A BOMB blast has killed three policemen and wounded a fourth in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, a security services official says.
The device, which was hidden in a plastic bag, was placed near a police checkpoint in the north of the capital on Saturday, the official said.
A 6.4-MAGNITUDE quake has struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, just days after a tremor on the vast island killed dozens and left thousands homeless, US seismologists say.
No tsunami warning was issued and there were no reports of damage after the quake struck on Saturday at a shallow depth of just 23km off the southwest coast of the vast island, said the US Geological Survey.
The epicentre was close to the remote archipelago of Mentawai. In 2010, a 7.7-magnitude quake triggered a tsunami that left more than 400 people dead on the island chain.
Suharjono, an official from the local meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency who goes by one name, said Saturday's quake was unlikely to have caused damage and there was no threat of a tsunami.
"Judging from the quake's magnitude and the distance from the epicentre to the land, I don't think the quake will have a significant impact," he said.
"There's little potential to cause damage," said the official, saying that it was felt mildly by people in two provinces on Sumatra.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a tsunami alert.
The quake came after a 6.1-magnitude inland tremor on Tuesday struck Aceh, on Sumatra's northern tip, flattening buildings and sparking landslides in the mountainous interior of the natural disaster-prone province.
So far 35 people have been confirmed dead and some 16,000 left homeless, according to the national disaster agency.
In 2004, a quake-triggered tsunami left more than 170,000 people dead in Aceh, as well as tens of thousands more in countries around the Indian Ocean.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.
The PM has hosed down expectations of an imminent deal with Indonesia to fight people smuggling. Source: AAP
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has hosed down expectations of an imminent deal with Indonesia to fight people smuggling and stem the flow of asylum seeker boats to Australia.
Mr Rudd is due to touch down in Jakarta late Thursday and will deliver a speech to business leaders on Friday before heading to Bogor to meet with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The meeting was about taking the "overall temperature" of the relationship between the two countries, not finalising a deal to combat people smuggling, he told reporters in Canberra.
"It will be completely wrong and I think disrespectful to the Indonesian president to create any expectation of any immediate change at all," Mr Rudd said.
"Don't hold your breath for some sort of bright and breezy announcement out of Jakarta ... that everything is all fixed and back to normal."
The two leaders will also discuss trade and Australian live cattle exports, which were halted in 2011 following reports of animal abuse in Indonesian abattoirs.
Live exports were later resumed but are yet to be fully restored after Indonesia imposed quotas on Australian cattle.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott continued to pressure Mr Rudd on asylum seeker boat arrivals saying it was the prime minister who as Labor leader in 2007 scrapped the Howard coalition government's measures to turn back the boats.
"When you go to Indonesia, you have two tasks: start the cattle boats, stop the people smuggling boats and I fear Mr Rudd will fail at both of them," Mr Abbott said.
The opposition leader also questioned Mr Rudd's decision to trigger federal intervention in the NSW branch of the ALP to root out corruption at the state level.
The move by the prime minister is seen as a pre-emptive strike to reassure NSW voters Labor is serious about dealing with the entrenched power of the factions and systems of patronage within the state party ahead of the federal election due later this year.
"The only way to clean up the Labor party is to give them time out in opposition so they can get their house in order," Mr Abbott said.
NSW Labor is under pressure following the airing of allegations of corrupt behaviour by ministers and other members at the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
NSW Branch secretary Sam Dastyari has been given 30 days to implement a range of new reforms, including the instant expulsion of any member found to be corrupt.
Mr Rudd said he had asked other state branches to review their rules and had plans for broader reform of the party but would consult before announcing any new plans.
"I'm about the face of modern Labor," Mr Rudd said.
Meanwhile, Mr Rudd has again challenged Mr Abbott to a national television debate at the National Press Club in Canberra next week.
It's understood Mr Rudd will go ahead with a speech to the club on Thursday if Mr Abbott declines to debate him that day.
Mr Abbott said he would happily debate Mr Rudd if he recalled parliament or called the election.
The prime minister has no confidence in Opposition Leader John Robertson, the NSW government says. Source: AAP
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has no confidence in Opposition Leader John Robertson and his ability to tackle state-based corruption, the NSW government says.
NSW Special Minister of State Chris Hartcher says the opposition leader's position is now untenable.
"He doesn't have the confidence of his own prime minister, nor does he have the confidence of his federal executive.
