Parts of Pistorius trial can be broadcast

PARTS of Oscar Pistorius' murder trial can be broadcast live by three remote-controlled cameras set up in court, a judge has ruled, but the testimony given by the double-amputee Olympian himself can't be shown.

Pistorius' defence lawyers failed in their bid to stop any part of the trial being broadcast as a judge in the North Gauteng High Court on Tuesday ruled mostly in favour of the South African TV and radio applicants.

Judge Dunstan Mlambo's ruling now opens up much of the blockbuster trial to the scrutiny of millions of fascinated followers in South Africa and around the world.

Mlambo granted permission to the South African media houses to install the unmanned television cameras in "unobtrusive" locations at least 72 hours before the trial opens on Monday.

A live audio feed can also be broadcast, while still photographs can be taken in court by two other mounted cameras operated by photographers.

TV footage or photographs however cannot show "extreme" close up images of anyone in the court and witnesses who object can stop their testimony from being broadcast, Mlambo said.

Pistorius' defence lawyers had argued that broadcasting the trial in any way would harm his chances of receiving a fair trial.

Brian Webber, the lawyer representing Pistorius in this hearing, declined to initially comment on the ruling saying he had yet to study it.

Pistorius was charged with murder a year ago over the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his upscale house in Pretoria.

He faces a possible sentence of 25 years in prison if he is convicted on the main charge of premeditated murder, which he denies.

Mlambo said his decision on Tuesday was a careful "balancing act" between guaranteeing Pistorius a fair trial and also respecting the freedom of the media.

South Africa's justice system is "still perceived as treating the rich and famous with kid gloves whilst being harsh on the poor and vulnerable," he said.

"Enabling a larger South African society to follow firsthand the criminal proceedings which involve a celebrity so to speak, will go a long way into dispelling these negative and unfounded perceptions about the justice system".

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George Lucas donates $US25m to US school

FILMMAKER George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson are donating $US25 million ($A27.7 million) to a prestigious private school on Chicago's South Side.

The University of Chicago said on Tuesday that the grant from The George Lucas Family Foundation will pay for a new arts hall at the university's Laboratory Schools.

The 86,000-square-foot building will open in 2015 and will be named after Gordon Parks, a photographer, musician and social justice advocate.

Hobson is president of Chicago-based Ariel Investments.

She married the Star Wars filmmaker in 2013.

Lucas says in a statement that art can "transform lives and communities" and says he hopes Parks' legacy will inspire future generations.

The Hyde Park school has about 1800 students in nursery school through 12th grade.

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Macy's fourth quarter profit up 11%

MACY'S is reporting an 11 per cent increase in fourth-quarter profit, but its results missed Wall Street expectations as a string of winter storms chilled sales in January.

The department store chain, which operates Macy's and Bloomingdale's, says that it earned $US811 million ($A900 million), or $US2.16 per share, in the three months that ended February 1. That compares with $US730 million, or $US1.83 per share, a year earlier.

Revenue slipped 1.6 per cent to $US9.2 billion.

Analysts were expecting $US2.17 per share on revenue of $US9.28 billion, according to FactSet.

Revenue at stores open at least a year rose 1.4 per cent, below the 2.5 per cent increase that Wall Street analysts expected.

The Cincinnati-based retailer has been a standout among its peers throughout the economic recovery.

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Kiwis rally for rights in Australia

NEW Zealanders will rally together in cities around Australia to protest what they call unjust and discriminative immigration laws.

The rallies on Wednesday, organised by the Iwi n Aus Foundation, will take place in Queensland, South Australia, New South Wales, Western Australia and Victoria.

About 300,000 New Zealanders live across the Tasman on special category visas. This means they pay taxes but don't get access to benefits of permanent residency such as disability care, welfare and social housing.

The restrictions were brought in under a joint agreement between Australia's Liberal government and Helen Clark's Labour government in 2001.

Iwi n Aus, run by a group of mothers, says the discriminative laws are affecting not only their children but their Australian-born grandchildren.

Founder Erina Anderson says Kiwis often cross the Tasman with no concept of how bad it can get for them in Australia.

"If Prime Minister John Key wanted to stop New Zealanders from coming to Australia, there's one simple way thing he could do - tell people what they can expect," she told AAP.

"Nobody would willingly pick up their family and move across if they knew their children weren't going to be afforded equal rights."

She says through her work she sees many New Zealanders suffering from mental illness and extreme financial stress after falling on hard times in Australia.

