H7N9 bird flu spreads in central China

CHINA'S deadly H7N9 bird flu outbreak has spread to the central province of Hunan, local health authorities say, the third announcement in three days of a case in a new location.

A 64-year-old woman in Shaoyang City, who developed a fever four days after coming into contact with poultry, was confirmed to have the virus, the Xinhua state news agency reported on Saturday.

It follows the first confirmed cases in the eastern province of Jiangxi on Thursday and the southeastern province of Fujian on Friday.

More than 110 people in mainland China have been confirmed with H7N9, with 23 deaths, since the government announced on March 31 that the virus had been found in humans.

Most cases have been confined to eastern China, while the island of Taiwan has also reported one case.

A Chinese expert earlier this week warned of the possibility of more cases in a wider geographical area.

"Until the source of H7N9 avian influenza is ... brought under effective control, sporadic cases might continue to appear," said Liang Wannian of China's National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Poultry has been confirmed as the source of the H7N9 flu among humans but experts fear the prospect of such a virus mutating into a form easily transmissible between humans, which could then have the potential to trigger a pandemic.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Italy president updated on coalition talks

ITALIAN prime minister-designate Enrico Letta is expected to update President Giorgio Napolitano on efforts to strike a coalition deal and give Italy a much-awaited government.

The presidency said on Saturday the leftist 46-year-old was due to meet Napolitano at 1300 GMT (2300 AEST) but it was not known whether he had succeeded in breaking the two-month-old deadlock.

Centrist politician Lorenzo Cesa predicted "a positive outcome by the end of the day" but other MPs said while they expected a breakthrough before markets reopen on Monday, they did not see it happening before Sunday.

Once differences between his centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL) have been ironed out, Letta will formally accept the nomination of prime minister from Napolitano.

He will then be sworn in along with his new cabinet, before the government is put to a confidence vote in both houses of parliament.

Most observers were upbeat about Letta's chances as he met with Berlusconi and the former head of the centre-left, Pier Luigi Bersani, in a bid to close the deal on Saturday.

Italian media feverishly ran through possible cabinet candidates in constantly updated "Toto minister" pools, based on the popular system for betting on the results of Italian football matches.

But some commentators warned that the sparring risked thwarting coalition plans and worsening Italy's political and economic situation.

The parties are acting as if "the government being created is an alliance formed with a pistol to its head," said Luciano Fontana in Italy's best-selling Corriere della Sera daily.

Conditions imposed by both sides "are complicating the deal's closure, to the point it risks failure," he warned.

Letta has said he wants to move quickly to tackle the social fallout of a painful recession and Napolitano has been urging him to include younger ministers and women in his cabinet to help renew the country's tired political scene.

But cross-party unity has demands attached.

Negotiations have been trickiest with the scandal-tainted billionaire tycoon Berlusconi, who has insisted on the abolition and repayment of a controversial housing tax introduced in 2012.

Such a move would set the budget back some eight billion euros ($A10.15 billion) in a country suffering from its longest recession in 20 years.

Furthermore, Letta's own PD, which narrowly won inconclusive general elections in February, is deeply divided over going into government with Berlusconi's.

There have been calls from both sides to prevent rival figures from Italy's political scene from grasping ministerial posts - with Berlusconi, Monti and former premiers Giuliano Amato and Massimo D'Alema the names most fiercely contested.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

100 Guantana prisoners on hunger strike

A HUNGER strike among prisoners at Guantanamo Bay keeps growing.

Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House said on Saturday 100 of 166 prisoners at the US base in Cuba have now joined the strike.

He says 19 are receiving liquid nutrients through a nasal tube to prevent dangerous weight loss. Five of those are at a hospital under observation but do not have any life-threatening conditions.

Lawyers for the detainees say the military is undercounting the number of hunger strikers.