"Today (Kevin Rudd) effectively called time on the Labor leadership of John Robertson."
Mr Rudd is set to announce he will clean-up NSW Labor by placing it under administration, after damning revelations about the conduct of former MPs came to light at the state's corruption watchdog.
Mr Hartcher says it's a sign the ALP leadership doesn't believe Mr Robertson can or will follow through on his pledge to clean-up the party.
"This is an extraordinary vote of no confidence in John Robertson from prime minister Rudd," he said.
"Mr Rudd has exposed both the unwillingness and inability of Mr Robertson to tackle the corrosive corruption and union dominance within Labor, and exposes Mr Robertson as a key part of the problem for NSW Labor."
Mr Hartcher referred to reports Mr Robertson had holidayed at the ski chalet owned by Eddie Obeid, the former Labor powerbroker at the centre of the corruption allegations.
"The people of NSW have been appalled by the parade of former Labor ministers before the ICAC and their complete refusal to offer even the slightest contrition," he added.
AAP
AFTER years on the run, one of Australia's most wanted men, Mark Adrian Perry, has been captured and will face a Victorian court in connection with the murder of a self-proclaimed vampire.
Shane Chartres-Abbott was gunned down by two men in front of his girlfriend and father outside his Melbourne home in 2003.
At the time of his death the 28-year-old male gigolo was on trial for the rape of a female client, who told police he believed he was a vampire who needed to drink blood to survive.
But after a decade on the run, Perry, 45, who has long been a police suspect in the case, was arrested at a factory in a Perth suburb on Tuesday.
He faced the Perth Magistrates Court on Wednesday and will be extradited to Victoria, where he will face court on Friday.
Outside court, Victoria Police Acting Inspector Dale Flynn said the arrest was a breakthrough in the case.
"Certainly when we get to an arrest phase that is a significant milestone in any investigation, this is no different, but there is still a lot of work in front of us and the investigation is ongoing," he told reporters.
"The victim's family have certainly been notified today in relation to his arrest."
Perry had lived in Queensland, Western Australia and Thailand, police said in 2009 when they announced a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture.
He was last seen in Queensland in September 2007, but was believed to be living under a new identity and may have changed his appearance.
Two other men were charged over the murder in March 2008 and October 2012 and are serving time in jail.
Police say one man assaulted Mr Chartres-Abbott's pregnant girlfriend and father while another shot him dead.
Police allege the murder was revenge for a 2002 rape.
Earlier this year, a court heard that a former police officer, David Waters, and a then-detective sergeant, Peter Lalor, assisted Chartres-Abbott's shooter to find the escort's home.
Neither Mr Lalor nor Mr Waters has been charged and they have both strongly denied any involvement.
Australia was lucky the global financial crisis hit when it did, RBA governor Glenn Stevens says. Source: AAP
AN unscripted remark from Australia's top central banker has boosted expectations for an interest rate cut in August.
Mr Stevens said the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia "deliberated for a very long time" before deciding to leave the cash rate unchanged at its monthly meeting on Tuesday.
The comment was not included in a written copy of Mr Stevens' speech sent to economists and media, and had an immediate impact on the Australian dollar.
The currency fell below 91 US cents for the first time in nearly three years as investors took it as a stronger sign that the cash rate would be cut at the RBA's August meeting.
Mr Stevens' comment offered a rare glimpse into the RBA board's deliberations.
"As you may know, the Reserve Bank board in fact held its meeting here in Brisbane yesterday, at which we deliberated for a very long time and then we acted to stick with the cash rate unchanged," Mr Stevens told an event organised by the Economics Society of Australia.
JP Morgan senior economist Ben Jarman said Mr Stevens' comment, and the fact it deviated from his prepared script, was puzzling.
"Markets have interpreted the comment as stating that yesterday's decision was a very close call, meaning that August is a decent chance for a rate cut," he said.
"We think a more likely explanation is not that the board collectively were uncertain, but that Stevens was firmly calling for an on-hold decision, while other board members were calling the opposite."
The futures market now sees the chances of a cut to the cash rate in August at about 60 per cent, up from 47 per cent on Tuesday.
In its statement issued after Tuesday's board meeting, the RBA signalled that it had room to cut the cash rate further if it sees the need.
Mr Stevens also said in his speech on Wednesday that the Australian dollar had further to fall after its recent correction.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia chief economist Michael Blythe said such comments may be part of an RBA strategy to talk down the local currency.
