Korean veteran remembers mate's snoring

Fifteen Australian war veterans who fought in Korea have returned to mark the 60th anniversary. Source: AAP

RETURNING to Korea 60 years after fighting in the war has stirred up unexpected memories for Bill Monaghan.

During the Korean War, Monaghan bunked with fellow fighter pilot Bob Macintosh at the Kimpo Airbase, outside of Seoul.

"The room mate I'm sharing with, we were in Kimpo together, I had forgotten how much he snores," the 84-year-old Canberra great-grandfather told AAP on the phone from Korea on Saturday.

The pair are among 15 Australia war veterans who have travelled to Korea to mark the 60th anniversary of the armistice signing that ended fighting.

Mr Monaghan joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in 1949 and was in active combat during the last three months of the war.

His role was to fly over enemy supply lines and try to stop supplies getting through to the frontline.

"I was a frightened young boy from the country who did not know what he'd gotten himself into," he said.

During his twelfth combat mission, his Gloster Meteor plane was hit by enemy fire which took out his right engine.

Unable to return to base on one engine, Mr Monaghan made an emergency beach landing on the island of Paengyong-do held by United Nations forces, where his engine was replaced.

Mr Monaghan returned to Australia in December 1953, to marry his wife Dot.

"She's only divorced me 14 times," he joked, hastily adding that they've had a wonderful married life and are proud of their son and daughter.

More than 18,000 Australians served in the Korean War, 340 soldiers died, 1200 were wounded and 43 are still listed as missing in action.

The 15 Australian veterans are attending a special ceremony at the Korean War Memorial in Seoul on Saturday, alongside Veterans Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon, and have toured some battle ground sites.

Mr Monaghan said it was sobering to visit the famous land battle site at Kapyong.

"You look at the conditions where the (Australians) fought back an overwhelming force of the Chinese, it's very daunting to consider that ... your hat comes off to them every time you think about it."

While the highlight of the trip has been the companionship of his mates, Mr Monaghan was keen to return to Korea and see first-hand the thriving democracy and economy.

"We look over the border at the north and we say it was well worth the effort," he said.

* Korean War veterans will also mark the anniversary at a service at National Korean War Memorial in Canberra on Saturday.

AAP lpm/nl

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Albo calls for patience on poll date

The Deputy Prime Minister has called for people to be patient about the federal poll date. Source: AAP

DEPUTY Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says no one in the Rudd government has a "rush to the polls mentality" but it will be before or after his league team wins the premiership.

Mr Albanese on Saturday called for patience, as speculation about the federal election date reaches fever pitch.

"No one in the government has had a rush to the polls mentality," he told reporters, flanked by scores of red balloons at a community campaign event for Chinese Australian lawyer Jason Yat-sen Li, Labor's candidate for the Sydney seat of Bennelong.

He said the government would consider calling the election at an appropriate time.

"It will be before or after the Souths win their twenty first premiership," he joked.

Mr Albanese is a South Sydney Rabbitohs supporter.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott urged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to stop "playing games" and name the date.

"The government of our country is not about showbiz," he told reporters at the Stockman's Hall of Fame at Longreach in western Queensland.

"Electing a national government is not a version of celebrity Big Brother."

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Abducted NSW baby handed in to police

A Sydney man who threatened his ex-girlfriend and abducted his eight-month-old remains on the run. Source: AAP

MISSING baby Zhaiden Mifsud has been handed in to a Sydney police station after his father abducted him at knifepoint.

Police have confirmed that the eight-month-old was handed in to Campbelltown police station around 5pm (AEST) on Friday.

It is still unclear if his father, Steven Hume, was with the boy at the time of the handover.

Police said Zhaiden was handed in by a family member, and was safe and well.

They later confirmed they were still searching for Mr Hume.

The 24-year-old allegedly forced his way into the Chester Hill home of his ex-girlfriend Casey Mifsud, 16, and their son Zhaiden about 8.30pm (AEST) on Thursday.

He grabbed both of them at knifepoint and put them into his 2007 Toyota Camry before allegedly assaulting Ms Mifsud at a highway rest stop and driving off with the baby, police say.

Zhaiden was in light clothing and Mr Hume had no food or baby formula.

The chain of events sparked a massive police manhunt around Bargo, southwest of the city, where the Camry, which had struck a tree, was found abandoned on Friday morning.

Local police, PolAir, the Dog Squad and volunteers from the State Emergency Service and Rural Fire Service joined the search for Mr Hume, which will continue.

