Syria's Assad must go, Kerry insists

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should step down, says US Secretary of State John Kerry (pic). Source: AAP

US Secretary of State John Kerry insists Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will have to step down as part of any political solution in Syria, as he held a third day of talks on the bloody conflict.

Speaking as he met Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, Kerry said all sides were working to "effect a transition government by mutual consent of both sides, which clearly means that in our judgment President Assad will not be a component of that transitional government".

Kerry also officially unveiled $US100 million ($A99.10 million) in additional US humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees, almost half of which will go to help Jordan struggling to cope with a tide of people fleeing the 26-month war.

Some 2,000 people are flooding across the border into Jordan every day, and the country now hosts some 525,000 refugees, Judeh said at the start of the talks in Rome.

"We have 10 per cent of our population today, in the form of Syrian refugees. It is expected to rise to about 20 to 25 per cent given the current rates by the end of this year, and possibly to about 40 per cent by the middle of 2014," he said.

"No country can cope with the numbers as huge as the numbers I've just described," he warned, adding Jordan was very grateful for the help of the international community.

Plans for an international conference to try to find a solution to the crisis were also continuing, Kerry said, after he agreed in talks in Moscow that he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would work in tandem on the issue.

He had spoken with most of the foreign ministers from the countries involved and there is a "very positive response and a very strong desire to move to this conference and to try to find, at least exhaust the possibilities of finding, a political way forward".

UN chief Ban Ki-moon had also been in touch, so "we are going to forge ahead very, very directly to work with all of the parties to bring that conference together", Kerry added.

It's hoped the conference, aimed at finding a path towards a transitional government in Syria, could be held by the end of May, possibly in Geneva.

US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, has meanwhile also met with the Syrian opposition in Istanbul on Wednesday to discuss the way forward, Kerry said.

Since the war erupted to oust Assad, more than 1.5 million Syrians have fled the country into neighbouring nations, including Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, vastly straining their resources.

Up to four million more could be displaced within the country as they seek to flee the fierce fighting, which has already claimed some 70,000 lives.

Meanwhile, Syria will "give Hezbollah everything" in recognition of its support and will follow the militant group's model of "resistance" against Israel, a Lebanese newspaper on Thursday quoted President Bashar al-Assad as saying.

His comments, published by Al-Akhbar, reportedly came during meetings with Lebanese visitors in Damascus and appeared intended to refute any suggestion that Israeli raids on Syrian targets would halt assistance to the Shi'ite group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The newspaper said visitors quoted Assad as expressing "confidence, satisfaction and great gratitude towards Hezbollah".

The organisation is a long-time ally of the Syrian regime and has sent fighters to battle alongside Assad's troops, particularly in the Qusayr district of the central province of Homs.

Also on Thursday, anti-regime activists say Syrian warplanes are pounding rebel positions in two northern provinces.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the air force is targeting opposition forces in the battle for the Mannagh air base outside of northern city of Aleppo.

Rebels stormed the base near the border with Turkey on Sunday. They captured parts of it but could not hold on, because of the regime's superior air power.

In neighbouring Idlib province, there are heavy clashes outside several army bases near the government-controlled provincial capital.

Government troops and fighter planes are hitting the rebels, the Observatory said.

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Two women charged over NSW bleach attack

TWO women have been charged over several incidents in Sydney's northwest, including the throwing of a bleach-based toilet cleaner at a four-year-old girl from a car.

Police had been searching for the occupants of a small red car, believing they had vital information about the attack, which happened about 4.45pm (AEST) on Wednesday at Kellyville Ridge.

In one of the incidents a bottle of toilet cleaner was thrown from a car at a 36-year-old woman who was holding the hand of her four-year-old daughter while pushing a pram down the road.

Liquid from the bottle hit the four-year-old in the face, police say.

She was then taken to Westmead Children's Hospital.

Guita Badaoui, who operates Play 'n' Learn Long Daycare said the mother had just left the centre when the incident occurred.

"She was beside herself ... she had come running in quite hysterical, she had come to the kitchen not knowing where else to go," Ms Badaoui told Macquarie radio.

"Someone had thrown bleach on her (daughter's) face ... as soon as you walked in and you could smell the bleach that was reeking from this poor child."

About the same time a bottle of energy drink was thrown at another female pedestrian on Conrad Road.

A roll of garbage bags was also hurled at a woman riding a pushbike on nearby Stanhope Parkway.

She wasn't injured.

About 1pm on Thursday a 20-year-old Glenmore Park woman and a 22-year-old Ingleburn woman turned themselves in at Quakers Hill police station.

A red Hyundai Getz was seized and both were charged with causing bodily injury by corrosive fluid, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assault.

