400 asylum seekers reach Italian island

TWO boats carrying more than 400 African migrants have arrived on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, the latest in a wave of thousands of undocumented migrants arriving from North African shores.

The boats were intercepted on Saturday by Italian coast guards in open sea south of the rocky outcrop, which is closer to Africa than to the Italian mainland.

The first boat carried 218 sub-Saharan migrants including seven women.

The second boat, which was some 20 metres long, had around 220 people including 20 women, Italian news agency ANSA reported, citing the coast guard.

Most of the recent Lampedusa arrivals have been on boats coming from Libya.

Migrants are usually taken to a small facility on Lampedusa and then to centres for asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants in other parts of Italy.

The charity Save the Children on Thursday said the situation was "chaotic", with 722 migrants still on the island including 102 women and 15 unaccompanied minors, and urged the government to transfer them to better accommodation.

Tens of thousands of migrants landed on Italian shores last year in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings.

Thousands more have arrived this year despite Italy's calls for Tunisia and Libya to step up their maritime border controls.

Hundreds have died over the past two years in the perilous Mediterranean crossings, when their heavily overcrowded dinghies and fishing boats capsized or sank in stormy weather or were cast adrift due to engine failure.

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Syrian troops attack rebels: report

SYRIAN opposition activists say government troops have launched a major attack on rebel-held areas south of the capital Damascus.

"The Syrian troops are trying, under a barrage of heavy shelling, to storm Daraya from various directions," Haytham al-Abdullah, a Damascus-based activist, said.

Daraya is a poor Sunni Muslim suburb and a stronghold of the hardline group al-Nousra Front, which has been blacklisted by the United States as "a terrorist organisation".

The head of the opposition British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, said forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were eager to tighten their grip on the area.

"Daraya is the closest point to the Mezzeh military airport, which is currently the only facility used by the regime's officials and troops to move in and out of the capital," he said.

Rebels have recently been fighting with troops in and around Damascus, raising the possibility that Assad could lose his hold on the capital.

Rebels are believed to be controlling several areas near Damascus airport.

News from Syria is difficult to verify, as authorities have barred most foreign media from the country since an uprising started in March last year.

Meanwhile, the ambassadors of Russia, China, Syria and Iran to Lebanon reiterated at a meeting in Beirut that a political solution was the only way to end the 21-month conflict.

"The ongoing fighting in Syria, which targets the regime and is supported by some states, has so far only resulted in further death and destruction, and should stop immediately," the envoys said, according to a statement issued by the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

The meeting came two days after Russia's deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, said rebels might eventually defeat Assad's regime.

Those remarks were later played down by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

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China to open longest high-speed railway

THE world's longest high-speed rail route, running from the Chinese capital Beijing to Guangzhou in the south, will open for business on December 26, Chinese state media says.

Travelling at an average speed of 300 kilometres per hour, the line will slash journey times linking Beijing in the north with the country's southern economic hub from 22 hours to eight hours, the China Daily newspaper said.

The December opening means the 2298 kilometre route, with 35 stops including major cities Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Changsha, will be operational for China's Lunar New Year holiday period, in which hundreds of millions of people travel across the country in the world's largest annual migration.

The specific date was chosen to commemorate the birth of Chinese leader Mao Zedong, state media said.

China's high-speed rail network is booming. Only established in 2007, it has quickly become the largest in the world, with 8358 kilometres of track at the end of 2010 and expected to almost double to 16,000 kilometres by 2020.

The network, however, has been plagued by graft and safety scandals following its rapid expansion, with a deadly bullet train collision in July 2011 killing 40 people and sparking a public outcry.

The accident - China's worst rail disaster since 2008 - triggered a flood of criticism of the government and accusations that the authorities had compromised safety in its rush to expand.

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Mandela continues hospital stay

NELSON Mandela remains in hospital, a week after he was admitted for treatment for a lung infection, a government official says.

"Mr Mandela is still in hospital, still comfortable and receiving treatment," said presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj.

Mr Maharaj could not comment on rumours that the 94-year-old could be soon be discharged from Medi-Clinic Heart Hospital, a private facility in the capital Pretoria.

It was not clear when Mandela was moved to the private hospital from the One Military hospital, the country's top military healthcare facility where government officials initially said Mandela was being treated.

The Heart Hospital bills itself as the first and "only hospital of its kind - a private, specialised heart hospital - in South Africa".

The Nobel Peace Prize winner who led the country to democracy in 1994 was flown from his rural home village of Qunu to Pretoria on December 8.

He has a long history of lung problems dating back decades when he contracted tuberculosis while in prison.

He was previously hospitalised for an acute respiratory infection in January 2011, when he was kept for two nights.

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Two dead in shooting at Vegas casino

A man shot dead a woman working at a travel desk at Las Vegas' Excalibur hotel, above, and then turned the gun on himself, even as the US reeled from the Sandy Hook school massacre. Source: Supplied

A MAN shot and fatally wounded a woman, then killed himself Friday at the Excalibur hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip, sending many frightened patrons fleeing.

The shootings happened at about 8.30pm local time (3.30pmAEDT) near the high-rise hotel's front entrance, Las Vegas Metro Police Lt. Ray Steiber said.

The man shot the woman, who was a vendor at Excalibur's concierge desk, then turned the gun on himself, Steiber said. The man died at the scene, and the woman was pronounced dead later at a local hospital.

The shooting happened as the hotel's registration desk was busy on a Friday night with the National Finals Rodeo and other events in town. Lt. Steiber said patrons scattered at the first sound of gunfire, and no one else was wounded.

Neither the gunman nor the victim was identified, and Lt Steiber said the relationship between the two wasn't immediately clear.

Witnesses on the casino floor said they saw poker players abruptly leaving their tables and many distraught people running for the exits after gunshots rang out, the Las Vegas Sun reported.

Trisha Banks, 14, and her sister Danielle Banks, 17, were at the hotel for a holiday cheerleading party with 80 other cheerleaders when they heard four shots. They hid under some tables until the situation was cleared about 10 minutes later.

"It's scary after what happened this morning (in Newtown, Connecticut) and then this," Trisha Banks told the Sun. "How can people do this?"

