Blast hits Jerusalem as Egypt talks truce

A ROCKET fired from Gaza has struck near Jerusalem as Egypt, which has been leading efforts to broker an end to nearly a week of cross-border violence, said the Israeli "aggression" would end on Tuesday.

A loud boom was heard in Jerusalem shortly after air raid sirens wailed, with the Israeli police and army saying a rocket had crashed into an open area near Gush Etzion without causing any casualties.

The attack was claimed by Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which said it had fired "an M75 rocket at the occupied city of Jerusalem".

The second such attack in five days, it came with Hamas engaged in Egyptian-led talks with Israel for a ceasefire on the seventh day of the Jewish state's bombing campaign against rocket-firing militants in the enclave.

In Cairo, Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi struck an upbeat note, saying Israel's "aggression" against Gaza would end on Tuesday and Egyptian-mediated efforts would produce "positive results" within hours.

"The farce of the Israeli aggression will end today, Tuesday, and the efforts to reach a ceasefire between the Palestinians and Israelis will produce positive results within a few hours," the official MENA news agency quoted him as saying.

A Hamas official said chief Khaled Meshaal and his negotiators were currently in a meeting with the intelligence chief. "But it's no secret we're on the verge of an agreement," he said.

Earlier, in a rare statement aired on Hamas television, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades commander Mohammed Deif said that "the enemy will pay a heavy price if it thinks of entering Gaza."

The warning came after Israel halted a threatened ground offensive to give talks a chance to end the conflict that flared on Wednesday when an Israeli strike killed Deif's deputy, Ahmed Jaabari, before launching its bombing campaign.

After the first night of the conflict without Palestinian deaths, the toll rose to 116 on Tuesday when another six people were killed, including a 15-year-old boy who was trying to catch birds, medics said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his key ministers took the decision to put off plans for a ground assault at a meeting overnight, a senior official told AFP.

"A decision was taken that for the time being, there is a temporary hold on a ground incursion to give diplomacy a chance to succeed," he said.

The move came as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in Cairo for Egyptian-led talks on a truce, travelled to Jerusalem and urged both sides to stop their fire "immediately".

The flurry of diplomatic activity will also see US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cutting short a tour of Asia to head to Jerusalem, Ramallah and Cairo, and Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi leading a delegation of 12 ministers on a solidarity visit to Gaza.

Israel is looking for a 24 to 48-hour truce as a buffer to work out a more permanent arrangement, with Tuesday's talks "expected to be decisive," Haaretz newspaper said.

But it is pressing on with its troop buildup along the Gaza border regardless, said the official.

"If we see that diplomacy does not bear fruit - and the time we've given to diplomacy is limited - all the preparations are being undertaken so that if and when the order is given the ground incursion can happen expeditiously," he said.

Hamas is understood to be seeking guarantees Israel will stop its targeted killings, and end its six-year blockade on the coastal territory home to 1.6 million people.

Analysts say a ground war could draw in other regional powers, including Israel's arch foe, Iran.

Inside Gaza, where 116 people have been killed and more than 920 injured in the Israeli bombardment, many families have fled their homes in northern Gaza, which has taken the brunt of the air strikes, to seek safe haven in the south.

Since the violence erupted on November 14, Gaza militants have fired more than 1000 rockets at the Jewish state, killing three people and injuring dozens.

Of those, 715 have crashed into southern Israel and another 359 were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system.

The violence comes as Israel heads towards a general election in January, raising the spectre of a broader Israeli military campaign along the lines of its devastating 22-day Operation Cast Lead launched at the end of December 2008.

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Foreign property buyers offered residency

FOREIGN investors will be offered Spanish residency rights in an attempt to dispose of some 750,000 unsold properties abandoned since the 2008 market collapse.

Bad debt in Spanish banks rose to a record 10.7 per cent of the loan total, about 182 billion euros ($A225.8 billion), in September, with institutions desperate to offload the crippling assets.

"We have proposed to the other ministries that for residents who acquire a home in Spain for more than 160,000 euro that will automatically entail a residency permit," Spanish Trade Minister Jaime Garcia-Legaz said in an article published by British newspaper The Times on Tuesday.

Russian and Chinese buyers are understood to be targeted in the initial real estate scheme, and it is unknown if the subsequent residency will be for Spain alone or the entire European Union.

With some five million Spaniards out of work, the number of people unable to maintain repayments and forced to leave their homes continues to rise, with reports claiming 300 evictions per day in the first half of 2012.

In November Spain's government announced a two-year halt to evictions of vulnerable home owners after the practice was linked to acts of suicide.