Prisoners began the hunger strike in February to protest conditions and indefinite confinement.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Vic Labor claims victory in Lyndhurst

Martin Pakula is confident he can win the by-election in the Victorian state seat of Lyndhurst. Source: AAP

LABOR'S Martin Pakula has claimed victory in the Victoria's Lyndhurst by-election with around 40 per cent of the primary vote, after more than three-quarters of the total vote was counted.

Victorian Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews has however acknowledged his party has an image problem after Labor's primary vote took a dive.

The primary vote was significantly down on the 55 per cent result achieved at the 2010 state poll and there was no coalition candidate.

Mr Andrews said it was no secret the Labor brand was facing challenges.

The latest Newspoll published in The Australian this week put the federal coalition at a 10-point lead of 55 to 45 per cent over Labor after preferences.

When asked if federal Labor's woes had impacted on the result, Mr Andrews said: "There are challenges from a brand point of view and I think everybody knows that," he told AAP.

"I'm not someone who throughout my time as leader of the Labor Party in Victoria that has ever sought to blame others for the challenges that we face.

"But I think it would be naive not to note, as we all do - not just Labor people but Victorians more broadly - that, you know, things are challenging, things are difficult for Labor just now."

Mr Pakula will pick up his previous portfolios of shadow attorney-general, racing, gaming and scrutiny of government.

"By-elections are very difficult, they're very challenging," he said.

"History will tell you that in by-elections people take the opportunity to vote differently, they vote all over the card."

The result gives Labor 43 seats on the floor of parliament to the coalition's 44, including the speaker.

It means the government needs the support of independent MP Geoff Shaw to pass legislation opposed by Labor.

The former Liberal MP is under police investigation for misconduct in public office and has a verbal agreement with Premier Denis Napthine that he will support the government on matters of supply and confidence.

"What this victory for Labor now means is that the Napthine government is now officially a minority, one that is beholden to Geoff Shaw," Mr Andrews said.

"On every bill, on every measure in every way, Denis Napthine is tied to Geoff Shaw."

Dr Napthine said there had been a 15 per cent swing against Labor, even without a coalition candidate.

"This is a slap in the face for Daniel Andrews in Labor heartland," he said.

"This is a repudiation of Daniel Andrew's approach and the fact that he is working hand-in-hand with militant union leadership."

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Campaigners protest British drone strikes

ANTI-WAR campaigners opposed to Britain's use of armed drones in Afghanistan have marched on a military base hosting the aircraft's human operators for the first time.

Royal Air Force pilots had been operating Reaper aircraft to support British troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan remotely from a base in Nevada in the United States.

But this week the operations were relocated to Britain for the first time, to RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire in eastern England, the Ministry of Defence said.

About 200 demonstrators marched to the base in Saturday, according to the BBC, to show their opposition to what campaigners said marked a "critical expansion in Britain's drones program".

"Drones are indiscriminate weapons of war that have been responsible for thousands of civilian deaths," said a statement from the Stop the War Coalition.

"Rather than expanding the UK's arsenal, drones should be banned, just as landmines and cluster munitions were banned."

Prime Minister David Cameron announced in December 2010 new funding to increase the Reaper program, although there are no plans to base or fly the drones in Britain, officials say.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said people were entitled to demonstrate but insisted the military did "everything possible" to avoid civilian casualties.

"We would stress that UK Reaper aircraft are piloted by highly-trained professional military pilots who adhere strictly to the same laws of armed conflict and are bound by the same clearly-defined rules of engagement which apply to those operating traditionally-manned RAF aircraft," he said.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Legacy donations stolen from NSW RSL club

DONATIONS for the families of defence personnel have been stolen from an RSL club on the NSW south coast in a "shocking" robbery in the early hours of Anzac Day, police say.

An unknown number of people broke into the Bomaderry club about 2.20am (AEST) on Thursday after a rock was thrown at a glass door, they say.

The only thing reported missing was a replica digger's tin hat used to collect donations for Legacy, a charity that supports the families of defence services personnel.

Police said the amount of money stolen was not known.