The women were granted bail and are due before Blacktown Local Court on June 12.

Investigations are continuing.

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Search continues for cruise pair off NSW

Police believe a man and woman went overboard from a Carnival Cruise Lines ship off the NSW coast. Source: AAP

A SEARCH is continuing off the NSW coast for two people reported missing from a cruise ship when it docked in Sydney on Thursday.

Paul Rossington, 30, and Kristen Schroder, 27, went overboard about 8.50pm (AEST) on Wednesday, police said after reviewing the ship's CCTV.

Police and Australian Search and Rescue aircraft and marine vessels are continuing their search throughout the night in an area approximately 60 nautical miles east of Forster.

NSW Police Marine Area Commander Mark Hutchings earlier said it was not known whether the pair jumped off the ship or fell overboard, although it is understood their disappearance isn't considered suspicious.

None of the other 2680 people on the cruise ship is believed to have witnessed the incident, he added.

The luxury cruiser Carnival Spirit is operated by Carnival Corp, which in recent years been plagued by a series of high-profile problems.

Last year, 32 people were killed when another of its ships - the Costa Concordia - ran aground off the coast of Italy.

Passengers cruising the Indian Ocean on the Costa Allegra were left without working toilets, running water or air conditioning for three days after a fire cut the ship's power.

In February this year, passengers aboard the Carnival Triumph spent five days without power in the Gulf of Mexico after an engine-room fire.

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No movement in NT on schools funding

School Education Minister Peter Garrett has failed to reach a deal with the NT on school funding. Source: AAP

FEDERAL School Education Minister Peter Garrett is leaving the Northern Territory without convincing the jurisdiction to sign on to a new funding deal.

Mr Garrett has urged the NT government to put politics aside and agree to the new schools funding package that would see the jurisdiction receive about $300 million for schools over six years.

He met with NT Education Minister Peter Chandler on Wednesday.

"The door is open for negotiations and discussion, as it should be if we put the interests of students first," Mr Garrett told reporters in Darwin ahead of the meeting.

"There is absolutely no reason on earth why the Northern Territory shouldn't get on board the national plan for school improvement and see additional investment flow to schools in the territory."

Mr Chandler said the discussions had been useful, but no decision on whether to sign on to the schools package was reached.

"That is really a first minister's discussion, that is the prime minister and the chief minister of the Northern Territory," Mr Chandler said.

"What we did speak about are some of the needs in education for the Northern Territory and I think it was a very fruitful negotiation and a fruitful meeting."

Mr Garrett told reporters that under the Gonski schools funding plan, the Northern Territory would have to pay about $100 million and the federal government would contribute $200 million.

But Mr Chandler said the NT Education Department's own analysis showed the NT government may have to contribute $163 million, with the federal government only putting in $137 million.

"That will be very difficult to find in this fiscal position we find ourselves in," Mr Chandler said.

NSW is so far the only jurisdiction to agree to the multi-billion dollar Gonski school funding plan.

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Thousands rally against Malaysia election

A rally by Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to protest the election result has been banned. Source: AAP

THOUSANDS of Malaysians dressed in black have gathered to denounce elections they claim were stolen through fraud by the coalition that has ruled for 56 years.

The rally was called by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, who has vowed a "fierce" campaign for electoral reform after losing Sunday's vote and has said he would soon produce evidence of fraud by what he calls an "illegitimate" government.

Prime Minister Najib Razak's Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition government has hotly denied the opposition's numerous allegations of cheating.

It also denounced the gathering in a 25,000-seat stadium on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur.

In a statement, the coalition said Anwar had "deliberately chosen a small stadium to ensure it will spill onto the streets. His protest is calculated to create unrest."

Previous election reform protests have ended in wild scenes, with police using tear gas and water cannon. Police had earlier threatened to arrest participants in Wednesday night's rally.

But with tension high over the country's closest-ever election result, police backed off and a festive atmosphere prevailed as rally-goers waved opposition party flags and blared vuvuzela horns.

"I think they should redo the election," said university student Tan Han Hui.

"I'm here to support democracy. I feel the election is so unfair and there are so many dirty tricks."

Participants filled the stadium's stands and spilled onto the football field.

Anwar has battled Barisan since he was ousted from its top ranks in 1998 and jailed for six years on sex and corruption charges widely seen as trumped-up.

He says the election was stolen via "unprecedented electoral fraud".

Anwar, who was due to address the gathering later in the evening, has called on Malaysians across the country to wear black in protest.

Among other allegations, voters complained that indelible ink - meant to thwart multiple voting - easily washed off.

Accounts of suspected foreign "voters" being confronted by angry citizens at polling centres went viral online.

