Qld fears TB epidemic from PNG

Queensland's health minister says the state is wearing a big bill to treat sick Papua New Guineans. Source: AAP

PAPUA New Guineans are being turned away from the Torres Strait Islands over fears they're spreading a deadly disease, which has already claimed one life.

Locals say the state and federal governments aren't doing enough to stop a tuberculosis (TB) "epidemic", which has hit the islands and could spread to the mainland.

Torres Strait Regional Council Mayor Fred Gela says since an elderly local woman died from TB in April the council has refused to allow traders from PNG to visit the islands.

Council staff are required to sign temporary permits before someone from PNG can visit any of the 14 islands under a treaty agreed by the two countries.

Last year up to 26,000 individual permits were issued.

Mr Gela says the council has been forced to act because there are no health checks in place and he fears more people could die.

"My people are vulnerable and susceptible to contracting TB," he told AAP.

"Some of our communities are right on the front line, they're only a 10 minute boat ride from the PNG border.

"The reason is strong and simple: we're very, very concerned."

Health Minister Lawrence Springborg says Queensland isn't receiving enough compensation to treat the hundreds of sick people from PNG who travel across the border each year.

He begrudgingly signed a deal on Wednesday that will see the state receive $18 million in compensation from the Commonwealth over four years.

He wanted an extra $10 million a year and a commitment to close the north's "porous" borders.

"This border is about as porous as a spaghetti colander," Mr Springborg said.

In 2011/12 about 1100 Papua New Guineans visited Queensland Health facilities in the Torres Strait and Cairns, 15 of whom had tuberculosis.

In one case, the cost of a patient's treatment came to $1 million.

Mr Springborg says Mr Gela wants to close the border, but only the Commonwealth has the power to do that.

Mr Gela described the extent of the TB outbreak in the Torres Strait as an epidemic and says the situation has worsened over the past decade.

He welcomed funding for programs such as AusAid in PNG but says Australia needs to ensure the money is being spent on stopping sick people crossing the border.

"The Australian government is pouring money into an international country with very little measures ensuring accountability," he said.

Mr Gela warned authorities not to view Torres Strait as "out of sight, out of mind," as diseases that spread through that area would soon reach the mainland.

"This is everybody's business," he said.

"The state and federal governments need to front up to this issue and deal with it."

The Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Hospital and Health Service says asylum seekers have been treated in far north Queensland hospitals.

Spokeswoman Simone Kolaric says a Syrian man, who came via PNG, was brought to a hospital by immigration officials a couple of months ago, amid concerns he had TB.

15.09 | 0 komentar | Read More

Natural gas well off US coast catches fire

A FEDERAL official has confirmed that a fire has broken out on a blown-out Gulf of Mexico gas well.

Eileen Angelico of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement confirmed that the evacuated rig caught fire late on Tuesday. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The 44 workers on the drilling rig were evacuated early on Tuesday when the blowout occurred.

Angelico says it wasn't immediately clear what caused the gas to ignite. And it wasn't known what efforts to extinguish the blaze were being made early on Wednesday.

Personnel with Wild Well Control Inc were at the site to assess how and when to try to bring the well under control.

The site is about 88km off the Louisiana coast.

The drilling rig is owned by Hercules Offshore Inc. Executive vice president Jim Noe says experts will assess the well site and develop a plan to shut down the flow of gas.

Noe stressed that gas, not oil, was flowing from the well.

He says it's an important distinction because gas wells in relatively shallow areas - this one was in 47 metres of water - sometimes tend to clog with sand, effectively snuffing themselves out.

"That is a distinct possibility at this point," he said. "But until we have our (well control) personnel on the rig, we won't know much more."

Kevin Davis, head of the Louisiana governor's homeland security office, said: "According to federal officials, there is no imminent danger at this time."

Nonetheless, the Coast Guard is keeping nautical traffic 500 metres away from the site, where the spewing gas poses a fire hazard, and the Federal Aviation Administration has restricted aircraft up to 2000 feet (610 metres) above the area.

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Tokyo stocks end 0.32% lower

TOKYO shares have closed 0.32 per cent lower after US stocks ended mixed in a market that traders said looked overheated.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index on Wednesday fell 47.23 points to 14,731.28, while the Topix index of all first-section shares was down 0.23 per cent, or 2.80 points, at 1,219.92 in low-volume trading.

Investors were watching the mid-morning release of the preliminary HSBC China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), which came in at 47.7 in July versus 48.2 in June, an 11-month low, suggesting a continuous slowdown in the huge economy.

