Hamas cabinet's headquarters hit

ISRAELI air strikes have hit the cabinet headquarters of Gaza's Hamas government, with eyewitnesses reporting extensive damage to the building.

"The cabinet headquarters was targeted with four strikes and the government stresses that it remains committed to its positions and its stand alongside the people," the Hamas government said in a statement.

"The IDF (Israeli Defence Force) has targeted (Hamas prime minister) Ismail Haniya's headquarters in Gaza," an Israeli army spokesman told AFP.

"Over the past six hours, the IDF targeted 85 more terror sites."

Eyewitnesses and Hamas officials said the headquarters in the Nasser neighbourhood of Gaza City was virtually levelled in the strike.

"The headquarters was completely destroyed and neighbouring houses were damaged as a result of the barbaric Israeli bombing," a Hamas official told AFP.

On Friday morning, Haniya and a slew of other top Hamas government officials lined up in front of the building to welcome Egypt's Prime Minister Hisham Qandil, on a brief solidarity trip to the Gaza Strip.

The raid on the building came as Israel renewed strikes across Gaza, bombing the headquarters of the Hamas police force in western Gaza City and the government's internal security headquarters in the north of the city.

In the northern Jabalia camp, a strike left at least five people injured from the same family, according a source at the Kamal Odwan hospital.

The string of attacks came after a relative lull in the violence that began on Wednesday with an Israeli strike that killed a senior Hamas commander.

Since then, at least 30 Palestinians have been killed with more than 280 wounded, and Gaza militants have fired hundreds of rockets at Israel, killing three people and wounding 16.

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Merkel raises rights questions with Putin

THE German and Russian leaders have sparred over human rights questions during a summit in Moscow, as companies from the two powers signed major business deals.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticised Russia's jailing of three female members of the punk band Pussy Riot for performing a protest song in a Russian Orthodox cathedral in February.

Allowing that a similar stunt would have outraged Germans too, she added pointedly: "We are asking ourselves whether this is good for the development of Russian civil society or not."

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has faced down unprecedented pro-democracy protests during the past year, defended the sentence handed down to the women.

In a joint press conference with Merkel, Putin accused the band of anti-Semitism and said he had heard that under German law the activists would have faced up to three years in jail.

Despite their differences on rights questions, energy-rich Russia and the European export power are major trade partners, with Germany reliant on massive Russian gas imports.

Germany is Russia's main trading partner, with two-way trade totalling 75 billion euros ($A92.40 billion) last year.

Merkel was joined in the annual meeting by a large delegation of cabinet members and industry heavyweights, who signed multi-billion-euro deals on Friday.

German engineering giant Siemens inked a memorandum of understanding for the sale of 695 train engines, worth 2.5 billion euros, with the Russian state railway RZD.

The German stock exchange operator Deutsche Boerse AG and Russia's Moscow Exchange signed a letter of intent designed to enhance co-operation between the two financial markets.

Putin also promised Russian support for the euro and voiced confidence that the eurozone debt crisis would be resolved, saying: "We are convinced that the difficulties will be overcome."

Nonetheless, the rights question clouded the summit, as it has darkened the Kremlin's relations with other Western powers, who are also upset by Moscow's and Beijing's support for the Syrian government.

Putin's government has tightened the screws on dissent, forcing non-governmental organisations that receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents" in a law passed in July.

On the eve of Merkel's visit, one group - the Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia, which has uncovered scandals in the Russian military - said it would have to suspend operations, in part because of the new rule.

On Wednesday, Putin signed another law that stiffens provisions for treason, granting authorities wider powers to charge citizens with spying and to impose lengthy sentences.

Merkel, who faces an election in less than a year, was under pressure from her parliament to raise concerns about human rights.

The Kremlin leadership was irritated by a resolution passed last week in the German Bundestag that contained 17 demands related to democracy and human rights in Russia.

Meanwhile, Moscow's Kommersant newspaper reported that Russia's relations with Germany were "worsening without a doubt".

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Four killed, 17 hurt in US train crash

AT least four people have died and 17 were injured when a freight train crashed into a parade float carrying wounded US war veterans in the West Texas city of Midland.

The crash happened at a rail crossing as a truck carrying the float was on its way to an event to honour the veterans, municipal spokesman Ryan Stout said.

The injured were taken to Midland Memorial Hospital, where 10 were reported in critical condition while the other seven were listed as stable.

The Show of Support's Hunt for Heroes parade was to be followed by a banquet in honour of the wounded war veterans.

The US National Transportation Safety Board has begun an investigation of the crash.

Midland is a town of about 110,000 inhabitants some 530 kilometres west of Dallas.

