Gunmen attack Greece prison

AT least 11 inmates escaped from a Greek prison after gunmen brazenly attacked the site with grenades and automatic weapons, kicking off a nightlong standoff between police and prisoners. Two guards were injured, one of them seriously.

A senior police official told the Associated Press on Saturday that 11 inmates were missing after the gun battle and standoff, which ended at dawn when police special forces entered the prison. He spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement was still pending.

The incident occurred near the town of Trikala, in central Greece, some 320 kilometres northwest of Athens. As many as six gunmen attacked the prison after driving up to the site in a van and pickup truck, according to officials.

Prison authorities were investigating reports that weapons had also been fired from inside the facility. At least five grenades exploded, while army experts were expected at the prison to dispose of two unexploded grenades.

The attack started at around 8:30 pm local time on Friday, when a police patrol jeep was fired upon.

"It was like a war was going on. There was so much gunfire," said Trikala city councilor Costas Tassios, who lives in the village of Krinitsa, near the prison.

A bullet fired at the village damaged a coffee shop window in an incident also being investigated by police.

The escaped prisoners used ropes to climb down from a guard tower that had been attacked. Police set up roadblocks near the prison and searched vacant homes and farm buildings, as well as using two helicopters, in the manhunt. Officers from evidence units were also scouring the jail perimetre after dawn.

Police said the escaped inmates were mostly Albanian but gave no other details. An inmate from Argentina was arrested but the circumstances of his apprehension were not immediately clear.

The attack was the latest dramatic incident at Greek prisons, which are suffering from serious overcrowding and staff shortages as the country struggles through financial crisis and a recession that started in late 2008.

Last month, guards foiled a breakout attempt by four inmates who tried to escape by helicopter from Trikala prison, including notorious Greek inmate Panagiotis Vlastos, who is serving life for murder and racketeering. Gunmen in the helicopter had fired on guards in the Feb. 24 incident and lowered a rope in to the courtyard, but the chopper was forced to land after being hit by returned gunfire.

In a separate incident on March 17, a convicted contract killer, Albanian inmate Alket Rizaj, took several prison guards hostage in an attempt to escape from another prison in central Greece. The attempt was unsuccessful and the hostages were released unharmed following a 24-hour standoff.

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Sydney icon glows green for Earth Hour

Australia has turned the lights out for Earth Hour, as part of similar climate change awareness. Source: AAP

THE Sydney Opera House has glowed green while much of Australia plunged into darkness as the country united for the Earth Hour campaign on climate change.

Thousands of households and businesses across Australia switched off their lights at 8.30pm local time in an hour-long show of symbolic support for the planet.

And in a break from the usual Earth Hour protocol, selected venues - including the Opera house and the Arts Centre Melbourne - glowed a dark green to represent the campaign's push for people to embrace renewable energy.

The Australian event will trigger a global switch off, with hundreds of millions of people in more than 150 countries set to turn their lights off.

Organisers say Earth Hour, now in its seventh year, has captured the imagination of environmentalists everywhere.

"What started as an event in Sydney in 2007 with two million people has now become a tradition across the country and across the world," Dermot O'Gorman, head of the World Wildlife Fund-Australia, said.

"It's now an organic, people-powered movement... which is fantastic."

In addition to dimming the lights, Australian Earth Hour celebrations included various community events, such as street festivals in Sydney's Newtown, large concerts in Perth and bushwalks in Canberra.

With restaurant diners eating by candlelight, outback communities going dark and iconic buildings standing in shadows, Mr O'Gorman believes Earth Hour has played a part in drawing attention to energy use.

"We've always heard anecdotally that it has made people change their actions and look at their impact on the planet in a more considered way," he said.

"Earth Hour has always been about empowering people to realise that everybody has the power to change the world in which they live, and thousands of people switching to renewable energy is a perfect example."

Sydney's lights out example will be followed by countries across the globe.

Newcomers to the event this year include Palestine, Tunisia, Suriname and Rwanda and Russia, while famous landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace and the Empire State Building will again take part.

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Bangladesh storm kills 20

The death toll from a tornado that hit villages in Bangladesh has risen to 20. Source: AAP

THE death toll from a tornado that ripped through 20 villages in eastern Bangladesh has climbed to 20 people, with another 200 hurt, a government official says.