"We are particularly shocked by this theft, given it occurred just four hours before the Anzac Day Dawn Service in Bomaderry," Shoalhaven duty officer Inspector Bruce Griffin said.

He's urged anyone with information about the incident to contact them.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Remains found in missing Vic woman's home

HUMAN remains have been found in the home of an 82-year-old Melbourne woman who has been missing for almost two years.

Phyllis Kelly was last seen on August 20, 2011, at the State Theatre, just after 6pm.

She had not accessed her bank account since then and police had made public calls for information about her disappearance, having held grave fears for her welfare.

Police, accompanied by a pathologist, searched the woman's home on Little Charles Street in Fitzroy on Thursday after receiving authority from the coroner to conduct the search.

The remains will now be taken to the coroner for testing, a police spokeswoman said.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

UK man loses Longley murder appeal

A YOUNG British man found guilty of murdering his aspiring New Zealand model girlfriend has lost his appeal against conviction.

Wealthy jeweller's son Elliot Turner, now 21, from Bournemouth was present in the dock at the Court of Appeal in London for Wednesday's ruling by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, sitting with Justice Royce and Justice Globe.

In May last year Turner was sentenced to life and ordered to serve at least 16 years before he can apply for parole after he was convicted by a jury at Winchester Crown Court of murdering 17-year-old Emily Longley.

After hearing argument on Turner's behalf and from a QC representing the prosecution, Lord Judge announced the court had decided to reject Turner's challenge.

He said the court had reached the "clear conclusion" that the appeal should be dismissed.

The court also threw out Turner's bid to have his sentence reduced.

The judges will give their reasons for their decision at a date to be announced.

A large number of Ms Longley's family were in court, including members who had travelled from their home in New Zealand.

During his trial Turner claimed that he acted in self-defence when Emily attacked him and he grabbed her by the throat for five or six seconds, then woke up to find her dead in his bed at his home.

The prosecution said Turner used a pillow to smother Emily and then strangled her after she went back to his house to talk things over following a violent argument that night.

When sentencing Turner, Justice Dobbs said he had "bullied, harassed, threatened and assaulted" Emily to control her as his "trophy" girlfriend.

Turner's QC Anthony Donne told the appeal judges: "The appeal against conviction centres on the use by the police of a covert listening device at the appellant's family home in Bournemouth following his release on police bail after his arrest on suspicion of the murder of his girlfriend Emily Longley on the night of 6/7 May 2011."

As well as hearing submissions on the safety of the conviction from Donne, the judges also heard argument from Timothy Mousley QC, opposing the appeal on behalf of the prosecution.

Justice Dobbs described Emily as a "lovely, kind, fun-loving girl who brought a ray of sunshine to those she touched".

The teenager had come from New Zealand to study at college just eight months before her death.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Shooting zone needed in NSW parks: union

THE Australian Workers Union (AWU) is urging the NSW government to enforce a 10-kilometre shooting exclusion zone around the homes of employees who live and work in the state's national parks.

Recreational hunters will be allowed to hunt in national parks with bows and arrows and guns under a plan agreed to by the state government last year.

A survey of 365 national park workers reveals they have "deep fears" about the policy, AWU state secretary Russ Collison said.

He said nearly 100 employees live in national parks, prompting calls for an expanded exclusion zone.

"Unfortunately bullets don't stop at 1.5 kilometres, and can easily travel three to five kilometres. We can't have a situation where families are dodging bullets in their backyard," Mr Collison said.

The AWU survey also found 99 per cent of those polled want supervision and competency testing of shooters.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

US stocks open mixed

US stocks are mixed in opening trade after Tuesday's one per cent-plus gains, with trade tempered by Apple's fall in profits and a poor read on durable goods orders in March.

Five minutes into trade on Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 21.81 points (0.15 per cent) at 14,741.27.

