Ford, Chrysler post good US sales

FORD and Chrysler have reported their best US sales performances since 2007 as analysts predict the auto industry as a whole will also rack up its biggest month in five years.

Chrysler said on Tuesday its sales rose five per cent to 171,606 vehicles in March despite limited inventory of some of its best-selling models, including Jeep and heavy-duty Ram trucks.

It was the company's 36th consecutive month of gains in year-over-year sales, and the strongest sales since December 2007.

Ford posted its best performance since May 2007 as sales rose six per cent to 236,160 vehicles in March.

Toyota sales rose one per cent to 205,342 units in March.

"The auto industry continued its string of impressive monthly results, and at Toyota we had our best month since Cash for Clunkers in August of 2009," said Bob Carter, head of automotive operations for Toyota Motor Sales, USA.

"A strong first-quarter close and increased consumer confidence continue to position the auto industry as a leader in the economic recovery."

The strong sales come after years of painful restructuring and the collapse of demand following the 2008 financial crisis which pushed General Motors and Chrysler into government-backed bankruptcies.

Automotive website Edmunds.com forecast that total industry sales will rise 5.3 per cent from March 2012 once all automakers have reported to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 15.6 million vehicles.

With total sales forecast at nearly 1.5 million vehicles it would be the best performance in sheer numbers since May 2007, and would be a 24 per cent gain from February.

Since auto sales vary significantly from month to month because of traditional shopping patterns, seasonal sales and product launch schedules, analysts focus on the seasonally adjusted sales pace.

March is expected to be the fifth consecutive month with a sales pace over 15 million and Edmunds upped its forecast for 2013 to 15.5 million vehicles.

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N. Korea crisis already gone too far: Ban

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says tensions have already soared too high on the Korean peninsula and has warned Pyongyang against making nuclear threats.

"I am deeply troubled.... The current crisis has already gone too far," Ban said at a press conference in Andorra.

"Nuclear threats are not a game... things must begin to calm down.

"There is no need for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to be on a collision course with the international community," he said after Pyongyang announced it would restart a nuclear reactor to feed its atomic weapons program.

The Korean peninsula has been caught in a cycle of escalating tensions since the North's February nuclear test, which followed a long-range rocket launch in December.

Ban said he feared an escalation in the crisis.

"I'm convinced that nobody intends to attack the DPRK because of a disagreement about its political system or foreign policy. However I'm afraid that others will respond firmly to any direct military provocation," Ban said.

"Dialogue and negotiations are the only way to resolve the current crisis."

Ban said he was "deeply concerned" about the wider effects of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

"Peace and stability in and around the Korean Peninsula has very important regional and even global implications," he said.

"I urge again the authorities of the DPRK to fully abide by the relevant Security Council resolutions and refrain from making further provocative measures," Ban said.

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Black hole wakes for a planet-sized snack

ASTROPHYSICISTS have witnessed the rare event of a black hole awakening from its slumber to snack on a planet-sized object in a galaxy 47 million light years away, the University of Geneva says.

The observation made using the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL satellite project, revealed a black hole that had been slumbering for years chomping on a giant, low-mass object that had come too close.

Scientists at the Swiss university analyse the data collected by INTEGRAL, launched in 2002 to study gamma rays and throw light on events far from Earth's galaxy.

They spotted a light flare coming from a black hole in the centre of the NGC 4845 galaxy, which has a mass more than 300,000 greater than the Sun and had been dormant for more than 30 years, the university said in a statement on Tuesday.

Matter-sucking black holes normally lurk dormant and undetected at the centre of galaxies, but can occasionally be tracked by the scraps left over from their stellar fests.

This black hole had woken up and absorbed an object with a mass 15 times that of our own Jupiter - after taking three months to drag the snack from its trajectory.

It managed to swallow 10 per cent of the object's total mass, while the remainder stayed in orbit.

In a separate statement, the European Space Agency said the object was either a giant planet or a brown dwarf - a stars that lacks sufficient mass to sustain a thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen and helium which makes other stars, like our sun, shine brightly.

Astronomers estimate there as many errant planets in the Universe as there are stars -- meaning plenty for lunch options for black holes.