Initial reports said at least 10 people were killed and a newspaper put the toll for the injured at 500 in the storm that lashed the distant villages in Brahmanbaria district on Friday.

On Saturday, local chief government administrator Noor Mohammad Majumder said the death toll had climbed to 20 people died, with another 200 injured in the powerful storm.

The local Prothom Alo newspaper reported that the 15-minute storm destroyed many homes and shops, and toppled a large number of trees and electricity poles.

Villagers and emergency personnel took the injured to hospitals, the reports said.

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Teen foils own getaway with car crash

A TEENAGE thief's getaway was foiled in Ipswich on Friday morning when he managed to crash the stolen vehicle into another car and then roll it.

The 17-year-old unlicensed driver, who was allegedly intoxicated at the time, had used the stolen car to flee after robbing two homes in Ipswich between 2am and 7am on Friday.

Police said the boy allegedly broke into a home in Aspinall Street, Leichardt, where he stole an iPad, before gaining entry to a home in Flint Street, North Ipswich, where he stole a set of keys.

He drove off in a stolen car from the home but his getaway hit a snag when he veered onto the wrong side of the road and hit a parked car at the intersection of Chubb and Cafferky streets around 7.45am.

The thief was forced to ditch the vehicle 15 minutes later after it rolled near the intersection of Wills St and Flinders Drive.

Police said he tried fleeing the scene on foot but was found and apprehended by police a short time later.

The Nambour teenager has been charged with one count each of enter dwelling with intent by break, enter dwelling with intent, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, fail to comply with duties of driver involved in a crash, obstruct police, driving motor vehicle without a license and drink driving.

He will reappear in Ipswich Magistrates Court on March 27.

Anyone with information which could assist this matter should contact Crime Stoppers via 1800 333 000 or crimestopers.com.au 24 hours a day.
 

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Teen hit by car in critical condition

A 13-YEAR-OLD boy is in a critical condition in hospital after being hit by a car in Home Hill, 98kms south of Townsville.

According to initial information, the boy was at the intersection of 7th Avenue and 14th Street around 3.45pm when he was struck.

Police say he has been flown to Townsville Hospital in a critical condition with serious head and leg injuries.

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Consumers warned about funeral contracts

CONSUMERS are being warned to beware of "push advertising" for pre-paid funeral arrangements on daytime television.

In a statement, NSW Fair Trading commissioner Rod Stowe said daytime TV was experiencing a "renaissance" in marketing around the issue of death and dying that "could play on people's insecurities about such matters".

"People need to shop around and go for products without the pernicious aspects of escalating costs with age," Mr Stowe said on Friday.

The Fair Trading boss said consumers needed to be aware that with some products there was the potential to lose payments if a contract or a scheduled transfer was cancelled.

Mr Stowe stressed to consumers considering buying funeral products that refunds were "not generally provided if a payment is missed or the policy is cancelled".

Consumers should read the product disclosure statement (PDS) that outlines what happens if the policy is cancelled, he said.

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24 dead as tornado, hailstorms lash China

AT least 24 people died and scores were injured after a tornado carrying huge hailstones lashed southern China, causing widespread devastation and a ferry to capsize, domestic media reported.

The ferry overturned in a river in the south-eastern province of Fujian, causing the deaths of 11 people with four missing, web portal qq.com reported.

Nine people were killed in Dongguan, in Guangdong province in the south, according to the report.

It showed images from the city of a car windscreen which appeared to have been smashed by egg-sized hailstones.

Many of the dead in Dongguan were trapped in collapsed buildings. Another 148 people were injured, including 11 who were critically ill, the report said.

The website put the death toll at 24, as did state-run news agency Xinhua.

Other provinces affected by storms and torrential rain on Wednesday were nearby Jiangxi, Hunan in central China and Guizhou in the southwest.

A total of 1.53 million residents have been affected by severe weather and 215,000 people were forced to relocate, Xinhua said, citing the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

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Mali soldier killed in suicide car bomb

French troops will begin pulling out of troubled Mali at the end of April, France's PM announced. Source: AAP

A MALIAN soldier was killed and two others wounded when a suicide bomber set off an explosives vest inside a car near the Timbuktu airport in northern Mali, a military source said.

Ayrault said a meeting next Monday between MPs in France's National Assembly and Senate would assess the involvement of French troops to help flush out Islamist rebels in the west African country "even if our troops will begin coming home from the end of April".