The woman who was shot worked at the hotel's concierge desk as a vendor for travel website VEGAS.com, which is owned by the Greenspun family, publishers of the Las Vegas Sun.

"We were saddened to learn that a member of the VEGAS.com family was the victim of tonight's tragic and senseless killing at the Excalibur," VEGAS.com Chief Operating Officer Bryan Allison told the newspaper. "Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends."

MGM Resorts International owns the Excalibur and several other hotels on the Las Vegas Strip. Company spokesman Gordon Absher said the hotel and casino remained open to guests and patrons. However, the area where the shooting took place was cordoned off by police while the investigation continued.

The Excalibur has approximately 4000 rooms and is located at the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard. The hotel is named for the mythical sword of King Arthur, and its facade is a stylised image of a castle.

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22 children hurt in China school attack

A KNIFE-WIELDING man has injured 22 children and an adult outside a primary school in central China as students were arriving for morning classes, police say.

It's the latest in a series of periodic rampage attacks at schools and kindergartens.

Friday's attack in the Henan province village of Chengping happened shortly before 8am (1100 AEDT), said a police officer from Guangshan county, where the village is located.

The attacker, 36-year-old villager Min Yingjun, is now in police custody, said the officer, who declined to give her name, as is customary among Chinese civil servants.

A Guangshan county hospital administrator said the man first attacked an elderly woman, then students, before being subdued by security guards who have been posted across China following a spate of school attacks in recent years.

He said there were no deaths among the nine students admitted, although two badly injured children had been transferred to better-equipped hospitals outside the county.

A doctor at Guangshan's hospital of traditional Chinese medicine said that seven students had been admitted, but that none were seriously injured.

Neither the hospital administrator nor the doctor would give his name.

It was not clear how old the injured children were, but Chinese primary school pupils are generally six to 11 years old.

A notice posted on the Guangshan county government's website confirmed the number of injured and said an emergency response team had been set up to investigate the attacks.

No motive was given for the stabbings, which echo a string of similar assaults against schoolchildren in 2010 that killed nearly 20 and wounded more than 50. The most recent such attack took place in August, when a knife-wielding man broke into a middle school in the southern city of Nanchang and stabbed two students before fleeing.

Most of the attackers have been mentally disturbed men involved in personal disputes or unable to adjust to the rapid pace of social change, underscoring grave weaknesses in the antiquated Chinese medical system's ability to diagnose and treat psychiatric illness.

In one of the worst incidents, a man described as an unemployed, middle-aged doctor killed eight children with a knife in March 2010 to vent his anger over a thwarted romantic relationship.

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IAEA confident of nuclear deal with Iran

THE UN nuclear agency has expressed confidence that it will clinch a deal with Iran next month under which Tehran will at last answer "credible" evidence that it has conducted atomic weapons research.

Herman Nackaerts, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief inspector, said after what he called "good meetings" in Tehran that the deal would include access to the Parchin base where the agency suspects explosives tests applicable for nuclear weapons took place.

Such a breakthrough, if it really happens, could indicate that Iran, feeling the pinch from massive sanctions pressure, may give ground in parallel diplomatic efforts with six world powers stalled since June. But that is a big "if", experts say.

"We have agreed to meet again on 16 January next year, where we expect to finalise the structured approach and start implementing it then shortly after that," Nackaerts told reporters at Vienna airport, saying Parchin was "part of" the arrangement under negotiation.

On Thursday, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, was quoted by state media as saying in typically upbeat fashion that the meeting was "constructive, positive, and good progress has been made".

The IAEA wants Iran to address substantively a mass of what the agency calls "overall, credible" evidence set out in a major 2011 report that until 2003, and possibly since, Iran did weapons research.

Iran denies seeking or ever having sought nuclear weapons, and says its program is exclusively peaceful.

So far, including in a string of previous fruitless meetings between the IAEA and Iran this year both in Tehran and Vienna, Iran has rejected the alleged evidence outright.

This is because the bulk is from foreign intelligence agencies, including from arch foe Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state which has refused to rule out bombing Iran to stop it also getting the bomb.

The IAEA has zeroed in on Parchin near Tehran because its information on activities there is "independent", such as from commercially available satellite imagery or an unnamed "foreign expert".

Tehran also says the IAEA has already visited the site near Tehran twice in 2005. The agency counters that since then, it has received additional information that makes it want to go back.

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Fake Islamic prophet arrested for 'sex cult'

A MAN who allegedly claimed to be an Islamic prophet and tricked his male followers into allowing him to have sex with their wives and daughters has been arrested, Indonesian police said.

The 48-year-old was detained on the island of Borneo after several followers reported he had told them to pay him money or organise sexual relations with relatives to purify them of their sins, a police spokesman said.

"According to the followers' reports, if they can't afford to pay the money, they have to let their wives or daughters sleep with him as an alternate way to go to heaven," Kutai Timur district police spokesman Ketut Cakri told AFP.

"We believe the man has slept with several of his followers' wives and daughters, and has received money as well," Mr Cakri said, adding that he did not know if the women had consented to sex or if the man had any female followers.

He had spread "deviant" Islamic teachings through his cult for at least five years, Mr Cakri said, and could be jailed for fraud and blasphemy in the world's biggest Muslim-majority country.

"We don't know the exact number of followers or victims yet, but the police investigation is still ongoing. We are digging for more information from him and his followers," Cakri said.

In 2009 an Indonesian court jailed for blasphemy a cult leader who gave sermons in his underpants and demanded that his acolytes take part in orgies.

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Abducted mother of Nigeria minister freed

AN official says the mother of Nigeria's finance minister has been released after being abducted by kidnappers.

Paul Nwabuikwu, a spokesman for Nigeria's finance ministry, said the mother of Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was released on Friday morning.

"She has been freed," police spokesman Frank Mba told AFP of the 82-year-old Kamene Okonjo. "She is in good health."

She was abducted on Sunday from her home in Delta state in the country's south.

Okonjo-Iweala is a respected economist who was nominated earlier this year to become World Bank chief before losing to Jim Yong Kim, who was nominated by the United States.

The West African country has seen a spate of kidnappings and growing sectarian violence.