"The PMI data didn't add a great deal of pessimism to the already negative market, but it may very well act as a weight," an equity trading director at a foreign brokerage told Dow Jones Newswires.

He noted that trading volumes were light.

"With several players out for the summer holiday and others waiting for confirmation of earnings results, overall activity is simply not very robust."

Japan reported it had logged a $US1.82 billion ($A1.97 billion) trade deficit last month, reversing a small year-earlier surplus.

In the currency market, the US dollar was trading at Y99.82, up from Y99.48 in New York on Tuesday, while the euro fetched $US1.3195 and Y131.76, against $US1.3222 and Y131.53.

Kao, the parent of cosmetics firm Kanebo, fell 6.24 per cent to Y3,230 as the subsidiary said more than 2,000 Japanese had complained about skin discolouring after using its whitening products while it had also widened a consumer recall outside Japan.

China-related shares fell, with Fanuc off 0.32 per cent at Y15,130 and Komatsu down 0.45 per cent at Y2,386.

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Atlas Iron targets production increase

ATLAS Iron increased shipping volumes 16 per cent during the June quarter and expects to lift production further this financial year.

The Perth-based miner says it shipped 2.2 million tonnes of iron ore during the June quarter, up 16 per cent on the previous three months.

It plans to produce between 9.8 and 10.3 million tonnes this financial year, compared to the 7.4 million tonnes it shipped during 2012/13.

Atlas managing director Ken Brinsden said production had been affected by unseasonal bad weather in Western Australia during the June quarter.

But he said the company was nonetheless happy with its performance.

"This is a strong result, with the company continuing to expand production while meeting the quarter's cost and shipping guidance," he said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange on Wednesday.

"This was achieved despite difficult and unseasonal weather conditions."

Atlas shares gained 7.5 cents, or nine per cent, to 91 cents.

The company said its capital operating costs were around $49-50 a tonne, which was within its guidance range.

The company said the average price for its iron ore fell from $US126 a tonne in the March quarter to $US107 last quarter, but the price had since recovered.

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Rudd clearing the decks after caucus meet

Labor caucus members are gathering in Sydney to discuss the new hardline stance on asylum seekers. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has crossed another item off his pre-election to do list after caucus endorsed internal reforms before a possible poll next month.

Mr Rudd also gave federal MPs a rousing address during which he named about eight seats he thinks the ALP could win back at the election, which might be called within a week.

However, the prime minister is keeping his election timetable options open after dealing with outstanding policy issues on the carbon tax and asylum seeker boat arrivals, and internal reform.

"These are big challenges for government, we still have other challenges to deal with," Mr Rudd told reporters in the Sydney suburb of Balmain after the caucus meeting on Monday.

August 31 has now firmed as favourite poll date, although Mr Rudd could still wait and call a vote for October.

Labor MPs, barring former prime minister Julia Gillard and some ministers who resigned after Mr Rudd was returned almost four weeks ago, gathered at the Town Hall in Balmain, which has symbolic links with the ALP.

They debated and voted in favour of changes to rules governing the election of the parliamentary leader, which would make it harder for MPs to remove a Labor prime minister - like Mr Rudd was in 2010.

The vote for leader will be split 50-50 between caucus and grassroots members, giving the 44,000 rank and file supporters a say for the first time in the party's history.

"Each of our members gets to have a say, a real say, in the future leadership of our party," Mr Rudd said. "Decisions can no longer simply be made by a factional few."

In power, a ballot could only be called if the prime minister resigned or requested one, or if at least 75 per cent of caucus signed a petition stating the leader had brought the party into disrepute.

In opposition, a ballot would be held automatically after each federal election or if at least 60 per cent of caucus signed a petition.

"There was overwhelming support for the changes," Labor MP Daryl Melham said.

Mr Rudd also addressed MPs on the election and told them they could reclaim the seats of Hasluck in Western Australia, Boothby in South Australia, Aston and Dunkley in Victoria, Denison in Tasmania, Bennelong and Macquarie in NSW and Solomon in the Northern Territory.

Mr Rudd's return has improved Labor's stocks among voters, and his personal ranking is well above Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's, the opinion polls show.

But the minority government needs to hold its current 71 seats and win at least another five to return to power and head off a coalition victory.

Mr Rudd also discussed decisions to move from a fixed to a floating carbon pricing regime and the treatment of asylum seekers.

While the carbon decision was broadly welcomed, some MPs were concerned about the hardline Papua New Guinea plan, which effectively denies settlement to asylum seeker boat arrivals.

Mr Rudd wants to send those people to Manus Island for processing and eventual settlement there if they are determined to be refugees.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

No heart in PNG plan, says Tassie bishop

A SENIOR Anglican bishop who told the prime minister "Jesus weeps" over the PNG asylum seeker plan says Australia has lost its heart.

