Bangladesh disaster death toll passes 500

THE death toll from last week's collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh has passed 500 as the country's prime minister said Western retailers had to share some of the blame for the tragedy.

With bulldozers now clawing away at the mountain of rubble at the site of last Wednesday's disaster, the number of bodies being recovered from the country's deadliest industrial disaster has been increasing sharply.

Lieutenant Mir Rabbi, an officer in a special army control room set up to co-ordinate the rescue operation, told AFP on Friday the "death toll now stands at 501", a sharp rise on the figure of 441 compiled by authorities on Thursday evening.

Dozens more people are thought to have been buried alive after the eight-storey building collapsed on April 24 in Savar, which lies about 30 kilometres to the northwest of Dhaka.

About 3000 garment workers were on shift at the time of the disaster in the Rana Plaza compound which housed five different textile factories.

Spain's Mango, Britain's low-cost Primark chain and the Italian label Benetton were among the retailers who have confirmed having products made at Rana Plaza where the typical worker took home less than $40 a month.

The collapse was the latest in a series of disasters to befall the $US20 billion ($A19.60 billion) industry which accounts for 80 per cent of the country's exports.

A fire at another factory compound killed 111 workers last November and witnesses say the April 24 disaster happened after bosses insisted staff remain at their workstations even though cracks had been detected in the building.

In an interview with CNN, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina defended the industry's safety record, saying the recent deadly explosion at a fertiliser plant in the United States showed that no country was immune.

"Anywhere in the world, any accident can take place," she said.

Some Western fashion brands have said they are considering their futures in Bangladesh and Disney has already announced it is pulling out of the country.

The prime minister insisted that "Bangladesh now is a place for good conditions for the investment", but she also suggested that Western firms drawn to the country by the cheap labour costs could hike salaries.

"If they want to do business, these buyers, they also should also consider increase the prices of the garments so that the business can run properly and labour can get a good salary, so they are also partly responsible for it," she said.

"What I is feel is that all the investors when they come here they get cheap labour and that's why they come here," she added.

The sector accounts for and more than 40 per cent of the industrial workforce in Bangladesh which is one of the world's poorest countries.

Industry bosses are desperate to avoid others following the lead of Disney in pulling out of the country and have promised to come up with credible answers to concerns raised about factory safety.

At least 12 people have been arrested over the disaster, including the owner of the Rana Plaza compound.

One of the latest to be arrested was Abdur Razzaq, a civil engineer, detained on Thursday night after he allegedly gave the building all-clear on April 23 after inspecting the cracks.

The mayor of Savar has also been suspended for failing to shut the factories when the cracks appeared.

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Indonesia foils Myanmar embassy bomb plot

TWO Indonesians have been detained over a plot to bomb the Myanmar (Burma) embassy in Jakarta, officials say, as radicals rallying in the city called for "jihad in Myanmar" to avenge Muslim deaths.

The incidents highlight the growing anger in Muslim-majority Indonesia over a string of religious clashes in largely Buddhist Myanmar, that have left many minority Muslims dead and tens of thousands displaced.

At least one person was killed when mosques and homes were attacked in central Myanmar this week, the latest anti-Muslim unrest to cast a shadow over political reforms in the formerly junta-run country.

Around 1000 angry hardliners from the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) marched to Myanmar's embassy in Jakarta on Friday, brandishing banners that read "we want to kill Myanmar Buddhists" and "stop genocide in Myanmar".

"Our Muslim brothers and sisters are being attacked in Myanmar - they are being raped and murdered," said Bambang, a 37-year-old street vendor, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

"I want jihad in Myanmar. Anyone mistreating Muslims should be killed."

The national head of the FPI, Habib Rizieq, shouted through a loudspeaker to whip up the crowd, mostly men wearing white Islamic skullcaps, before they marched on the embassy, which was heavily guarded by scores of police.

Earlier, officials said anti-terrorist police had detained two men suspected of planning a bomb attack on the Myanmar embassy on Friday.

