US stocks open lower

US stocks opened lower on Tuesday as earnings season was set to begin, with investors cautious after the economy plodded along during the fourth quarter of 2012.

Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 28.68 points (0.21 per cent) at 13,355.61.

The broad-based S&P 500 fell 3.05 points (0.21 per cent) to 1458.84, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite edged down 0.95 (0.03 per cent) to 3097.86.

Monsanto shares surged 3.1 per cent to $US99.05 ($A94.78) after reporting a 169 per cent rise in profit for its quarter to November 30 on strong corn seed sales in the US and Latin America.

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2 Indian soldiers killed by Pakistan army

PAKISTANI troops have killed two Indian soldiers near the tense disputed border in Kashmir, two Indian military sources say, two days after Islamabad said one of its soldiers was killed there.

"There was an exchange of fire and two of our troops were killed and one injured," a senior Indian military commander in Kashmir told AFP, asking not to be named.

A second source confirmed the deaths.

TV stations, citing army sources, said an Indian patrol was ambushed by Pakistani soldiers inside Indian territory. The Indian army spokesman in Kashmir, RK Palta, declined to comment on the incident.

Tuesday's deaths occurred in southern Kashmir's Mendhar sector, 173 kilometres west by road from Jammu, the commander said.

In Islamabad, a Pakistan military spokesman denied what he called an "Indian allegation of unprovoked firing". He declined to elaborate.

On Sunday Pakistan said Indian troops crossed the de facto border in Kashmir known as the Line of Control and stormed a military post. It said one Pakistani soldier was killed and another injured.

It lodged a formal protest with India on Monday over what it called an unprovoked attack.

India denied crossing the line, saying it had retaliated with small arms fire after Pakistani mortars hit a village home.

A foreign ministry spokesman said Indian troops had undertaken "controlled retaliation" on Sunday after "unprovoked firing" which damaged a civilian home.

A ceasefire has been in place along the Line of Control since 2003 but it is periodically violated by both sides.

Relations between the nuclear-armed rivals have been slowly improving over the last few years following a rupture in their dialogue after the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, which was blamed by India on Pakistan-based militants.

The latest deaths could undermine recent efforts to build trust, such as opening up trade and offering more lenient visa regimes which have been a feature of recent talks between senior political leaders from both sides.

Muslim-majority Kashmir is a Himalayan region which India and Pakistan both claim in full but rule in part. It was the cause of two of three wars fought since independence from Britain in 1947.

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Keats poem fragment up for auction

A FRAGMENT of the only hand-written poem by John Keats known to remain in private hands is going under the hammer.

Inspired by a walk on London's Hampstead Heath, Keats began writing the work, I Stood Tiptoe Upon A Little Hill, in Margate in July 1816 and completed it in November that year.

The piece features 33 scribbled lines, showing how the Romantic poet revised his thoughts as he wrote.

The draft, estimated to fetch STG45,000 ($A69,476), is a fragment of a manuscript which belonged to Charles Cowden Clarke, a close friend of the English poet.

After the Ode To A Nightingale poet's death at the age of 25 in 1821, Clarke cut the manuscript into 13 pieces and gave them to Keats's friends and admirers as mementos.

The fragment of the poem is one of the pieces. Four of the 13 have never been discovered.

Six are in institutions such as the British Library, Harvard and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and the locations of the other two have not been known since 1929.

The draft goes on sale on May 8 at Bonhams in London as part of the Roy Davids Collection III: Poetry: Poetical Manuscripts and Portraits of Poets auction.

Other items in the sale, which also features hand-written poems by a young Charlotte Bronte, John Betjeman, WH Auden, and the complete working paper for Sylvia Plath's Sheep In Fog with a commentary by Ted Hughes, go under the hammer on April 10.

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Statistics behind stylish Catherine

AS Prince William's much-admired wife celebrates her 31st birthday, the keys to Catherine's fashion stardom have been compiled by a British magazine.

Style bible Vogue reports in its latest edition that "the world has become mesmerised" by the fashions of the now pregnant Duchess of Cambridge since she joined the royal family in April 2011.

Dresses sell-out within hours of Catherine wearing them, while salons are bombarded with requests to match her brunette blow-dry curls, reads an article in the glossy publication.

To mark her birthday on Wednesday, Vogue has taken a look at 100 of Catherine's public outfits, some dating back to before her engagement to William, and come up with some statistics.

In summary, the results show that to be a true copy Kate, one should wear blue, carry a clutch bag with both hands, and tilt hats to the right at 50 degrees.

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Fire threat not over despite cool change

DESPITE cooler weather forecast for NSW, fire services warn the threat is far from over with more blazes predicted to start.

Dozens of homes remained under threat in NSW overnight on Tuesday as firefighters fought more than 140 blazes, 30 of which remained out of control.

On Tuesday night the fires claimed their first home, with one property confirmed to have been lost in Jugiong near the ACT border.

RFS spokesman Joel Kursawe said a total fire ban would remain in place on Wednesday with residents urged to stay vigilant, as crews monitor the southerly change.

"Certainly it's going to be cooler ... however there is no rain in site," he told AAP.

"We are going to take advantage of some milder weather conditions but we are certainly not out of the woods."

He said almost 1000 firefighters and 90 aircraft will be battling blazes and monitoring sites on Wednesday but fire danger ratings have moved from "catastrophic" to severe, very high or high.

However with a lot of fires started by lightning, crews would have a "very big couple of days if not weeks ahead".

"We can nearly definitely say that we are going to see more fires start," Mr Kursawe said.

Overnight, a fire was burning out of control in the Kybeyan Valley in southern NSW, prompting the Rural Fire Service to urge residents to seek shelter.

