Massive winter storm grounds US flights

A MASSIVE winter storm pounding the northern United States has grounded more than 1,100 flights, closed hundreds of schools and made roadways impassible.

More than a dozen states from Minnesota to Virginia were in the path of the huge storm which had already dumped as much as 60 centimetres of snow in Montana and 38 centimetres in North Dakota.

The heavily populated Chicago area was expected to get as much as 2.5 centimetres of snow an hour during the evening rush, the National Weather Service said.

Hundreds of ploughs were working the Windy City's roads and freeways but with up to 25 centimetres of snow expected, there was no way they could keep up.

"Significant amounts of snow are forecast that will make travel dangerous," the weather service warned.

"Consider only travelling if in an emergency."

Nearly 800 flights were grounded at Chicago's O'Hare airport - a major hub - while another 240 were cancelled at Chicago Midway.

Over 100 flights were cancelled in Minneapolis, Minnesota, according to FlightAware.

The storm was expected to hit the nation's capitol late on Tuesday or early Wednesday, and some Congressional meetings were already being cancelled in Washington.

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Maldives police detain opposition leader

POLICE in the Maldives have detained opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed, defying pressure from regional power India which had called for him to be free to campaign for elections.

Twenty masked policemen in riot gear arrested Nasheed at his family home in the capital Male and one of his security men was hurt in the melee, said Shauna Aminath, a spokeswoman for Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic Party.

Police served no arrest warrant on the pro-democracy activist, who was the first freely elected president until last year, she said.

Authorities said Nasheed, 45, was taken into custody on a court order and would appear in magistrates' court on Wednesday to face abuse of power charges.

"He is not under arrest, but he has been taken into custody on a court order issued after he repeatedly evaded summonses to appear in court," said presidential spokesman Masood Imad.

The abuse of power accusation stems from Nasheed ordering the arrest of a judge while president on misconduct charges.

Nasheed's detention threatens to bring more instability to the archipelago, an upmarket honeymoon destination straddling strategic shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean.

The US embassy in neighbouring Sri Lanka said it was "increasingly concerned" about developments in the Maldives, a nation of 330,000 Sunni Muslims.

"We urge all sides to remain calm, reject the use of violence, and avoid rhetoric that could increase tensions," the embassy said in a statement.

"Former President Nasheed must be accorded due process under the law regarding his pending court cases."

Skirmishes erupted between government supporters and opposition activists in the capital shortly after Nasheed's arrest, but police quickly controlled the crowds.

The capital has been wracked by violence and political infighting since February 2012 when Nasheed was ousted following a mutiny by security forces and protests.

The Indian government said it was "monitoring the situation closely".

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Resources exports to drive GDP growth

A RISE in iron ore and coal exports is expected to have been the major driver of economic growth in an otherwise weak final three months of 2012.

AAP's survey of 14 economists revealed a median forecast for the Australian economy to have grown by 0.7 per cent in the December quarter for an annual growth of 3.1 per cent.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release gross domestic product (GDP) figures for the December quarter on Wednesday.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Australia chief economist Saul Eslake said resources exports were likely to be the major driver of growth in the quarter.

"You've got substantially higher volumes of iron ore and coal exports in particular and probably some softening of import volumes," he said.

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Indian navy helicopter crashes in sea

TWO crew members are missing after an Indian naval helicopter crashed into the sea off the country's southeastern coast, sparking an air-sea rescue search, a navy spokesman says.

The military helicopter took off from the city of Visakhapatnam and lost contact with air controllers after flying 18 kilometres from its base, Commander DK Sharma told AFP in New Delhi.

"We have rescued two of the crew and are looking for the remaining two in the sea," Sharma said.

The helicopter lost contact with military air controllers in mid-afternoon.

"Ships and aircraft have joined the search," the official said.

Naval officials initially said the helicopter was of Russian design, but later said the Chetak helicopter was produced in India by state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

The navy said it would continue the search operation even though darkness had fallen over the area.

Another Indian Navy official said a court of inquiry had been ordered into the crash which occurred when the helicopter was on a "routine flying mission".

India has witnessed at least two other military helicopter crashes in the past year.

