Rainbow Warrior leaves Australian waters

Greenpeace's ship the Rainbow Warrior is leaving Australian shores after a "successful" tour. Source: AAP

GREENPEACE ship the Rainbow Warrior is leaving Australian shores after a "successful" tour raising awareness about the coal industry's impact on coral reefs.

The activists' ship docked in Cairns on Saturday after a six-week tour of the east coast of Australia.

Up to 30 activists and Greenpeace members travelled on the vessel, which visited east coast capital cities as well as regional Queensland coastal centres where coal ports are proposed.

They were warning locals of the dangers the coal industry poses to the Great Barrier Reef, and the threat of climate change.

The tour culminated in the boarding of a coal carrier off north Queensland last week where activists "peacefully occupied" the deck for 28 hours and delivered a letter explaining their stance to the captain.

"We've been overwhelmed by the positive response we've had from Australians," Greenpeace Australia Pacific senior climate campaigner Dr Georgina Woods told AAP.

"I think a lot of people weren't aware of the scale of what the coal industry is planning to do in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area."

Greenpeace says the planned construction of coal export terminals in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area will endanger the health of the reef.

The coal export industry is also driving climate change, and coral reefs worldwide are unlikely to survive, Dr Woods added.

The Rainbow Warrior will now head to Indonesia to campaign for the protection of forests.

AAP mjf/arb

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Man charged over fatal Melbourne hit-run

A MAN is due to face court over a fatal hit-and-run crash in Melbourne.

A 28-year-old Maidstone man was hit as he crossed Ballarat Road in Footscray on Thursday night.

He was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital with serious head injuries - he died the next day.

A 44-year-old man, from Maribyrnong, faced an out of sessions court hearing on Saturday.

He was charged with failing to stop at the scene of an accident where there has been a death or serious injury, and failing to render assistance where there has been a death or serious injury.

The man will appear before the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Monday.

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Japan tsunami boat confirmed in California

A JAPANESE fishing boat washed across the Pacific following the 2011 tsunami has been confirmed as the first piece of debris to reach the coast of California.

The six-meter skiff, found this month near the northern Californian coastal town of Crescent City, belonged to the Takata High School in the Japanese city of Rikuzentakata, in Iwate Prefecture.

Japan's consulate in San Francisco helped the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirm where the boat came from, after it was spotted washed up on a local beach.

The boat was covered in pelagic gooseneck barnacles. Experts at California's Humboldt State University also helped to identify it, said NOAA spokeswoman Keeley Belva.

The vessel is the 27th item of debris so far confirmed on the US West Coast, and the first in California. Other items have been found washed up in the states of Alaska, Washington and Oregon further up the coast.

One of the biggest items so far, a 20-metre floating dock, washed up in June in Oregon, after a 15-month trip across the Pacific from the port of Misawa, in Japan's Aomori prefecture.

A year ago, the US Coast Guard fired on and sank a deserted Japanese "ghost ship" off the coast of Alaska, after it was deemed to be a potential danger to shipping.

Japan last month marked the second anniversary of the March 11, 2011 9.0-magnitude earthquake that sent a huge wall of water into its northeastern coast, killing some 19,000 people and triggering a nuclear calamity.

The tsunami created the biggest single dumping of rubbish, sweeping some five million tonnes of shattered buildings, cars, household goods and other rubble into the sea.

An estimated three and a half million tonnes sank immediately, leaving some 1.5 million tonnes of plastic, timber, fishing nets, shipping containers, industrial scrap and innumerable other objects to float deeper into the ocean.

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Katter Party could preference Palmer party

Katter's Australian Party could preference Clive Palmer's party at the federal election. Source: AAP

KATTER'S Australian Party (KAP) could preference Clive Palmer's United Australia Party (UAP) at the federal election.

The mining magnate announced on Friday he has re-formed the UAP, which was dissolved in 1945, and applied for its registration in Queensland.

KAP national director Aidan McLindon welcomed the move, saying it will help break the political duopoly of the Labor and Liberal parties.

"It's a competition of ideas. The more players on the field the better," he told AAP.

Mr McLindon said the UAP wasn't seen as a threat to the KAP because both parties shared common objectives.