That would benefit sectors of the economy needed to step up to the replace the recent mining investment boom.
"The form of words increasingly used by the RBA in its communications involves raising the possibility of a lower exchange rate and noting that any fall would help the rebalancing of growth in the economy," Mr Blythe said.
A MAINTENANCE worker surprised passers-by near a Chinese railway station when he started watching a banned porn film, not realising his computer was connected to a giant screen, state media said.
The worker, identified only by his surname Yuan, was supposed to repair the screen, on a building near the main railway station in Jilin in northeast China, the Global Times reported.
But when he began playing "The Forbidden Legend: Sex and Chopsticks", hundreds of local residents stopped to watch as well, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The company which owns the screen called him after about 10 minutes, and he immediately disconnected the computer before throwing the disc out of a window, the Global Times said.
The film is based on a classic Chinese erotic novel, "The Plum in the Golden Vase", set in the Northern Song dynasty in the early 12th century and centred on Ximen Qing, a corrupt social climber and womaniser who has six wives and concubines among his 19 sexual partners.
The story follows the women's domestic sexual struggles as they seek prestige and influence. Although identified as pornographic and officially banned for centuries, the work -- by an unknown author -- has been read by many educated Chinese and was first translated into English in 1939.
The Hong Kong-made film has a similar plot but is much more explicit, and is banned on the mainland.
Police were investigating the incident, Xinhua said.
According to Chinese law, individuals who spread pornographic audiovisual products can be sentenced to up to two years in prison.
THE decision to leave interest rates on hold will cause further damage to the struggling retail sector, a peak retailers group says.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) announced on Tuesday the cash rate would remain at 2.75 per cent following its monthly board meeting.
Russell Zimmerman, executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, says the decision is frustrating for the industry.
"We can only expect further damage to retailers who are struggling to keep their heads above water," Mr Zimmerman said.
He said a rate cut was needed in order to encourage customers to spend their money.
"The RBA needs to cut official rates to 2.5 per cent to get variable mortgage rates to a level of six per cent," he added.
Australian National Retailer's Association CEO Margy Osmond agreed that the steady cash rate would fail to boost retail spirits.
She said the retail sector could not rely on the recent weakening of the Australian dollar to boost domestic spending.
"We expect customers to remain cautious about their discretionary spending ... as we enter the second half of the year," she added.
THE return of juvenile offenders to a detention centre in Perth's south has been pushed back after youth custodial officers called for measures to ensure staff safety.
The teenage prisoners were moved to the Hakea remand facility for adults after 108 of 240 cells at nearby Banksia Hill, the state's only facility for young offenders, were trashed in a riot in January.
During a recent Supreme Court legal challenge to the transfer, brought by the family of a young inmate, the Department of Corrective Services' top brass told the court that the youths would start to be brought back to Banksia Hill by mid-May and would all be back by the end of June.
But the target date had since been bumped to August, a spokesman for West Australian corrective services minister Joe Francis said.
Fencing at the facility was being changed, he said, and extra time was needed as the material was manufactured interstate.
So far, about $1.5 million has been spent repairing the detention centre, but its youth custodial officers last month said they refused to return until safety concerns were addressed.
They want proof that remedial work on offices and cells, and new security measures including metal detectors, have been fully tested.
The officers are seeking other improvements including an extra recreation area for the young prisoners and additional staff training.
The Community and Public Sector Union, representing the officers, is meeting with the Department of Corrective Services each week to discuss changes at Banksia Hill.
AN ALP member who became Victoria's youngest ever mayor will run for preselection in the federal seat of Hotham.
Geoff Lake said he had consulted his family on Monday and decided to stand for Labor preselection in the safe Victorian seat vacated by the former minister and Labor leader Simon Crean.
"Simon Crean has been a giant of the ALP and the wider labour movement, having made a significant contribution to Australia that will be felt for generations to come," Cr Lake told AAP on Monday.
"I want to continue in his footsteps to serve our local community in Hotham and to represent the Labor Party which I was drawn to early in my life because of leaders like Simon Crean."
The 33-year-old lawyer was first elected to Monash City Council aged 20 and in 2000 became Victoria's youngest mayor at 22.
He has also been president of the Australian Local Government Association and the Municipal Association of Victoria.
Cr Lake said he would like to see a rank and file ballot for the preselection.
The only exception to this would be if there was an August election where a decision would be required from the ALP national executive, he said.