Spain's residency offer, which aims to revive the construction industry, is more attractive than similar schemes in Ireland and Portugal where buyers are offered such rights only after buying houses worth more than 400,000 euro or 500,000 euro respectively.

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Hamas kills six suspected collaborators

WITNESSES say masked gunmen have publicly killed six suspected collaborators with Israel at a busy Gaza City intersection.

The Hamas military wing claimed responsibility.

Witnesses said the six men were pulled out of a van on Tuesday, forced to lie face down on the street and then shot dead.

Five bodies lay in a pile as a mob stomped and spit on them. A sixth body was tied to a motorcycle and dragged through the streets as people screamed, "Spy! Spy!"

Hamas posted a sign on an electricity pole, naming the six alleged informers.

The public killings came during an Israeli military offensive that has killed more than 120 people, both militants and civilians.

Israel relies on a network of local informants to identify its targets.

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One dead in fresh Kenya violence

FRESH violence has broken out in Kenya's restive northeast, with one person killed and seven others shot and wounded, officials say, a day after security forces cracked down on rioters.

Several other people were also hospitalised, some of them after being beaten with clubs by security forces in a crackdown following the killing of three soldiers in Garissa, a garrison town near the border with war-torn Somalia.

Kenya Red Cross said one person had died and 48 others - including seven with gunshot wounds - were being treated at Garissa hospital.

However, "relative calm and normalcy" had returned to the town by late afternoon, it added in a statement.

Garissa's main market was torched during the violence that broke out on Monday, after unknown gunmen killed three soldiers in town, sparking a security crackdown that provoked violent protests.

The violence is separate from riots that shook the capital Nairobi on Monday, although both broke out following attacks that resembled a recent string of grenade blasts and shootings blamed on supporters of Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents.

Small scuffles were also reported on Tuesday in Nairobi's Eastleigh district, a predominantly ethnic Somali neighbourhood, but on a far smaller scale than Monday, when street battles took place the day after a bomb blast on a bus killed nine people.

Garissa MP Adan Duale warned of the potential for further clashes between the military and residents if the garrison is not moved away from the town.

"The soldiers need to be moved out of Garissa, the lost lives and property need to be compensated and a commission of inquiry needs to be set up," Duale said, confirming that a woman had died of gunshot wounds.

Senior Shebab official Abduaziz Abu Musab denied involvement in Sunday's bomb blast in Nairobi, but said it was possible "some sympathisers of our cause acted alone" in the shooting of the soldiers in Garissa.

"We are categorically denying any involvement in the bus attack in Eastleigh at the weekend," Musab told AFP, blaming the violence on Kenya's elections due in March 2013.

"The violence is instead related to the upcoming election in Kenya and was masterminded to harm the Muslims in Kenya," he told AFP.

The Shebab have vowed revenge after Kenya invaded southern Somalia last year to chase out the Islamist fighters, although the group has not claimed direct responsibility for any attack.

Violence in Kenya - ranging from attacks blamed on Islamists to inter-communal clashes to a police crackdown on a coastal separatist movement - have raised concerns over security ahead of next year's elections.

Five years ago, elections descended into deadly post-poll killings that shattered Kenya's image as a beacon of regional stability.

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US stocks open lower after HP loss

US stocks have opened lower after Hewlett-Packard reported a quarterly loss due in part to a massive writedown, offsetting fresh data signalling recovery in the housing market.

After a triple-digit gain on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 52.60 points (0.41 per cent) to 12,743.36 in the first 15 minutes of trade.

The S&P 500-stock index dropped 4.17 points (0.30 per cent) to 1382.72, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite slipped 6.21 (0.21 per cent) to 2909.86.

Charles Schwab & Co analysts said stocks were lower after Dow member HP announced an $US8.8 billion ($A8.49 billion) charge related to alleged accounting improprieties at Autonomy Corp, which HP acquired in August 2011 for over $10 billion.

On Monday, stocks scored solid gains on upbeat housing data and hopes that politicians will find a way to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts in January.

The jump was underpinned by Apple, the most valuable public company, which took a 7.2 per cent bounce to $565.73, following weeks of losses.

The Dow rose 1.65 per cent, the S&P 500 added 1.99 per cent and the Nasdaq leapt 2.21 per cent.

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UBS rogue trader jailed for 7 years

A ROGUE trader who lost $US2.2 billion ($A2.12 billion) in bad deals at Swiss bank UBS has been sentenced to 7 years in prison after being convicted in what prosecutors called the biggest fraud case in UK banking history.