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius first said the 4,000-strong French contingent would be withdrawn from March. President Francois Hollande then promised a troop reduction from April.

In his speech to parliament, Ayrault paid tribute to the French forces, which have been in Mali since mid-January.

They are France's "honour" and "proof that France can be up to its ambitions... and will be so wherever necessary", he said.

Five French soldiers have died in combat since the start of the operations to drive out the rebels from areas they control in the north.

Currently about 1,200 troops are still deployed in the northeast carrying out clean-up operations.

There are still pockets of resistance in areas such as Gao, the largest city in northern Mali, which has been hit by stray attacks and suicide bombings since the Islamists fled.

The French troops in the region are backed up by African forces.

Soldiers from Chad, whose experience and training have made them key in the French-led offensive, have also suffered casualties, with at least 26 deaths.

Paris deployed the forces on January 11 to help stop al-Qaeda-linked fighters who had controlled northern Mali since April 2012 from moving southward and threatening the capital Bamako.

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Obama receives frosty welcome in Ramallah

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories, March 21 AFP - US President Barack Obama arrived in the West Bank to a more prickly welcome from Palestinian leaders than the warm embrace he won in Israel the day before.

Obama flew by helicopter over the barbed wire fences and walls of the Israeli separation barrier, before meeting Palestinian leaders dismayed by his failure to live up to expectations that he could help deliver them a state.

As Marine One touched down under a blazing sun in the courtyard of the Muqataa presidential compound, a military band began playing and Obama was warmly greeted on the red carpet by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

The US president, on his first visit to the Holy Land since taking the White House in 2009, was expected to restate his vision of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite years of delays and disappointments.

Obama was to hold talks with Abbas and then prime minister Salam Fayyad, in a less than five-hour diversion to the occupied territories on the second day of a visit primarily engineered to ease tensions with Israel.

Despite the tight cordon of security around the Muqataa, around 150 Palestinian protesters could be seen trying to get near, shouting "Obama, you're not welcome here!" and "Obama, get out of Ramallah!"

Hours before leaving for Ramallah, the complications which would test any new US peace effort were underlined when two rockets fired by militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip slammed into southern Israel.

In only the second such attack since November, the rockets hit in Sderot, a border town which Obama visited in a previous visit to Israel while a presidential candidate in 2008.

There was no immediate comment from the White House, and a senior Israeli official said the government would be watching closely to see if Abbas condemned the rocket strike during his news conference with Obama.

Earlier on Thursday, Obama went to the Israel Museum to view the Dead Sea Scrolls dating back more than two millennia and which include some of the earliest text from the Bible, in a move seen as a nod to the ancient roots of the Jewish state.

The visit was seen as a way of making up for Obama's comment in a 2009 speech to the Muslim world in which he said the Jewish homeland was rooted in the "tragic history" of the Holocaust.

Obama says he has come "to listen" to both sides about how to resume peace talks frozen for two-and-a-half years.

He decided against coming with a comprehensive peace plan that might not gel with current political conditions.

"Ultimately, this is a really hard problem," Obama said during a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.

"It's been lingering for over six decades. And the parties involved have, you know, some profound interests that you can't spin, you can't smooth over. And it is a hard slog to work through all of these issues."

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Obama departs Washington for Israel visit

US President Barack Obama is en route to Israel for a four-day trip to the Middle East. Source: AAP

BARACK Obama has landed in Israel for the first time as US president, on a mission to ease past tensions with his hosts but facing scepticism about his plans to thwart Iran's nuclear threat.

Air Force One landed at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv to kick off a three-day trip on which Obama will meet Israeli leaders and make a short visit to the West Bank, before heading to Jordan to consult with King Abdullah II.

The plane rolled to a stop to the peal of trumpets from a military band and Obama smiled broadly as he embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then President Shimon Peres, saying: "How are you, my friend?"

They then stood to attention for the US and Israeli national anthems.

Obama's long-awaited visit, the debut overseas trip of his second term, may be marked more by symbolism than serious diplomatic substance and will expose diminished US ambitions of forging peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The president says he is carrying no new peace plans and instead plans to listen to the new Israeli government and Palestinians disaffected with his approach, leading some experts to question why he is coming at all.

He must also navigate the treacherous regional politics of the Middle East, amid new scrutiny over his wariness of deeper US involvement in Syria as government forces and rebels accuse one another of using chemical arms.

