Qld Health blueprint to be unveiled

PREMIER Campbell Newman is set to inform Queensland Health staff of a shake-up to their sector, addressing them in a live broadcast.

He'll join Health Minister Lawrence Springborg in breaking the news to the 80,000 workers about 10.30am (AEST) on Wednesday.

Mr Springborg detailed some of the plan on Tuesday.

The state's 17 public hospital boards will decide if they can deliver services such as oncology, radiography and catering more efficiently through private contractors but any outsourced services will remain free to the public.

Mr Springborg said reporting would be improved to include hospital-acquired infections, efficiencies, and child and maternal welfare, while each hospital's performance would be easily comparable.

The Sunshine Coast University Hospital, due to open in 2016, is also likely to partner with the private sector under a similar deal as the Mater Hospital in Brisbane.

Queensland Health has already lost more than 2500 staff since the Newman government came to power, but Mr Springborg insisted there'd be no staff cuts under the latest reforms.

Mr Newman and Mr Springborg will further unveil the plan to a fundraising lunch for the Liberal National party later on Wednesday.

The move has outraged unions and the opposition, who say the LNP will be profiting from the misery of workers fearing for their jobs.

The opposition said the LNP is charging $200-per-head for the lunch, or $2000 a table, and has demanded all profits go to Queenslanders who've suffered in the recent floods.

The state public-service union Together will hold a rally outside.

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Bernanke: sequester would hit US recovery

FEDERAL Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress Tuesday that the $US85 billion ($A83.02 billion) in spending cuts of the March 1 sequester would place a "significant" additional burden on the US economic recovery.

"The Congress and the administration should consider replacing the sharp, front-loaded spending cuts required by the sequestration with policies that reduce the federal deficit more gradually," he told a Senate hearing.

Bernanke cited data from the Congressional Budget Office projecting that the cuts, to be implemented over the next seven months if no moderate substitute program is agreed, would reduce potential economic growth by 0.6 per cent.

"Given the still-moderate underlying pace of economic growth, this additional near-term burden on the recovery is significant," he said.

"Besides having adverse effects on jobs and incomes, a slower recovery would lead to less actual deficit reduction in the short run."

Bernanke said US economic growth had rebounded from the fourth quarter, when initial estimates say the economy actually contracted by 0.1 per cent.

"Available information suggests that economic growth has picked up again this year," he said.

The economy continues to grow "at a moderate if somewhat uneven pace."

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19 killed as balloon explodes in Egypt

A HOT air balloon has exploded and plunged to earth at Egypt's ancient temple city of Luxor during a sunrise flight on Tuesday, killing up to 19 tourists, mainly Asians and Europeans, sources say.

The balloon carrying 21 tourists from Hong Kong, Japan, France, Britain and Hungary was flying at 300 metres when it exploded and caught fire, a security official said.

The pilot and one tourist survived by jumping out of the basket moments before it hit the ground, said an employee at the company operating the balloon, Sky Cruise. Both were taken to hospital.

"This is terrible, just terrible," the employee told AFP by telephone, declining to give her name. "We don't yet know what happened exactly or what went wrong."

Luxor Governor Ezzat Saad imposed an immediate ban on all hot air balloon flights in the province as Prime Minister Hisham Qandil ordered an investigation into the accident.

Security services cordoned off the scene of the crash in Luxor's dense sugar cane fields, as police and residents inspected the charred remains of the balloon.

"There was a terrifying sound when the balloon exploded," one resident, Ahmed, 40, told AFP.

"Bodies engulfed in flames were falling out of the balloon," said Youssef al-Tayyeb, another resident who witnessed the accident.

The balloon had been floating over the west bank of Luxor, one of Egypt's most renowned archaeological sites and home to the famous Valley of the Kings and the grand Temple of Hatshepsut, when it exploded.

There was confusion over the exact death toll and the tourists' nationalities, with different official bodies giving conflicting figures and details.

An Egyptian security official said 19 tourists from Hong Kong, Japan, Britain, France and Hungary had died. The health ministry put the toll at 18 dead.

Nine of those killed were thought to be from from Hong Kong, and two from Japan, along with the confirmed deaths of two French tourists and three Britons.

"I can confirm that sadly two of our citizens died in this accident," said French foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot. "We are in contact with their families."