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Trial for mother's murder delayed to 2013

BRISBANE AAP Nov 15 - A Gold Coast man who allegedly murdered his mother and hid her body more than two years ago is unlikely to stand trial before the middle of next year.

Stephen Pike, 36, of Burleigh Waters, was committed last year to stand trial for the murder of Suellen Pike, 63, in August 2010.

Mrs Pike's body has never been found.

In the Brisbane Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Peter Lyons handed down a series of rulings on pre-trial issues.

The matter will go to the mentions list for a trial date to be allocated.

It is understood the trial is unlikely to start before the middle of next year because of a court backlog.

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Fears grow Israel will invade Gaza

At least 19 Palestinians were killed during air strikes on Gaza on Thursday, UN officials say. Source: AAP

ISRAELI aircraft have targeted rocket launching operations of Gaza militants as troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers massed near the Palestinian territory, signaling a ground invasion might be growing near.

Fighting between the two sides escalated sharply on Thursday with a first-ever militant attack on the Tel Aviv area, menacing Israel's heartland.

No casualties were reported there, but three people died in the country's rocket-scarred south when a projectile slammed into an apartment building.

The death toll in the densely populated Palestinian territory climbed to 19, including five children, according to Palestinian health officials, as waves of Israeli fighter planes and drones sent missiles hurtling down on suspected weapons stores and rocket-launching sites.

Early on Friday, 85 missiles exploded within 45 minutes in Gaza City, sending black pillars of smoke towering above the coastal strip's largest city.

The military said it was targeting underground rocket launching sites.

One missile hit the Interior Ministry, a symbol of Hamas power, and another hit an empty house belonging to a senior Hamas commander.

Those strikes, together with an attack on a generator building near the home of Gaza's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, signalled that Israel was expanding its offensive beyond military targets.

The fighting has already widened the instability gripping a region in the throes of war and regime upheavals.

It has strained already frayed relations with Egypt, which was sending its prime minister to Gaza later on Friday in a show of solidarity with its militant Hamas rulers.

Israel and Hamas had largely observed an informal truce since Israel's devastating incursion into Gaza four years ago, but rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes on militant operations didn't halt entirely.

The latest flare-up exploded into major violence on Wednesday when Israel assassinated Hamas' military chief, following up with a punishing air assault meant to cripple the militants' ability to terrorise Israel with rockets.

The Israeli military reported early on Friday that its aircraft had struck more than 350 targets since the beginning of its operation against Hamas' rocket operations.

After nightfall on Thursday, several explosions shook Gaza City several minutes apart, a sign the strikes were not letting up.

The military said the targets were about 70 underground rocket-launching sites.

The Israeli offensive has not deterred the militants from striking back with more than 400 rockets aimed at southern Israel.

For the first time, they also unleashed the most powerful weapons in their arsenal - Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv.

The two rockets that struck closest to Tel Aviv appear to have landed in the Mediterranean Sea, defence officials said, and another hit an open area on Tel Aviv's southern outskirts.

No injuries were reported, but the rocket fire - the first in the area from Gaza - sowed panic in Tel Aviv and made the prospect of a ground incursion more likely.

The government later approved the mobilisation of up to 30,000 reservists for a possible invasion.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the army was hitting Hamas hard with what he called surgical strikes, and warned of a "significant widening" of the Gaza operation.

Israel will "continue to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people," said Netanyahu, who is up for re-election in January.

At least 12 trucks were seen transporting tanks and armored personnel carriers toward Gaza late on Thursday, and buses carrying soldiers headed toward the border area.

Israeli TV stations said a Gaza operation was expected on Friday, though military officials said no decision had been made.

"We will continue the attacks and we will increase the attacks, and I believe we will obtain our objectives," said Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, Israel's military chief.

An Israeli ground offensive could be costly to both sides.

In the last Gaza war, Israel devastated large areas of the territory, setting back Hamas' fighting capabilities but also paying the price of increasing diplomatic isolation because of a civilian death toll numbering in the hundreds.

The current round of fighting is reminiscent of the first days of that three-week offensive against Hamas.

Israel also caught Hamas off guard then with a barrage of missile strikes and threatened to follow up with a ground offensive.

Much has changed since then.

Israel has improved its missile defence systems, but it is facing a more heavily armed Hamas.

Israel estimates the militants have 12,000 rockets, including more sophisticated weapons from Iran and from Libyan stockpiles plundered after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime there last year.

Also, regional alignments have changed dramatically since the last Gaza war.

Hamas has emerged from its political isolation as its parent movement, the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, has risen to power in several countries in the wake of last year's Arab uprisings, particularly in Egypt.

