Man drowns at Sunshine Coast beach

A MAN has drowned and his friend has had a narrow escape after a mates' holiday turned to tragedy on the Sunshine Coast.

Five men holidaying from Gatton got into trouble in the surf at Fresh Water, south of Double Island Point, on Saturday afternoon after they decided to use an inflatable pool as a boat.

The group were thrown into the water when the blow-up pool overturned in the waves, with two of the men swept out to sea after they were caught in a rip.

Following attempts to rescue each other three of the men managed to scramble to shore, while the other two were later pulled from the water unconscious.

A 21-year-old man could not be revived, despite extensive resuscitation attempts, while a 25-year-old survived after he was treated by a doctor and paramedic from the AGL Action Rescue Helicopter.

He was later airlifted to Nambour General Hospital, along with a 19-year-old.

Both are in a stable condition.

The other two men were taken by ambulance to Noosa Hospital.

Severe high tides and rough surf have battered the south-east Queensland coast for the past two days, forcing the closure of many beaches.

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Crop subsidies vulnerable in US debt talks

RURAL US lawmakers worried that federal crop insurance subsidies are an easy target for spending cuts in any deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" are shopping around for a late compromise on a farm bill to protect them.

The farm-state leaders hope that if they can strike a deal on a farm bill, it might be included in a broader package to undo tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to automatically kick in next year.

But the leaders hit an impasse this week, just as President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner did in their negotiations.

The Senate and House agriculture bills preserve the $US9 billion ($A8.59 billion) annual crop insurance subsidies and create new crop insurance programs.

The White House in the past has targeted the insurance program for cuts.

Obama proposed cutting the subsidies by $US760 million a year in his budget proposal last February.

Republicans have long eyed the program as a pot of money that could be used for other things.

Farmers buy crop insurance to protect against weather-related losses like drought or flooding.

Farmers pay a percentage of the premium cost and the federal government covers the rest.

Companies selling the insurance also get direct subsidies from the government.

Both houses made room for the new insurance program by eliminating a different type of subsidy called direct payments, in which farmers collect money from the government whether they farm or not and regardless of prices or crop yields.

Cutting that program would save almost $US5 billion annually and would also contribute to the overall savings in the bill.

Supporters of crop insurance say fewer subsidies would mean fewer farmers would buy coverage.

"Crop insurance proved its value once again this year by helping keep the rural economy on track and helping farmers pick up the pieces after a crippling drought," said Tom Zacharias, president of National Crop Insurance Services, an industry trade group.

"Farmers are telling lawmakers to 'do no harm' to crop insurance."

Critics say farmers could survive with much less federal help.

Crop insurance isn't farm-state lawmakers' only concern in the fiscal cliff negotiations.

Milk prices could double if expiring dairy support programs aren't renewed before January 1.

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Troops should quit Afghan villages: Karzai

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai says the US and NATO troops transferring security to Afghan forces should leave Afghan villages as soon as possible.

Karzai spoke on Saturday on the opening day of a conference to develop Afghanistan's foreign policy strategy for the next three years.

He said international forces will end their combat mission at the end of 2014 but said that before that - in 2013 - Afghan forces would take charge of securing the entire country.

Karzai said the sooner that transition could be completed, the better.

He said he wanted the international troops to leave Afghan villages, draw back to their bases and slowly withdraw from there.

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Philippine cops kill Malaysian 'terrorist'

Philippine police say they have fatally shot a suspected Malaysian terrorist. Source: AAP

PHILIPPINE police have killed a suspected Malaysian terrorist who was allegedly planning a bomb attack in one of the largest cities in the country's south, police say.

The suspected terrorist, identified as Mohd Noor Fikrie Bin Abud Kahar, was shot dead by police on Friday following a scuffle inside a hotel in Davao, a bustling port city and a regional commercial hub on the main southern island of Mindanao.

As the man and his Filipino wife were checking out of the hotel, he tried to grab a backpack from his wife containing a homemade bomb, Davao city police chief Ronald de la Rosa said.

Officers tried to seize the man, who broke free and threatened to detonate the device.

"You want the bomb? You want the bomb? Shoot me! Shoot me! I will explode the bomb," de la Rosa quoted the man as saying.

The threats prompted officers and people in the hotel lobby to scamper out for safety, the police chief said.

The man and his wife then ran into the street, where they hugged each other as the man raised a mobile phone, threatening to use it to trigger the bomb.

The man grabbed the backpack from his wife and ran toward a park full of revellers while his wife was arrested by police, de la Rosa told The Associated Press by telephone from Davao, about 980 kilometres south of Manila.

Guards locked the park's gate to keep the man out.

Still raising his hand that held the mobile phone, he then ran into a packed restaurant where a sniper shot him twice in the chest. Other officers then fired at him and killed him, de la Rosa said.

The bomb, which was subsequently defused, was fashioned from a mortar shell.

The police chief said intelligence reports indicated terrorists planned to explode a bomb in Davao.

Intelligence agents had received a tip from a "very reliable source" that the couple were staying at the hotel, de la Rosa said.

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Scrap metal yard on fire in Sydney's west

A LARGE fire has broken out at a scrap metal yard in sydney's west.

A fire and rescue spokesman said six firefighting crews were sent to the scrap yard in Greenacre just after 6.30pm (AEDT) on Friday.

The fire will burn for a long time time, the spokesman said.

"It's scrap metal so it has oil, plastics, paint ... but then once you heat up aluminium then it will burn as well," he told AAP.

"We may end up having to keep a fire engine there all night."

One person has suffered burns and been taken to hospital, the spokesman added.

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Assad losing, must go as quickly: France

SYRIAN leader President Bashar al-Assad is losing the fight against rebel forces and must be made to leave as quickly as possible, French President Francois Hollande says.