Last October, three naval personnel, including two pilots, died when their Chetak helicopter crashed while landing at Dabolim airport in Panaji, capital of the western Indian tourist state of Goa.

In August, nine Indian air force personnel were killed when two Russian-designed military helicopters collided in mid-air over a firing range in the western state of Gujarat.

India plans to buy as many as 400 helicopters, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to replace its ageing aircraft fleet.

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Venezuela on edge as Chavez health slides

VENEZUELA has plunged deeper into an uncertain future after cancer-stricken President Hugo Chavez took a turn for the worse, hit by a severe infection and breathing problems.

The once omnipresent face of the Latin American left, now breathing with the aid of a tracheal tube, has neither emerged nor spoken in public in almost three months, leaving the oil-rich nation and the wider region on tenterhooks.

At the president's military hospital in Caracas, dozens of people prayed and cried in a new chapel named "hope" that was inaugurated for Chavez last Friday.

"He has a new and severe infection," Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said in a statement read from the hospital late on Monday, adding there was a "worsening of respiratory function".

He did not specify the type of infection, but the government had said earlier this month Chavez was still suffering from a respiratory infection he had contracted following surgery in Cuba.

Carlos Dzik, an oncologist at the Syrian Lebanese Hospital in Sao Paulo who is not involved in Chavez's treatment, told AFP that chemotherapy affects the immune system, causing infections "whose location is often not found in these cases."

The sombre government statement came two weeks after Chavez, 58, checked into the military hospital on February 18 following two months of treatment in Cuba.

Saying Chavez continues to "cling to Christ and life," Villegas reiterated he was undergoing "intensive chemotherapy, as well as complementary treatments" and that his "condition continues to be very delicate."

But the government did not give a prognosis for the health of the president who has been in power for 14 years.

Under the constitution, an election must be called within 30 days if the president is incapacitated.

Chavez's prolonged absence - which prevented him from being sworn in to a new six-year term earlier this year - has angered the opposition, which accuses the government of lying about his condition.

AFP

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Briton jailed for heist after 20 years

A BRITISH man dubbed "Fast Eddie" who spent nearly 20 years on the run in the United States has been jailed for driving off with a security van containing STG1.2 million ($A1.79 million).

Eddie Maher, 57, had been a fugitive ever since the van he was driving disappeared from outside a bank in Felixstowe, eastern England, on January 22, 1993.

He pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court in London and on Tuesday was jailed for five years.

In a series of property investments which detectives said were funded by the proceeds of his crime, Maher bought a house in Colorado with $120,000 six months after the theft, then built an 80 acre (32 hectare) ranch before moving around various US states.

He was working as a cable engineer in Missouri at the time of his arrest on February 9 last year.

Maher's lawyer, David Nathan, said the disgruntled ex-wife of his client's son had been his downfall.

When Maher's son Lee won a big prize on the lottery, she walked out on Lee's best friend to marry him instead, he said.

When the money ran out, she looked up the Maher name on the internet and saw her former father-in-law was wanted for theft.

"She heard that there was a reward and she went to the federal authorities," Nathan said.

Speaking after the case, Detective Inspector David Giles, from Suffolk Police, said: "Over the years, Edward Maher has almost been portrayed as a Robin Hood character, someone who stole from a bank, where no one was injured.

"Maher took on a position of significant trust working for a security company, a position he abused, resulting in the theft of over one million (pounds)."

Prosecutors said they were still looking to trace three possible accomplices.

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Iraq attacks kill 13

A STRING of bombings and shootings in Iraq has killed 13 people and wounded at least 35 others.

Two car bombs targeted police in the restive northern city of Kirkuk, killing five and wounding at least 18, while gunmen killed a town council member and a North Oil Company employee south of the city, police and a health official said.

A car bomb exploded near a football field southeast of Baquba, a city north of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding another 17, according to a police colonel and a doctor.

And gunmen attacked a real estate office near Taji, north of Baghdad, killing two people, as others armed with silenced weapons killed an agriculture ministry employee in Saidiyah in southern Baghdad, officials said.

Violence has fallen considerably compared to five years ago, although attacks in Iraq remain common, killing 220 people in February, according to an AFP tally based on security and medical sources.

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