He said it would work together, including swapping preferences at the federal election.

"It would only make sense. You can probably count the differences between Bob (KAP leader Bob Katter) and Clive on one hand," Mr McLindon said.

"Where the KAP can't access some of those LNP (Liberal National Party) votes, I think Clive can.

"In a compulsory preferential system, depending on the negotiations, I think the two parties can be a formidable threat to Liberal and Labor."

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Syrian officials deny chemical weapon use

TWO Syrian officials have denied the government has used chemical weapons against rebel forces, saying the regime has no need for them.

The denials follow assertions by the White House and other top Obama administration officials that US intelligence had concluded with "varying degrees of confidence" that the Syrian government has twice used chemical weapons in its civil war.

A Syrian government official said the government did not and will not use chemical weapons even if it had them.

He spoke to The Associated Press on Friday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to give official statements.

Syrian official Sharif Shehadeh called the US claims "lies" and likened them to false accusations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction ahead of the US invasion of that country.

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Iraq toll rises after mosque bombs

The Iraqi prime minister warned of a return to civil war as 179 people were killed over three days. Source: AAP

BOMBS have exploded at four Sunni mosques in the Baghdad area after prayers, killing four people and raising the death toll from a four-day wave of violence in Iraq to 195.

Iraqi security forces also began moving back into the northern town of Sulaiman Bek after gunmen who seized it withdrew on Friday.

The bombings at three Sunni mosques in Baghdad and a fourth north of the capital, which killed at least four people and wounded 50, came after more than a dozen people were killed in attacks on Sunni mosques on Tuesday.

Gunmen, meanwhile, pulled out of Sulaiman Bek under a deal worked out by tribal leaders and government officials, local official Shalal Abdul Baban and municipal council deputy chief Ahmed Aziz said.

The gunmen had swarmed into the predominantly Sunni Turkmen town on Wednesday after deadly clashes with the security forces, who pulled back as residents fled.

Baban also said that helicopter fire wounded six people on the roof of a house in the town early on Friday.

Army Staff General Ali Ghaidan Majeed told AFP on Thursday that the gunmen in Sulaiman Bek, who he said number about 175, had been given 48 hours to withdraw or face attack.

The gunmen's seizure of the town came amid a surge of violence which began on Tuesday when security forces moved in against anti-government protesters near the Sunni Arab northern town of Hawijah.

The operation sparked clashes that left 53 people dead.

Dozens more were killed in subsequent unrest, much but not all of it linked to Tuesday's clashes, bringing the death toll to 195 by Friday.

The violence is the deadliest so far linked to demonstrations that broke out in Sunni areas of the Shi'ite-majority country more than four months ago.

The protesters have called for the resignation of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, and railed against authorities for allegedly targeting their community.

Seven gunmen died carrying out three separate attacks on security forces south of the northern city of Kirkuk on Friday, a high-ranking army officer and a medical source said.

Gunmen also killed a soldier and wounded two police in an attack on a checkpoint in Al-Sharqat, north of the capital, late on Thursday, a police colonel and a doctor said.

And three hours of fighting in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, killed three federal police and wounded six late on Thursday, police Lieutenant Colonel Yassir Hamid al-Jumaili and a doctor said.

The clashes saw gunmen take control of three checkpoints on the outskirts of the overwhelmingly Sunni Arab city after they were abandoned by federal police, Jumaili said.

He said they then turned the checkpoints over to local police, who returned them to federal police on Friday.

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NSW driver runs down man, punches police

A DRIVER deliberately drove into a group of men outside a hotel in Bathurst, running down and injuring one before resisting arrest, police say.

A 23-year-old man has been charged with a number of offences after allegedly crossing to the wrong side of the road and ploughing into the group about 1.30am (AEST) on Thursday.

One of the men suffered injuries to his head, leg, arm and ribs when he was struck by the car, said police in the NSW central west city.

They said an off-duty officer tried to stop the car but it had accelerated towards him and hit his foot.

Another motorist stopped the car in a nearby street.

Police say when the off-duty officer tried to arrest the driver, he was punched repeatedly before managing to restrain him.

The 23-year-old man was taken to Bathurst police station where he returned a breath-analysis reading of 0.108, they said.