Anwar had alleged a government scheme to fly tens of thousands of "dubious" and possibly foreign voters to flood key constituencies.

The government has poured scorn on the allegations. But a report released on Wednesday by two independent watchdogs said the polls were marred by pro-government bias and irregularities that indicate "serious flaws" in the electoral system.

The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs and Centre for Public Policy Studies cited concerns including partisan use of government machinery, pro-government media bias and doubts over the integrity of voter rolls.

The election was "only partially free and not fair", the report said.

The vote was touted as the first in which the opposition had a chance to unseat the ruling coalition, which has governed since independence in 1957.

Barisan retained a firm parliamentary majority despite winning less than half the popular vote, a factor blamed on gerrymandering and Barisan tinkering with electoral districts.

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Suspect helped look for US missing women

Three US brothers have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping of three women in Ohio. Source: AAP

THE suspect in the case of three US women rescued 10 years after they went missing, had been active in neighbourhood searches and vigils for the girls, neighbours say.

When neighbours gathered for a candlelight vigil just a year ago to remember one of the girls, Ariel Castro was there too, comforting the girl's mother.

Castro, just like everyone else in the tight-knit, mostly Puerto Rican neighbourhood of Cleveland, Ohio, seemed shaken by the 2004 disappearance of Gina DeJesus and another teenager who went missing the year before.

Now he and his brothers are in custody after a frantic call to emergency officials led police to his run-down house, where authorities say DeJesus and two other women missing for about a decade were held captive.

No charges have been filed against the men, but they could appear in court as early as Wednesday morning.

Amanda Berry, 27, Michelle Knight, 32, and DeJesus, about 23, had apparently been held captive in the house since their teens or early 20s, police said.

A six-year-old girl believed to be Berry's daughter also was found in the home, police Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said. He would not say who the father was.

About a week ago, Castro took the six-year-old girl to a nearby park, where they played in the grass, said Israel Lugo, a neighbour who lives down the street.

"I asked him whose kid was it, and he told me his girlfriend's daughter," Lugo said.

The women were reunited with joyous family members, but remained in seclusion on Tuesday.

They were rescued after Berry kicked out the bottom portion of a locked screen door and used a neighbour's telephone to call authorities.

An officer showed up minutes later and Berry ran out and threw her arms around the officer, a neighbour said.

Police identified the other two suspects as the 52-year-old Castro's brothers, Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50.

Calls to the jail went unanswered, and there was no response to interview requests sent to police, the jail and city officials.

A relative of the three brothers said their family was "totally shocked" after hearing about the missing women being found at the home.

Juan Alicea said the arrests of his wife's brothers had left relatives "as blindsided as anyone else" in their community.

Police would not say how the women were taken captive or how they were hidden in the neighbourhood where they had vanished.

Investigators also would not say whether they were kept in restraints inside the house or sexually assaulted.

Ariel Castro owned the home where the girls were found in a neighbourhood dotted with boarded-up houses just south of downtown.

Neighbours say he played bass guitar in salsa and merengue bands and gave neighbourhood children rides on his motorcycle.

Tito DeJesus, an uncle of Gina DeJesus, played in bands with Castro over the past 20 years.

He recalled visiting Castro's house, but never noticing anything out of the ordinary.

Juan Perez, who lives two doors down from the house, said Castro was always happy and respectful.

"He gained trust with the kids and with the parents. You can only do that if you're nice," Perez said.

Castro also worked until recently as a school bus driver.

He was friends with the father of Gina DeJesus, one of the missing women, and helped search for her after she disappeared, said Khalid Samad, a friend of the family.

"When we went out to look for Gina, he helped pass out fliers," said Samad, a community activist who was at the hospital with DeJesus and her family on Monday night.

"You know, he was friends with the family."

Antony Quiros said he was at the vigil about a year ago and saw Castro comforting Gina DeJesus' mother.

One neighbour, Francisco Cruz, said he was with Castro the day investigators dug up a yard looking for the girls.

Castro told Cruz, "They're not going to find anyone there," Cruz recalled.

Police now are conducting an internal review to see if they overlooked anything.

City Safety Director Martin Flask said on Tuesday that investigators had no record of anyone calling about criminal activity at the house, but were still checking police, fire and emergency databases.

Two neighbours said they called police to the Castro house on separate occasions.

Elsie Cintron, who lives three houses away, said her daughter saw a naked woman crawling in the backyard several years ago and called police.

"But they didn't take it seriously," she said.

Another neighbour, Israel Lugo, said he heard pounding on some of the doors of the house in November 2011.

Lugo said officers knocked on the front door, but no one answered.

"They walked to side of the house and then left," he said.

Police did go to the house twice in the past 15 years, but not in connection with the women's disappearance, officials said.