Obama will come face-to-face with Israel's security challenge at the airport by viewing a mobile battery of Israel's US-funded Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Then he will head to Jerusalem for talks with Peres before sitting down with Netanyahu, with whom he has had a prickly relationship.

During his visit, Obama will pointedly court the historic symbolism of the Jewish State when he inspects the Dead Sea Scrolls and visits the tomb of Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism.

The choreography is intended to show Israelis, Arabs and political foes back home that Obama is deeply committed to Israel's security and future, despite some scepticism about his motives.

He is on tricky political ground: a survey by the independent Israel Democracy Institute showed that while 51 per cent of the Jewish Israeli respondents considered Obama neutral in his attitude toward Israel, 53.5 per cent did not trust him over Israel's vital interests.

So, mounting a charm offensive, Obama will deliver a speech to hundreds of young Israelis on Thursday.

Obama and Netanyahu will have to smooth over an often difficult personal chemistry following previous spats, but the visit is unlikely to narrow differences over how soon Iran will have a nuclear weapons capability.

Obama told Israeli television that Iran would not be able to build a nuclear weapon for "over a year or so."

Netanyahu warned last year that Iran would have the capacity to produce a bomb much earlier, within months from the current date, and questions whether sanctions will change Tehran's calculations.

The difference in "red lines" on Iran may reflect each side's differing capacities to launch meaningful action against Iran - but Obama will likely caution Netanyahu against an early Israeli strike.

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Joyce denies he wants to challenge Truss

Senator Barnaby Joyce has confirmed his interest in standing for the NSW seat of New England. Source: AAP

NATIONALS senator Barnaby Joyce says asking if he'll be the next deputy prime minister is like wanting to know if he will become the Pope.

The high-profile senator has confirmed his interest in standing for the NSW seat of New England after the shock withdrawal of preselected state MP Richard Torbay.

The announcement has fuelled speculation that once in the lower house Mr Joyce would be in pole-position to become deputy prime minister in a coalition government.

But Mr Joyce says there are too many hypotheticals to consider before it comes to that.

"I was just waiting for when I was going to become the Pope and the king and an astronaut," he told ABC television.

The Queensland senator has previously indicated he would like to lead the Nationals in the lower house, but on Wednesday said he would only like to that once incumbent Warren Truss retired.

"I have no intention whatsoever of challenging Warren Truss," he said.

"Warren Truss is the safest set of hands in Canberra - he'll be the deputy prime minister."

But Mr Joyce's potential opponent in the seat of New England and the electorate's incumbent MP, Tony Windsor, said it was all about leadership aspirations.

"I don't think he's got anything to do with New England or the people of New England," Mr Windsor told ABC radio earlier on Wednesday.

"It's all about Barnaby and his lust for power."

Asked about his motive, Mr Joyce said it was to ensure the coalition won government.

Mr Joyce took a swipe back at Mr Windsor.

"Tony wasn't straight with (the voters of New England) at the start, he didn't say before the election, 'look I might back the Labor party and the Greens,'" he said.

"The government he sponsors everyday is a rolling fiasco."

The National Party's state chairman Niall Blair will not say why support for Richard Torbay was withdrawn, but he did say legal advice was being sought over "matters" that predated Mr Torbay's membership.

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Cyprus scrambles to find cash

Furious Cypriot MPs rejected the terms of a bailout aimed at saving the country from bankruptcy. Source: AAP

DEBT-HIT Cyprus was scrambling to secure funding vital to an international bailout after MPs rejected the terms of an EU deal, tapping Russia, the church and state institutions for cash.

With banks closed and fears growing of a forced eurozone exit, President Nicos Anastasiades huddled with party leaders and financial experts trying to track a way out of the island's worst crisis since the 1974 Turkish invasion.

The meeting comes a day after lawmakers flatly rejected a highly unpopular measure that would have slapped a one-time levy of up to 9.9 percent on bank deposits as a condition for an EU-led 10 billion euros ($A12.52 billion) loan.

The 5.8 billion euros the proposal would have raised was crucial to Nicosia getting the full rescue.

With that now in doubt, Cyprus must now find other ways to raise cash to repay its debts.

Caught between the demands of its eurozone lenders and traditional ally Russia, the government is treading a very fine line, and one reason being given for parliament's refusal to accept the deposits levy was that Moscow had to be placated.

