Homicide Detective Inspector David Laidlaw told AAP.

On Tuesday, police charged a 24-year-old man with Janceski's murder and a 38-year-old man with organising the alleged hit.

Officers from Strike Force Calligan arrested the men after searching homes in the Wollongong suburbs of Blackbutt and Cordeaux Heights.

They will both appear in Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday.

The younger man allegedly rode to Janceski house's on a trail bike and spoke with him before firing three shots into his chest and torso.

Janceski's father came out and confronted the man, who had struck him number of times in the face before fleeing the scene, police said.

During the confrontation he dropped his helmet, sunglasses and the firearm, and the trail bike was found torched nearby.

The older man is the brother of Goran Nikolovski, 35, who police presume is dead after his burned-out car was found a day after he went missing from his Unanderra home on October 31, 2011.

"It is our belief that the two persons who were charged today were of the belief that Mr Janceski murdered Mr Nikolovski," Det Insp David Laidlaw told AAP.

Nikolovski and Saso Ristevski, 37, were associates and had both served previous jail sentences for commercial drug supply.

"During that time their friendship or allegiances waned so much so that they became rivals when they came out," Det Insp Laidlaw said.

A month before Nikolovski's suspected murder, three men confronted Ristevski in the backyard of his parents' home at Lake Heights where he was shot at point blank range to the chest and died.

Police allege all three victims were operating separately from each other and have yet to confirm the allegations any of them were responsible for the other two deaths.

Homicide detectives have identified Nikolovski and Ristevski's killers but have more work ahead of them before laying any charges.

"Drugs have obviously been down this area for quite some time," Det Insp Laidlaw said.

"And it's just a matter of business that they're trying to negate some of their opposition."

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Japan, US fighter planes in joint drill

US and Japanese fighter jets have carried out joint air exercises days after Chinese and Japanese military planes shadowed each other near disputed islands in the East China Sea.

The five-day exercise, off the southwest of the archipelago, involves six US FA-18 fighters and around 90 American personnel, along with four Japanese F-4 jets and an unspecified number of people, an official familiar with the matter said.

The drill is being carried out over Pacific waters off the coast of Shikoku, the fourth largest of Japan's islands.

It comes weeks after hawkish new Japanese premier Shinzo Abe won an election landslide following campaign promises to re-invigorate Tokyo's security alliance with Washington and take a more robust line against Beijing.

It also comes as a stand-off between China and Japan over the sovereignty of the disputed East China Sea islands shows no signs of letting up.

Tokyo reportedly scrambled fighter jets on Thursday to head off Chinese military planes in an area adjoining the airspace of the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands, which Beijing claims as the Diaoyus.

A Chinese defence ministry official later said two J-10 fighters flew to the area to monitor two Japanese F-15 fighters that had trailed a Chinese Y-8 aircraft, according to China's official Xinhua news agency.

The row between Asia's two largest economies over the uninhabited, but potentially resource-rich islands blistered in September when Tokyo nationalised three of them.

Chinese government ships have repeatedly gone to the archipelago's territorial waters since then.

Beijing insists it is simply patrolling islands it has owned since ancient times.

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Russia plans unmanned moon mission

THE Russian Space Agency says it will send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2015 from a new launch pad in the country's far east.

Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin told Russian news agencies on Tuesday that the rocket booster would deliver a 500-kilogram space exploration vehicle with up to 25 kilograms of scientific equipment that would search for water and take soil samples.

Popovkin said the moon-bound spacecraft would be launched from Russia's new Vostochny cosmodrome.

President Vladimir Putin has vowed to invest $US1 billion ($A950.53 million) in building the launch pad in the Amur Region not far from the Chinese border.

Russia's last and only moon mission was accomplished in 1973.

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US school named after slain teacher

OFFICIALS of a US town are renaming a local school for a resident killed in the Sandy Hook massacre and hailed as a hero.

HoneySpot Elementary School in Stratford - near Newtown, Connecticut - will be named after 27-year-old Victoria Soto who died trying to shield her students from the gunman inside Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Shooter Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six educators at the school on December 14 before committing suicide. He also killed his mother at their Newtown home.

Mayor John Harkins made the recommendation which was approved on Monday night, exactly one month after the shootings.

The mayor also is hoping to build a memorial to Soto, and a petition has been started to rename a local street after her.

Soto graduated from Stratford High School in 2003.

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Carr wants better Japan-SKorea relations

Australia wants Japan and South Korea to resolve recent disputes, Foreign Minister Bob Carr says. Source: AAP

AUSTRALIA wants Japan and South Korea to resolve recent disputes between them in the interests of enhanced regional security, Foreign Minister Bob Carr says.

He met with Japan's new Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Sydney on Sunday, with security in the Asia-Pacific region high on the agenda, particularly following a recent missile launch by North Korea.

Complicating matters and causing concern in the United States is a falling out between Japan and South Korea over a territorial dispute and Japan's attitude toward its colonial past.

Senator Carr told reporters he and Mr Kishida had discussed Australia's new role on the United Nations Security Council and the missile launch.