British tour operator Thomas Cook said three of its clients had also died in the crash.

The Foreign Office did not confirm the toll, saying only "we believe a small number of British nationals are involved in an incident in Luxor this morning", and that consular staff were offering assistance.

"We believe that there is a high possibility that nine of our customers have died," said Raymond Ng, general manager of travel agency Kuoni, which organised the Hong Kongers' tour.

The five women and four men were aged between 33 and 62, Ng told a news conference in Hong Kong. Their relatives were to fly to Cairo later on Tuesday accompanied by three Kuoni staff.

The nine were among a group of 15 Hong Kongers who had left for Egypt on February 22. Ng said that, according to local employees, the balloon caught fire about an hour after it had set off, plummeting to the ground two minutes later.

French hot air balloon expert Philippe Buron-Pilatre de Rozier said the blast could have been caused by a leak after a spark caused by a lighter or a cigarette.

Another reason could be wear and tear due to poor maintenance or if the pilot is badly positioned, said Buron-Pilatre de Rozier, adding that hot air balloons such as the ones used in Egypt are generally 40 metres high and can carry up to 25 passengers.

The Japanese embassy in Cairo said it was trying to confirm the reports that Japanese nationals died in the accident.

In 2009, 13 foreign tourists were injured when their hot air balloon hit a phone mast and crashed at Luxor. Sources at the time said the balloon was overcrowded.

The crash comes amid widespread anger over safety standards in Egypt following several deadly transport and construction accidents.

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US stocks higher ahead of Fed testimony

US stocks have opened solidly higher in anticipation of congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

The markets were also buoyed by upbeat earnings results, including from home-improvement retailer Home Depot.

Fifteen minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 83.01 points (0.60 per cent) to 13,867.18.

The broad-based S&P 500 jumped 7.45 points (0.50 per cent) to 1,495.30, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 7.28 points (0.23 per cent) to 3,123.53.

The gains partially offset deep losses sustained on Monday in the wake of the uncertain outcome of the Italian elections.

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S Africa minister wants tough gun controls

SOUTH Africa's women's minister has called for stricter gun controls, saying Oscar Pistorius' girlfriend would not have been killed if the sprinter did not keep a firearm.

"If there was no gun in the Pistorius home, Reeva Steenkamp would be alive today," said Minister Lulu Xingwana.

Xingwana said she was disappointed that Pistorius was granted bail on Friday after more than a week in custody for gunning down Steenkamp on Valentine's Day.

"But I respect the decision of the court and I also acknowledge that strict measures have been put (in place) to ensure that he is not a flight risk," she told a media briefing.

The case has reignited debate over South Africa's high levels of violence, particularly against women, with prosecutors charging that Pistorius intended to kill the 29-year-old model and law graduate.

The paraplegic sprinter claims the shooting was an accident after he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder. He returns to court in June.

South Africa has tough gun ownership legislation which is credited with bringing down the firearm homicide rate. But better oversight was needed, said Xingwana.

"We are not calling for a law on gun control, we are calling for stricter monitoring of the law and monitoring of (the) distribution of guns in our society," she said.

Research showed a woman was three times more likely to die violently if firearms were kept in a house, she said, without giving details.

"We need to stand up and say we don't want so many guns in our society," she added.

Estimates of the number of privately owned firearms vary, but lobby group Gun Free South Africa put the figure at 2.9 million registered guns in 2011 for a population of nearly 52 million.

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South Africa posts 2.5% growth in 2012

SOUTH Africa's economy grew at 2.5 per cent in 2012, according to official data, as growth in Africa's largest economy slowed.

The annual figure was in line with government forecasts, but was down from 3.5 per cent in 2011.

As many countries in Africa enjoy unprecedented sustained growth, South Africa's economy risks becoming tripped up, with confidence hit by a series of ratings downgrades and sclerotic policy implementation.

The government has touted an all-encompassing National Development Plan to eliminate poverty by 2030, but that has failed to impress analysts.

The growth figures come exactly a month before South Africa hosts a summit of large emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China - the BRICS.

South Africa remains the laggard of the group despite signs of a pickup in performance toward the end of last year, with growth reaching 2.1 per cent in the last quarter of 2012.

But analysts warned the sluggish rate would not solve the country's nagging poverty and unemployment.