The suspects were arrested late Thursday travelling by motorbike in a busy residential area in the south of the capital with five assembled pipe bombs, national police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said in a statement.

The men, Sefa Riano, 28, and Achmad Taufiq, 21, planned to launch the attack on Friday, said a senior source at the country's anti-terrorist police, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The head of Indonesia's anti-terrorist agency, Ansyaad Mbai, told AFP that the target was the Myanmar embassy.

"We are very certain that the attack would have been launched if we did not stop them," he said.

A woman, believed to be the wife of one of the men, had also been detained to be questioned as a witness over the planned attack, said Amar.

Anger in Indonesia about Myanmar has focused on the plight of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority regarded with hostility by many Burmese, who have increasingly been arriving in Indonesia as they flee violence at home.

Clashes in Rakhine state last year between Rohingya and Buddhists left around 200 dead, and tens of thousands displaced. In March a flare-up in Buddhist-Muslim violence in central Myanmar left at least 43 people dead.

A man admitted in September to planning a suicide bomb attack against Buddhists in Jakarta in response to Myanmar's treatment of Muslim minorities, particularly Rohingya.

Indonesia has been a vocal supporter of Muslim minorities in Myanmar, and in January pledged $1 million in aid to Rakhine.

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Hong Kong shares end up 0.10%

HONG Kong shares have ended 0.10 per cent higher, after a widely expected European Central Bank interest rate cut and a positive US jobless claims report.

The benchmark Hang Seng Index on Friday added 21.66 points to end at 22,689.96 on turnover of HK$56.23 billion ($A7.10 billion).

On Thursday, ECB policymakers trimmed a quarter point off the key "refi" refinancing rate, to a record low of 0.50 per cent.

The widely expected ECB move is part of efforts to increase demand and encourage growth in the debt-stricken eurozone.

Markets also responded positively to a better-than-expected US Labor Department report showing new claims for unemployment benefits had fallen to a five-year low.

The claims - an indicator of the pace of layoffs - fell by 18,000 to 324,000, the lowest level since mid-January 2008.

New World Development jumped 3.3 per cent, leading blue-chip gains. It was aided by its plan to diverge three of its Hong Kong hotels for a separate listing.

Lenovo underperformed for a second straight day, falling 1.0 per cent to $HK6.83. It slumped 2.7 per cent on Thursday following news that talks to buy part of IBM's server business had broken down because of differences over the price.

Chinese shares ended up 1.44 per cent. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained 31.38 points to 2,205.50 on turnover of 78.3 billion yuan ($A12.45 billion).

The rise was led by gains in brokerages, as investors hunted for bargains following losses in previous sessions, dealers said.

China Everbright Securities gained 5.12 per cent to 14.37 yuan while China Merchants Securities advanced 4.21 per cent to 12.63 yuan.

Metals shares rebounded on bargain-hunting, with aluminium producer Chalco rising 1.80 per cent to 3.96 yuan while Xiamen Tungsten added 1.66 per cent to 29.99 yuan.

Property developers extended gains after a survey showed on Thursday that home prices picked up in April in their fifth consecutive monthly rise.

Poly Real Estate rose 1.43 per cent to 12.04 yuan while Gemdale climbed 1.11 per cent to 7.27 yuan.

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Major Australian exhibition in London

THE most significant collection of Australian art ever mounted in the United Kingdom is to go on display in London from September.

It was revealed on Thursday that the Prince of Wales will be the patron of the exhibition, which is simply called Australia.

The exhibition spans 200 years, taking in indigenous and non-indigenous art from 1800 to the present day. It focuses on the influence of landscape.

Co-curator Kathleen Soriano from the Royal Academy of Arts said the exhibition was several years in the making.

"There has never been an exhibition like this before," she told the press launch at the academy on Thursday.

"This survey is long, long overdue."

The exhibition brings together works from the most important public collections in Australia.

Works by artists including Albert Namatjira, Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Arthur Boyd, Brett Whiteley, Bill Henson and Tracey Moffatt will be on display.