Details of the project's findings were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

"The observation was completely unexpected, from a galaxy that has been quiet for at least 20-30 years," the European Space Agency quoted lead author Marek Nikolajuk of Poland's University of Bialystok as saying.

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Parents guilty over six fire deaths in UK

THE parents of six children who died in a house fire in the UK have been found guilty of their manslaughter.

Mick and Mairead Philpott were convicted by jurors at Nottingham Crown Court on Tuesday of the unlawful killing of the six siblings in the blaze at the family home in Derby on May 11 last year.

A third defendant, 46-year-old Paul Mosley, was also found guilty of manslaughter by the jury following an eight-week trial.

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Amnesty criticises Kuwait over executions

AMNESTY International has criticised Kuwait for resuming executions after a six-year pause, describing the decision as a "real setback".

"These are the first executions carried out in Kuwait since 2007 and mark a deplorable setback for human rights in the country," said Ann Harrison, the rights watchdog's program director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Kuwait on Monday executed a Saudi, a Pakistani and a stateless Arab after being convicted of murders. The last hanging carried in Kuwait before those was in May 2007.

"In a region where executions are sadly all too commonplace, Kuwait marked a beacon of hope by declining to execute people for almost six years," Harrison said in a statement.

"That hope has been extinguished... We deplore this resumption of executions, regardless of the crime."

Public attorney Mohammad al-Duaij, who supervised the executions, said another 48 people are on death row awaiting a final decision on their sentences by the emir.

The Gulf state has executed a total of 69 men and three foreign women since it introduced the death penalty in mid-1960. Most of those condemned have been convicted murderers or drug traffickers.

"Kuwait should halt any further executions and should commute all death sentences and revise the law to exclude this most final of penalties," Amnesty said.

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European stocks close sharply higher

EUROPE'S main stock markets have closed sharply higher in low volume trade, with London's FTSE 100 index of leading companies rising 1.23 per cent to 6490.66 points.

In Frankfurt, the DAX 30 jumped 1.91 per cent to 7943.87 points on Tuesday, while in Paris the CAC 40 climbed 1.98 per cent to 3805.37 points.

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UN General Assembly adopts arms treaty

THE UN General Assembly has adopted the first-ever treaty to regulate the $US80-billion-a-year conventional arms trade.

The assembly voted 154-3 for a resolution that will open the treaty for signature from June. Syria, North Korea and Iran - which had blocked the treaty last week - voted against it. Russia was among the 23 abstentions.

The first major arms accord since the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would cover tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large-calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, as well as small arms and light arms.

It would aim to force countries to set up national controls on arms exports. States would also have to assess whether a weapon could be used for genocide, war crimes or by terrorists or organised crime before it is sold.

Every country is free to sign and ratify the treaty, which will take effect after the 50th ratification from among the 193 UN member states, which could take up to two years.

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EU countries take action against Google

GOOGLE'S new privacy policy is under legal attack from regulators in its largest European markets, who want the company to overhaul practices they say let it create a data goldmine at the expense of unwitting users.

Led by the French, organisations in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy agreed Tuesday on the joint action, with the ultimate possibility of imposing fines or restrictions on operations across the entire 27-country European Union.

Last year the company merged 60 separate privacy policies from around the world into one universal procedure. The European organisations complain that the new policy doesn't allow users to figure out which information is kept, how it is combined by Google services, or how long the company retains it.

The fines' financial impact on Google would be limited - French privacy watchdog CNIL has the right to fine the company up to 300,000 ($A372,000) approximately the amount it earns in three minutes, based on its projected revenue of $61 billion this year. Britain can fine up to 500,000 pounds, but rarely does.

But successful legal action would hurt Google's image and could block its ability to collect such data until it addresses the regulators' concerns.

Google dominates the European market for internet searches. According to one survey, as much as 95 per cent of searches in Europe are carried out through Google, compared with about 65 per cent in the United States. European regulators have demanded specifics for anyone using Google on what's being collected and a simpler presentation.

Tensions between privacy and the swiftly evolving ability of companies to spin online usage data into vast profits are ramping up, especially in Europe, where privacy laws tend to be strong and nearly every country has a regulatory body. But internet users have consistently shown a willingness to give up privacy in exchange for convenience and new online services that Google and other tech companies offer.

