THE Syrian military has agreed to halt military operations from Friday Morning for the Muslim holiday weekend but reserves the right to respond to rebel attacks, the army announced.
"Military operations will cease on Syrian territory as of Friday morning, until Monday the 29th," the army said in a statement read on state television.
"(The military) reserves the right to respond to continuing attacks on civilians and government forces by armed groups."
DANISH Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has warned she will veto the EU's 2014-2020 budget proposal if Denmark does not receive a one billion kroner ($A169 million) rebate.
"Our key message to the other countries and what we are fighting for, is that we have to have a discount, and that we do not wish to pay other rich countries' rebates," she told the Danish parliamentary committee on European affairs on Thursday.
Denmark currently has no rebate or discount on its contribution to the European Union's budget.
Thorning-Schmidt, a social democrat, made her announcement after British Prime Minister David Cameron last week threatened to use his veto if Brussels increased spending at a time when EU member states are adopting tough austerity measures at the national level.
The 27 EU leaders will hold an extraordinary summit on November 22 and 23 for what are expected to be very tough talks on the budget. European Union President Herman Van Rompuy has called for member states to show willingness to compromise on the budget.
In 2011, Denmark was still pushing for all budget contribution rebates to be abolished, and primarily Britain's, which is the largest and dates back to 1984.
But shortly thereafter Denmark's centre-right government then headed by Lars Loekke Rasmussen reversed its opinion after concluding the rebate system was to be a lasting feature.
"The Danish government changed its opinion, saying in effect: 'We are still against rebates, but as long as there are rebates in the EU system, we think it is reasonable that we get rebates because we resemble other countries in the EU receiving rebates'," a political science professor at the University of Copenhagen, Peter Nedergaard, told AFP.
"If (Denmark is) not receiving rebates, but should have received them, and other countries that resemble Denmark are receiving them, then Denmark ends up paying for other countries' rebates," he concluded.
Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria have all negotiated rebates because they felt they were contributing too much to the budget compared with other countries.
AN ENDANGERED orangutan on Borneo island has survived after being shot more than 100 times with an air rifle, Indonesian officials say.
The female ape, whom conservationists have named Aan, has gone blind in one eye and sustained serious wounds across her body after being repeatedly hit with pellets on the Indonesian part of the island.
Conservationists had feared the orangutan, found on an oil palm plantation with 37 pellets lodged in her head and 67 elsewhere in her body, would not survive but officials now believe she has cheated death.
"She is fighting hard. She was badly wounded, but she's starting to eat so we're hopeful," Hartono, head of the local government conservation agency said.
But he fears she may lose the sight in her remaining eye and her hearing could be affected.
"We may be able to release her, but we're worried about her chances of survival with no sight and poor hearing," said Mr Hartono, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.The agency said it did not know who shot the ape, which is now in a rehabilitation centre in the Borneo jungle. But the past year has seen several shootings of orangutans on plantations as a form of pest control.
Rangers from the agency rescued Aan on October 10 after she was spotted with serious injuries in Central Kalimantan province. They removed all 104 pellets from her body with the help of the UK-based Orangutan Foundation.
The foundation had feared she would die from infections caused by the serious wounds to her head, as well as near her heart, lungs and eyes.
Four men were sentenced to eight months' jail in April for shooting and beating to death three orangutans and long-nosed monkeys in East Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo.
In that case, employees at a Malaysian-owned palm oil company had paid them to drive the orangutans away. Borneo is shared between Indonesia and Malaysia.
Experts believe there are about 50,000 to 60,000 of the two species of orangutans left in the wild, 80 per cent of them in Indonesia and the rest in Malaysia.
They are faced with extinction from poaching and the rapid destruction of their forest habitat, mainly to create palm oil plantations.
MICROSOFT is kicking off a campaign for its newest operating system, Windows 8, at a five-hour event at New York's Pier 57.
Designed to run on both PCs and tablet computers, Windows 8 heralds the biggest change to the industry's dominant operating system in at least 17 years.
Windows 8 attempts to bridge the gap between personal computers and fast-growing tablets with its touch-enabled interface.
The launch event comes amid a slew of other tablet offerings ahead of the holidays. Apple unveiled its iPad Mini with a 7.9-inch screen on Tuesday. Amazon.com Inc. and Barnes & Noble, makers of the 7-inch Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, are coming out with larger versions next month.
The Windows event in New York also heralds the launch of the software company's Surface tablet, its first venture into making computer devices.
The device goes on sale today, as will computers and other tablets running Windows 8. Wedge Partners analyst Kirk Adams expects Microsoft to trail its rivals in fourth-quarter tablet sales.