THE Philippines has accused China of a "massive" military build-up in the disputed South China Sea, warning at a regional security forum that the Asian giant's tactics were a threat to peace.
Sunday's statement by Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario ensured the growing row over rival claims to the strategically vital and potentially resource-rich sea would again be a key focus of the annual four-day Asia-Pacific talks.
"Del Rosario today expressed serious concern over the increasing militarisation of the South China Sea," said a Philippine government statement released on the first day of the event in the Brunei capital.
Del Rosario said there was a "massive presence of Chinese military and paramilitary ships" at two groups of islets within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone, called Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal.
Del Rosario described the Chinese presence at these islets as "threats to efforts to maintain maritime peace and stability in the region".
He did not give details of the alleged build-up but said the Chinese actions violated a pact in 2002 in which rival claimants to the sea pledged not to take any actions that may increase tensions.
The declaration on conduct signed by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China also committed claimants to settle their disputes "without resorting to the threat or use of force".
China claims nearly all of the sea, even waters approaching the coasts of neighbouring countries.
ASEAN members the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia, as well as Taiwan, also have competing claims to parts of the sea.
The rivalries have for decades been a source of regional tension, with China and Vietnam fighting battles in 1974 and 1988 for control of some islands in which dozens of Vietnamese soldiers died.
Tensions have again grown in recent years with the Philippines, Vietnam and some other countries expressing concern at increasingly assertive Chinese military and diplomatic tactics to stress control of the sea.
ASEAN has been trying for more than a decade to secure agreement from China on a legally binding code of conduct that would govern actions in the South China Sea.
China has resisted agreeing to the code, wary of making any concessions that may weaken its claim to the sea.
Nevertheless, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said ASEAN would continue to press its case with China in Brunei.
"We will be really zeroing in on the need for the code of conduct," Natalegawa told reporters on Saturday.
Toxic smoke from uncontrolled burning of Indonesia's enormous rainforests that has drifted across to neighbouring countries was also discussed on the first day of the Brunei talks.
Natalegawa said the fires had been greatly reduced and were coming under control.
The talks will expand on Monday and Tuesday to include the US, China, Japan, Russia and other countries across the Asia-Pacific, providing the platform for face-to-face diplomacy on many of the world's hot-button issues.
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek says the abortion pill RU486 will be listed on the PBS. Source: AAP
THE inclusion of controversial abortion drug RU486 on Australia's subsidised medication program has been labelled an "abuse of power" by pro-life supporters.
Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek announced on Sunday that Mifepristone and Misoprostol - used in combination to terminate a pregnancy of up to seven weeks gestation - would be added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
"By offering this different option at a very difficult time in a woman's life, I hope that we are giving more choice in what are often extraordinary difficult circumstances," the minister said.
However Right To Life president Margaret Tighe said the decision was a "gross abuse of power" by the government.
"The PBS is designed to include life-saving drugs," she told AAP.
"In this case these drugs are just going to make it easier and cheaper and quicker to have more abortions in Australia and that's an absolute disgrace and goes against the purpose of the PBS."
Listing of the abortion drugs overshadowed the addition of cancer treatments and an anti-stroke medication which were also named by Ms Plibersek as newcomers to the PBS.
Breakthrough skin cancer drug ipilimumab, late-stage prostate cancer treatment abiraterone and breast cancer medication vinorelbine were added to the list in a move that will cost taxpayers $430 million over the next four years.
"The exciting thing about these new treatments is that they will extend the life of patients with melanoma, with prostate cancer, with breast cancer," Ms Plibersek said.
"If we didn't subsidise these medicines through the PBS they would be out of the reach of most Australians."
The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia welcomed news of abiraterone's listing to help in the fight against a cancer that kills 3300 men each year.
"Affordable access to therapy at all stages of the condition is vital and the minister's decision to include the therapy on the PBS highlights her commitment to all Australians touched by prostate cancer," foundation CEO Anthony Lowe said in a statement.
Cancer Australia also welcomed the new PBS listings.
"All these agents are important in their own way and to have them available more widely is very important to patients," Professor Jim Bishop said on behalf of the national body.
The government will also put up $450 million over the coming four years for the PBS inclusion of anti-stroke medication rivaroxaban.
"It's a drug that will be used by patients who have been on Warfarin in the past," Ms Plibersek said.
The revised PBS listings are effective from August.