Experts say kidnappers who once targeted mainly expatriate oil workers have shifted their focus to wealthy Nigerian families in recent years. Nigeria's oil-rich delta is a kidnapping hotspot, but many cases go unreported.

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Son-in-law of Tunisia's Ben Ali arrested in Seychelles

THE son-in-law of Tunisia's deposed former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been arrested in the Seychelles, the Tunisian authorities announced.

Sakhr El Materi, who was convicted in absentia of corruption by a Tunisian court, fled to Qatar just before the overthrow of his father-in-law's regime in last year's uprising, but the Gulf emirate agreed to expel him in September.

Fadhel Saihi, an adviser to the Tunisian justice minister, told Mosaique FM that Materi was arrested as he tried to enter the Seychelles with an expired diplomatic passport, and that he was being interrogated by police there.

Justice Minister Noureddine Bhiri said Tunis was doing everything it could to get him extradited.

"Sakhr El Materi went to the Seychelles after leaving Qatar. The Seychelles authorities opened an inquiry, because he was the subject of an international arrest warrant and because his passport had expired," Mr Bhiri said.

"The Tunisian authorities will do everything they can to get Sakhr El Materi extradited," he added, speaking at a seminar on recovering the assets of the Ben Ali family.

Ben Ali and his close family used to go on holiday to the Seychelles in secret prior to the revolution.

Said to be the ex-dictator's favourite son-in-law and long seen as a possible successor, Materi was sentenced last year to 16 years in prison and fined 97 million dinars ($59 million) for corruption and property fraud.

Married to Ben Ali's eldest daughter Nesrine, the 31-year-old businessman owned Princess Holding and was active in virtually every economic sector.

His properties have either been confiscated or placed under state administration.

The Tunisian state announced in July that it would sell his 25 per cent stake in mobile phone operator Tunisiana and his 59 percent stake in car dealership firm Ennakl, the agents in Tunisia for German carmaker Volkswagen.

Tunis has called on countries hosting fugitive members of the Ben Ali family to bring them to trial and return their properties to Tunisia.

The north African country has repeatedly asked Saudi Arabia, where Ben Ali took refuge with his wife Leila Trabelsi after they fled Tunisia on January 14, 2011, to extradite him.

Ben Ali has been sentenced in absentia to life in prison for presiding over the bloody protest crackdown that ignited the Arab Spring, and convicted on other charges that include incitement to murder, embezzlement and abuse of power.

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Hong Kong stocks end 0.26% lower

HONG Kong shares have fallen 0.26 per cent on profit-taking and corporate fundraising injecting new shares into the market, breaking a three-day rally that saw the market hit a 16-month high.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index (HSI) on Thursday eased 57.77 points to close at 22,445.58 on turnover of HK$62.49 billion ($A7.67 billion).

Blue-chip power producer CLP tapped the market for $US984 million ($A936.47 million) through a share placement, dropping 3.6 per cent to $HK64.80, while Uni-President China slumped 5.3 per cent to $HK9.01 and Kaisa tumbled 7.7 per cent to $HK2.39 as investors sold shares.

"Although there are fundraising activities, it is hard to determine when the market may peak amid the current liquidity-driven rally," Ben Kwong, chief operating officer at KGI Asia told Dow Jones Newswires.

The HSI touched a fresh 16-month high of 22,563.14 in the morning session, after the announcement of fresh US economic stimulus overnight.

After a two-day meeting the policy committee of the US central bank said it would replace its "Operation Twist" bond swapping program with $US45 billion a month in straight bond buys, on top of the $US40 billion a month purchasing announced in September.

Jackson Wong, an investment manager at Tanrich Securities, said that he expects the current bullish cycle to extend into the middle of next year.

Chinese shares ended down 1.02 per cent. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 21.25 points to 2,061.48 on turnover of 52.3 billion yuan ($A7.99 billion).

"The market is likely to be weighed by potential tight liquidity conditions in the coming weeks," China Minzu Securities analyst Chen Wei told Dow Jones Newswires.

"Corporates that have positions in the stock market may tend to cash in because they need cash to pay off loans at the year-end," he added.

Among metals firms Gansu Ronghua Industry lost 4.36 per cent to 7.67 yuan and Xiamen Tungsten dropped 3.67 per cent to 33.04 yuan.

Coal miner Xinjiang Baihuacun lost 3.46 per cent to 9.22 yuan while Shanxi Coking Coal shed 2.90 per cent to 7.69 yuan.

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Four face charges in SA street fight death

A FOURTH person has been arrested in relation to the death of a man in an Adelaide street fight.

Police have charged three men, aged 18, 19 and 26 with murder, after a 49-year-old man was killed in suburban Elizabeth Park on Wednesday night.

A 52-year-old man was also hurt in the brawl and taken to hospital with an injured arm.

On Thursday night, police advised that a fourth man, aged 20, had been arrested and would also be charged with murder.

The three men charged have been refused bail and will appear in Elizabeth Magistrates Court on Friday.

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China defies US pressure over North Korea

World leaders condemned North Korea's rocket launch, with the US demanding there be consequences. Source: AAP

CHINA has resisted US-led pressure to bring its ally North Korea to heel for launching a long-range rocket, arguing that any response from the United Nations should be "prudent" and measured.

The United States demanded further action from China - Pyongyang's foremost patron - and US allies pressed for stronger sanctions, after the UN Security Council condemned North Korea for carrying out Wednesday's banned launch.

But foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that China believes any UN response "should be prudent, appropriate and conducive to peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and avoid the escalation of the situation".

North Korea says it placed a satellite in orbit for peaceful research, but critics say the launch amounted to a banned ballistic missile test that marked a major advance for the communist state's nuclear weapons program.

Hong reaffirmed that China "regrets" the rocket launch, avoiding much stronger language of condemnation used by the US, South Korea and Japan among others.

In South Korea, foreign ministry spokesman Cho Tai-Young said that North Korea "must pay the price" for its actions as he called for a new round of sanctions.

China is considered to have the most influence over North Korea and US officials are scrutinising its policy for any hints of change as Communist Party chief Xi Jinping gradually takes the reins of power.