Many Kiwis can't get permanent residency because their occupations aren't on Australia's wanted-skills list, and therefore also can't get citizenship, she says.

Families in Australia also have children with different rights, depending on when and where they were born.

"How do you say to your children who are going through high school, the ones of you who are citizens or permanent residents can go to university because you can get a student loan, but sorry darling you can't because you were born in Auckland?"

Kiwi mothers and fathers are not entitled to single parent payments, so even if their children are born in Australia, the death of their Aussie spouse or a separation could leave them without the means to support their children.

Her Australian foster kids have been disadvantaged by her New Zealand status, missing out on carers' payments for their special needs, Ms Anderson says.

"If I knew what I know, I would not have come," Ms Anderson said.

"No way would I have brought five kids across the Tasman and many of us feel bad that we have."

But it's not as simple as just packing up and going home, she says.

"Does that mean my sons who are fathers to Australian children, should they leave?"

"Should they abandon their partners to go back to where they came from?"

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he expected New Zealanders to be "lifters not leaners".

But Ms Anderson says it's not about Kiwis mooching off unemployment benefits.

"I wouldn't be wasting my time lobbying for the dole, I've got better things to do with my time."

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Australian prison tariff at five-year low

AUSTRALIA'S prisoner population is costing the country less now than at any time in the past five years but on a daily basis per inmate, it's still more expensive than a night in a city hotel room.

Data from a new Productivity Commission report into Australia's justice system shows the national average cost in 2012-13 for an inmate was $221.92 a day.

Across states and territories the cost varies, from $188.82 a day in NSW to $321.24 in Tasmania.

The Tasmanian government said of its corrections operations during the period that there was a change of prison director, with the state's inmate population peaking at 507 in the summer of 2012.

The report shows that for the 12-month period there was an average of 30,082 prisoners spread across 113 custodial facilities in Australia, a population increase of about 3 per cent from 2011-12.

Despite the increased population, the national average cost for each prisoner was less about $8 a day.

Online accommodation websites show mid-range capital city hotel rooms available for $200 a night.

On average, there was one prison guard for every 22 offenders. In Queensland there was a guard for every 35 inmates, and in WA one for every 15.

On a policing front the Productivity Commission found the cost of state and territory forces equated to $416 for each Australian resident (22.7 million) during 2012-13.

NSW Police had the greatest overall annual operating cost of more than $3 billion, which provided 17,272 operational officers, or 235 for 100,000 people.

Northern Territory Police cost $276 million for the year, with 1651 operational officers, making it the most costly force per capita at $1166.

The Territory government said that during the reporting period the force took on 184 recruits and added an additional assistant commissioner position along with implementing "numerous operational and corporate initiatives to meet its primary policing objectives".

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Four dead as truck hits Brazil walkway

FOUR people have died after a dump truck smashed into a pedestrian bridge on a busy highway in northern Rio de Janeiro.

The crash on Tuesday caused the walkway to collapse onto three cars and a motorcycle below.

At least four people were killed and another four injured, according to Lamsa, a private company that administers the toll road.

Witnesses said there were only two people on the yellow metal pedestrian bridge when the accident occurred just after 9am local time.

Mayor Eduardo Paes told reporters at the scene that the trailer of the truck was clearly above than the 4.5 metres permitted for use on the highway, known as the Yellow Line road, which cuts through gritty northern and western portions of Rio.

Paes said authorities were trying to confirm if the truck's bed was raised when it hit the walkway.

Regardless, "an infraction was being committed because trucks aren't allowed on the Yellow Line at that time of day", he said.

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Emergency assets bill $1.2b: report

AUSTRALIANS have lost property worth more than $1.2 billion in the latest financial year through emergency events including fire, flood and storms.

A new Productivity Commission report shows that Queensland storms proved the costliest in 2012-13, with related asset loss valued at $971 million.

Storm and fire damage in NSW claimed almost $155 million worth of property while Tasmania's January 2013 bushfires racked up losses of more than $88 million.

The national figure was an increase from 2011-12, when the report showed asset loss was $1.06 billion.

But Queensland's devastating floods stretching from December 2010 into 2011 helped push that period's national losses to more than $4.6 billion.

When it comes to disaster relief, the federal government paid out $171 million in 2012-13 through its scheme of assistance in which affected individuals and communities are entitled to a one-off payment: $1000 for adults and $400 for children.

The payout figure was greater than the $78 million disseminated in 2011-12, but less than $823 million in 2010-11.