The bishop of Tasmania, John Harrower, took to Twitter to compare Australia with biblical Jerusalem - wealthy but without a sense of compassion.

"Mr Prime Minister, Jesus weeps. Whatever you do for the least of these..." Bishop Harrower tweeted.

He says Australia's generosity during the Asian tsunami and, more recently, the Tasmanian bushfires is in danger of disappearing.

"I wonder what's happening to Australia's heart," he told AAP.

"We have been, as our national anthem says, a place of hospitality.

"Yet here we are not being what we're called to be in the same way that Jerusalem at that time was not being what it was called to be.

"Jesus wept then and I'm sure Jesus weeps now."

Bishop Harrower described the new policy as "reprehensible" and said Christian leaders Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott should be working on a genuine regional solution that included refugees in Australia.

The emphasis on preventing drownings was a cop out, he said.

"It almost seems that we put up the drowning of the people, which we need to be rightfully concerned for, as some sort of justification for doing something else that seems to me to be quite horrendous," he said.

"They're fleeing for their lives so of course they're going to take risks."

Bishop Harrower said Australia was living in "cloud cuckoo land" if it thought it could be immune to the problem of millions of refugees on the move internationally.

"If we didn't have that stretch of sea and we were bordering on Syria at the moment ... we'd have tens if not hundreds of thousands of these people living in Australia and we'd be needing to set up proper refugee camps," he said.

"That's what I'd like to think we ought to be doing."

The bishop said the response to his tweet had been "overwhelmingly positive".

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bodies of three women found in US

Searchers rummaging through vacant houses in Ohio where three bodies were found may find more. Source: AAP

THE bodies of three women wrapped in plastic bags have been discovered in a midwestern US suburb and the search is on for more victims, police say.

A suspect was arrested in connection with the grisly find in East Cleveland, in the state of Ohio.

The first body was detected in a garage on Friday after police got a call about a foul odour, Detective Sergeant Scott Gardner said in a statement.

The other two bodies turned up Saturday, with Gardner saying one was located at an "abandoned residence." The other body was found near the first corpse.

All three corpses are those of young black females.

"Searches continue for any possible additional victims," Gardner said.

The suspect, identified as Michael Madison, 35, who is also black, was arrested at his mother's house without incident after a standoff.

After the first body was found, homicide detectives called to the scene "obtained additional evidence" from Madison's apartment.

East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton told CNN that Madison was influenced by and even idolised Anthony Sowell, who was convicted in 2011 of killing 11 women and hiding the remains at his Cleveland home.

Sowell, dubbed the "Cleveland Strangler," is currently on death row in an Ohio prison.

"We are dealing with a sick individual and we have reason to believe that there might be more victims," CNN quoted Norton as saying on its website.

Norton also said that Madison is a registered sex offender who served time in prison.

The local coroner has not yet identified the victims, though officials believe they died within the last ten days, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer newspaper reported.

Police said that Madison alluded to more bodies in the area.

FBI agents, Ohio criminal investigators and sheriff deputies used sniffer dogs as they searched abandoned homes looking for the remains of more victims, local media reported.

Cleveland is the same city where former bus driver Ariel Castro, 52, is accused of holding three young women captive for a decade at his home.

The case came to light after one of the victims, 27 year-old Amanda Berry, escaped from the house with her young daughter on May 6 by calling out to a neighbour for help through a locked front door.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

Assault on Iraq jails kills at least 12

GUNMEN attacked two Iraqi jails in a bid to free prisoners, killing at least 12 security force members in fierce clashes that raged all night, officials say.

The co-ordinated attacks on the prisons of Taji, north of Baghdad, and Abu Ghraib, west of the Iraqi capital, were launched on Sunday night and lasted for around 10 hours, they said.

A police colonel said seven inmates escaped from Abu Ghraib during the clashes, although Islamists claimed on the internet that thousands of prisoners were freed.

Officials said at least five members of the security forces were killed at Taji prison, and seven others at Abu Ghraib, notorious for abuses committed by US forces against Iraqi detainees in 2004.

Around another 40 security force members were wounded.

It was not immediately known how many of the assailants were killed, wounded or captured.

The attacks were launched at around 9.30pm local time on Sunday when the gunmen fired mortar shells at the prisons.

Explosives on board cars were then detonated near the entrances to the jails, while three suicide bombers attacked Taji prison, said the police colonel.

Fighting continued throughout the night as the military deployed helicopters and sent in reinforcements around the two facilities.

