Tassie premier Giddings celebrates 40th

TASMANIAN Premier Lara Giddings will celebrate her 40th birthday on Wednesday with a quiet dinner at the state's Parliament House with her family.

The youngest woman to be elected to an Australian parliament, Ms Giddings reaches the milestone after two years as a 30-something in the state's top job.

"I think I saw it more as a significant birthday when I was 39 and I saw it as the slippery slope to turning 40," Ms Giddings said in a statement to AAP.

"I have gotten so used to the idea of turning 40 that it is just another day. I have loved my 30s and I think my 40s will be great too.

Ms Giddings lost her seat in 1998 before being re-elected in 2002. She became a front-bencher in 2004 and deputy premier, under David Bartlett, in 2008.

As a 38-year-old, she became the state's 44th premier, and the first woman in the job, in January 2011, inheriting the Labor-Green power-sharing government.

Born Larissa Tahireh Giddings in Goroka, Papua New Guinea, in November 1972, the premier moved back to Tasmania, her family's home, in 1990 after completing school in Melbourne.

She studied arts and law at the University of Tasmania.

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Thousands gather for solar eclipse

ABOUT 60,000 enthusiasts, scientists and astronomers are set to gather in northern Australia to watch Australia's first full solar eclipse for a decade.

The eclipse, which will happen at around 6.39am (AEST) on Wednesday, is expected to be visible for about two minutes in small parts of the Cape York Peninsula and Northern Territory.

About 60,000 excited scientists, astronomers and eclipse tourists have converged on the region to watch the moon pass between the sun and the earth and cast a shadow over a 150km-wide swathe of land.

Dr Stuart Ryder, from the Australian Astronomical Observatory said it takes the moon about an hour to pass from first contact, when it begins to cross the sun's path, to totality, when the sun is completely obscured.

During those few minutes of totality, it will seem like a moonlit night.

"However, when you look at the sky in any direction for a couple of hundred kilometres, you can see parts of the atmosphere which are outside the moon's shadow," he told AAP recently.

For residents across the rest of Australia, a partial - but not total - eclipse will be visible on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world can follow the event via cyberspace, or the twitterverse.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland and NASA are providing a live stream of the full eclipse, which is expected to garner an audience of millions, with particular interest in North America, Canada and Europe.

The Slooh Space Camera will also broadcast live images via its website, slooh.com.

Wednesday's event is the first full solar eclipse visible from Australia since 2002 - and that was only visible in the nation's south.

The next solar eclipse to be visible from Australia is expected on May next year, but it will only be an annular eclipse (where the sun is still visible around the edges of the moon).

* Eclipse watchers should remember to wear safety goggles or view the event through simple projection devices, which can be made of cardboard. Even while hidden behind the moon, the sun is incredibly powerful. Just a few seconds of looking at it directly can cause blindness.

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Warhols fetch $16.3m at Christie's

A PLAN to sell off the Andy Warhol Foundation's entire collection of works by the Pop artist has gotten off to a $US17 million ($A16.37 million) start at Christie's in New York.

The sale on Monday in Manhattan saw 91 per cent of lots going under the hammer. The 354 works auctioned were led by Endangered Species: San Francisco Silverspot, which sold for $1.26 million, in the range of the pre-sale $1-1.5 million estimate.

Endangered Species: Bighorn Ram, which had been estimated at $US700,000 to $US1 million, sold for $US842,500. Jackie doubled its high estimate, going for $US626,500.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts announced in September it was dispersing of its collection to bolster its grant-making capabilities, with Christie's the long-term partner. Some of the works will be donated to museums.

Amy Cappellazzo, head of contemporary art development at Christie's, said Monday's first sale "was met with enthusiasm by established and new collectors globally, including successful bidders from mainland China, Russia, the European Union, the Middle East and the Americas."

"Today's sales have set the stage beautifully for the next offering of works from the Collection of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which includes a selling exhibition in Hong Kong and the debut of online-only sales in February."

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AMF Bowling files for Chapter 11

BOWLING centre operator AMF Bowling Worldwide says it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy so it can implement a pre-arranged restructuring agreement.

Virginia-based AMF announced the bankruptcy filing and the agreement on Tuesday morning.

The agreement is with a majority of the company's first lien lenders and the landlord of a majority of its bowling centres.

AMF said in a statement it expects to complete the restructuring and leave Chapter 11 in about five months.

The company says the restructuring will eliminate a significant amount of outstanding debt.

Chief financial officer and chief operating officer Steve Satterwhite says the company needs financial flexibility to improve its bowling centres and make other long-term investments.

Bowling centres will continue normal operations during the restructuring.

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New Israeli warnings on Gaza

DEFENCE Minister Ehud Barak is warning that a flare-up in violence with Gaza is "not over," with Palestinian militants firing two rockets and Israel carrying out air strikes overnight.

The violence that began on Saturday appeared to have slowed considerably, with Gaza militants firing two rockets into Israel on Tuesday, hours after they said they would commit to a ceasefire if the Jewish state did the same.

Israeli warplanes carried out air strikes against several targets overnight, which caused no injuries, although medics in Gaza said on Tuesday a seventh person had died in the violence, succumbing to wounds he sustained on Saturday.

Palestinian eyewitnesses on Tuesday afternoon reported new shelling in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, where AFP reporters saw damage to a house.

They also reported an Israeli air strike elsewhere in northern Gaza, although the military said it had no information on either incident.

Barak, meeting Israeli military chiefs, warned that the current round of confrontations was ongoing, adding that Israel would decide how and when to respond to the rocket fire.