But Chinese state media downplayed the need for stepped-up sanctions and said that in any case, China has limited influence over Pyongyang.

"The real problem is China's strength is not sufficient to influence its neighbour's situation," the Global Times daily said in an editorial titled "NK move shows China's lack of leverage".

A bellicose Western reaction risked driving North Korea into a corner with potentially devastating results, state editorials said.

"That is why China should not take a co-operative stance with the US, Japan and South Korea in imposing sanctions on North Korea," the Global Times said.

South Korea's defence ministry said that the satellite launched by the rocket was in operational orbit, but the main concern in the West is that North Korea may be perfecting technology to fire missiles as far as the US Pacific coast.

Analysts say the symbolism of the launch was also a prime motivating factor for North Korea as the youthful Kim Jong-Un shores up his leadership a year on from the death of his father Kim Jong-Il on December 17 last year.

China did join other members of the Security Council in condemning the launch as a "clear violation" of UN resolutions.

But diplomats at the council meeting told AFP that China's UN ambassador resisted having tougher language in the statement, and did not allow inclusion of the phrase that North Korea had used "ballistic missile technology".

Masao Okonogi, honorary professor at Keio University, told AFP that China was employing its usual tactic of gentle persuasion with the aim of getting North Korea to open up.

"I think it wants to shift the North toward the opening up of its economy without driving it to the wall. By doing so, it is considering prompting North Korea to transform its structure gradually."

Outrage over Wednesday's launch was mixed with concern that North Korea may follow past practice in following up a missile or rocket launch with a nuclear test.

The North's first nuclear test in 2006 came three months after it tested a long-range missile. On that occasion, Pyongyang announced the test six days before it exploded the device.

The second test, in May 2009, came a month after a rocket launch that North Korea claimed had put a satellite in space. Pyongyang had threatened the second test unless the UN Security Council apologised for its condemnation of the launch.

That precedent has reportedly been cited in the past by China as a reason for resisting tougher sanctions on North Korea, arguing that Pyongyang tends to kick back hardest when it feels cornered.

But the North said it would ignore international warnings.

"We will continue to exercise our legitimate right to launch satellites," a Pyongyang foreign ministry spokesman said.

A previous launch of North Korea's Unha-3 rocket in April ended in embarrassing failure, with the carrier exploding shortly after take-off, and the Kim regime was believed keen to mark this month's anniversary with an emphatic success.

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Russia says Syrian regime may lose

A blast in the Syrian capital Damascus has targeted the Interior Ministry building. Source: AAP

A CAR bomb has killed 16 people outside the Syrian capital hours after a bombing wounded the interior minister as Damascus ally Moscow acknowledged the regime may lose the fight against rebels.

Thursday's bombing struck outside an army housing complex and near a primary school, and children made up seven of the dead and many of the 23 wounded, state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

It followed a triple bomb attack on the interior ministry on Wednesday that killed at least five people and put Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar in hospital with a shoulder injury sustained when his office ceiling collapsed, a security source told AFP.

The increased attacks on government targets came after Arab and Western governments recognised the armed opposition as sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people and as Washington said an increasingly desperate military was resorting to longer-range missiles and incendiary bombs against the rebels.

The state SANA news agency blamed "terrorists" for the bombing in a residential area of Qatana, an army-controlled town southwest of Damascus.

"This morning, terrorists targeted the residential area of Ras al-Nabaa with a vehicle loaded with explosives, blowing it up in front of the Mikhael Samaan school," the news agency said.

The security source said that a betrayal within the interior ministry's own protection service had made possible Wednesday's attack, using a booby-trapped car and two other devices.

"It is impossible to get near the ministry gate except in an official vehicle," the source said, adding that the minister was not seriously wounded.

"He was taken to hospital but his condition gives no cause for concern and he should be discharged rapidly."

It is the second time Shaar has been wounded in an attack.

He narrowly escaped being killed in a spectacular July 18 bombing that claimed the lives of four other top security officials, including the defence minister and President Bashar al-Assad's brother-in-law.

The attacks so near the capital, coming on top of the rebels' seizure of key bases in recent weeks that has given them control of large swathes of the northwest and the east, prompted an admission from a top Russian diplomat that defeat of Moscow's long-time ally could not be ruled out.

"As for preparing for victory by the opposition, this, of course, cannot be excluded," Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov was quoted as saying by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

"You need to look the facts in the eyes - the government regime is losing more and more control over a large part of the country's territory."

The RIA Novosti news agency also quoted Bogdanov as saying that the recognition of the opposition Syrian National Coalition by the United States and other states had only emboldened the opposition.

"They (the rebels) are saying that victory is not far away, 'let's take Aleppo, let's take Damascus'," he said.

The rebels' capture of the Sheikh Suleiman base on Monday gave them full control of a belt of territory running from the outskirts of second city Aleppo to the Turkish border.

Late last month they made a major push up the Euphrates valley, giving them control of territory in the east from the Iraqi border to the outskirts of the provincial capital of Deir Ezzor.

An airbase just east of the city came under rebel mortar fire early on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory said.

The military launched air strikes against rebel positions along the Damascus airport road, which was briefly closed by rebel fire late last month, and in the town of Daraya southwest of the capital, the Britain-based watchdog added.

The army has also been resorting to Scud missile strikes against rebel targets in zones now beyond the range of artillery, a US official confirmed on Wednesday.

The unguided Scud, famously fired into Israel by Iraq's Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf war, can deliver a payload of 3,500 kilos or more over a range of 200km or more, defence analysts say.

An AFP correspondent reported repeated missile firings into the rebel-held northwest since the fall of the Sheikh Suleiman base on Monday, but was unable to say if they were Scuds.

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Pakistan wastes up to $72m a day: watchdog

PAKISTAN wastes a whopping $US51 million to $US72 million ($A48.5-$68.5 million) every day as a result of inefficiency, corruption and tax shortcomings, the head of an anti-corruption watchdog said.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) said the losses come from leaks, corruption and incompetence, tax losses, land grabbing, loans and defaults, overstaffing, energy losses, project delays, cost overruns, administrative costs and foreign exchange outflow.