The broad-based S&P 500 added 2.26 (0.14 per cent) to 1581.04, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.64 (0.05 per cent) to 3267.69.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

US stocks surge on upbeat earnings

US stocks have opened sharply higher as investors dismiss downbeat Chinese manufacturing data and focus on a batch of encouraging US company earnings reports.

Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 92.39 points (0.63 per cent) at 14,659.56.

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 9.42 (0.60 per cent) to 1571.92, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 23.79 (0.74 per cent) at 3257.35.

"A disappointing Chinese manufacturing report and lacklustre business activity reports out of the eurozone are being met with a plethora of upbeat domestic earnings releases," Charles Schwab & Co said in a market note.

Stocks extended Monday's rebound from last week's losses. The Dow closed up 0.14 per cent, the S&P 500 added 0.47 per cent and the Nasdaq jumped 0.86 per cent.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Boston Marathon blast injuries toll at 264

A TOTAL of 264 people have been treated in Boston area hospitals for injuries suffered in the marathon bomb attacks, the city's public health commission says.

The toll, up from around 200 on Monday, has been rising because people who suffered minor injuries in the blasts last week are only now going in for treatment, said commission spokeswoman Katinka Podmaniczky.

As of Tuesday morning, a total of 51 people remained hospitalised, she told AFP.

The blasts, allegedly carried out by two ethnic Chechens living legally in the United States, killed three people, one of them an eight-year-old boy.

The surviving suspect, 19-year-old Dzorkhar Tsarnaev, himself remains hospitalised with gunshot wounds. He has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and could face the death penalty if convicted.

His 26-year-old brother Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Forged Hitler diaries to become accessible

THIRTY years after publishing what it believed were Hitler's diaries, a German news magazine says it will hand over what it still owns of the forgeries to the country's state archive, making them accessible to the public.

Stern magazine unveiled on April 25, 1983 excerpts from more than 60 notebooks purportedly written by the Nazi leader in a supposed world exclusive, but a few days later the diaries were found to be forgeries.

"The forged diaries are a part of the history of Stern. We don't want to get rid of them but deal with them appropriately and, above all, objectively," Stern chief editor Dominik Wichmann said in a written statement.

It was the federal archive in Koblenz in western Germany as well as federal criminal police who had detected the forgery three decades ago, according to Stern.

The incident became one of the biggest German post-war media scandals.

Stern reporter Gerd Heidemann presented 62 notebooks supposedly written by Hitler between 1932 and 1945, for which the magazine had paid 9.3 million deutschmarks (around $A6.02 million today).

But they turned out to have been the work of forger Konrad Kujau, and he and Heidemann were prosecuted and sentenced to around four years in prison each for the fraud.

"We're rendering all the diaries that are still in the safekeeping of the publishing company," Stern spokeswoman Franziska Kipper told AFP.

Other parts of the forged diaries held by other institutions, such as the Cartier Foundation in Paris or the House of History in Bonn, will stay where they are and are unaffected by Stern's decision, she said.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

NSW missing woman case treated as murder

POLICE are treating the suspicious disappearance of a Central Coast woman eight months ago as a homicide investigation.

Leisl Smith, 23, hasn't been seen since leaving her Wallarah home in August last year.

Ms Smith's car, which was abandoned at Tuggerah Lakes train station, was found last September.

Detectives "no longer hold out hope" of finding Ms Smith alive, acting Tuggerah Lakes Crime Manager, Detective Inspector Chris Wellfare said on Wednesday.

He said police have told Ms Smith's family that her disappearance is now being treated as a homicide.

"They've obviously been left devastated and heartbroken by Leisl's disappearance.

"We (will) continue to do everything we can to find out what happened to Leisl and give them the closure they need."

Earlier this month, two properties in Wallarah and Brookfield were searched after police spoke with a 42-year-old man about Ms Smith's disappearance.

Police also raided a number of properties at Merriwa in the upper Hunter Valley during an "extensive operation".