"It is certainly not over and we will decide how and when to act if necessary," he said in remarks communicated by his office.

"We intend to reinforce the deterrence - and strengthen it - so that we are able to operate along the length of the border fence in a way that will ensure the security of all our soldiers who are serving around the Gaza Strip," he said.

"At this time... it is preferable to act (in a timely fashion) rather than just talk."

On Monday night, Israeli planes struck three sites in Gaza, which the military identified as a weapons facility and two rocket launch sites.

And the following morning, the army said militants fired two rockets into Israel, causing no injuries, with local media reporting one of them was a longer-range Grad rocket, which landed near the coastal town of Ashdod.

In Gaza, medics said 20-year-old Mohammed Ziad, a member of Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, died on Tuesday of wounds he sustained on Saturday, after the flare-up began when militants fired at an Israeli army jeep.

That attack injured four soldiers and prompted a quick escalation in violence, with Israel carrying out air strikes and shelling that killed six other Palestinians and injured more than 30.

Gaza militants fired 123 rockets into southern Israel, lightly injuring four people. The military said 19 rockets were fired on Monday, four of which were intercepted by its Iron Dome system.

Despite Barak's comments, and a series of bellicose statements from Israeli politicians on Monday, other officials sounded a more cautious tone on Tuesday.

"I don't think it will be necessary to enter the Gaza Strip," former military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told Israel's army radio.

"The army has at its disposal a series of measures that it has not yet used, it can raise the level of its response without resorting to a ground operation."

Egyptian-led efforts are still under way to secure a ceasefire, with Gaza's main militant groups, led by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, on Monday saying they were ready for a ceasefire if Israel "stops its aggression" against the territory.

"The response of the resistance depends on whether the Zionist aggression against our people is continued," they said at a Gaza City news conference.

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German investor confidence drops

GERMAN investor confidence in Europe's largest economy slipped unexpectedly this month over worries growth will cool over the next six months, a survey shows.

The ZEW institute said on Tuesday its monthly confidence index fell to minus 15.7 points in November from minus 11.5 last month. Economists had expected a third straight monthly increase, albeit only a small one.

A negative figure means the investors surveyed are, on average, pessimistic about the economy's outlook for the next half year, while a positive number denotes optimism.

ZEW said this month's drop, which keeps the index below the historical average of plus 23.3 points, may be due to recent disappointing indicators such as poor industrial orders.

Official figures on Thursday are expected to show Germany's economy grew in the third quarter, though only modestly. Many economists think it may slacken further over the winter months.

Germany enjoyed robust growth over the past two years but the debt crisis that has pushed several European countries into recession is hitting confidence as well as exports.

"Prevailing recessionary developments in the eurozone impact the German economy via foreign trade and a lack of confidence," ZEW head Wolfgang Franz said.

"This is likely to be a burden for economic growth in Germany during the next six months."

The ZEW, or Center for European Economic Research, surveyed 263 analysts between October 29 and November 12.

The German government's panel of independent economic advisers last week forecast that the economy will grow by only 0.8 per cent this year and next.

More than half of Germany's exports, a traditional strength of its economy, go to other countries in the 27-nation European Union - but its export performance has been kept buoyant so far by strong demand from Asia, Russia, the United States and elsewhere, which more than offset falling sales to southern European strugglers.

The country's main exporters association, the BGA, predicted on Tuesday that total German exports will climb 4 per cent this year to a little over 1.1 trillion euros ($A1.35 trillion). Imports, it said, will rise 3 per cent to 929 million euros.

BGA head Anton Boerner said world trade should pick up speed next year so long as protectionist measures in various parts of the world don't get in the way.

The group forecast that, as a result, German exports could grow another 5 per cent in 2013.

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US stocks mixed on Greece, US worries

US stocks have been mixed in early Tuesday trade amid worries about Greece's debt crisis and a US "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax hikes at year-end which threaten to drag the economy into recession.

After opening lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 19.43 points (0.15 per cent) at 12,834.51 by 1545 GMT.

The broad-market S&P 500 edged down 0.93 point (0.07 per cent) to 1,380.96, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite fell 12.84 (0.44 per cent) to 2,891.41.

"The fiscal cliff concern hasn't gone away... (and) the concerns about Greece are still present," Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com said in a client note.

"The only clear thing right now is that there is a lot of uncertainty and that there isn't a headline today so far that is the equivalent of a game-changer."

Dow member Home Depot was the strongest gainer on the blue-chip index, jumping 4.0 per cent, after the home-improvement retail giant reported earnings that beat Wall Street estimates and raised its full-year guidance.

"Our third-quarter results were better than we expected and reflected, in part, what we believe is the start of the path toward the healing of the housing market," said Frank Blake, chairman and chief executive.

Microsoft was the steepest Dow loser, down 3.4 per cent. The software maker announced the departure of Steven Sinofsky, head of its Windows unit.

In the luxury sector, Michael Kors Holdings rose 2.5 per cent after posting better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter, while department store chain Saks fell 3.4 per cent on disappointing results.

Printer and copier maker Xerox rose 1.7 per cent after lowering its profit forecast for the fourth quarter.

Apple was up a scant 0.1 per cent at $543.12, after losing more than $150 since late September.

The bond market, which was closed on Monday for a federal holiday, rallied.

The 10-year US Treasury yield fell to 1.59 per cent from 1.61 per cent late on Friday, and the 30-year dropped to 2.72 per cent from 2.75 per cent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.

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