Egypt recalled its ambassador to protest the Israeli offensive and ordered its prime minister to lead a senior delegation to Gaza on Friday in a show of support for Hamas.

At the same time, while relations with Israel have cooled since the toppling of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, Islamist President Mohammed Morsi has not brought a radical change in Egypt's policy toward Israel.

He has promised to abide by Egypt's 1979 peace deal with Israel and his government has continued contacts with Israel through its non-Brotherhood members.

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Pilot killed in Cape York crash

A LIGHT plane crash on the tip of Cape York Peninsula has claimed the life of a South Australian pilot.

The 62-year-old man took off from Bamaga airport on Thursday on a flight to Weipa, but didn't arrive.

Searchers found the wreckage of the plane on Friday morning at Cotterell River about 50km away.

The pilot was the only person on board.

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Seven years on, Rahma mystery continues

SEVEN years after she disappeared from her Sydney home, the fate of missing toddler Rahma El-Dennaoui remains a mystery, with a coroner declining to rule out the possibility her family staged her abduction.

Deputy State Coroner Sharon Freund on Thursday handed down an open finding into the 2005 disappearance of 20-month-old Rahma, saying she was unable to determine whether the little girl was dead or not.

Instead, she referred the matter to the NSW homicide squad for further investigation.

"Rahma El-Dennaoui did not simply vanish into thin air," Ms Freund said.

"Unfortunately this inquest was unable to narrow the reasons as to why and how she came to disappear.

"Only those involved with her disappearance know the truth, and they will ultimately be held accountable."

Rahma disappeared from her home in Lurnea in Sydney's southwest in the early hours of November 10, 2005.

She had been sleeping alongside her sisters in the front of the house, and police found cuts to a flyscreen window above their bed that were big enough for a toddler to be lifted through.

The coroner said aspects of the evidence given by Rahma's parents, Hosayn and Alyaa El-Dennaoui, were "troubling".

The inquest, which was held over four weeks in April and October, heard evidence from 40 witnesses, many of whom were extended members of the El-Dennaoui family.

When it resumed in October, it was revealed police had intercepted the phone calls of the immediate family and the coroner would need to consider whether Rahma's abduction had been staged to conceal her death in the family home.

The court heard unsubstantiated theories in relation to what could have happened to Rahma in such a circumstance, including that she overdosed on child paracetamol, or was struck by one of her parents because she was ill and crying.

Ms Freund said the behaviour of Rahma's parents during the intercepted phone conversations was "puzzling" and not consistent with that of a grieving family.

"In particular, the joking and laughing by Rahma's parents with third parties about the kidnapping and the splitting of the reward money, the specific references to avoiding talking about the inquest on the telephone and actually talking in code," Ms Freund said.

The evidence in the final two weeks of the inquest, "did nothing in my view to exculpate Rahma's immediate family", she said.

"As a result, I cannot support the submission ... that I should make a positive finding that Rahma was kidnapped by person or persons unknown and that the immediate family had not staged her disappearance."

However, Ms Freund noted there was no conclusive evidence the El-Dennaoui family had staged the kidnapping or were implicated in Rahma's disappearance.

"Accordingly, the possibilities outlined earlier, for example, that Rahma was abducted by a relative, or taken by a complete stranger, remain open," she said.

Ms Freund also referred to evidence given to the inquest by two suspected pedophiles who lived in the area and who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The investigation into one of these men in particular had a number of shortcomings, she said.

"There also may be other suspects who emerge over time," she said.

Speaking outside court, Mr El-Dennaoui denied he or his wife had anything to do with Rahma's disappearance.

"Last Saturday it was seven years exactly (since she disappeared) and we don't know what's happened to her and we would like to know," he told reporters.

"We are not involved, anyone, me and my wife, we've done nothing to Rahma."

Detective Sergeant Nick Sedgwick told reporters, "We won't stop until those responsible are brought to justice."

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Algae fuel gets its first road test

BIG oil has taken a small but significant hit as San Francisco Bay Area motorists begin filling up their tanks with algae, becoming the first private citizens in the world to use a domestically grown product that could revolutionise the fuel industry.

The first alternative fuel made from algae has gone on sale at four petrol stations in what advocates insist is the first wave in a tide of clean fuel that will hit the marketplace.

"Today, at this station, we are putting a stake in the ground," Matt Horton, chief executive officer of Propel Fuels, said this week as he prepared to fill the first tank with the algae-based product in Redwood City.

The fuel, which is actually 20 per cent algae, is available to any vehicle that runs on diesel, and it spews much less smog and ozone-depleting greenhouse gases, Horton said.