Judy Watson has been commissioned to create a new sculpture that will remain in the academy's courtyard for the duration of the exhibition.

Deputy high commissioner Andrew Todd said the Australian government, which helped fund the exhibition, was "immensely proud" of it.

"We see this exhibition as a particularly exciting platform to promote and celebrate Australian art and culture more widely," he told reporters on Thursday.

"Artists, in holding up a mirror to Australian life and landscape, express so effectively who we are as a people and a nation."

The BBC will broadcast a three-part series on Australian art to coincide with the London exhibition.

The series will be presented by former Art Gallery of NSW director Edmund Capon.

The exhibition, organised in partnership with the National Gallery of Australia, opens on September 21 and will run until early December.

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Nationals WA president stands down

COLIN Holt has stood down as The Nationals' West Australian president because of his increasingly heavy parliamentary workload.

Mr Holt, who held the position for four years, was last month appointed parliamentary secretary to the minister for training and workforce development Terry Redman and is also leader of The Nationals WA in the Legislative Council.

David Eagles has accepted the role of acting state president until the party's state conference in August.

Meanwhile, several nominations were received for the party's new candidate for the federal seat of O'Connor, currently held by retiring MP Tony Crook, before the close of nominations on Tuesday.

While the party's policy is to not name nominees, one that is known is William "Chub" Witham, who worked as a geologist in the Goldfields and is well known in the Great Southern region.

The successful candidate will be ratified at the State Council meeting on May 25.

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US boy, 5, accidentally shoots sister dead

A FIVE-YEAR-OLD boy playing with a rifle given to him as a gift accidentally shot dead his younger sister, officials say, thrusting the issue of US gun violence back into the spotlight.

The boy's two-year-old sister was pronounced dead after being rushed to a hospital following the shooting on Tuesday in rural Kentucky, police said.

Cumberland County Coroner Gary White on Wednesday identified the girl as Caroline Starks and said the children's mother was cleaning the house at the time and had stepped outside onto the porch.

"She said no more than three minutes had went by and she actually heard the rifle go off. She ran back in and found the little girl," White said.

The .22 calibre rifle had been given to the boy last year and was kept in the corner of a room. The parents didn't realise a shell had been left in it.

"It's a Crickett," White told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "It's a little rifle for a kid. ...The little boy's used to shooting the little gun."

An autopsy was set to be conducted but White said he expects the shooting will be ruled accidental.

"Just one of those crazy accidents," White said.

"Down in Kentucky where we're from, you know, guns are passed down from generation to generation," White said. "You start at a young age with guns for hunting and everything."

What is more unusual than a child having a gun, he said, is "that a kid would get shot with it."

The Crickett is just one of many child-sized rifles on the market and is sold with the tag line 'My First Rifle.'

It comes in a number of child-friendly barrel designs and colours, including hot pink for little girls. A host of accessories are also available, like story books and a gun-toting beanie baby of the rifle's mascot, a cartoonish cricket.

"It's a normal way of life, and it's not just rural Kentucky, it's rural America - hunting and shooting and sport fishing. It starts at an early age," said Cumberland County Judge Executive John Phelps. "There's probably not a household in this county that doesn't have a gun."

In Cumberland County, as elsewhere in Kentucky, local newspapers feature photos of children proudly displaying their kills, including turkey and deer.

It was the second fatal shooting involving minors in America this week.

The Anchorage Daily News reported that a five-year-old girl in a remote Alaska community had been shot and killed by her eight-year-old brother on Monday. The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately clear.

The United States has been embroiled in a heated debate over gun control and gun culture in the wake of a horrific December shooting at a school in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 26 young children and educators.

President Barack Obama has pushed for tougher federal gun laws to require universal background checks on gun buyers and called for a ban on assault weapons like the one used in Newtown.

But last month, his background check proposal - condemned by the powerful National Rifle Association as an infringement on Americans' constitutional right "to keep and bear arms" - failed to muster the necessary 60 votes needed to clear the US Senate.