He was charged with a number of offences including dangerous driving and is to appear in Bathurst Local Court on Monday.

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Protests as Bangladesh toll hits 200

HUNDREDS of thousands of garment workers have walked of the job in Bangladesh after the deaths of 200 people in a building collapse.

Grief turned to anger on Thursday as the workers, some carrying sticks, blockaded key highways in at least three industrial areas just outside the capital Dhaka, forcing factory owners to declare a day's holiday.

"There were hundreds of thousands of them," said Abdul Baten, police chief of Gazipur district, where hundreds of large garment factories are based.

"They occupied roads for a while and then dispersed."

Police inspector Kamrul Islam said the workers had attacked several factories whose bosses had refused to give employees the day off.

"They were protesting the deaths of the workers in Savar," he said, referring to the town outside Dhaka where Wednesday's collapse of an eight-storey building housing five garment factories took place, injuring more than 1000 people.

"Many wanted to donate blood to their fellow workers," he added.

About 1500 workers marched to the Dhaka headquarters of the main manufacturers association, demanding the owners of the collapsed factories be punished.

"The owners must be hanged," one protester cried, as others tried to lay siege to the headquarters.

Some workers smashed windows and vehicles before they were chased away by police, said Wahidul Islam, a deputy commissioner of Dhaka police.

Rescuers in Savar pulled dozens of bodies from the collapsed building on Thursday as the death toll in the country's worst industrial disaster reached 200, police said.

Managers had allegedly ignored workers' warnings that the building had become unstable.

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Iraq bloodshed stokes fears of civil war

THE deaths of more than 100 people in violence between Iraqi security forces and Sunni Arab protesters and their supporters have raised fears of a return to all-out sectarian conflict.

The trouble began on Tuesday when security forces moved into an area near the northern town of Hawijah where Sunnis had been holding protests since January, sparking clashes in which 53 people died.

That fighting set off a wave of revenge attacks that hit five different Sunni-majority provinces, killing dozens more people, and which saw gunmen take control of the town of Sulaiman Bek.

The violence is the deadliest so far linked to demonstrations that erupted in Sunni areas of the Shi'ite-majority country more than four months ago.

The Sunni protesters have called for the resignation of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and railed against the alleged targeting of their community by the authorities.

"This is the deepest and most dangerous crisis... since 1921," former national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said, referring to the year in which the state of Iraq was established.

He warned that the situation "could lead to a sectarian conflict, and then division".

Sectarian violence, including bombings and death squad murders that peaked in 2006 and 2007, claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The security situation has since improved markedly but sectarian tensions remain.

Hamed al-Juburi, a spokesman for the Hawijah protesters, vowed revenge on Thursday for the "massacre" near the town.

Protesters have pledged their loyalty to a Sunni militant group called the Naqshbandiya Army "so we can be an armed wing related to it, working on cleaning Iraq from Safavid militias," he said, using a pejorative term for Shi'ites.

On Wednesday, Abdulghafur al-Samarraie and Saleh al-Haidari, top clerics who respectively head the Sunni and Shi'ite religious endowments, held a joint news conference in which they warned against sectarian strife.

Samarraie said there were "malicious plans... with the goal of taking the country towards sectarian conflict", and that he and Haidari agreed "to move quickly to extinguish the strife and stop the conspiracy."

US State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters that Washington condemns the violence in Iraq and that "there's no place for sectarian conflict in a democratic state."

An earlier statement from the US embassy said that "US officials have been in contact with senior Iraqi leaders to help defuse political and sectarian tensions".

John Drake, an Iraq specialist with risk consulting firm AKE Group, said the government's ready use of force in recent days highlighted shortcomings in the its response to protests.

"I think the government response indicates that it has a long way to go in terms of its policies for dealing with protest movements in the country," Drake said.

"The use of force so readily, including firearms, at protest camps and the bombing of settlements where militants are believed to be sheltering, is going to bring a very high risk of collateral damage," he said.

"An 'all-out' sectarian conflict is still unlikely," Drake said.

"But the fact that this is a predominantly Shi'ite government and it's predominantly Shi'ite security forces opening fire on predominantly Sunni individuals (civilians or militants) is going to have an impact on sectarian relations and could prompt a rise in sectarian violence as a result."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned on Thursday of attempts to return the country to "sectarian civil war".