"On the ground, the war is now turning against Assad and we should set ourselves this objective - make Assad leave as quickly as possible," Hollande said on Friday as he went into a meeting of EU leaders where the Syrian conflict will be discussed.

Hollande said France had been the first to recognise fully the recently formed Syrian opposition coalition and that most countries now do so.

The European Union so far has stopped short of full recognition although earlier this week EU foreign ministers met the leader of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces at talks in Brussels.

Some EU member states are cautious about extending full recognition to the National Coalition because of doubts over how representative it is and its democratic credentials.

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Vic water usage up as restrictions ease

VICTORIANS made a splash as water restrictions were lifted, with the state's usage going up for the first time in five years, official figures show.

The Essential Services Commission's (ESC) annual report, released on Friday, showed the average household used 150 kilolitres (kL) of water in 2011-12, an increase of seven kL on the previous year.

The average had been on the slide for the previous four years, but Victorians seemed to enjoy the lifting of restrictions last year.

Consequently, average water bills also increased, up $115 to an average of $885 per year.

The figures show country households used more water than their urban counterparts, with averages of 174kL and 142kL respectively.

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Strike likely at Fremantle port

A PLANNED strike at the busy Port of Fremantle appears likely unless there's a breakthrough over the weekend, the operator says.

The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has threatened six days of industrial action, starting at 5.30am (WST) on Monday and concluding at the same time on Sunday, December 23.

While Fair Work Australia (FWA) intervened last week in a largely pay-related dispute between the MUA and Fremantle Ports, facilitating a compromise between the parties and preventing threatened industrial action, the union is now concerned about the possibility of the port being privatised.

Fremantle Ports chief executive Chris Leatt-Hayter said it was disappointing that negotiations to date, including on Friday, had not reached a positive conclusion.

"An extended interruption to shipping in Western Australia's capital city port at this busy time of the year would deal a severe blow to importers and exporters, with the community bearing the costs of the significant flow-on effects," Mr Leatt-Hayter said.

"Fremantle Ports will continue to negotiate in the hope of averting the stoppage but if it goes ahead as notified, we will endeavour to minimise the impacts."

The dispute involves more than 130 workers.

Services affected by a strike would include mooring of ships, security, quarantine collection in the inner and outer harbours where these services are provided by Fremantle Ports, and stevedoring operations at the Kwinana Bulk Terminal.

Transport Minister Troy Buswell said the MUA was "unapologetically blackmailing WA retailers and consumers again in the lead-up to Christmas", and dismissed its concerns.

Mr Buswell said privatisation "quite simply isn't going to happen".

"Our ports will remain state-owned ports," he told Fairfax Radio on Friday.

"It is a fact there are some private operators that currently operate in Fremantle Port, some of the stevedoring businesses, and that happens in ports right around the state, but they are still public ports and there is no intention to privatise the Fremantle Port."

The MUA's insistence on a clause in the employment agreement guaranteeing permanency of employment for the life of the agreement was "not something that we will be conceding under any circumstance", Mr Buswell said.

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Church receives report on abuse response

A REPORT by a former Federal Court judge on whether the Catholic Church appropriately managed sexual abuse allegations against a former NSW priest has been received by the church.

The Bishop of Armidale, Michael Kennedy, and the Bishop of Parramatta, Anthony Fisher, said in a joint statement that the report had been received on Thursday.

Antony Whitlam QC examined the history of appointments, ministry and activities and the way in which complaints by the alleged victims of the priest, known as Father F, were handled.

His report deals with the events leading to Father F's sacking from the ministry in 2005 and what happened during a meeting between Father F and senior Catholic figures in 1992.

The Armidale diocese said Father F had never made specific admissions when he met Sydney priests Father Lucas and Monsignor Usher Sydney in 1992.

But a third priest present at the meeting, Father Peters, wrote an account of the meeting in a private letter to the Armidale bishop, Father Manning, dated September 11, 1992.

In the letter, Fr Peters wrote that Father F had admitted to varying degrees of sexual interference with five boys around the age of 10 and 11 while he was an assistant priest at Moree between 1982 and 1984.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney has previously rejected claims that senior priests failed to refer evidence about Father F to authorities.

NSW Police have been given the report and it will be made publicly available "as soon as practicable," the Bishops of Armidale and Parramatta said.

Father F, who was connected to the Parramatta and Armidale dioceses, allegedly abused altar boys during the 1980s.

The 59-year-old former priest was arrested at an Armidale home in October after an investigation into allegations that a priest based in the area sexually abused three girls in the 1970s and 1980s.

A NSW police taskforce is also investigating the allegations.

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Therese Rein awarded honorary doctorate

SHE'S already won a human rights medal, and now Therese Rein is in line for an honorary university doctorate for her work helping welfare recipients find employment.

The wife of former prime minister Kevin Rudd will on Thursday night receive the degree from Griffith University in Brisbane for services to her field of business.

Ms Rein's welfare-to-work company Ingeus employs 2300 people in 10 countries, and in 2010 her work helping the disadvantaged find employment helped win her an accolade from the Australian Human Rights Commission.

She was also named Telstra's Queensland Businesswoman of the Year in 2012.

Griffith University Vice Chancellor Professor Ian O'Connor said Ms Rein had a long association with the university and had built up a substantial business record.

She joins swim coach turned water safety activist Laurie Lawrence in receiving an honorary doctorate from the university this week.

Kevin Rudd took to Twitter on Wednesday to congratulate his wife.

"Looking forward to @Therese_Rein receiving her honorary doctorate tomorrow from @Griffith_uni. I have always said she's the smart one," he tweeted.

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