"We hope to be able to work closely with Japan when it comes to shaping a response on the Security Council to that unsatisfactory and illegal behaviour by North Korea," he said.

"The over-riding consideration here is enhanced security and peace in northeast Asia and that is helped if there is agreement and cooperation at the highest level between the Republic of Korea and Japan.

"Because both nations are such good friends of Australia's, we look forward to a resolution of any differences between them."

Mr Kishida said "difficult issues" were occurring between Japan and South Korea.

"Our stance is to look at this from a broad perspective and seek a peaceful resolution," he said.

There have been suggestions new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may disavow a 1993 statement by Japan apologising for the suffering of South Korean "comfort women" forced into providing sex for Japanese servicemen during World War II.

But Mr Kishida said Mr Abe was "truly distressed" by the suffering of those women and his thoughts on the issue had not changed from those of previous prime ministers.

Senator Carr said the 1993 statement related to "an episode that was one of the darkest in modern history" and it was in "no one's interest that the acknowledgement be revisited".

Mr Kishida said a territorial dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands needed to be resolved "without getting heated about it".

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AIG sues New York Fed over lawsuit rights

American International Group (AIG) has filed a lawsuit against an investment structure. Source: AAP

AMERICAN International Group has filed a lawsuit against an investment structure created by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to help bailout the insurer, in a bid to sue mortgage debt issuers.

According to the complaint filed in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, AIG is seeking a declaration that the bailed out insurance giant has not abandoned its right to file suit against banks and other creditors by selling residential mortgage-backed securities to Maiden Lane II in 2008.

Maiden Lane II was created to purchase the securities, which had become unsellable at the the height of the financial crisis, from AIG.

The government took control of AIG in September 2008 through a $US182 billion ($A172.50 billion) federal bailout to prevent its imminent collapse from sparking a cascade of gigantic failures throughout the global financial system. The bailout was fully paid off last year.

AIG, which accuses Bank of America and other issuers of mortgage debt to have misled it about the value of the securities, is not seeking financial compensation from Maiden Lane II but wants the court to state whether AIG can still sue entities that issued securities in Maiden Lane II.

The insurer has filed a $US10 billion lawsuit against Bank of America as reparations for fraud claims.

On Wednesday, AIG decided not to join a private shareholder lawsuit against the US government over its bailout.

The lawsuit filed by Starr International, which is controlled by former AIG chief executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, argued that the massive bailout of AIG did not fairly compensate shareholders.

Starr sued the government for about $US25 billion in November 2011.

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Tens of thousands protest Taiwan president

Taiwan has seen the largest anti-government action since President Ma Ying-jeou was re-elected. Source: AAP

TENS of thousands of opposition demonstrators have taken to the streets of Taipei to protest the policies of Taiwan's China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou.

Sunday's demonstration is the largest anti-government action since Ma was elected to a second four-year term a year ago.

Protesters called on the president to fire Prime Minister Sean Chen over the island's lacklustre economic performance - growth was less than two per cent in 2012 - and demanded regulatory bodies stop a consortium widely seen as pro-China from purchasing a mass-circulation newspaper.

The consortium includes businessman Tsai Eng-meng, who already owns a popular cable TV news station and another mass-circulation newspaper.

Opponents of the latest media deal say it would concentrate too much power in the hands of an individual.

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Tas road reopens to bushfire-hit Dunalley

Police are planning to reopen the Arthur Highway on the bushfire-ravaged Tasman Peninsular. Source: AAP

POLICE have reopened the Arthur Highway in Tasmania that runs from Sorell to Port Arthur on the bushfire-ravaged Tasman Peninsula.

Motorists are being asked to drive with caution, particularly between Sugarloaf Road and the Dunalley Bridge, with work crews still restoring essential services to the area.

Drivers of light vehicles who want to go south of Dunalley are being advised to detour via Sugarloaf and Fulham Roads to avoid lengthy delays.

Police say large vehicles, those towing trailers, service vehicles and tourist buses should stay on the Arthur Highway which has a speed limit of 60km/h.

They say motorists also need to be mindful of stock on the road due to the destruction of fences, particularly in the Sugarloaf Road and Fulham Road areas.

Peninsula residents were allowed to return last Friday.

Meanwhile, fire crews have made solid progress on consolidating containment lines around bushfires still burning ahead of higher fire danger conditions forecast for Thursday.

Tasmania Fire Service has issued a watch and act message for the uncontained 24,040-hectare Forcett blaze where 150 firefighters using 39 tankers and four aircraft continue working on the fire which has a 200km perimeter.

Firefighters had been strengthening containment lines around Bream Creek and Marion Bay and also at Lagoon Bay, but had to eventually pull out due to increased winds, TFS spokeswoman Shannon Fox said on Sunday.

"In Taranna, we've got a good, strong containment line in but we're working on looking after some hot spots that are within the already burnt out areas," she told AAP.

"What we are really trying to do is be prepared for Thursday when we expect fire danger ratings to increase again."

At Lake Repulse, fire crews consolidated containment lines to the south of Brown Mountain and New Zealand firefighters worked on containment lines at the Broad River Valley, Ms Fox said.

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