The situation was eventually brought under control by dawn, according to the colonel.

"The security forces in the Baghdad Operations Command, with the assistance of military aircraft, managed to foil an armed attack launched by unknown gunmen against the ... two prisons of Taji and Abu Ghraib," the interior ministry said in a statement late on Sunday night.

"The security forces forced the attackers to flee, and these forces are still pursuing the terrorist forces and exerting full control over the two regions," it said.

But commenters on microblogging website Twitter, including some accounts apparently operated by jihadists, claimed thousands of prisoners had escaped.

The attacks on the prisons came a year after al-Qaeda's Iraqi front group announced it would target the Iraqi justice system.

"The first priority in this is releasing Muslim prisoners everywhere, and chasing and eliminating judges and investigators and their guards," said an audio message attributed to the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in July last year.

Prisons in Iraq are periodically hit by escape attempts, uprisings and other unrest.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

UK car manufacturing rises 1.1%

THE number of cars built in the UK increased by 1.1 per cent in the first half of the year, to 764,390 units, figures have shown.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said growth was 4.6 per cent in the second-quarter of the year and 10.4 per cent in June.

Four out of five cars built in the UK are exported, but the SMMT said higher output for the home market, up 24.4 per cent, had boosted volumes.

"Car output in the UK grew during the first half of 2013, up 1.1 per cent, building on a strong 2012 when manufacturing performed above pre-recession levels," said Mike Baunton, SMMT interim chief executive.

"Subdued demand in some European countries has held back production levels this year, but it is encouraging to see a significant rise in volumes destined for UK buyers.

"Our industry is building and developing innovative, high-quality products that appeal to a global customer base and because of this, independent analysts are confident that car output will grow in the long-term despite economic concerns on the continent."

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More

First test for PNG deal after boat arrives

A new approach to boat arrivals could save lives, Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare says. Source: AAP

MORE than 80 boat people are facing transfer to Papua New Guinea under the government's tough new asylum seeker plan, after their vessel was intercepted off Christmas Island.

A boat with 81 passengers and two crew on board was stopped by HMAS Bathurst on Saturday morning, with the mostly Iranian asylum seekers transferred to Christmas Island for health checks.

Immigration Minister Tony Burke confirmed they would be the first processed under the government's hardline approach, which will see those seeking asylum sent to Manus Island with no chance of resettlement in Australia.

Mr Burke said the 81 on board Saturday's boat arrival were a mix of single-adult males and family groups, but he could not confirm if there were any unaccompanied children.

Families and kids would be spared immediate transfer to PNG, because of the inadequate state of facilities on Manus Island, he said.

"As soon as I believe we're able to have appropriate accommodation and services, then transfer to Papua New Guinea will occur," Mr Burke said.

Interception of the vessel came as the government launched a nation-wide newspaper, radio and television blitz with the message: "If you come here by boat without a visa you won't be settled in Australia".

Mr Burke dismissed claims from refugee advocates that the government's policy was inhumane, saying there is nothing compassionate about allowing people to die at sea.

He also said he was "shocked" at those who said the advertising campaign was waste of taxpayers money.

"I want the message to get out, and I want there to be fewer people drowning on the high seas," Mr Burke said.

"I make no apology for that, and if the advice comes back that more advertising will help get that message out further I'll be authorising more."

Outflanked by the government's tough stance on asylum seekers, announced by Kevin Rudd on Friday, the coalition continued to question the prime minister's ability to deliver on the PNG asylum seeker deal.

Addressing the Liberal National Party state conference in Brisbane, Tony Abbott praised PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill as a "good man", but said "I will never subcontract out to other countries the solution of problems in this country".

"If you want solutions for this country you can't rely on the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, you've got to be able to rely on the Prime Minister of Australia, and I am someone the Australian people can rely on," the opposition leader said.

Coalition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said: "The problem is not with the idea but with this government's inability to implement ideas".

Greens immigration spokeswoman Senator Sarah Hanson-Young labelled the agreement with PNG "a rush to cruelty as Kevin Rudd rushes to the polls".

Australian Lawyers for Human Rights said the plan would expose asylum seekers "to greater harm".

"Australia's obligations are not met by effectively engaging in the people trade itself: paying poor and needy countries to take asylum seekers and refugees who sought Australia's protection," president John Southalan said in a statement.

The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, said it had not been involved in the agreement between Australia and the PNG, and that it was seeking more information about the deal.

The policy arrived on the same day that inmates at the Nauru immigration detention centre rioted over delays to their refugee claims, resulting in tens of millions of dollars worth of damage.

15.02 | 0 komentar | Read More