"We did see some recovery in some sectors but growth rates are very lacklustre still," said Nedbank economist Busisiwe Radebe.

"Growth itself is largely irrelevant to the underlying fundamental story in South Africa - job creation needs to reach a sustained 200,000-250,000 per quarter in order to make a dent in unemployment," said Peter Attard Montalto from Japanese bank Nomura.

The GDP growth almost doubled from the 1.2 per cent posted in the third quarter, according to data released by Statistics South Africa.

This was only because "economic activity bubbled up into year-end after the stresses of strike action through Q3 into the start of Q4," said Attard Montalto, referring to months of wage-related unrest.

The current growth rate was unsustainable without "a real underlying domestic and foreign recovery", he added.

Mining activity, a mainstay of the economy, fell by 9.3 per cent in the fourth quarter.

Gold and platinum mines, the centre of most of the strike violence, were hardest hit.

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Pistorius to hold memorial for girlfriend

SOUTH African star athlete Oscar Pistorius will mourn the girlfriend he is charged with murdering in a private memorial service Tuesday night, his publicist said.

"Oscar specifically requested the memorial service as he continues to grieve and remains in deep mourning for the loss of his partner Reeva (Steenkamp)," a statement said.

Pistorius is charged with intentionally shooting dead Steenkamp, 29, at his house in Pretoria on Valentine's Day.

But the Paralympic and Olympic athlete says he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder in the dead of night.

Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, was cremated in her hometown, the southern city Port Elizabeth, last Tuesday - the first day of Pistorius' bail hearing.

He repeatedly broke down crying in court at the mention of her name.

"Since it is such a sensitive issue, Oscar has asked for a private service with people who share his loss, including his family members who knew and loved Reeva as one of their own," the statement said.

Pistorius was released on bail last Friday and is due back in court on June 4.

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Judge in Pistorius case suffers loss

LAST week, the judge who granted bail to Oscar Pistorius was in the international spotlight, presiding over dramatic hearings in a courtroom as the Olympic athlete sat in the dock charged with murdering his girlfriend. This week, the judge is in private mourning.

Desmond Nair, chief magistrate of the Pretoria Magistrate's Court, confirmed on Tuesday that he is related to a woman suspected of killing her two children and committing suicide on the weekend.

The revelation was the latest twist in the saga of Pistorius and prominent figures linked to the case against the double-amputee athlete, who faces a charge of premeditated murder in the Feb. 14 shooting death of Reeva Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model who appeared in a television reality show.

The bodies of a woman and her two sons were found Sunday evening at their Johannesburg home by her ex-husband, police Warrant Officer Balan Muthan said. Authorities suspect the woman administered a substance that killed her children, and took her own life by ingesting it as well.

"I can confirm the deceased is my first cousin," Nair told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The woman's brother, Vishal Maharaj, identified her as Anusha Maharaj. Police said Maharaj was her family name before she married. South African media identified her as Anusha Mooljee.

Muthan said police suspect "she took her own life by ingesting a substance that killed her," and that she "most probably" gave the same substance to her children.

Eyewitness News, a South African media outlet, said the boys who died were 12 and 17 years old and cited neighbour Claire Osment as saying she rushed outside after hearing screams coming from the townhouse where they lived.

On Friday, Nair, 44, delivered a lengthy discourse on why he was granting bail to Pistorius, including an assertion that prosecutors had not argued persuasively that the Paralympian was a flight risk.

Pistorius says he killed Steenkamp accidentally, opening fire after mistaking her for an intruder in his home. Prosecutors alleged he intentionally shot her after the couple had an argument.

Last week, the chief investigator in the case against Pistorius, Hilton Botha, was removed from the inquiry after it was revealed that attempted murder charges against him had been reinstated in early February. The charges relate to a 2011 incident in which Botha and two other police officers allegedly fired on a minibus.

In another surprise, a lawyer for the Pistorius family said Sunday that Oscar's brother, Carl, faces a charge of unlawful, negligent killing for a 2008 road death. That charge had also been dropped and later reinstated.

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Europe horsemeat scandal widens

THE world's biggest food company, Swiss-based Nestle, and the world's top beef producer, JBS of Brazil, are the latest in a long list of firms to be caught up in Europe's spiralling horsemeat scandal.