Cash payments from Canberra to disaster-struck states and territories amounted to $77.1 million during 2012-13, down from $3 billion in 2011-12, which stemmed largely from Queensland's flood crisis.

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JPMorgan returns to a profit in Q4

JPMORGAN Chase, the biggest US bank by assets, says it returned to a profit in the fourth quarter.

The bank said it had net income of $US5.3 billion ($A5.8 billion) in the last three months of 2013, compared with a profit of $US5.7 billion in the same period a year earlier.

On a per-share basis, JPMorgan said it had earned $US1.30 a share in the quarter, compared with $US1.39 a share a year earlier.

Revenue fell one per cent to $US24.1 billion, just above analysts' expectations of $US23.9 billion.

The bank reported a loss in the third quarter, due to the bank's mounting legal costs. It was the bank's first quarterly loss in 10 years.

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Firing squads proposed for US execution

A POLITICIAN in the US is proposing the use of firing squads to execute condemned inmates if constitutional problems or other issues ever prevent his state from using lethal injection.

Wyoming state Senator Bruce Burns, a Republican, said on Monday that state law currently calls for using a gas chamber if lethal injection is unavailable.

"The state of Wyoming doesn't have a gas chamber currently, an operating gas chamber, so the procedure and expense to build one would be impractical to me," said Burns, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"I consider frankly the gas chamber to be cruel and unusual, so I went with firing squad because they also have it in Utah," Burns said. He's introduced the bill for consideration in the legislative session that starts February 10.

"One of the reasons I chose firing squad as opposed to any other form of execution is because frankly it's one of the cheapest for the state," Burns said.

Burns said his bill addresses this issue because a number of states are running short of the chemicals used for lethal injection, largely because companies have stopped selling the drugs to prisons.

Wyoming, a sparsely populated western state, has only one inmate on death row and last executed an inmate in 1992.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the national Death Penalty Information Center, said on Monday he believes Wyoming could face constitutional challenges if it tried to use the firing squad as its only method of execution.

Dieter said Utah has offered inmates the choice of being executed by firing squad but said the state is phasing out the punishment.

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Harris pleads not guilty to sex offences

AUSTRALIAN entertainer Rolf Harris has pleaded not guilty to 12 sex offences dating back to the 1960s.

Harris - dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie - appeared in London's Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday for a plea and case management hearing ahead of his trial scheduled for April 30.

The 83-year-old, appearing relaxed and much healthier than his last court appearance in September, answered with a load and clear "not guilty" as each of the indecent assault charges were read to him in the packed courtroom.

Harris also remains charged with making four indecent images of a child in 2012. He is yet to be arraigned on those charges.

Harris was accompanied to the court in central London by a group of around a dozen friends and family including his elderly wife Alwen, whom he pushed in a wheelchair, and his middle-aged daughter Bindi.

He sat still and appeared relaxed in the dock during the hearing, which lasted more than an hour, speaking only briefly to confirm his name and enter his pleas.

The court heard Harris is accused of 12 separate counts of sexual assault, involving four alleged victims.

He was last year charged with six counts of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old girl in 1980 and 1981 and three charges of indecently assaulting a girl aged 14 in 1986.

Last month he was charged with a further three offences; one against a 19-year-old in 1984, one against a girl "aged seven or eight in 1968 or 1969" and another against a 14-year-old in 1975.

The count relating to the 19-year-old involved the same alleged victim as six of the earlier counts.

Harris was also previously charged with four counts of making indecent images of a child in the first half of 2012.

Tuesday was Harris' first appearance in court since a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court in September, when he looked frail and confused.

He is expected to attend at least two more hearings before his trial is scheduled to begin.

On Tuesday, Justice Nigel Sweeney renewed Harris' bail conditions, which dictate that he does not contact prosecution witness and lives at his home address in Bray.

Harris made no comment to reporters after the hearing as he walked past a huge media scrum held behind barricades at the front of the court.

Harris was questioned under caution in November 2012 by officers working on Operation Yewtree, the national investigation launched after abuse claims were made against Jimmy Savile.

He was then arrested in March, and charged in August. The allegations against Harris have no connection to Savile.

Harris has not commented on the allegations since he was first named in the press in April.

Harris, who painted a portrait of the Queen in 2005 and performed at her Diamond Jubilee concert last year, has been in the public eye for decades.

He had his first musical hit Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport in 1960, and continued to enjoy success in the industry as well as forging a television career.

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