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Talks on joint Korean industrial park fail

Talks between North and South Korea on reopening their joint industrial estate at Kaesong failed. Source: AAP

NORTH Korea has blasted South Korea's "arrogant" attitude after talks on salvaging the jointly-run Kaesong industrial zone collapsed, sparking a shoving match between officials from both sides.

The North also accused the South of using "delaying tactics" by demanding that Pyongyang take responsibility for the closure of the estate and compensate for financial losses.

"The North side made every possible effort to prevent the talks from not making any results, but the South side persisted in its arrogant stand, pushing the talks to the point of stalemate," the North's Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary on Friday.

"The South side can never escape its responsibility for all the aftermaths to be entailed by its move of having pushed the talks to a deadlock," it said.

The failure of both sides to set a date for another meeting after a sixth round of discussions on Thursday on reviving Kaesong was compounded by a pushing match that broke out between North and South officials.

At the end of the talks, the North's chief delegate, Pak Chol-su, told South Korean reporters that the North's military may re-occupy the estate unless the two sides work out a solution.

Pak's unscheduled news conference sparked a rare shoving match between South and North Korean officials, according to pool reports.

When Pak barged into the press room without notice, 20 North Korean officials shut down elevators or stood guard around him.

Minutes later, a dozen South Korean officials ran down from the conference hall in an attempt to stop Pak, denouncing him for ignoring a protocol.

Pool pictures showed North and South Korean officials grabbing, pushing and shoving each other.

Seoul refuted the North's accusations, saying it should change its attitude and give a firm pledge to prevent another work stoppage.

"Our demand for safeguards ... is not something that North Korean can reject," Kim Hyung-suk, spokesman for the South's unification ministry, said on Friday.

Production at the Seoul-funded estate, 10 kilometres over the border, has been suspended since North Korea withdrew its 53,000 workers from the South's 123 factories in April.

Talks on reopening it have been dominated by mutual recriminations over who was to blame for the shutdown.

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Unknown fault may be causing NZ quakes

THE fault responsible for the recent spate of earthquakes rattling central New Zealand and causing damage in the nation's capital was not previously known, scientists believe.

GNS Science seismologists suspect the earthquakes have struck on a previously unknown offshore extension of the London Hills Fault, which is described as a strike-slip fault.

A strike-slip fault exists when both sides slide past each other without a lot of uplift or down-thrust, GNS Science says.

A National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) vessel was diverted to the Cook Strait on Tuesday to survey the area, with scientists doing more research to determine for certain which fault caused Sunday's 6.5 magnitude earthquake.

"The seafloor above the epicentre is relatively shallow for Cook Strait, at about 100m depth, but the seafloor materials make it difficult to detect traces of any previous earthquakes," GNS Science said.

Meanwhile, it was business as usual for most workers in the nation's capital on Tuesday, with thousands of staff returning to their Wellington CBD offices.

Most of the city's 35 damaged buildings have been made safe and road, rail, bus and road traffic were approaching normal weekday flows.

The damage "hot spot", Featherston Street, was open to pedestrians and one-lane traffic as inspections were completed on 12 red-taped buildings which may have loose masonry and glass.

Schools throughout Wellington and Marlborough are expected to open as scheduled on Monday, following the two-week holiday break, with most school buildings sustaining only superficial damage.

But on Tuesday, Civil Defence Minister Nikki Kaye warned New Zealanders in affected regions to remain vigilant and "be prepared," saying the unexpected can still happen.

Dozens of aftershocks again hit central New Zealand on Tuesday, the strongest of which measured 5.0 on the Richter scale at about 1.30am.

GeoNet has revised the probability of a 6 magnitude or higher earthquake from 19 per cent on Monday to 13 per cent on Tuesday.

Residents in the area can still expect about 14 magnitude 4 to 4.9 aftershocks in the coming week.

However, scientists don't believe the earthquakes are big enough to affect other faults in the area.

"The risk of future earthquakes in other places remains unchanged," GNS Science said.

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Tokyo stocks close 0.82% higher

JAPANESE shares ended 0.82 per cent higher on Tuesday, with sentiment lifted by Tokyo's upgrade of the economy in which it used the world "recovery" for the first time in almost a year.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 120.47 points to 14,778.51, reversing a 0.70 per cent decline at the start of the day. The Topix index of all first-section shares closed 0.51 per cent, or 6.19 points, higher at 1,222.72.