Investigators have renewed their appeal for anyone with information to come forward.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Housing prices rising, but not a boom

NEW figures show housing prices are on the rise.

Australian Property Monitors said on Wednesday in its quarterly housing report that the median price of a house rose by 3.2 per cent over the year to March.

Over the same time, the price of a home unit was up by only 0.7 per cent. (The median is the value in the middle when prices are ranked from high to low.)

The slow rises can be seen in other measures, like the Australian Bureau of Statistics' established house price index, which grew by 2.1 per cent through 2012.

Over the same year, the bureau's consumer price index rose by 2.2 per cent.

So it's not a boom.

Far from it.

And the Reserve Bank of Australia wants to make sure it stays that way.

In a speech in Sydney on Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia's head of financial stability, Luci Ellis, twice warned that the central bank did not want a return to the boom times seen a decade ago.

Her wish is being granted, at least so far.

But the decline starting in late 2010 and extending into early 2012 has ended.

The only questions are how steep, and how durable, the pickup will be.

Dr Ellis thinks the big shift to a low-inflation economy generated a one-off surge in housing prices, as lower interest rates enabled banks to make bigger loans.

"But the transition does end after a while, and it is our assessment that it has now ended," she said.

And that would mean slower growth in prices from here and, as a result, a greater likelihood that fluctuations around that trend would bring falls - rather than just slower growth - in prices, she said.

The recent behaviour of the ABS house price series bears that out.

The index, which in various incarnations goes back as far as 1986, had recorded only two annual falls in prices before the global crisis in 2008.

One was in 1992, but prices fell only 0.2 per cent despite the major recession and double-digit home loan interest rates.

The other was in 1996, but that drop was still only 0.9 per cent even though the RBA had nudged the standard home loan rate up from 8.75 per cent to 10.5 per cent.

More recently, annual falls have been recorded in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012.

Of course, for every rise or fall in housing prices there are winners and losers.

Homebuyers like the falls while home owners, including investors, like to see rises.

But this new environment could be seen as the worst of both worlds.

Homebuyers can look forward to persistently high housing prices, but investors will have to do without the prospect of the kind of recurrent booms seen over the past 30 years.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Four UK soldiers reinterred 96 years on

FOUR British soldiers have been laid to rest with full military honours in northern France, nearly a century after they were killed in action in World War I.

The soldiers were interred in the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) Cemetery at Ecoust-Saint-Mein near the northern town of Arras in a ceremony attended by relatives of two of the four men who it was possible to identify.

Lieutenant John Harold Pritchard and Private Christopher Douglas Elphick were both killed during an attack by German forces near Bullecourt on the Hindenburg Line on the morning of May 15, 1917.

Their bodies were discovered with two other sets of remains in 2009 when a local farmer was clearing one of his fields.

Pritchard, 31 at the time of his death, was identified by a silver identity bracelet, and Elphick, 28, by a signet ring bearing his initials.

A former chorister and head boy at St Paul's cathedral school, Pritchard had joined the HAC as a reservist in 1909 and was part of the first wave of British soldiers to be sent into action when war broke out in 1914.

Injured in 1915, he could have opted for a desk job in London but chose to return to France, surviving the horrors of the Somme in 1916 before being slain as he led his men into a battle in which they were almost all killed.

Elphick, an insurance clerk, had joined up in 1915 and arrived in France in November 1916, three months after the birth of his son, Ronald Douglas, who was to survive service with the HAC during World War II but died before the discovery of his father's remains.

It is understood DNA samples have been taken to enable positive identification of the unknown soldiers should any relatives come forward in the future.

Hundreds of thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Great War were buried in unmarked graves across the swathe of northern France and Belgium that witnessed the bloodiest fighting.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Labor steady but trailing, says Newspoll

FEDERAL Labor's vote has stabilised, but the party remains a long way behind the opposition, the latest Newspoll suggests.

The government's primary vote sits at 32 per cent, while the opposition dropped two points to 46 per cent, according to a Newspoll conducted at the weekend and published in The Australian on Tuesday.