More than a million Californians drive alternative-fuel-ready vehicles, but there is not enough clean fuel, and the supply line is virtually nonexistent, Horton said.

The product, made from algae grown by the South San Francisco company Solazyme, has been used in trials by the military and industrial companies. The pilot program will make it available on the retail market for a month. After a month, a decision will be made on whether to continue offering the product.

The algae fuel, called Biodiesel B20, was being sold for a little less than $US4.25 ($A4.12) a gallon (3.78 litres) in Redwood City. That's the same as the average price for diesel fuel in California.

"We're talking about fuels that are offered at standard diesel pricing," said Bob Ames, vice president in charge of fuels and commercialisation for Solazyme.

Ames said the algae oil is made in stainless steel vessels at Solazyme's plant in Peoria, Illinois, using a fermentation process in which a specific organism, the name of which he would not reveal, is combined with sugar.

He said the company tested many strains of algae over the years to determine which one they could reproduce quickly and repeatedly.

The resulting oil is processed into different kinds of fuel, including jet and marine-grade fuels, at a biodiesel plant in California.

The end product produces 30 per cent fewer particulates, 20 per cent less carbon monoxide and 10 per cent fewer hydrocarbons than other diesel and biodiesel fuels.

It is an example, he said, of how to use "some of the world's smallest microorganisms to solve some of the world's greatest problems".

The new fuel is in line with California's "low-carbon fuel standard," which forces fuel producers to lower the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in their products by 10 per cent by 2020.

In January, the California Air Resources Board approved strict rules designed to cut in half current vehicle emissions by 2025. It means vehicle makers will have to cut exhaust by two thirds and begin mass-producing cars that do not run on petrol.

The idea behind the requirements, which will get increasingly strict as the years go by, is to promote innovation in batteries, hydrogen fuel cells and plug-in hybrid technology and cut the state's dependence on oil.

The goal is to have at least 80 per cent of the state's fleet of new vehicles running on clean fuel technology by 2050.

Low-carbon biofuels will be part of the solution, according to experts.

Corn, cooking grease, and other products have been tried. Currently, oil companies are experimenting with biofuel blends, including cellulosic ethanol, made from grass, crop stubble or woody plants, but there are questions about whether the supply can meet demand.

There are indications that things are beginning to turn around. Emeryville's Amyris Inc formed a joint venture late last year with French oil giant Total to bring renewable diesel and jet fuel to the global market.

Propel is trying to provide infrastructure. The company has a network of 29 petrol stations where it leases space and offers different types of biodiesel.

Horton said most diesel vehicles could run on 100 per cent algae fuel, but doing that would result in higher costs to the consumer.

Also, he said, many vehicle makers oppose allowing a mix higher than 20 per cent. The goal, Horton said, is to increase the blend as the supply and demand increase over time.

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Clinton enjoys some rare down time in SA

SHE'S going somewhere, but we don't know where and she's seeing someone, but we don't know who.

One of the most powerful women in the world, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is enjoying some down time in Adelaide.

And who would blame her?

She flew into Australia earlier this week for high-level talks between US and Australian officials in Perth, flew to Adelaide on Wednesday to tour key facilities in the city's defence precinct, and by Friday morning will be back on a plane making her way to Singapore.

Such is the nature of her globe-trotting role.

Speculation was high that during some rare free time on Thursday afternoon and evening Mrs Clinton, the first US secretary of state to visit South Australia, would enjoy some of Adelaide's best food and wine and even take in some of the sights.

But details of her private engagements remained just that - private.

Her most likely destination was thought to be the historic Penfolds Magill Estate in the city's eastern suburbs, the home of the iconic Grange wine.

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall also visited the winery last week in their whistlestop five-hour stopover in Adelaide.

They sampled a rare $4000 bottle of 1962 Coonawarra Cabernet Kalimna Shiraz, a vintage considered rarer than Grange. There's probably still some left over should Mrs Clinton fancy a drop.

Reports also speculated the secretary of state's mystery friend in Adelaide was the head of the local campus for US-based university Carnegie Mellon, although that seemed less likely when the university said he was overseas.

At the end of the day it all left the media on the lookout for the black BMW used to ferry the former first lady around the city, this time hoping for a glimpse of American royalty.

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Qld fishers to consider buybacks

QUEENSLAND fishers will be asked whether they want their licenses bought back.

Fisheries Minister John McVeigh says invitations would be made this week to east coast commercial net fishers.

"These licences are targeted to meet the government's election commitment to reduce the number of commercial net licences," he said.

"Industry has asked for a 50 per cent reduction of net licences. We'll look towards this target."

Mr McVeigh said offers would be assessed on current market values to make sure only reasonable offers were accepted.

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