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Labor to take disability tax rise to poll

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has put disability care at the centre of her government's re-election strategy, announcing a tax rise to pay for Labor's new scheme.

But Opposition Leader Tony Abbott may try to thwart her ambition by agreeing to support legislation for her proposed hike in the Medicare levy in this parliamentary term.

Treasurer Wayne Swan says Labor will wait for the coalition's support because the government is unsure it can gain the backing of the Australian Greens and independent MPs for the levy.

Ms Gillard reversed her opposition to a tax hike on Wednesday, saying she would seek voter approval at the September 14 election to impose a 0.5 percentage point rise in the levy to fund DisabilityCare Australia.

The levy increase to two per cent would cost the average wage earner about $1 a day and go into a special fund that would collect about $20 billion by the time the disability scheme is fully operational in 2018/19.

Ms Gillard said Australians "embraced" a Labor request 30 years ago to pay a levy to fund the Medicare universal health scheme.

"I'm asking Australians to do the same thing with DisabilityCare," she told reporters in Melbourne.

Ms Gillard's change of heart follows a $12 billion drop in government revenue, pressures on state budgets, and disability-sector demands for a long-term funding source.

The levy would raise about $3.2 billion of the $8 billion annual cost of the scheme, with the remainder coming from federal budget savings and the states and territories. But there will be no changes to the disability support pension in the May budget.

The treasurer says the levy will fund around 60 per cent of the scheme at the end of 10 years with the shortfall to be paid for by cuts and savings in the budget.

Mr Abbott initially challenged the prime minister to bring on the legislation for the levy hike before parliament rises in June, but signalled the coalition would not offer immediate support.

But he later added he would have more to say on Thursday, paving the way for talks on the legislation, possibly to head off any criticism of the coalition's stance.

"I want everyone to know that the coalition wholeheartedly supports the national disability insurance scheme," Mr Abbott told reporters in rural Victoria.

"We want it to happen and we want it to happen in this term of government."

Mr Swan says the support of the Greens and independents for the proposed levy increase is not guaranteed.

"Let's see if we have that support, I don't know that," he told ABC television.

Ms Gillard says she doesn't want the scheme to turn into a "political plaything".

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey appeared to reject the levy proposal earlier on Wednesday, saying it would hurt business and damage consumer confidence.

"This levy is going to hit every household budget," he told ABC radio.

Ms Gillard concedes that asking households to pay more tax won't be easy, but the government believes most will agree that a universal scheme is needed for Australians born disabled or who become so later in life.

The disability care scheme will be launched in parts of South Australia, NSW, Tasmania, Victoria and the ACT in July 2014, but only NSW has signed up to a full state-wide launch from 2018.

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Two dead in Vic head-on crash

TWO women have died in a head-on crash in country Victoria.

Investigators believe a car was travelling north on the Bacchus Marsh-Geelong Road around 2.30pm (AEST) at Balliang East when the driver lost control and veered into the oncoming lane.

Police say the middle-aged driver of the second car died at the scene, while her passenger, a man in his 20s, was air lifted to the Royal Melbourne Hospital with serious injuries.

The driver of the first car, who was in her 60s, was airlifted to The Alfred hospital but later died.

The deaths take the state's road toll to 86, eight fewer than at the same time last year.

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No reasons to join ALP, party elder says

LABOR party membership is plummeting and people don't see a reason to join the party, Labor elder John Faulkner says.

"Party membership is not only declining in number but it is ageing," Mr Faulkner, who was part of a Whitlam Institute panel in the western Sydney suburb of Parramatta, said.

"The party is finding it very, very difficult to attract new members."

He said Labor needed to give the existing members a reason to stay and those considering joining a reason to join.

"I don't think those reasons exist at the moment," he said.

"They can exist.

"I would argue the way to address the problem as far as Labor is concerned is give people a real say in their political party.

"If membership can be made meaningful I believe it would make a difference."