Russians - many of them wealthy tycoons seeking to avoid taxes back home - hold between a third and half of all Cypriot deposits and have $31 billion in private and corporate cash buried in the island's teetering banks.

Any levy on these holdings could have sparked a capital flight that would probably have collapsed the banking sector.

Cyprus's banks were left heavily exposed to the Greek debt crisis, and their failure would leave the country on the verge of bankruptcy and in danger of going into default.

Illustrating the balancing act Anastasiades is being forced to perform, he telephoned both German Chancellor Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday night after parliament angrily vetoed the bailout deal.

The Kremlin said that Putin and Anastasiades had discussed what Russia could do to help.

By that time the Cyprus president had already sent his finance minister, Michalis Sarris, to Moscow to woo Russian assistance and seek an easing of the terms of a 2.5 billion-euro loan that Moscow gave Nicosia in 2011.

Sarris said on Wednesday the Moscow talks had started well.

"We have a very good beginning. We had a very good, honest and open discussion," Sarris told reporters after meeting his Russian counterpart Anton Siluanov.

But he stressed that he had so far received no offer from Russia's natural gas giant Gazprom to infuse Cyprus's banks with cash in exchange for a stake in its offshore energy fields.

The option has been mentioned as one possible way Moscow could help the debt-laden island.

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Dead pigs in China river exceed 13,000

The number of dead pigs found in a river running through Shanghai has reached more than 13,000. Source: AAP

THE number of dead pigs found in a river running through China's commercial hub Shanghai has reached more than 13,000, as mystery deepened over the hogs' precise origin.

Shanghai had pulled 9,460 pigs out of the Huangpu river, which supplies 22 per cent of the city's drinking water, since the infestation began earlier this month, the Shanghai Daily reported.

Shanghai has blamed farmers in Jiaxing in neighbouring Zhejiang province for dumping pigs which died of disease into the river upstream, where the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday another 3,601 dead animals had been recovered.

The Jiaxing government has said the area is not the sole source of the carcasses, adding it had found only one producer that could be held responsible.

Shanghai said it had checked farms in its southwestern district of Songjiang, where the pigs were first detected, but found they were not to blame, the Shanghai Daily said.

The scandal has spotlighted China's troubles with food safety, adding the country's most popular meat to a growing list of food items rocked by controversy.

Samples of the dead pigs have tested positive for porcine circovirus, a common swine disease that does not affect humans.

"Due to some farming households having a weak recognition of the law, bad habits, and lack of increased supervision and capability for treatment have led to the situation," the national agriculture ministry's chief veterinarian Yu Kangzhen said.

Yu attributed a higher mortality rate among pigs to colder weather this spring, though he ruled out an epidemic, the ministry said in statement posted on its website over the weekend.

The thousands of dead pigs have drawn attention to China's poorly regulated farm production. Animals that die from disease can end up in the country's food supply chain or improperly disposed of, despite laws against the practice.

In Wenling, also in Zhejiang, authorities announced last week that 46 people had been jailed for up to six-and-a-half years for processing and selling pork from more than 1,000 diseased pigs.

China faced one its biggest food-safety scandals in 2008 when the industrial chemical melamine was found to have been illegally added to dairy products, killing at least six babies and making 300,000 people ill.

In another recent incident, the American fast-food giant KFC faced controversy after revealing that some Chinese suppliers provided chicken with high levels of antibiotics, in what appeared to be an industry-wide practice.

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Half a million new homes for Sydney

NSW Planning Minister Brad Hazzard has unveiled a 20-year blueprint for Sydney's growth. Source: AAP

A 20-YEAR blueprint for Sydney's growth has identified a need for more than half a million new homes by 2031 but lobby groups want clarity about where they will be built.

Unveiling the strategy on Tuesday, Planning Minister Brad Hazzard said 545,000 new homes would be needed to cater for a population of 5.6 million Sydneysiders in 20 years - a 17 per cent increase on the number forecast in 2010.

Seventy per cent of the additional 1.3 million people who will set up homes in Sydney will be the children of current residents.

"We're trying to be less constrictive and restrictive and what we are saying is the market place should have far more of a say in what the mix of housing is and where it will be," Mr Hazzard said.

"We can make forecasts on where we believe it should be, but we are not going to do what Labor did ... they allowed the planners to be the sole determinant."