"There are daily losses of five to seven billion rupees," NAB chairman Fasih Bokhari told a news conference.

But he did not explain how he had calculated the losses in monetary terms to reach this staggering estimate of wastage.

"This is the average data I'm giving you," he told reporters.

The NAB, which is answerable to the Pakistani president, was accused by the government of making ill-timed allegations ahead of elections.

In the past, the Supreme Court has accused it of being ineffective.

According to the World Bank, Pakistan's GDP in 2011 was $US211.1 billion, which would make losses of $US61 million a day equal to around 10 per cent of GDP.

The country suffers from a debilitating energy crisis and has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world, estimated at 9.2 per cent of GDP.

Only 260,000 out of 180 million citizens have paid tax consecutively for the last three years, according to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

Pakistan was ranked 139 out of 174 on Transparency International's 2012 corruption perceptions index and corruption is considered an endemic problem.

The Centre for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan said that more than 60 per cent of the cabinet and two thirds of federal MPs dodged tax payments in 2011.

MPs have their salaries taxed at source, but a spokesman for the FBR said they are required to file tax returns for other sources of income, although agriculture, for example, is exempt.

Of those who did pay, most made only negligible contributions.

The Supreme Court sacked prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in June for contempt after refusing to ask Switzerland to reopen graft cases against President Zardari, as part of a power struggle between the judiciary and the government.

A 2007 amnesty allowed 8000 people, including politicians, to escape charges related to 3478 cases ranging from murder, embezzlement and abuse of power to write-offs of bank loans worth millions of dollars.

The Supreme Court overturned the amnesty in December 2009.

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Nurse autopsy findings held back

THE results of a post-mortem examination on London nurse Jacintha Saldanha will be kept under wraps until a coroner opens an inquest into the death which came three days after an Australian radio prank.

An examination of the 46-year-old mother of two was completed on Tuesday but the findings will not be made public until released by the coroner, a Scotland Yard spokesman said.

A brief coroner's court hearing into Ms Saldanha's death is due to be mentioned in the English capital on Thursday and adjourned to a later date to allow for the gathering of further information.

Findings "would be announced tomorrow at the inquest", the police source said.

Various British media outlets, including Sky News, have reported Ms Saldanha was "found hanged".

The network said contrary to initial reports Ms Saldanha was unconscious when first reached by emergency services, the nurse was dead when found at staff quarters close to the King Edward VII hospital.

It is understood Ms Saldanha had left a note for her family - husband Benedict Barboza and children Junal, 17 and 14-year-old Lisha.

While the death is not being treated as suspicious by police, a coroner is expected to carefully examine the events leading up to the discovery of Ms Saldanha's body on Friday.

The senior nurse was earlier in the week duped by Australian radio jocks Mel Greig and Michael Christian, who impersonated the Queen and Prince Charles as they sought information about a hospital patient, the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge.

The Sydney-based 2Day FM presenters are expected to be interviewed by NSW Police as part of the coronial investigation.

Both Greig and Christian, along with network management, have extended their condolences to Ms Saldanha's family.

On Wednesday, British tabloid the Daily Star said the hoax could lead 2Day FM workers to jail.

"The lizards of Oz face 5yrs prison," blasted the newspaper's headline.

Failing to name the source of its claims, the newspaper refers only to "lawyers in Australia" when reporting that 2Day FM management could be prosecuted for failing to get the hospital's permission to air the recorded conversation.

A public spat has emerged with the hospital denying claims by network management repeated attempts were made to contact the London facility before the prank call was broadcast.

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Pope blesses internet flock over Twitter

POPE Benedict XVI has blessed his new internet flock with his first Twitter message to more than a million followers already signed up to receive the holy tweets.

"Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart," read the tweet, which the 85-year-old pope sent from a tablet at the end of his weekly general audience on Wednesday.

Since the pope last week announced he would start tweeting under his official Latin title @pontifex, more than 650,000 people have registered to follow his main account in English.

Tens of thousands more are following his Arabic, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish accounts.

The Vatican has invited the pope's new Twitter fans to ask questions the pontiff will try to answer in 140 characters or less.

The first tweet marks a milestone in Vatican communication efforts as it tries to disseminate the Catholic message worldwide, especially to younger people.

Several leading Vatican prelates are already regular tweeters including Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

"The pope's presence on Twitter is a concrete expression of his conviction that the Church must be present in the digital arena," the Vatican said earlier.

Benedict wants to "ensure that the good news of Jesus Christ and the teaching of his Church is permeating the forum of exchange and dialogue," it said.

Father Antonio Spadaro, director of the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica and one of the Church's Twitter pioneers, said the pope's first tweet was comparable to the first papal radio broadcast by Pius XI on February 12, 1931.

"Social media are real places of emotion where people share their lives, their best and worst desires, their questions and their answers," he said earlier.

Several fake Twitter accounts have already been set up in the pope's name and used to mock the pontiff.

Thousands in the Twitter universe have also posed questions, including a slew of offensive messages about the clerical sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Church over the past decade.

Benedict's 140-character messages will not be written by the pope himself but by Vatican officials who will submit them to him for approval.

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Asia marks 12/12/12 with mass weddings

THOUSANDS of couples in Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore have flocked to tie the knot on 12/12/12, seeking good fortune for marriages begun on the century's last repeating date.

Authorities in Hong Kong and Singapore respectively said 696 and 540 couples were scheduled to attend marriage registries on Wednesday, continuing a trend which has seen couples flocking to marry on 11/11/11 and 10/10/10 in both cities.

The figure is a near-fourfold increase compared to the daily average in the self-governing Chinese city of Hong Kong and about an eightfold spike for non-Muslim weddings in Singapore, which is three-quarters ethnic Chinese.

Couples also queued to marry in many mainland Chinese cities on the basis that 12/12/12 sounded like "Will love/will love/will love" in Chinese, the official news agency Xinhua reported.

The atmosphere was abuzz with hundreds of people crowding one of Hong Kong's five marriage registries, taking photos of brides and grooms in full wedding regalia as they congratulated the newlyweds.

"Today's date is very special and we can get married before doomsday as well," joked 34-year-old groom Raymond Ip.