Mr Faulkner also said the disgraced former NSW Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald - both currently before the corruption watchdog - didn't represent the party.

"They are a small minority in a very big majority of decent, hardworking people," Mr Faulkner said.

"But this does not diminish the gravity of their failure to fulfil their responsibility to represent the interests and values of the Labor movement let lane their responsibilities to the people of NSW."

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Rebels declare Sudan state a 'target'

SUDANESE rebels have declared North Kordofan state a target in a widening offensive, as parliament met to discuss weekend attacks on the region which had been largely free from unrest.

Except for occasional rebel forays over the border from the conflict-plagued Darfur region, North Kordofan had been generally peaceful.

But on Saturday a rebel coalition struck a major North Kordofan town which residents said had been left unguarded and was hit during co-ordinated attacks in the insurgents' most audacious act in years.

"North Kordofan state has all become our target," Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), told AFP on Monday.

SPLM-N, which has been fighting for two years in South Kordofan state, belongs to the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) which also includes major insurgent groups from Darfur.

SRF said it attacked Umm Rawaba, the second-largest town in North Kordofan, and several other areas in North and South Kordofan as part of its strategy to reach the capital Khartoum and overthrow the 24-year regime of President Omar al-Bashir.

Lodi claimed that rebels on Sunday shelled the airport area of Kadugli, the state capital of South Kordofan, for the second time in two days.

He warned civil aviation to avoid the area, as well as the airspace in North Kordofan.

"It is becoming a target for us," Lodi said. "This is a very serious kind of warning. This whole area has become an operational area."

The SPLM-N has shelled Kadugli periodically since late last year, but on Saturday for the first time targeted the airport region.

That barrage killed four soldiers, Lodi claimed, but residents reported only a few injuries.

They said they could not confirm that a second barrage occurred on Sunday, and reported the town as calm on Monday.

The government blamed rebels for killing civilians in its previous shelling of Kadugli, while rights groups have accused the Khartoum regime of indiscriminate aerial bombing elsewhere in the state.

A rebel statement said the Kadugli airport has become "a centre of control and command of National Congress Party forces and militias for directing its air and ground attacks against innocent citizens, therefore it becomes the direct target for the Sudanese Revolutionary Front forces."

Residents of Umm Rawaba, about 300 kilometres from Kadugli, complained their town had been left undefended when SRF briefly occupied it on Saturday.

The death toll was unclear but included some policemen, according to residents and officials.

The attack in North Kordofan comes as the government, beset by internal political struggles, seeks a broad political dialogue with its opponents.

Last week Khartoum and the SPLM-N held their first direct talks in almost two years, but both sides said negotiations stalled.

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Philippines peace talks with rebels fail

THE Philippines says peace talks with communist rebels have collapsed and a target of ending the decades-long insurgency by 2016 is impossible to achieve.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino's administration is looking for a "new approach" following nearly three years of failed negotiations and a fresh surge in deadly violence, chief government negotiator Alex Padilla told AFP on Monday.

"We are at an impasse now. Whether we talk or not, the same violence continues, nothing has changed. So why will we force ourselves to talk?" Padilla said.

Aquino had said he wanted to seal a peace deal to end the 44-year insurgency, which has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives, before his term ended in 2016.

When asked about the timeframe, Padilla said: "That is gone."

The government and the rebels had initially raised hopes in early 2011 that they were on the right track when they announced after top-level talks in Norway that both sides were committed to signing a peace deal by June 2012.

But negotiations barely progressed after that.

Padilla blamed the Netherlands-based communist leadership, the National Democratic Front, for the failure, accusing it of setting new and impossible conditions for talks such as the release of captured senior rebels.

He said this had been a tactic of the rebels in more than two decades of peace talks with previous administrations, and questioned their sincerity in seeking peace.

Padilla said the government had not yet decided on its "new approach" for dealing with the rebels but it did want to re-open negotiations at some point.

The military estimates the rebels have only about 4,000 fighters nationwide, down from more than 26,000 at their peak in the 1980s.