Maliki called on clerics and everyone worried about Iraq's future "to take the initiative, and not be silent about those who want to take the country back to sectarian civil war", in remarks broadcast on state television.

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UK police 'have amnesia' over hacking

BRITISH police knew of claims that journalists at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World hacked into a murdered schoolgirl's mobile phone but they failed to investigate, the police watchdog said.

Britain's Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said on Wednesday that Surrey Police in southeast England had done nothing about the allegations during their probe into the murder of 13-year-old Milly Dowler in 2002.

But the IPCC said it was unable to find out why nothing was done, because former senior officers at the force appeared to be suffering from "collective amnesia".

Revelations that the News of the World hacked into Dowler's voicemail messages, along with those of dozens of celebrities and public figures, sparked a huge public outcry that forced Murdoch to shut down the tabloid in 2011.

"Phone hacking was a crime and this should have been acted upon - if not in 2002, then later, once the News of the World's widespread use of phone hacking became a matter of public knowledge and concern," said IPCC deputy chair Deborah Glass.

"We have not been able to uncover any evidence, in documentation or witness statements, of why and by whom that decision was made," she added.

"Former senior officers, in particular, appear to have been afflicted by a form of collective amnesia in relation to the events of 2002."

The phone-hacking scandal sparked three police investigations and a judicial inquiry into press ethics.

Testimony at the inquiry, led by judge Brian Leveson, revealed a close relationship between police and staff at Murdoch's British newspaper wing, News International.

Dozens of people have been arrested under Scotland Yard's probes into phone-hacking, computer hacking and the selling of stories by public officials.

On Wednesday a former Surrey Police officer became the 62nd person to be arrested under the probe into corrupt payments, Operation Elveden.

Prime Minister David Cameron's ex-media chief Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor, is among those who have been charged in connection with the scandal, as is former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.

Former nightclub bouncer Levi Bellfield was convicted of murdering Milly Dowler in 2011, nine years after she disappeared on her way home from school.

British prosecutors say that a senior editor at Rupert Murdoch's tabloid The Sun is being charged with conspiring to pay STG23,000 ($A34,375) in bribes in return for tips about the royal family.

Britain's Crown Prosecution Service said on Wednesday that The Sun's Chief Royal Correspondent Duncan Larcombe conspired with employees of Sandhurst - Britain's prestigious military academy - to secure royal gossip.

The statement does not go into detail but Princes William and Harry both trained at Sandhurst several years ago.

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Afghan quake kills seven, injures dozens

SEVEN people were killed and dozens injured when a 6.2 quake struck eastern Afghanistan, officials say.

Six people, including some children, died in Nangarhar province on Wednesday, and 75 people were injured, said provincial spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai.

One person was killed and one injured in neighbouring Kunar province and many homes were destroyed, said local government spokesman Wasefullah Wasef.

Strong tremors were felt in the capital Kabul and Islamabad in neighbouring Pakistan, the Pakistan meteorological office said.

The quake hit at 0925 GMT (1925 AEST) and was centred in southeastern Afghanistan at a depth of 70km.

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Pope appeals for release of Syrian bishops

POPE Francis has called for the release of two Syrian bishops kidnapped by gunmen near Aleppo, after a Christian group appeared to retract its claim that the clerics had been freed.

Aleppo's Greek Orthodox Bishop Boulos Yaziji and Syriac Orthodox Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim were kidnapped on Monday by armed men en route from the Turkish border.

Speaking to an audience of about 100,000 at the Vatican, Francis said on Wednesday there were "contradictory reports" about the fate of the bishops and asked that "they be returned quickly to their communities".

On Tuesday, the "Oeuvre d'Orient" Christian association announced that the bishops had been released, but on Wednesday it backed away from the claim.

"Yesterday evening we received information from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate questioning the release of the two bishops," said Catherine Baumont, spokeswoman for the group, which works to help Middle Eastern Christians.

"Unfortunately no tangible proof of the release has been obtained. The situation remains unclear, and we still don't know who took them," said Baumont.

And a source in Aleppo's Greek Orthodox archdiocese said it had no news on the fate of the bishops.