Ghanaian-born Kweku Adoboli, 32, exceeded his trading limits and failed to cover his losses, allegedly faking records to hide his tracks at the bank's London office. At one point, Adoboli risked running losses of up to $12 billion.

"There is a strong streak of the gambler in you," Judge Brian Keith told Adoboli. "You were arrogant to think the bank's rules for traders did not apply to you."

Adoboli wiped away tears as Keith handed down his sentence.

A conviction for fraud carries a maximum jail term of 10 years.

The 10-person jury at Southwark Crown Court in London found Adoboli guilty of two counts of fraud and innocent of four other false accounting charges.

The trader ran into trouble dealing in exchange traded funds, complex financial products that track stocks, bonds and commodities. Adoboli admitted the losses, but said he was pressured by staff to take risks.

He also testified last month that he had been trying to help UBS survive after it amassed losses of $52 billion during the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.

"There were times we thought there was no way the organisation would survive," said Adoboli, who joined UBS as a trainee in 2003 and rose quickly to become a senior trader. "I grew up with UBS. I felt very loyal to UBS."

Detective Chief Inspector Perry Stokes of City of London Police, who led the investigation of Adoboli, had a different view, believing the trader's motive was "to increase his bonus, his status, his job prospects and his ego."

"Adoboli was a sophisticated fraudster," Stokes said. "He was one of the most accomplished fraudsters that I've seen in my time investigating serious fraud."

After questions were raised about his trading, Adoboli walked off the job and sent an email to colleagues saying what he had done.

"I take full responsibility for my actions and the s-- storm that will now ensue. I am deeply sorry to have left this mess for everyone and to have put my bank and my colleagues at risk," he wrote.

The conviction on the second fraud count came on a 9-1 vote after the judge said he would accept a majority verdict. The sentences, to be served concurrently, were seven years on the first charge and four years on the second.

"We are glad that the criminal proceedings have reached a conclusion and thank the police and the UK authorities for their professional handling of this case," UBS said in a statement. "We have no further comment."

Prosecutors said it was the biggest fraud in British banking history, but it wasn't the largest trading loss. US-based JPMorgan Chase lost at least $5.8 billion through bad trades at its London office, the bank's CEO Jamie Dimon said in July.

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Syria troops besiege town near Damascus

SYRIAN troops have besieged Daraya and rained shells on the town near Damascus, killing a woman and a child, in a fresh attempt to storm it, activists and a watchdog say.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that at least 29 people have died over the past 24 hours in clashes between Kurdish militiamen and rebels in the northern Syria town of Ras al-Ain, near the Turkey border.

"We have been under constant rocket and artillery fire," Abu Kinan, an activist from Daraya southwest of Damascus, told AFP via Skype, adding that troops had rigged the area with checkpoints and arrested scores of people.

"There is no life in all of Daraya," he said, estimating that 90 per cent of the residents had fled the town in panic.

"The clashes are some of the heaviest we have seen. The Republican Guard came to reinforce the regime army," he said.

Rebel Free Syrian Army fighters are locked in fierce battles with regime troops on the edge of the town, he added.

At least two civilians, a woman and a child, were killed by army bombardments on Daraya, the Observatory said, in the latest of several attempts to storm the town over the past few days, the watchdog said.

Considered a heartland of non-violent activism, Daraya was the site of the worst massacre in Syria's 20-month conflict, with more than 500 people killed there in late August, according to monitors.

The Observatory also reported shelling attacks across the eastern outskirts of Damascus while state media said two mortars hit the ministry of information in the west of the capital, causing no casualties.

In the northern province of Aleppo, rebels attacked the Sheikh Suleiman air defence battalion, less than two days after a military source said the insurgents took control of the sprawling Base 46 in the same province.

The Observatory said casualties from clashes in Ras al-Ain included four Kurdish fighters, a local Kurdish official, and 24 members of the Islamist Al-Nusra Front and Gharba al-Sham rebel battalions.

The Kurdish fighters are members of the People's Defence Units, the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is linked to Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), said the British-based watchdog.

A Ras al-Ain activist, who gave his name only as Hevidar, said that tension has been high between rebels an the PYD since the insurgents took the town last week.

The clashes on Monday erupted after a Kurdish demonstration, which demanded that all rebels not from the town leave, was met with refusal.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, lawyers and medics in civilian and military hospitals, gave an initial toll of at least 30 people killed across Syria on Tuesday.

The dead include nine soldiers who died in the central town of Mahin, east of Homs, when a truck rigged with explosives was detonated near a weapons depot. At least 20 soldiers were wounded in the blast.

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