However, they remain a danger, particularly in rural areas where they can count on support from local populations who endure the worst of the country's savage rich-poor divide.

The rebels have become more active ahead of next month's mid-term elections when thousands of local positions will be contested.

They killed two aides to a politician on April 20, and the military has accused them of extorting millions of dollars from many candidates in return for allowing them to campaign freely.

The military said in February that the rebels killed 164 soldiers, policemen, security forces and civilians in 2012.

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S.Korea unveils restored cultural treasure

South Korea has unveiled the restored Namdaemun gate, which was destroyed in a fire five years ago. Source: AAP

FIVE years after it was reduced to ashes in an arson attack, the newly rebuilt Namdaemun gate in South Korea has been unveiled after a painstaking reconstruction costing millions of dollars.

The cultural jewel in central Seoul will reopen to the public on Saturday, following one of the longest and most expensive restoration projects ever undertaken in South Korea, involving hundreds of highly skilled craftsmen.

"Using traditional methods and materials, we've done our best to restore it to its original state," said Kang Kyung-hwan, head of the government's Heritage Conservation Bureau, on Monday.

Seoul's 600-year-old Namdaemun (South Gate) is listed as "National Treasure Number One" and is a source of immense cultural pride.

The largely wooden structure - which survived the devastation of the 1950-53 Korean War - was reduced to ashes by a disgruntled 69-year-old man with some paint thinner and a cigarette lighter on February 10, 2008.

He torched the gate after claiming he had received insufficient compensation following the expropriation of his land as part of an apartment-building project in Seoul's northwestern satellite city of Koyang.

The five-year, 27-billion-won ($A23.83 million) reconstruction project involved 35,000 people, including more than 1000 craftsmen who used traditional tools to restore the gate to its former splendour.

"The restoration took longer than we originally thought because my team used no modern tools, only chisels and hammers," Lee Eui-sang, a 72-year-old master stone carver, told AFP on Monday during a tour for the press.

"At first I was so nervous about restoring our precious national treasure, but I've poured all my energy into rehabilitating our crucial cultural heritage," he said, stroking a new base stone.

The restoration team said the original stones and materials were used as far as possible, while a number of scorched wooden pillars were left in their damaged state to alert the public to the danger of fire.

Fortress walls that were destroyed during Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule were returned to their original form and were reconnected to the gate.

All 22,000 roof tiles were made by hand. Decorative paints had to be imported from Japan, since Korean specialists had lost the art of making them in the traditional fashion.

"It's wonderful to see our foremost national treasure again. The gate looks unfamiliar due to its fresh paint but I think our pride has been restored," said Lee Un-Seok, a 35-year-old engineer passing by the landmark.

The pagoda-style, two-storey gate was first constructed in 1398, then rebuilt in 1447 and renovated several times after that.

It was one of four gates built to protect the city when it was the capital of the Joseon Dynasty, which ruled the Korean peninsula from 1392 until the Japanese occupation in 1910.

Its destruction in 2008 sent shock waves through the country, with sorrowful citizens swarming around the charred ruins, laying flowers and writing grieving messages.

The arsonist was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison.

"He should have been jailed forever for destroying National Treasure Number One. It was restored wonderfully but my chest still feels tight," said 65-year-old Kim Song-Hyun who stopped to look at the gate, pointing to some stones stained by smoke.

"This gate is not in the same shape despite enormous efforts by craftsmen. From now on we must preserve Namdaemun and other national treasures well," said 38-year-old office worker Kim Hyo-Sung.

The government vowed to make preventing another fire a top priority.

Infrared cameras sensitive enough to detect the flame of a cigarette lighter have been installed, along with additional surveillance cameras and 152 sprinklers.

"The gate is now protected by a perfect fire prevention system," said Kang of the Heritage Conservation Bureau.

But his office admitted that Namdaemun would not be totally free from the threat of damage despite the high-tech devices and called for public safety awareness.

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