Google says it merged its myriad privacy policies in March 2012 for the sake of simplicity, and that the changes comply with European laws.

"There is a wider debate going on about personal data and who owns and controls personal data," said Colin Strong, a technology analyst with GfK.

"The question is the extent to which consumers understand the value of their personal data and the extent that they are happy with the trade that they're getting."

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Rand hit as S.Africa fiscal woes deepen

SOUTH Africa's currency and equities markets have slumped after revised figures showed the country's current account in late 2012 was worse than first thought.

The South African Reserve Bank revised the third quarter deficit up to 6.8 per cent of gross domestic product and reported that it hit 6.5 per cent of GDP in the final quarter of the year.

Shortly after the news, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange's All Share Index fell by a third of a per cent, but recovered slightly before the close.

The dollar rose by 0.8 per cent against the rand meanwhile, with one greenback fetching 9.1810 rands, though it later trimmed those gains.

But the figures will only add to the pressure on the South African economy, which is already struggling under a toxic mix of slow growth and high prices.

South African Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus recently expressed concerns that the rand weakness was "overdone".

The continued weakness of the South African currency risks fuelling price inflation, which is already hurting poorer consumers.

With inflation approaching six per cent, it is also brushing the upper end of the central bank's own inflation band, leaving little room for the bank to stoke growth by cutting interest rates.

Analyst Peter Attard Montalto of Nomura warned the worst might be still to come with deficits set to rise further, and added: "The currency is still very much overvalued.

"We think the first quarter deficit could be as large as 7.3 per cent of GDP," or gross domestic product, he told clients in a research note.

"In the fourth quarter there were actually outflows of net (foreign direct investment) thanks to divestment by foreign companies."

Confidence in Africa's largest economy has cratered owing to deadly mining strikes and slow implementation of policies designed to bring down unemployment and boost growth.

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Cardinals to begin historic conclave

CARDINALS are preparing for the start of an historic conclave to elect a new pope after Benedict XVI's shock resignation, with the odds favouring a Western conservative to lead the Catholic world.

At a grandiose mass in St Peter's Basilica the cardinals prayed for unity in the Church - a stark reminder of the infighting that often overshadowed Benedict's eight-year pontificate.

The 115 scarlet-robed cardinals burst into thunderous applause when the dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano, publicly thanked the "beloved and venerable" Benedict in his homily.

As the cardinals prepared for the conclave, rainstorms drenched thousands of pilgrims watching the momentous event on four giant screens in St Peter's Square.

One barefoot man in a sackcloth habit knelt on the cobblestones in the pouring rain and was joined by another pilgrim who bowed his head in prayer, as a hymn echoed across the square.

The Princes of the Church will be cut off from the outside world inside the Vatican walls until they have made their choice in a centuries-old ritual - much of it carried out in Latin.

They took to Twitter to say their goodbyes to their online flock before the conclave, where jamming devices will block any communications.

"Last tweet before conclave: May Our Father hear and answer with love and mercy all prayers and sacrifices offered for fruitful outcome. God bless!" South African cardinal Wilfrid Napier said.

The cardinals have to swear not to reveal anything about their talks on pain of excommunication.

They will enter the Sistine Chapel in a procession under Michelangelo's famous frescoes starting at 1530 GMT (0230 AEST), chanting to invoke divine guidance.

The cardinals are then set to hold a first round of voting after which the ballots will be burnt in a special stove in the chapel.

The smoke famously turns white if there is a new pope but the Vatican has already said it expects the smoke from the burning of Tuesday's ballots to be black, indicating no pope has been elected.

Among the candidates, three have emerged as favourites - Italy's Angelo Scola, Brazil's Odilo Scherer and Canada's Marc Ouellet - all of them conservatives like "Pope Emeritus" Benedict XVI.

But there are more names in the rumour mill including cardinals from Austria, Hungary, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa and the United States.

Bookmakers said Scola was the favourite, followed by Ghana's Peter Turkson and Scherer.

Irish bookmaker Paddy Power and Britain's William Hill said Scola's chances had improved dramatically and both gave the Milan archbishop odds of 9/4 to be the next pope.

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