Support for the Greens fell one point to 10 per cent.

The coalition still commands a massive two-party preferred lead of 55 to 45 per cent, the same level as a fortnight ago, and would win the September 14 election in a landslide if the numbers are repeated.

Julia Gillard slipped two points to 35 per cent in the preferred prime minister stakes, five points behind Tony Abbott, who was steady at 40 per cent.

Some 25 per cent of poll respondents were non-committal on the question of preferred prime minister.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Aust tech firms could create 540,000 jobs

TECH start-ups could add $109 billion to the Australian economy and create 540,000 new jobs by 2033, according to a new report commissioned by Google.

But that sort of growth - equivalent to a four per cent rise in GDP - will only be achieved if high schools start producing more computer science graduates with never-say-die entrepreneurial skills, experts have warned.

"A strong homegrown tech sector is vital to future Australian jobs and wealth," Google Australia's engineering director Alan Noble said.

"It's never a better time to be a tech entrepreneur, but we need to act now so that we become a nation of creators and innovators."

There are currently about 1500 tech start-ups in Australia, with 64 per cent in Sydney, 24 per cent in Melbourne and the remainder in Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide.

Those companies, mostly in the telco and media sectors, contribute 0.1 per cent of GDP and around 9500 jobs.

But consultants PwC said those totals could rise dramatically within 20 years if more children learned computer sciences from an early age, along with dogged entrepreneurial skills.

PwC's report, The Startup Economy, found the number of Australians graduating with computer science degrees had fallen by two thirds over the past decade, despite huge growth in the global tech sector and its often well-paid employment opportunities.

"This is not a higher education issue, it's about getting people immersed in that skill-set from an earlier age - this is a high school policy issue," economist and PwC partner Jeremy Thorpe said.

PwC's report also found that Australian entrepreneurs had a considerably higher "fear of failure" than those in the US and Canada.

Mr Thorpe admitted the failure rate among tech start-ups was high, but said 40 per cent of failed tech entrepreneurs rebounded and tried again, often very successfully.

That willingness to take another punt was crucial to building a strong Australian tech start-up sector, Mr Thorpe said.

"What we need to see is more people take risks," he added.

"This goes back to culture - the culture of not seeing having a go and failing as the end game, but having a go and failing as one step on the road."

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

School funding broken, says review member

THE model to fund Australia's schools is broken and needs to be fixed now or the educational gap with the rest of the world will widen, a member of the government's schools funding panel says.

The federal government has offered state and territory governments a two-for-one-dollar deal worth $14.5 billion in total to be agreed upon by June 30 to boost spending for schools across Australia.

So far, no state nor territory has signed a deal with Canberra.

University of Swinburne Chancellor Bill Scales says the current model to fund Australia's schools needs fixing.

"It is actually broken and what the panel did, chaired by David (Gonski) of course, showed quite clearly why it was broken," he told ABC television on Monday.

Mr Scales said more funding along with other measures such as improving the quality of teacher training were needed to lift Australia's standards as overseas competitors raised theirs at a faster rate.

"We weren't saying that funding was the only issue but saying it is a necessary condition," he said.

"We have to get that right so we can get so many of these other things right."

Mr Scales said the cuts to university spending, around $2.8 billion, to help the investment in schools was detrimental to the whole education system.

"To take resources from one sector to simply give to another will in fact undermine the whole of the system so we will no longer have a coherent education system in this country," he said.

He was one of six members of the review panel that presented its report to the federal government in late 2011 with a goal to boost schools spending by $6.5 billion a year.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

US stocks follow global markets higher

US stocks have followed Asian and European markets higher after shrugging off a disappointing earnings report from Dow member Caterpillar.

Five minutes into trade on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 27.80 points, or 0.19 per cent, to 14,575.31.

The broad-based S&P 500 added 4.58 points, or 0.29 per cent, to 1,559.83.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 17.12 points, or 0.53 per cent, to 3,223.18.