Some doomsayers believe December 21 could be the date the world ends.

"There won't be a 13/13/13," Ip said, adding that he had booked the day half-a-year in advance to secure a spot.

Groom Terance Fung, 29, agreed. "Today is the last day of the century with the same date numbers, so it is quite special," he said.

In Singapore, hundreds of couples and family members trooped in batches to the marriage registry despite pouring rain.

12/12/12 was, however, a less popular day to tie the knot than previous sequential dates.

Hong Kong saw 1002 weddings on November 11, 2011, which signified "Eternal love", and 859 weddings on October 10, 2010 which represented "Perfection".

Singapore had 553 and 724 marriages respectively on the same dates. The all-time high for a single day there was on February 14, 1995 when 1082 couples were married because the western and Chinese Valentine's Day coincided.

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Russia queries US nod for Syria rebels

RUSSIA says it is surprised by US President Barack Obama's recognition of the Syrian opposition, saying Washington was now betting on an armed victory by rebels in the conflict.

"I was somewhat surprised to find out" about the recognition announcement, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in comments broadcast on state television on Wednesday.

"The United States has decided to place all its bets on an armed victory of the (Syrian) National Coalition," he added.

Russia will now ask the Americans to specify how they regard the Syrian opposition after Obama's comments, he added.

Russia has defiantly refused to turn against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad despite the conflict that according to rights groups has killed 42,000 people.

In an interview with AFP last month, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev slammed as "unacceptable" the recognition and support by France and other states of the newly unified Syrian opposition to Assad.

Lavrov said that the recognition by the United States contradicted previous agreements on the Syria crisis earlier this year, which envisaged the start of an "inter-Syrian dialogue".

He said Moscow had believed that Washington understood the need for full talks that would include representatives of the Syrian government.

"So for us this is an unexpected turn of events and we will clear up what exactly they (the United States) meant," Lavrov added.

The Syrian National Coalition is a bloc of opposition groups led by moderate cleric Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib formed after talks in Qatar in November as part of a Western-backed push to make the opposition a more cohesive force.

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Assange plays down lung trouble rumours

WIKILEAKS frontman Julian Assange has played down reports of his ill health but says an Australian offer of medical assistance amounted to providing a list of local doctors.

During an interview with ABC Radio on Wednesday night, Mr Assange responded to reports he had a chronic lung condition.

"I wouldn't necessarily go that far but the circumstances are difficult," he said.

The Australian citizen has been holed up in Ecuador's London embassy since taking refuge there in June in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces questioning over rape allegations.

He previously lived under house arrest at a supporter's Norfolk mansion.

A husky-voiced Mr Assange on Wednesday said he had "been in worse positions".

"Solitary confinement was worse," he said.

"Two years under house arrest, going to the police station every day at a certain time with a manacle around my leg was worse."

Ecuador's envoy to Britain, Ambassador Ana Alban, reportedly told journalists in Quito last month Mr Assange had "a chronic lung condition that could worsen at any time".

A message was later posted on the South American country's London embassy website clarifying that Mr Assange did "not have an urgent medical condition".

He said the Australian government had offered to assist in case of medical emergency, including monetary assistance, but then scaled down the assistance they were willing to give.

"The Australian government gave a list of numbers for doctors in the London area, that was all that they would do," he told ABC Radio.

Mr Assange is concerned that if he goes to Sweden, authorities will allow him to be extradited to the United States to be questioned over WikiLeaks' release of thousands of US diplomatic cables.

He was granted asylum in Ecuador in August but Britain has refused to grant him safe passage out of the country, leaving Mr Assange stuck in the embassy.

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Mali PM's resignation 'not a coup'

Mali's PM has resigned after soldiers who led a recent coup burst into his home and arrested him. Source: AAP

MALIAN Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra's resignation after his arrest by soldiers is not a coup and a new premier will be named soon, the spokesman for the country's ex-junta says.

"This is not a new coup d'etat," Bakary Mariko told France 24 television on Tuesday after Diarra's arrest on the orders of Mariko's boss, former coup leader Amadou Sanogo.

Mariko said Diarra was "not a man of duty" and added that a successor will "be named in the coming hours by the president".

Diarra, an astrophysicist who has worked on several NASA space programs and served as Microsoft chairman for Africa, was due to leave for Paris on Monday for a medical check-up.

The resignation plunges further into chaos a country already effectively split in two after armed Islamists linked to al-Qaeda and Tuareg rebels took control of the vast desert north.

Mariko said Diarra, who backed plans to send in a West African intervention force to drive out the extremists who are running the zone according to their brutal interpretation of sharia law, had not fulfilled his task.

Such foreign intervention is fiercely opposed by Sanogo, who launched a coup on March 22 to oust President Amadou Toumani Toure's government only six weeks before an election marking the end of his time in office.

"He had two main missions - to free the north and to organise free and transparent elections," Mariko said, accusing Diarra of only working to "hold on to power eternally".

"The Malian army has the necessary resources and the will to go and liberate the country," he said.

"If the international community drags its feet, the Malian army will assume its responsibilities to liberate its territory."

European Union foreign ministers on Monday approved plans to deploy an EU military training mission in Mali to help the government regain control of the north.

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Abbott defends abortion drug criticism

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has defended his position on the controversial abortion drug RU486. Source: AAP

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has defended his position on the controversial abortion drug RU486 while he was a health minister in the Howard government.

Mr Abbott was responding to comments from blogger Mia Freedman that his attempts to keep a ban on the drug as minister remained an issue for some female voters.

"Because he's never addressed that on the record ... it sort of lingered and festered like this bit of a suspicious issue among women," Ms Freedman told ABC radio on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard invited Ms Freedman and other popular female bloggers to Kirribilli House in Sydney on Monday night.

Mr Abbott was full of praise for the popular blogger when quizzed by reporters in Sydney about her comments on Tuesday.

"I have a lot of time for Mia - I am an avid reader of her column," he said.

"But with respect, I did not do what you have put to me."

As health minister, he did not receive any applications regarding RU486, Mr Abbott said.

"Had any such application come before me, I would have dealt with it on the basis of the science and the expert advice."