One factor that might dampen enthusiasm for the Surface is its price - $US599 with its touch keyboard cover - and its availability for purchase only from a limited number of Microsoft stores and online, Mr Adams said. He said consumers may be reluctant to buy the device until they can try it in person.
Meanwhile, most analysts believe companies and governments will hold off on upgrading to Windows 8 for at least another year. About half of business users still haven't upgraded to Windows 7 from Windows XP, which came out in 2001.
XP also marked the last time Microsoft had a huge launch campaign for Windows. Microsoft also came to New York then, holding an event at a Times Square hotel. Releases of Windows Vista and 7 since then were more subdued.
Here's a running account of the Windows 8 event, presented in reverse chronological order. All times are EDT.
Presenters include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer; Windows chief Steven Sinofsky; Julie Larson-Green, the executive in charge of Windows Program Management; and Michael Angiulo, who heads the Windows Client and Ecosystem Team.
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11:45 a.m.
There have been few surprises, as Microsoft announced the release date and made preview versions available long ago. Microsoft's stock climbed 3 cents to $27.93 in midday trading. Trading volume was low, less than half of the average.
Microsoft announced the grand opening of its Windows online store, modeled after Apple's iTunes store. It will sell apps and content for Windows machines.
The store will be open in 231 markets around the world.
There are plenty of third-party apps available for iPads, iPhones and devices running Google's Android system. Sinofsky acknowledged that Microsoft's app store will likely be slim at first.
"We know some people might count apps and look for their favorite apps," he said. Hinting at more to come, he added, "We see today as a grand opening."
He said there are hundreds of apps added every day, in 109 languages. He said the Windows store has more apps than any other app store had at its opening.
SYRIA'S army and main rebel force said they will cease fire, in line with an internationally backed truce during a Muslim holiday, but both reserved the right to respond to any aggression.
A peace initiative by UN and Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi calls on both sides to observe a truce during the four-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha from today marking the end of the annual hajj pilgrimage.
"Military operations will cease on Syrian territory as of Friday morning, until Monday," the army said in a statement read on state television.
"(The military) reserves the right to respond to continuing attacks on civilians and government forces by armed groups."
And the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the chief among many rebel groups battling President Bashar al-Assad's forces, responded positively soon after, saying it too would lay down its weapons as long as regime troops adhere to the ceasefire.
"We will respect the ceasefire from tomorrow morning if the Syrian army does the same," General Mustafa al-Sheikh said by telephone from Turkey.
"But if they fire a single shot, we will respond with 100. So we reserve the right to respond."
The FSA had previously said it doubts Damascus would stand by any commitment.
If it holds, a ceasefire would mark the first real breakthrough in halting - even temporarily - the 19-month conflict that rights groups say has killed more than 35,000 people.
A ceasefire announced by Brahimi's predecessor, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, in April failed to take hold.
Shortly before the announcements, there were no signs of a slowdown in the fighting, with rebels moving into a strategically important Kurdish neighbourhood in the main battleground city of Aleppo.
Residents in Aleppo's Ashrafiyeh district - a key area in the heights of the commercial capital - said about 200 rebels had moved in to the area for the first time.
One resident said the rebels, who arrived on vehicles mounted with heavy machineguns and bearing the markings of the Liwa al-Tawhid main rebel unit, made it clear they were settling in for Eid despite the promises of a ceasefire.
"Snipers have set up in the buildings and 50 armed men, dressed in black and wearing headbands with Islamic slogans, entered a school near me. I heard them tell the residents: 'We are here to spend Eid with you'," he said.
"I am waiting for things to calm down before leaving," he said.
Rebels and troops were also locked in fighting in the mainly Christian district of Seryan just south of Ashrafiyeh, said residents.
Elsewhere, rebels took control of a military post in the northeastern province of Raqa, troops bombed the Damascus suburb of Harasta and battles in the capital's southern areas of Tadamun and Qadam, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The watchdog gave an initial toll of 49 people - 28 civilians, 13 soldiers and eight rebels - killed on Thursday across Syria, including at least 12 by mortar fire in Aleppo's Ashrafiyeh.
'War crimes committed'
Other rebel groups have refused to accept the proposal, including the Al-Nusra Front, an Islamist militant group that has claimed responsibility for several deadly suicide bombings against symbols of the Assad regime.
The Al-Nusra Front said it will not lay down its weapons and denounced the truce as a "trick".
The United States also voiced scepticism, with US envoy to the UN Susan Rice saying many would doubt the regime's word "given Assad's record of broken promises".