Monday's rally came after markets elsewhere moved higher, including Japan's Nikkei 225, which added 1.9 per cent after a G20 meeting in Washington validated Tokyo's aggressive monetary easing policies.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Rates to stay low for some time: Access

INTEREST rates should remain low for a couple of years given there is no immediate danger to the inflation outlook, an independent forecaster says.

Deloitte Access Economics says a high Australian dollar, a peaking mining boom and the impact of earlier state and federal budget cuts should limit economic growth to average rates of growth.

"We expect interest rates to stay low for a couple of years - long enough, in fact, to ginger up both retail and housing construction, and keep overall growth in the economy on a relatively even keel," economist Chris Richardson says in Deloitte Access Economics latest business outlook on Tuesday.

"It's hard to see immediate dangers to the inflation outlook."

Official inflation data for the March quarter is released on Wednesday, which economists expect will show both annual the consumer price index and underlying inflation around the middle of the Reserve Bank's two to three per cent inflation target band.

Mr Richardson said there were only modest retail price pressures, wage growth was subdued and a recent lift in productivity also cut inflation risks.

The dollar is also riding high, keeping the lid on import prices.

He said that although the federal government had slowed its surge towards a budget surplus, it, along with Queensland, overdid earlier cuts, leaving their austerity weighing on economic growth.

"Even so, there's still heaps to do," Mr Richardson said.

Lower commodity prices have also cut tax revenues, forcing federal and state governments to tighten their collective belts "in a belated recognition that they spent too much in the glory years of the mid-2000s", he said.

Yet despite this, both sides of federal politics are promising the budget will do even more, even though it's still in deficit."

Labor was promising to spend more on education and disability insurance, while the Liberals were promising to do away with new taxes and to spend more on defence, yet neither side had said how these would be paid for, he said.

"We should be worried about that," Mr Richardson said.

"It's an election year, so we should focus less on politicians' promises and instead press them on exactly how they'll pay for them," he said.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

ANZ ranks lowest for business customers

THE Commonwealth and Westpac rank highest for customer satisfaction among the big four banks, while ANZ and National Australia Banks are still languishing.

A monthly survey of satisfaction among the big four's business customers shows the Commonwealth and Westpac tied for first place with an average satisfaction rating of 7.4 out of 10.

By contrast NAB had an average satisfaction rating of 7.0, but ANZ ranked lowest with an average score of 6.9.

The monthly DBM Consultants' Business Financial Services Monitor (BFSM) shows the Commonwealth had the highest satisfaction rating for small, medium and large businesses and was tied with Westpac among micro businesses.

DBM Managing Director Dhruba Gupta said ANZ was still making up ground with business customers after a difficult 2012.

Satisfaction with ANZ dropped sharply after the bank shifted the timing if its monthly interest rate decision away from the Reserve Bank of Australia's board meeting.

Mr Gupta said the bank's recent pledge to lend $1 billion to start-up businesses over the next year may help to improve its standing.

"It will be interesting to see if ANZ's pledge will impact positively on its business customers' satisfaction levels," he said.

The BFSM is based on interviews with 20,000 businesses a year.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Vic family violence 'worse than feared'

THE scale of domestic violence in Victoria is worse than imagined, police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay says.

Some 51,000 family violence incidents were recorded in 2011-12, but Mr Lay says he expects the figure to rise above 60,00 this financial year.

He told Fairfax newspapers that while the rise was mostly due to more reporting, it was an alarming situation.

"There's still a hell of a lot of work to be done, and still a lot of very vulnerable people being injured every night," Mr Lay said.

"We never had a true sense of how big this problem was ... it's quite frightening."

Mr Lay said he was undaunted by the high numbers.

"No matter how much pressure we put on the courts or broader system, we're keeping on going with this," he said.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

NSW prison staff win on back pay

HUNDREDS of NSW prison workers will share in thousands of dollars in back pay after the Industrial Relations Commissions found they were owed money.