Urban Taskforce CEO Chris Johnson said the obvious location for higher density housing was around transport nodes and town centres.

But a range of housing types was needed, including new houses on the city's fringe and apartments in existing suburban areas.

"We need more detail on the type of housing densities planned, particularly for existing urban areas," he said.

Patricia Forsythe, executive director of the Sydney Business Chamber, said the strategy needed to address the density of housing along transport corridors.

"We need to increase housing density along existing transport corridors as a matter of common sense to continue to maintain a working city.

"Many existing transport corridors, especially along railway lines, have old three-storey walk-up apartment buildings that are reaching their use-by date.

"Reforming the planning and strata systems could see a flurry of building activity to redevelop these buildings into higher density, modern apartments."

Housing Industry Association executive director NSW, David Bare, said "urgent action is required".

As part of the plan, the government also wants to create 625,000 extra jobs over the next two decades, with 50 per cent of them in western Sydney.

The draft metropolitan strategy divides Sydney into nine key areas, known as "city shapers". These include growth corridors along Parramatta Road, Anzac Parade and the North West Rail Link, and an enhanced role for Parramatta as Sydney's second CBD.

A western Sydney employment area would be developed south of Mt Druitt.

"We need to make sure in whatever we plan, the jobs are near houses, the houses near jobs and infrastructure is there to connect them," Mr Hazzard told parliament.

He said western Sydney was at the heart of the government's economic strategy.

"Sydney is in effect the Aladdin's Cave, but the part of the Aladdin's Cave that is the critical part is the west," he said.

"The west is where the treasure lies for people to tap."

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Cost for water on the rise in southeast

RATEPAYERS in five southeast Queensland Council areas, including Brisbane, will pay an extra 3.9 per cent for water and sewerage this coming financial year.

Confirming the news this afternoon, Queensland Urban Utilities, which services the Brisbane, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, Somerset and Scenic Rim council areas, said the increase should amount to about $28 to $37, or 53 to 71 cents per week for the average residential bill.

But consumers could be in for another hit yet, with the State Government yet to reveal any changes to the component of water bills that it controls - bulk water charges.

The increase comes after Queensland Urban Utilities froze its residential water and sewerage prices for the 2012-13 financial year.

QUU chief executive Louise Dudley said factors including increased operating costs and lower-than-expected growth had been taken into account when determining the increase.

Ms Dudley said she understood some found it hard to pay their bills and payment plans had ben developed to help those in need.

Charges for non-residential customers will also increase by 3.9 per cent in 2013/14, with final prices to be released in June.

Changes to the QUU water and sewerage access charges will be reflected on residential accounts issued from July 1 while consumption charges, including the state's bulk water charge, will be reflected on accounts issued from October 1.

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Gillard open to media law amendments

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she's open to "sensible suggestions" on media law changes. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard says the government is willing to consider sensible changes to its proposed media laws, but won't be "cross-trading or horse-trading".

Labor wants its package of bills passed by the end of the week, putting in place changes to broadcasting rules and a new public interest media advocate to oversee press and online standards and media mergers and acquisitions.

Ms Gillard does not yet have the numbers to get the bills through the lower house and two committees are hearing evidence from media bosses and other interested parties on Monday.

"What we've said is we don't want the intent of our reforms to be distorted in any way," the prime minister told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

"We've got the parliament committee process in train now and we will see what immediately arises from the parliamentary committees.

"(But) our intention remains to pursue the legislation that is before the parliament now."

Ms Gillard said if there were "sensible suggestions" out of the committee process, the government would listen to them.

"But we are not in the business of cross-trading or horse-trading on these bills."

Asked whether she would take a media policy to the federal election, she said she would make "further statements" after the parliamentary sitting week was over.

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Three dead in suicide attack in Pakistan

AT least three people have been killed by a suicide bomber and militant gunmen at a court complex in northwest Pakistan.

Several gunmen and two bombers stormed the crowded complex in the city of Peshawar on Monday, less than two months before expected national elections.

"One suicide bomber blew himself up in the court of an additional sessions judge. The other was shot dead by police," said senior police officer Masood Khan Afridi.

"It was an act of terrorism and the target was the judicial complex. Three civilians were killed and 30 people wounded, four of them police officials," he added.

"We have cleared the whole area and a combing operation is continuing."

Afridi denied reports that some judges and lawyers were being held hostage inside the courts. "There are no hostages. I have just come back from the site of the attack," he said.