Their involvement in the fast-moving drama marked another milestone in a scandal that has seen supermarket chains across Europe pull from their shelves millions of "beef" products that are thought to contain horsemeat.

Nestle announced it was removing two ready-to-eat meals - beef ravioli and beef tortellini - from supermarket shelves in Italy and Spain after tests found traces of horse DNA in the products.

A Nestle frozen lasagne product made for the catering business was also being withdrawn from sale in France and Portugal because horse traces were found in them.

The firm insisted there was no food safety issue but said the tainted products breached the one per cent threshold the British Food Safety Agency uses to indicate likely adulteration or gross negligence.

The horse DNA was found in products made with meat supplied by German firm HJ Schypke, Nestle said in a statement late Monday.

JBS of Brazil, which used HJ Schypke as a subcontractor, meanwhile said in a statement that it would stop buying European meat "until confidence is restored in the European beef supply chain."

It sought to distance itself from the scandal, saying Schypke was "not in any way part of the JBS Group" and adding that "no case of co-mingling of species has been identified in products produced in or at JBS factories."

Schypke on Tuesday denied any wrongdoing.

"We buy all raw materials already chopped up, fresh or frozen, from certified suppliers... We would like to point out expressly that HJ Schypke has at no time purchased horsemeat," it said.

The firm said it "greatly regretted" the current case and vowed to carry out genetic tests on raw meat in future.

German authorities meanwhile announced on Tuesday that 24 samples out of 360 official tests carried out on meat had revealed traces of horsemeat.

"It's too early to assign blame unilaterally... the authorities are working in the federal states to work out who should take responsibility," consumer affairs ministry spokesman Holger Eichele told reporters.

But he said the authorities would eventually be able to tell who were the "main culprits" and the "co-culprits" once the tests of ready meals and inspections of slaughterhouses and food production centres were complete.

On Monday, German discount chain Lidl pulled ready-made meals from the shelves of its Finnish, Danish, Swedish and Belgian stores as it also confirmed the presence of horsemeat.

The French firm that sparked the Europe-wide food alert, by allegedly passing off 750 tonnes of horsemeat as beef, was on Monday allowed to resume production of minced meat, sausages and ready-to-eat meals.

But Spanghero, whose horsemeat found its way into 4.5 million "beef" products sold across Europe, will no longer be allowed to stock frozen meat, officials said.

Upholding that ban means it cannot act as middleman between abattoirs and food-processing companies, the situation which allegedly allowed it to change labels on horsemeat from Romania and sell it on as beef.

The firm's sanitary licence was suspended last Thursday after it was accused of passing off huge quantities of mislabelled meat over a period of six months.

Concerns about horsemeat first emerged in mid-January when Irish authorities found traces of horse in beefburgers made by firms in Ireland and Britain and sold in supermarket chains including Tesco and Aldi.

The scandal then intensified when French firm Comigel alerted Findus earlier this month to the presence of horsemeat in the meals it had made for the food giant and which were on sale in Britain.

Since then, supermarket chains have removed millions of "beef" products as tests are carried out to detect horsemeat, which is eaten in many European countries but considered taboo in Britain.

Horsemeat in "beef" dishes has now been confirmed in products found in Britain, Ireland, France, Austria, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium.

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Blasts near presidential palace in Syria

TWO mortar shells fired by "terrorists" have exploded near Tishreen presidential palace in the Syrian capital, causing some damage but no casualties, state media says.

The mortars "landed near the southern wall of Tishreen palace, only causing material damage", state news agency SANA quoted an unnamed official as saying on Tuesday. The rebel Free Syrian Army claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to SANA, the shells slammed into an area around the Al-Mouwassat and Children's hospital in west Damascus, "leaving no casualties".

The hospitals are several hundred metres (yards) from Tishreen which is reserved for visiting dignitaries but is not an actual residence of President Bashar al-Assad.

This is the first time that the Syrian authorities have reported shells falling near a presidential palace.

The military council of the rebel Free Syrian Army meanwhile announced on Facebook that "the Free Army has fired mortars at the Tishreen presidential palace, resulting in a definite hit".

Tishreen is one of three such palaces in the capital. The others are the Peoples' palace atop Mount Qassioun in the north and Rawda palace in the centre, which holds the executive offices.

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