In a statement, the Health Services Union (HSU) said around 250 of its members would share in about $650,000 in underpaid allowances, dating back to 2002.

The HSU said the payments were for a range of prison workers including social workers, cooks and cleaners.

HSU NSW secretary Gerard Hayes said the IRC found the workers weren't being properly compensated.

"We began this court action after learning that on average, these employees were being underpaid by more than $20 a week," Mr Hayes said.

"Over time this has added up to thousands of dollars for some Justice Health staff.

"This is a big win for Justice Health staff."

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Abbott's hit on retail workers' super

KITCHEN hands, hospitality workers, retail staff and cleaners are among those that will be hardest hit by the coalition's plan to scrap the low-income superannuation tax offset, Superannuation Minister Bill Shorten says.

Mr Shorten said the super savings of 3.6 million Australians earning less than $37,000 will be $500 worse off under an Abbott-led government.

He said women made up 60 per cent, or 2.2 million of those affected.

"Mums working part-time while they care for young kids being hit with a $500 tax bill for contributing to her superannuation (is) not fair or smart," Mr Shorten said, adding that women were already retiring with less money because of pay disparity and time out of the workforce to raise children.

Mr Shorten has released new figures with a breakdown of 20 occupations that will be hardest hit by the opposition's plan.

These included retail staff, kitchen hands, hospitality workers, cleaners, receptionists, labourers, childcare workers.

"I'd rather see a $500 boost to the super account of a kitchen hand or a checkout operator or a farm hand than into Tony Abbott's pocket," he said.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has committed the coalition to scrapping the low-income superannuation tax offset funded by the government's mining tax, which it wants to repeal.

The coalition is opposed to the federal government's plan to impose a 15 per cent tax on superannuation earnings over $100,000, a measure likely to affect some 16,000 high income earners.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More

Brazil police jailed for prison 'massacre'

TWENTY-THREE Brazilian military police officers have been sentenced to 156 years in jail each for their role in the killing of 111 inmates during Brazil's deadliest prison uprising in 1992.

The 23 were among 26 officers on trial before the Sao Paulo state tribunal. The three others were cleared.

The officers, most of them now retired, were accused of killing 15 prisoners in Sao Paulo's Carandiru prison during the operation to quell the revolt on October 2, 1992, which came to be known as the "Carandiru massacre".

The defence, which argued the police officers fired in self-defence after being threatened and assaulted by the prisoners, said it would appeal.

None of the officers involved in the operation were harmed. In addition to the 111 prisoners killed, some 87 others were wounded.

Survivors accused police of firing on inmates who had already surrendered or were hiding in their cells.

Authorities initially claimed the police were trying to break up a fight between prisoners who had seized control of one of the cell blocks.

But evidence uncovered later suggested military police had shot prisoners and then destroyed evidence that could have determined individual responsibility for the killings.

The commanding officer of the operation, Colonel Ubiratan Guimaraes, was initially sentenced to 632 years in jail for his mishandling of the revolt and the subsequent killings.

But in 2006, a court voided the conviction because of mistrial claims. Later that year, Guimaraes was found dead in his apartment under unclear circumstances.

The massacre in what was then Latin America's biggest prison sparked outrage among inmates, and prosecutors said it was a key factor in the emergence of a criminal gang known as First Command of the Capital (PCC) in 1993.

The PCC is believed to have ordered the death of the director of the prison at the time, Jose Ismael Pedrosa.

From the prison, PCC bosses organised a series of assaults on police stations and other buildings that left more than 170 people dead and paralysed Sao Paulo for four days in May 2006.

The unrest eventually spread to other cities, and scores of suspected criminals were gunned down in a subsequent wave of police reprisal attacks.

Late last year, the PCC was also blamed for a wave of police killings and bus burnings.

The Carandiru prison was demolished in 2002.

22.24 | 0 komentar | Read More