Mr Abbott lost the ministerial power to approve RU486 in 2006 to the Therapeutic Goods Administration in a parliamentary conscience vote.

Health Minister Tanya Plibersek backed Ms Freedman's call for Mr Abbott to clarify his views on abortion and RU486.

"When he was health minister he was very opposed to it... he sought to protect ministerial veto," she told ABC TV.

"He said abortion was the 'easy way out' "

"If he has changed his mind on any of those things he should be clear about that."

Ms Plibersek said no woman wants to have an abortion and that it's a traumatic decision to make.

She said Australian women and men generally believe it is a woman's right to chose.

"If Tony Abbott wants to be prime minister he should be able to say one way or the other if he believes that or not," Ms Plibersek said.

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Nelson Mandela has lung infection

SOUTH Africa's former President Nelson Mandela is suffering from a recurring lung infection and is responding to treatments, the nation's presidency says.

The ailing Mandela, 94, has been in 1 Military Hospital near South Africa's capital, Pretoria, since Saturday, receiving medical tests.

The announcement on Tuesday ended speculation about what was troubling the anti-apartheid icon.

Government officials had declined repeatedly to say what caused the nation's military, responsible for Mandela's care, to hospitalise him over the last few days.

That caused growing concern in a nation of 50 million people that largely reveres Mandela for being its first democratically elected president who sought to bring the country together after centuries of racial division.

The tests Mandela underwent at the hospital detected the lung infection, said presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj in a statement.

"Madiba is receiving appropriate treatment and he is responding to the treatment," Maharaj said, referring to Mandela by his clan name as many do in South Africa in a sign of affection.

In January 2011, Mandela was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital for what officials initially described as tests but what turned out to be an acute respiratory infection.

The chaos that followed saw the military take charge of his care and the government control the information about his health.

In recent days many in the press and public have complained about the lack of concrete details on his condition.

Mandela has had a series of health problems in his life.

He contracted tuberculosis during his years in prison and had surgery for an enlarged prostate gland in 1985.

In 2001, he underwent seven weeks of radiation therapy for prostate cancer, ultimately beating the disease.

In February, Mandela spent a night in a hospital for a minor diagnostic surgery to determine the cause of an abdominal complaint.

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Carr to visit Sri Lanka this week

Foreign Minister Bob Carr will travel to Sri Lanka this week for talks on people smuggling. Source: AAP

FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr will travel to Sri Lanka on Friday to discuss trade ties, tourism and efforts to disrupt people smuggling.

The three-day trip will be Senator Carr's first visit to the south Asian nation as a minister and will include discussions on Australia's aid assistance to Sri Lanka, a spokesman for the minister told AAP on Tuesday.

People smuggling will also be on the agenda.

Sri Lankan authorities have in the past 12 months disrupted 69 people smuggling operations involving 2900 people who were intending to come to Australia, the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, HMAS Larrakia intercepted a boat carrying 57 suspected asylum seekers and two crew on Monday night, north of Ashmore Islands

The opposition's immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said asylum seeker boats were continuing to arrive in record numbers "even with the onset of the monsoon season where conditions are perilous and the risk of taking boat journeys to Australia intensifies".

Later on Tuesday, Senator Carr's office announced he would visit Timor Leste on Thursday ahead of the Sri Lankan trip.

Economic, aid and security issues are on the agenda when he meets East Timor leaders.

The visit coincides with the Australian-led International Stabilisation Force (ISF) ceasing security operations and commencing withdrawal from East Timor last month.

"The withdrawal marks a new era in Australia-Timor-Leste relations with the transfer of security responsibilities to local forces," Senator Carr said in a statement.

"Discussions would also involve future plans for development assistance, with an emphasis on Australia's continued support for education and health."

He will visit the Resistance Museum and present a gift from Australia - material about East Timor held by the National Film and Sound Archive.

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More than half-million Syrian refugees: UN

THE number of Syrian refugees registered in neighbouring countries and North Africa has passed half a million, the UN's refugee body says. Many more have not come forward to seek help.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said on Tuesday it had either registered or was in the process of registering 509,550 Syrians in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and North Africa.

"And these numbers are currently climbing by more than 3000 a day," UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told reporters in Geneva.

She described how close to 1000 Syrian refugees had crossed into Jordan alone in the past two nights, arriving "with soaked clothing and mud-covered shoes due to heavy rainfall".

More elderly and small children were also arriving in Jordan, including 22 newborn infants who entered the country on the night of December 9 alone.

As of Monday, there were 154,387 Syrian refugees either registered or waiting to be in Lebanon, 142,664 in Jordan, 136,319 in Turkey, 64,449 in Iraq and 11,740 in North Africa, according to the UNHCR.

"In addition ... most of these neighbouring countries and North Africa also have large numbers of Syrians who have yet to come forward and seek help," Fleming said.

Jordan, she pointed out, estimates there are some 100,000 Syrians in the country not registered, while Turkey says more than 70,000 Syrians are living outside its 14 camps.

"The numbers of those struggling to live on the local economy and who eventually come forward to register are expected to increase as ... resources are depleted and host communities and families can no longer support them," she said.

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Mandela doing 'very well', says minister

SOUTH African former president Nelson Mandela's stay in hospital for unspecified medical tests has stretched into a third day.

Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who visited Mandela on Monday at 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria, South Africa, said he was "doing very, very well". She said the nation must keep Mandela "in our prayers".

Government officials previously have said the 94-year-old anti-apartheid icon is "comfortable" and receiving medical care that is "consistent with his age". The nation's military has been responsible for Mandela's medical care since 2011.

Mandela spent 27 years in prison for fighting racist white rule. He became South Africa's first black president in 1994 and served one five-year term. He has since retired from public life.

Mandela made his last public appearance in 2010. He has grown increasingly frail in recent years.

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Queen in 3D Christmas message

NOT one to be left behind in the technology stakes, the Queen's 2012 Christmas message will be available to viewers in 3D, British media reports.

The 86-year-old monarch, believed to be the first royal to use the new broadcast format, has already recorded the message, said Britain's Daily Mail newspaper on Monday.

The address will be distributed to networks around the globe, to be screened on Christmas Day.