Still, Brahimi stressed that "if we succeed with this modest initiative, a longer ceasefire can be built" that would allow the launch of a political process.
Brahimi said he wanted the ceasefire to help create political space for dialogue and for aid to flow in, particularly to the cities of Aleppo in the north, Homs in the centre and Idlib in the northwest.
And the UN's refugee agency said it was ready to send emergency aid to thousands of Syrian families in previously inaccessible areas if the ceasefire holds.
"In all, some 550 tonnes of supplies are being made available for distribution to up to 13,000 affected families - some 65,000 people - in several previously inaccessible areas," said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Meanwhile, the international community was boosting pressure on the regime, with UN rights investigators saying they would go after high-ranking officials responsible for atrocities.
Former war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte, who joined the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria last month, said that without a doubt "crimes against humanity and war crimes" were being committed in Syria.
Ms Del Ponte said she was focusing on determining "the high-ranking political and military figures (responsible for) these crimes".
The UN investigators also said they had sent a letter to Assad seeking access to the country, after being barred from seeing the conflict first-hand since the commission was created just over a year ago.
A New York police officer has been arrested on charges of plotting to kidnap and eat women, federal authorities said.
According to a criminal complaint, Gilberto Valle, a New York Police Department officer, conspired with an unnamed partner "about kidnapping, cooking and eating body parts of women."
"The allegations in the complaint really need no description from us. They speak for themselves," FBI acting assistant director Mary Galligan said.
"It would be an understatement merely to say Mr Valle's own words and actions were shocking."
The FBI learned about Mr Valle's plan in September when he discussed it on emails and instant messages from his home computer, according to the complaint.
A search of his computer allegedly revealed files kept on at least 100 women, each with a name and photograph and often personal details such as address and descriptions.
Mr Valle is believed to have used law enforcement databases to gather his list and concoct a "plan to abduct and cook an identified woman, researching methods of disabling and drugging women, and agreeing with at least one other individual to kidnap a woman in exchange for a sum of money."
During one online conversation that took place in July between Mr Valle and the unidentified co-conspirator, the complaint says, Mr Valle was asked "how big is your oven?"
Mr Valle allegedly answered: "Big enough to fit one of these girls if I folded their legs."
Further discussing the culinary aspects of the plot, the co-conspirator allegedly asked Mr Valle what his "favourite cut of meat" was and advised against using a spit over a fire.
"Spitting kills the girl. Have to put her into a kind of cage," the co-conspirator wrote.
"I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus," Mr Valle allegedly responds.
"Cook her over a low heat, keep her alive as long as possible."
HURRICANE Sandy is barrelling toward the Bahamas as a powerful category two storm, after battering Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba and claiming three lives so far.
The US-based National Hurricane Center said the storm was packing winds of up to 165km/h as it moved north, near the top of the category two range on the five-rung Saffir-Simpson wind scale.
Forecasters predicted the storm would weaken somewhat over the next 48 hours. But Sandy remains a hurricane as it passes over the Bahamas, according to the latest NHC advisory.
Heavy rains and strong winds were already being felt in some areas of the archipelago on Thursday, with the full impact of the storm expected to start hitting within the next few hours, the Bahamian newspaper The Nassau Guardian reported.
All public schools and government offices were closed as a precautionary measure, but emergency personnel remained on duty, the paper said.
Prime Minster Perry Christie warned residents on Wednesday to get ready for the storm, advising businesses, including banks, to stay shut through Friday, according to the Guardian.
"My government stands ready to assist residents who may be impacted in the projected areas. I impress upon you to secure yourselves and your property," he told the House of Assembly.
The hurricane ploughed across Jamaica and Haiti on Wednesday, dumping heavy rains, downing power lines, and forcing hundreds of people to seek emergency shelter.
Jamaican paper The Gleaner reported a 74-year-old person was killed when a boulder rolled onto a house, while in Haiti, a woman drowned trying to cross a swollen river in Camp-Perrin and another died in the small town of Coteaux, a regional senator told AFP.
Jamaica's electricity provider said some 70 per cent of its customers were without power due to the high winds and torrential rain, and police had ordered a 48-hour curfew to deter looters.
Haiti was on "red alert", with all schools closed.
Meanwhile, the storm moved away from Cuba, with no immediate reports of loss of life.
A blogger close to authorities, Yohandry, said he had "confirmation of some injuries" in Santiago de Cuba, the country's second-largest city, as well as of "hundreds of houses destroyed".
Some 1700 people had been evacuated in Santiago de Cuba province as a precautionary measure.
The hurricane also brought rough weather to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where terror suspects are held.