"We have no new information," said Ghassan Ward, a priest at the archdiocese.

"We can say that (as far as we know) they haven't been freed."

Ward said there had been "no contact with them," adding that "efforts are continuing" to secure their release.

"We are very worried."

The two men were travelling from the Turkish border when armed men intercepted the car they were in, forcing them out of the vehicle, Syrian state media and church sources reported.

The kidnappers were believed to be Chechen fighters, who stopped the car in an area outside of Aleppo, the church sources said.

"The news which we have received is that an armed group... (of) Chechens stopped the car and kidnapped the two bishops while the driver was killed," an official from the Syriac Orthodox diocese said in a statement posted online.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog said on Wednesday that the bishops had been kidnapped "in the region west of Aleppo, where a brigade of fighters from Dagestan is active".

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Clashes in north Iraq leave 40 dead

DEADLY fighting has hit Kirkuk province in north Iraq, with 27 people killed in clashes between protesters and security forces and 13 gunmen dying in subsequent revenge attacks on the army.

The clashes mark the deadliest eruption of violence linked to protests in Sunni areas that began more than four months ago.

The protesters have been demanding the resignation of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and railing against the alleged targeting of their community by the authorities.

Tuesday's violence broke out around 5am when security forces entered an open area near Hawijah, west of Kirkuk province's capital, where demonstrations have been held since January, said senior army officers.

Twenty-seven people have been killed and around 70 wounded, they said.

But accounts differed as to the spark for the bloodletting.

A brigadier general from the Iraqi army division responsible for the area said the operation was aimed at Sunni militants from a group known as the Naqshbandiya Army, and that security forces only opened fire after they were fired upon.

A second officer said that 34 Kalashnikov assault rifles and four PKM machine guns were recovered at the scene.

Two soldiers were killed and seven wounded in the operation, while the remainder of the casualties were a combination of protesters and militants, the officers said.

However, protesters insisted the army had provoked the clashes.

Security forces "invaded our sit-in today, burned the tents and opened fire indiscriminately and killed and wounded dozens of protesters," Abdulmalik al-Juburi, a leader of the Hawijah sit-in, told AFP.

"We only have four rifles to protect the sit-in, and there are no wanted people among us," Juburi said.

The dawn violence sparked revenge attacks.

Thirteen gunmen were killed in attacks on checkpoints in the Al-Rashad and Al-Riyadh areas of Kirkuk province, the army officers said.

"There have been fierce clashes which led to the killing of 13 revolutionaries against the policy of the government," Juburi said.

"When they heard the news about the killed and wounded in the sit-in, villagers in Kirkuk cut the roads and attacked checkpoints and military headquarters and took control of some of the checkpoints for a short time," he said.

Hassan Toran, leader of the provincial council of Kirkuk, where Hawijah is located, said the council condemned "the government forces breaking in to the sit-in and using extreme force, which led to killing and wounding dozens."

"We, as a provincial council, already warned and called for calm," Toran added.

"What happened today makes us ask the United Nations to intervene," he said.

A curfew has been imposed on Hawijah and neighbouring areas.

The violence came just hours after United Nations envoy Martin Kobler called for restraint on both sides in Hawijah, where tensions have been increasing.

"I encourage the Iraqi security forces to exercise the utmost self-restraint in maintaining law and order and the demonstrators to continue to preserve the peaceful character of the demonstrations," Kobler said in a statement.

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Australian population hits 23m, ABS says

The Australian Bureau of Statistics' population clock is expected to reach 23 million on Tuesday. Source: AAP

AUSTRALIA is now home to 23 million people, according to an estimate by the Australian Bureau of Statistics' (ABS), with the milestone prompting discussion about population size.

The ABS's population clock is based on a projected increase of one person every one minute and 23 seconds, taking into account birth and death rates, and the net gain from migration.

Australia hit the 23 million mark just before 10pm (AEST) on Tuesday according to the clock, with the last million added from September 2009.

With the milestone looming, earlier in the day Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she thought the figure was relatively low.

In terms of the world's most populous nations, Australia is ranked in the mid-50s.