Police doorknocked homes to advise people of the risk, with the blaze - that had destroyed 4600 ha - predicted to move towards the Dangelong, Numeralla and Countegany.

Southbound lanes on the Hume Highway were closed near Jugiong, as the southerly shifted the blaze towards the township of Yass.

At Deans Gap, a 1500 hectare blaze jumped the Princess Highway and was still out of control in the early hours.

Mr Kursawe said the extent of property damage was also set to become clearer over the coming days.

"We are probably going to be talking about the loss of thousands of sheep and cattle."

The southerly change was not expected to hit Sydney until 4am (AEDT) on Wednesday.

For Sydney and the Illawarra, an early cool change is forecast to be accompanied by the chance of light drizzle during the morning, with daytime temperatures expected to reach the mid to high 20s.

Meanwhile in the Riverina, the Bureau of Meteorology also forecast temperatures to hit the mid-20s on Wednesday.

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Respite on the way for bushfire-weary Tas

SOME much-needed respite is on the way for bushfire-weary Tasmanians who have endured six days of fires, with temperatures expected to drop into the high teens on Wednesday and even the chance of snow in the higher peaks.

However, the state remains on alert with 40 bushfires burning around the state and five blazes still considered a major threat.

A fire at Montumana northwest of Burnie was still cause for an emergency warning from authorities on Tuesday evening, while massive blazes on the Tasman Peninsula and in the Derwent Valley continue to burn out of control.

Two more fires, at Mathinna in the northeast, and Holwell, south of Beaconsfield, reached emergency-warning level on Tuesday but were downgraded.

Hobart was expected to reach a top of just 16C on Wednesday, after an historic high of 42C last Friday, with winds of up to 45km/h predicted.

And there's the chance of snow falling on the higher peaks of the central and southern parts of the state as the total fire ban was due to be lifted at midnight on Tuesday.

Police confirmed on Tuesday that the biggest fire, on the Tasman Peninsula, had begun accidentally at Forcett.

A tree stump burn had continued to smoulder through the root system and ignited when the south of the state hit record temperatures on Friday.

The fire has burnt 23,000 hectares, destroyed more than 120 buildings and left 100 people unaccounted for.

Lightning is thought to have started an east coast bushfire that razed up to 15 properties.

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Carngham fire contained

MEMBERS of a farming community in western Victoria who were forced from their homes because of a massive grassfire have breathed a sigh of relief after firefighters brought it under control late on Tuesday night.

The scattered farming community of Carngham, west of Ballarat, was in the path of the grassfire, which burned out more than 1100 hectares before it was finally tamed by firefighters.

The Country Fire Authority said people in the Carngham district, which included communities such as Bo Peep, Cardigan Village and Windermere, had been allowed to go back home.

However, two homes were lost in the Chepstowe district as more than 400 firefighters battled to get control of the blaze.

At least six people, including a Carngham father and son who suffered radiation burns to their face and hands, were admitted to the Ballarat Base Hospital for treatment.

Residents of the town of Snake Valley, about 30km from Ballarat, say two homes burnt down on Tuesday.

"We have lost a couple of homes," a man, who did not want to be named, told AAP from the Snake Valley Hotel.

"I can see it from the hotel with the smoke four to five kilometres away."

There may be some respite for a few days before the weather is expected to heat up again on Friday.

In southwest Victoria, a bushfire which started last Friday in a pine plantation at Kentbruck has burnt though 9000 hectares, but a westerly wind forced the fire back on itself on Tuesday.

Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said that after a few days of cooler conditions the next fire spike day was expected to be Friday.

"Conditions do become very mild Wednesday and Thursday in the state, that's a real opportunity for us to get on the upper hand at the fire at Kentbruck," he said.

Northeastern Victoria, which endured temperatures in the 40s on Tuesday, will get some respite on Wednesday with temperatures falling into the mid 20s.

Victorian fire crews remain positioned at Wodonga and Wangaratta to help respond to fires in southern NSW if required, as well as any outbreaks in northeastern Victoria.

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Poland probes art with Holocaust ashes

POLISH prosecutors are investigating a Swedish artist's claim that he used the ashes of Holocaust victims to make a painting, an act that could carry a prison term.

The artist, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, wrote on the website of a gallery in Lund, Sweden, last year that he made a painting using ashes that he took from crematorium furnaces in Majdanek, a former Nazi German death camp located in eastern Poland, on a visit there in 1989.

Spokeswoman Beata Syk-Jankowska said on Tuesday that local prosecutors have opened an investigation to check whether there is truth to the artist's claim. She said there is no evidence and prosecutors are acting on media reports. Swedish investigators will be asked for assistance in gathering evidence, she said.

It could be difficult, even impossible, to determine whether von Hausswolff is telling the truth or staging a publicity stunt. If he did actually use the ashes, it would likely be extremely offensive to Holocaust survivors and many others. He also could be charged in Poland with desecrating human ashes or a resting place and face up to eight years in prison.

In 1989, there were still some human ashes remaining in furnaces from World War II from the burning of the Nazi's victims. Removing any ash would be a crime, but there were no security cameras on the site at the time to register such an action, Agnieszka Kowalczyk, a spokeswoman for the museum at the site, told The Associated Press.

The AP has made multiple attempts to get comment from the artist's gallery, but in one case the owner refused comment and on Tuesday no one answered the phone. The exhibition closed in December in reaction to the scandal involving the painting, which Polish media have described as small with just brown and grey lines.

Between 1941 and 1944, some 150,000 people were held at the Majdanek camp. An estimated 80,000 of them died, most of whom were Jewish.

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