The nuclear-armed country of 180 million is due to elect new leaders by mid-May. But Taliban attacks and record levels of violence against the Shi'ite Muslim minority have raised fears about security for the polls.

"Terrorists have attacked at a time when general elections are very near and the atmosphere for election is smooth," said the information minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Mian Iftikhar Hussain.

"It could be an attempt to disturb the peaceful atmosphere but elections should never be postponed."

Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Saturday hailed parliament's historic completion of a full term in office as a victory for democracy as he gave his farewell address to the nation.

The polling date has yet to be announced but officials say the election commission has recommended early May.

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Leighton wins $A656m HK rail contract

LEIGHTON Contractors has secured a $A656 million contract from Hong Kong rail operator MTR Corporation for part of a new rail link in the Chinese province.

Work for the new contract includes modification of an existing MTR station, platforms, tunnel box and approach tunnels.

Construction works are scheduled to begin immediately, with an expected completion date in 2018.

The Hung Hom Station and Stabling Sidings Contract, part of the Shatin to Central Link (SCL) development, is the seventh contract in the past three years to be awarded to Leighton subsidiary Leighton Asia by the MTR Corporation.

Leighton Asia, India and Offshore managing director Ian Edwards said the contract was yet another landmark project with a client with whom the company had shared a long and successful relationship.

The SCL development is a major transport initiative in Hong Kong that will connect several existing railway lines to form two railway corridors.

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Five confess to gang-raping Swiss tourist

FIVE villagers have confessed to gang-raping a Swiss tourist in central India, police say, in an incident that has renewed focus on the rampant violence against women in the country.

The woman was on a cycling holiday with her husband in impoverished Madhya Pradesh state when six men attacked the couple on Friday night, sexually assaulting the woman and robbing the pair, police said.

"We have detained five men and they have confessed to gang-raping the woman and attacking her husband," local police official MS Dhodee told AFP.

Police are searching for a sixth man, who was also involved in the crime, Dhodee said.

The alleged rapists live in a village near the forested area where the couple had stopped to camp for the night, while on a cycling trip to the popular tourist destination of Agra in northern India, Dhodee said.

"They were passing by, noticed the couple putting up their tent and saw an opportunity to attack and rape the woman," he said.

He added that the five detainees would be arrested shortly, pending formalities.

After the attack, the rape victim, aged about 40, underwent a medical examination at a local hospital before leaving for the Indian capital Delhi, police said.

"The victim and her husband have left for Delhi, since there was no need for her to stay in hospital here," another local police official UC Shadangi told AFP.

Shadangi said that police were in touch with Swiss embassy officials, who declined to comment to AFP about the case.

The Swiss foreign ministry in Bern released a statement on Saturday expressing deep shock at the "tragic incident".

The attack comes just three months after thousands took to the streets in nationwide protests following the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi in December.

The victim, a physiotherapy student died from internal injuries after being savagely assaulted by six men. One of her alleged attackers was found dead in his prison cell in New Delhi last Monday.

Police suspect he hanged himself, but his family says he was murdered. The government has since opened an investigation into his death.

India's government is facing heavy pressure to step up efforts to protect women after the deadly gang-rape in the capital last December.

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Car bomb kills 10 in south Iraq

A CAR bomb has exploded at a bus station in the south Iraq city of Basra killing 10 people and wounding 16, a security official says.

Sunday's bombing at the bus station in Basra came soon after another that exploded in the centre of the city at about 1900 (AEDT) that caused no casualties, Ali al-Maliki said.

Attacks in Basra are relatively rare compared with other areas of Iraq, especially the centre, west and north.

Violence has decreased from its peak in 2006 and 2007 when sectarian bloodshed raged between Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs, but 10 years after the US-led invasion attacks remain common, killing 220 people last month, according to an AFP tally based on security and medical sources.

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Two men attacked with iron bars and brick

TWO men have been attacked with iron bars and a house brick during a robbery in Sydney's northwest.

The men, aged 30 and 26, were a service station in Kellyville at 2am (AEDT) when a group of up to 10 men assaulted them with iron bars and a broken house brick.

The alleged offenders, who are only described as being of Pacific Islander or Maori appearance, took the men's wallets, mobile phones, and watches before leaving in a red Subaru.

The men were taken to Westmead Hospital with non-life threatening head injuries.

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