"By the standards of the world we are a relatively low-population country, but we have the 12th strongest economy in the world - now that's an achievement," Ms Gillard told reporters in Sydney.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the government wasn't interested in setting "arbitrary targets", but rather the distribution and composition of the nation's people.

"We are interested in where the population is and the type of groups within our population," he told reporters on Tuesday.

"There are many communities where there aren't sufficient jobs and equally there are many communities where there are more jobs than people to fill them."

Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said the government was looking at "where and how" people live.

"We need to think about the shape of our cities, whether jobs are close to housing," she said.

According to the ABS, the nation's population passed five million in 1919, 10 million in 1960, 15 million in 1983 and 20 million in the December quarter of 2003.

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NSW police officer caught drink driving

A NSW police officer has been suspended after he was caught drink driving, police say. Source: AAP

A NSW police officer has been suspended after he was caught drink driving, police say.

The officer, 48, was arrested on Sunday after he returned a high range reading of 0.173 during a breath-test at Tweed Heads, police said.

Police suspended the man's drivers licence and he will appear in Tweed Heads Local Court for driving with a high-range prescribed concentration of alcohol and other driving offences.

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Police catch NSW prison escapee

A PRISONER who escaped from a jail in NSW's Upper Hunter has been recaptured by police.

Dean Wells, 29, was reported missing from the St Heliers Correctional Complex in Muswellbrook after 4pm (AEDT) on Monday.

He was arrested at Muswellbrook police station on Monday evening, police said.

Wells had been serving a sentence of six years and six months for a range of offences.

He's been charged with escaping lawful custody and will appear in court on Tuesday.

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Turks in talks over chopper hostages

THE Taliban have seized up to nine foreigners from a helicopter forced to make an emergency landing in Afghanistan, officials said, with Turks and Russians on board.

The charter firm running the Mi-8 helicopter said seven Turks working on a road project, a Russian pilot and flight engineer, and an Afghan co-pilot were aboard when bad weather forced it to land on Sunday.

Turkey's foreign ministry said in Ankara its diplomats were holding "intensive talks" with Afghan authorities to establish their whereabouts.

Officials in Logar province south of Kabul gave different information on the passengers and crew, saying eight Turks and one Afghan were aboard.

"Security forces found the helicopter but the nine people were not in it. They are taken by the Taliban," said Rais Khan Sadeq, deputy provincial police chief.

Provincial spokesman Din Mohammad Darvish also said eight Turks and an Afghan had been detained.

The helicopter had departed from the eastern city of Khost and was heading for Kabul when it came down.

A local official who declined to be identified said tribal chiefs were trying to secure the captives' return.

The Taliban could not be reached for comment.

The helicopter had been chartered from Afghan-based Khorasan Cargo Airlines. A spokesman who gave the nationalities of those aboard said his company had no information about what had happened to them.

The US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul said the force had assisted a search by Afghan authorities for a helicopter but gave no details.

Turkey, one of only two Muslim-majority members of NATO, has around 1,800 soldiers serving with ISAF. But unlike its European allies, their mission is limited to patrols and its troops do not take part in combat operations.

Ankara has historically close ties with Kabul. Last September Turkey extended by one year its command of an ISAF unit covering the region around the Afghan capital.

Taliban insurgents have been battling Afghan forces and foreign troops since they were ousted from government in Kabul by a US-led invasion in 2001.

Attacks by them and other guerrillas soared in the first quarter of 2013, according to a study by an independent group released on Saturday.

The violence overwhelmingly targets Afghan troops and police as foreign combat forces step back from the frontline in preparation for withdrawal from the country next year, according to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office.

The office reported 2,331 insurgent attacks in January-March, a 47 per cent rise on the first quarter of last year.

"We assess that the current re-escalation trend will be preserved throughout the entire season and that 2013 is set to become the second most violent year after 2011," said its report.

Taliban insurgents say they are holding the group of foreigners taken captive after a helicopter made an emergency landing.

The Taliban, in a statement on their website, claimed they taken 11 US military personnel.

They "were captured alive and were then transferred to the most secure region of the nation", it said.

The militants routinely make exaggerated claims and officials have said the foreigners were Turkish and Russian civilian workers and numbered up to nine.