Audiences will need a television with 3D technology, along with a special pair of glasses, in order to view the full effect.

The Queen, known to camera crews as "one-take Lizzy" because she never requires more than a single recording, has filmed a Christmas message each festive season for more than 50 years.

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Nigeria seeks to free minister's mother

The mother of Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (pic) has been kidnapped officials say. Source: AAP

NIGERIAN police on Monday sought to free the elderly mother of the country's finance minister, an ex-World Bank managing director seeking to clean up graft, after her abduction in the country's south.

Sunday's shocking kidnapping put renewed focus on insecurity in Africa's most populous nation and largest oil producer, though the motive for the crime remained unclear and police declined to say if a ransom had been demanded.

"We might not have been able to establish motive, but it is a clear case of kidnap," police spokesman Frank Mba told AFP. "The police have already launched a massive manhunt for the perpetrators of those crimes."

He declined to provide details, but a statement from the spokesman for Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the abduction occurred Sunday at her mother's home in Delta state in the country's south, where ransom kidnappings occur regularly.

Local media reported that a gang of gunmen went to the house - locally called a "palace" due to her husband's position as a traditional ruler in the area - in broad daylight in the afternoon.

When the 82-year-old Kamene Okonjo, a professor, went outside to offer drinks to labourers carrying out work around the front gate, the gunmen emerged from hiding and seized her.

Some of the reports said one of the suspects went inside to steal her handbag and that a policeman usually on duty was absent, while the victim's husband had travelled.

"At this point, it is difficult to say whether those behind this action are the same people who have made threats against the coordinating minister in the recent past or other elements with hostile motives," the finance ministry statement said Sunday.

"No possibility can be ruled out at this point."

It added that "this is obviously a very difficult time for the entire Okonjo family. But the family is hopeful of a positive outcome as it fervently prays for the quick and safe return of the matriarch."

Kidnappings for ransom have occurred frequently in Nigeria's southern oil-producing Niger Delta region, but rarely with such prominent victims.

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Italy's political drama rattles markets

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti announced he will resign once next year's budget is approved. Source: AAP

ITALIAN stocks have plunged over three per cent and debt markets are rattled after a weekend of political drama which kicked off a two-month election campaign in this key eurozone member state.

Investors reacted skittishly on Monday to Prime Minister Mario Monti's decision to resign in the coming days and the improbable comeback bid by Silvio Berlusconi on an anti-austerity platform.

After months on the financial high-wire for Italy in 2011, Monti's arrival late last year and the austerity measures and economic reforms he has implemented calmed the markets.

But investors are now anxious that his impending departure could fling the country back into the eurozone debt crisis mire once more.

"Everyone's fears are concentrated on the performance of a country which, just a year ago when Berlusconi was at the helm, risked bringing down the euro and the global economy with it," the Repubblica newspaper said in an editorial.

Developments have put the Monti government's reform agenda on hold and brought forward the election, with a vote now expected in February - well before the government's mandate runs out in late April.

The Italian stock market opened down and plunged to minus 3.34 per cent in early trading, with the country's biggest banks leading the drop.

Italian banking giant UniCredit said there would be "weakness" on the bond markets in the short term but its analysts were unperturbed about the outlook.

The bank said the two most likely election outcomes were either a coalition led by the centre-left Democratic Party or a new Monti government.

"Both scenarios seem consistent with a continuation of the reform process," analyst Luca Cazzulani said in a note.

Giovanni Zanni, head of European economics at Credit Swisse, also played down concern in some quarters that Italy could be forced to make an immediate request for bailout funds, judging it to be "extremely unlikely."

Centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani has promised to keep the course set by Monti if elected, although he says he will moderate the most controversial austerity measures of recent months and put more emphasis on growth and jobs.

Greater unease could come from Berlusconi's return to the fray and his announcement that he will wage a campaign against key aspects of Monti's agenda.

"There is not one single economic indicator which is positive. The experiment with a technocrat government is over - with, alas, totally negative results," Berlusconi said late on Sunday.

A three-time prime minister, the 76-year-old Berlusconi is running for office for the sixth time in two decades in politics.

In the latest in a series of trials, he was convicted of tax fraud in October but his sentence to a year in prison and a five-year ban from public office have been suspended pending an appeal.

Berlusconi is also a defendant in a trial for having sex with an underage 17-year-old prostitute.

"Ruby the Heart-stealer" was due in court on Monday as a witness for the defence but failed to show, prompting prosecutor Ilda Boccassini to accuse Berlusconi of creating "a strategy to delay the trial so as to make it through the election campaign" before a verdict.

The Catholic Church, which withdrew support from Berlusconi as the accusations of his "bunga-bunga" sex parties emerged last year, slammed those who would seek to undo Monti's work over the past year.

"We can't let the sacrifices of a year go to pot. The most astonishing thing is the irresponsibility of those who think of arranging things for themselves while the house is still on fire," Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian Bishops' Conference, told Corriere.

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Opel to end car production at German plant

GENERAL Motors Co's Opel unit says it plans to end car production at one plant in Germany in 2016, but a slimmed-down factory may continue to make components.

Employees at the Bochum plant in northwestern Germany, one of four in the country, were told that vehicle production will end when the company stops making the current Zafira model.

That was widely expected after the company announced a turnaround plan in June, and "despite intensive efforts this situation could not be changed," Opel said.

Opel, like several other mass-market car manufacturers on the continent, has been struggling amid economic gloom in Europe and overcapacity in the auto industry. The turnaround plan envisions cost cuts, new models and efforts to win new export sales.

The Adam Opel GmbH unit is based in Germany, where the automaker has more than 20,000 employees - a bit over half of GM's total European workforce. About 3,000 people work at the Bochum plant, and it wasn't clear how many jobs might remain after car production ends.

GM's warehouse in Bochum will continue operating after 2016 and may be expanded, Opel said. It also is negotiating with employee representatives to move component production to the site.

Opel "will implement still-necessary job reductions in the most socially responsible way," Steve Girsky, chairman of Opel's board of directors and vice chairman of GM, said in a statement on Monday.

He added that the company hoped to avoid forced layoffs.

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