Japan's Cabinet Office said in its July report: "The economy is picking up steadily and shows some movements on the way to recovery."

It is the first time it has used the word "recovery" in 10 months, while it also hinted that years of deflation were coming to an end.

The upbeat outlook comes after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling party won upper house elections on Sunday, giving him more legislative muscle to press on with a big-spending program aimed at boosting growth.

However, while the comments helped buying a stronger yen caused some drag.

The dollar fetched 99.55 yen in afternoon trade, compared with 99.59 yen late in New York and well off the 100 yen in Tokyo on Monday.

"The yen has shown signs of pesky resilience, which will act to cap further stock market advances," said SMBC Nikko Securities general manager of equities Hiroichi Nishi.

There were few trading cues in Tuesday's session as investors await Japan's earnings season, with major firms including Panasonic, Honda and Nintendo set to report their quarterly results next week.

In stock trading, Fukushima operator TEPCO tumbled 6.68 per cent to 656 yen as workers at the crippled plan reported steam inside a battered reactor building for the second time in less than a week.

Camera giant Nikon fell 0.65 per cent to 2,283 yen, Sony jumped 3.42 per cent to 2,295 yen and Uniqlo clothing chain operator Fast Retailing rose 0.54 per cent to 36,650 yen.

Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal was 3.34 per cent higher at 309 yen on a report in the leading Nikkei business daily that the firm and Toyota had agreed on a 10 per cent price hike for sheet steel used to make autos.

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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".

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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.

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Nurses to strike at 160 NSW hospitals

NURSES and midwives at every major hospital in NSW will be walking off the job on Wednesday.

Staff at more than 160 public hospitals and community health services across the state have notified the union about their plans to strike.

They are protesting over what they say is the state government's failure to provide safe nurse staffing levels.

NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association General Secretary Brett Holmes said more branches were expected to join the cause by Wednesday.

"For a few hundred million dollars a year the state government can dramatically improve patient care in our public hospitals," he said in a statement on Sunday.

The union wants one nurse to four patients in all general medical, surgical and acute inpatient mental health wards.

It's also calling for one nurse per three children in general children's wards and one nurse to three patients in emergency departments.

The extra staffing would "save lives and money", Mr Holmes said, adding that the nurse-to-patient ratios needed to be consistent at every hospital in NSW, including those in the country.

A special general meeting will be held at Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre from 11.30am (AEST) on Wednesday, with a live webcast to 17 regional centres, including Albury, Broken Hill, Kempsey, Tamworth and Wagga Wagga.

During the strike life-preserving services will be maintained in all hospitals and community health services, the union said.

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Bashed Sydney man's family seeks witnesses

THE family of a man brutally bashed by a stranger in the Sydney CBD have pleaded for two men caught on camera to turn themselves in.

Matthew Blackmore, 33, was crossing George Street to catch a cab home around midnight last Sunday when an unknown man smashed him in the side of the face, in what police have described as an "vicious, unprovoked" attack.

He was knocked unconscious and fell face first onto the pavement, breaking his nose and striking his head.

The Maroubra banker remained in hospital on Sunday, and his sister Karen Blackmore said he faced a long recovery.

"It's one day at a time," she told reporters.

"He's struggling, to be honest ... he doesn't recall anything, he doesn't know why."

Detectives have now released CCTV footage of two men who are wanted for questioning over the incident.

One man is described as being of Caucasian appearance, with an athletic build and short brown hair.

He was wearing a black jacket, white button-up shirt, dark pants and white shoes.

The second man depicted in the footage also looks Caucasian, has a short stocky build and a shaved head.

He was dressed in a dark jacket, white shirt, black pants and black shoes.

City Central Local Area Command's Stephen Warren said CCTV video showed the two men pulling up in a dark 4WD to the CBD street where Mr Blackmore was bashed.

"The males that we wish to speak to are seen to get out of that vehicle, cross George Street, and moments later the assault on Matthew occurs," he told reporters in Sydney.

He said Mr Blackmore didn't know either man, but urged anyone who did recognise them to come forward.

"Tell us what you know, so that we can bring some comfort to this family and try to arrest the offenders," he said.

Acting Inspector Warren also revealed police have obtained CCTV footage of the assault itself.

Mark Blackmore told reporters it was time for his brother's attacker to come forward.

"It's been a week, you've had time to think about your actions," he said.

He's described his brother as "one of the lucky ones" because he escaped severe brain damage in the incident, but Matthew Blackmore still suffers memory loss, severe headaches and difficulty balancing.

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