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Murder-suicide prisoner 'unstable': lawyer

A PRISONER who died in a suspected murder-suicide at a Sydney jail was concerned about his "unstable" cellmate, his lawyer says.

The bodies of the men, aged 41 and 47, were found at Silverwater Prison's Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre during an inspection on April 1.

Police say the homicide squad is pursuing murder-suicide as a line of inquiry.

The men, both foreign nationals, were on remand for unconnected drug matters.

The lawyer of one of the men, Nick Karayiannis, says his client had told him he was sharing the cell with a "nutter".

He said Mr Karayiannis had also told his family his cellmate, Tien Tran, was unstable.

"I (heard) that Nick had intervened in Mr Tran committing suicide on two prior occasions," lawyer Rod Van Houten told ABC TV on Monday.

Mr Karayiannis was found dead with a bag around his head during a routine check on Easter Monday, according to the ABC.

A coronial investigation has also reportedly determined Mr Karayiannis' cause of death as asphyxiation.

Mr Van Houten said he had spoken to another prisoner at Silverwater jail who said there were "cries for help" during the suspected murder-suicide.

"What's concerning is that if that was true, no one went to Nick's rescue," he said.

Shadow attorney-general Paul Lynch has called for an inquiry into the incident.

"Any inquiry should also address whether existing security standards are adequate and whether recent staffing cuts within corrective services are threatening inmate and guard safety," he said in a statement on Monday.

Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) said all claims surrounding the matter would be fully investigated.

A CSNSW spokeswoman said it would not make further comment as the matter was before the coroner.

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Jordan arrests eight Syrian refugees

Jordanian demonstrators have called on authorities to close a refugee camp housing Syrians. Source: AAP

POLICE have arrested eight Syrians on suspicion of inciting riots at a refugee camp near the Jordan-Syria border.

About 100 Syrian refugees threw stones at police on Friday for preventing some of them from sneaking out of their desert camp. Ten officers were wounded, including two who remain critical.

A security official said a military prosecutor will question the eight suspects later on Sunday.

If convicted, they face up to three years in jail.

The Zaatari camp houses 150,000 refugees from the Syrian civil war. Another 350,000 Syrians have found shelter in Jordanian communities.

Conditions in the overcrowded camp have worsened since it opened last July, and there have been several riots.

In Syria on Sunday, troops backed by pro-government gunmen pounded rebel areas near the Lebanese border, activists and state media said.

The clashes came as US officials said the Obama administration was poised to send up to $US130 million ($A126.77 million) more in non-lethal military aid to rebels trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights said there was no immediate casualty report from the fighting in Basatin in Homs province.

The state television said the army was trying to "uproot all the terrorists from the area" - a reference to the rebels.

Elsewhere, the Observatory said fighting was also reported in the northern province of Aleppo, three areas in the suburbs of Damascus and the central province of Idlib.

In the past two weeks, the Syrian military - supported by pro-government fighters backed by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group - has pursued a campaign to regain control of areas near the Lebanese border.

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Girl indecently assaulted at Sydney beach

POLICE are searching for man in his 60s who they allege indecently assaulted a seven year-old girl at an eastern Sydney beach.

They say the incident occurred while the girl was on a day out with her family at Coogee Beach, about 2pm (AEST) on Sunday.

She and her four-year-old brother were climbing a tree at the northern end of the beach when a man approached.

Described as Caucasian and overweight, police say he tickled the boy before inappropriately touching the girl.

The kids later told their parents.

The man was last seen walking south from the location along a footpath.

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84 arrested at western Sydney rave

Most of the 84 arrests made at a Sydney music festival were due to sniffer dogs, police say. Source: AAP

POLICE have made 84 mainly drug-related arrests at a rave in western Sydney.

Dance music festival IQON ran most of Saturday at the Sydney International Dragway at Eastern Creek.

Officers attached to Operation Charthouse arrested 84 partiers for offences including goods in custody, assault police and breach of bail.

But police had sniffer dogs to thank for most of the arrests.

They laid 78 charges for possess prohibited drug, four charges for deem supply and one cannabis caution.

Police on Sunday said inquiries into the drug matters were continuing.

Blacktown Local Area Commander Superintendent Mark Wright said in spite of the numbers arrested and charged, the overall crowd was well behaved.

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