Knight vanished at age 20 in 2002. Berry disappeared at 16 in 2003, when she called her sister to say she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King. About a year later, DeJesus vanished.

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Qld deal moves full NDIS step closer

Julia Gillard is closer to getting a nation-wide deal on disability care, as WA are yet to sign on. Source: AAP

QUEENSLAND is ready to sign up to federal Labor's national disability care scheme, leaving Western Australia the only state not yet on board.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Queensland Liberal National Premier Campbell Newman will announce details of the long-term funding deal in Brisbane on Wednesday.

But sources have told AAP the state won't follow its peers in having a launch site.

The deal will put pressure on WA to sign up to a funding agreement this year and give Ms Gillard more political ammunition when parliament returns next week to sort out legislation to raise the Medicare universal health levy to pay for the scheme.

Mr Newman says changes made to DisabilityCare Australia, as the former NDIS scheme will be known, mean he can sign up to it.

"Queensland is primed and ready for full rollout of the NDIS," he told the Queensland Media Club on Tuesday.

"It is in itself a pragmatic revolution that services are delivered to people who need them the most."

Ms Gillard's spokesman told AAP the prime minister "looks forward to finalising a historic agreement to deliver better disability services for Queensland".

Queensland has committed $860 million to the scheme over the four years between 2014/15 and 2018/19 and would receive another $200 million from a hike in the Medicare levy to two per cent, from 1.5 per cent.

The latest Newspoll showed 78 per cent voter support for DisabilityCare but there was no boost for the federal government, which trails the coalition 44-56 on two-party terms.

Ms Gillard's standing as preferred prime minister received a small lift, up two points to 37 per cent, but Opposition Leader Tony Abbott maintains a five-point lead.

Treasurer Wayne Swan, who's putting the final touches on next Tuesday's budget, confirmed the government faced a $17 billion shortfall in revenues since the 2012 budget.

He also axed plans to increase the rate of Family Tax Benefit Part A by as much as $300 a year for families with one child and $600 for those with two or more children.

Mr Swan described the decision as "difficult, but responsible".

The increase was meant to be covered by mining tax revenue, which is now estimated at just $800 million in the current year instead of a forecast $2 billion.

The treasurer applauded the Reserve Bank's decision to cut the cash rate to 2.75 per cent, their lowest level on record.

He reassured voters that the cut did not mean the economy was on the wane.

"We have solid growth, we have low unemployment, we have a strong investment pipeline, we have strong public finances, we have contained inflation, and we have low interest rates," he said.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said rates had been cut because the Reserve Bank felt the economy was being mismanaged.

He told a business forum in Sydney the "cupboard is bare" and there would be no room for big spending promises during the election campaign.

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China punishes officials in sex scandal

CHINA'S Communist Party has punished 21 officials over a scandal in which some of them were allegedly extorted by a developer after being secretly filmed in liaisons with hired women.

The official Xinhua News Agency said on Tuesday the party's disciplinary body in the central city of Chongqing had stripped former local district party chief Lei Zhengfu of his party membership.

The scandal broke after footage of Lei having sex with one of the women was leaked on the internet.

Other officials were placed under investigation for corruption or given administrative punishments.

The scandal has exposed the intertwining of sex, money and politics and the often shady ties between real estate developers and local officials.

China's new leadership has vowed to crack down on official corruption.

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Liam Jurrah fined in SA for drink driving

FORMER AFL player Liam Jurrah has been fined $1100 after being caught behind the wheel with a blood alcohol reading more than five times the legal limit.

Jurrah, who is in custody in Alice Springs over allegations of assault against three women, did not appear in Adelaide's Elizabeth magistrates court on Tuesday when he was sentenced by magistrate Paul Foley.

An audio-visual link from the court to Alice Springs failed but his lawyer Joanna Caracoussis said the 24-year-old was happy for the matter to proceed.

The former Melbourne footballer pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol in Adelaide on January 14 and to breaching conditions of a provisional licence.

He was found to have a blood alcohol reading of 0.26. As a p-plater, he is not allowed to have any alcohol in his system while driving in South Australia.

Mr Foley fined him $1100 and disqualified him from driving for two years.

He also fined him $700 in another matter for breaching two court orders banning him from going to an Adelaide address.

Ms Caracoussis said Jurrah had been drinking with family on January 14 and had become involved in a dispute, before driving the car while intoxicated.

Police had observed him to be drowsy with bloodshot eyes and slurred speech.

Ms Caracoussis said that on a later occasion, he had travelled in a car with a relative and had not realised the driver was going to the address Jurrah was banned from attending.

But when he saw police, he panicked and hid on the roof of the house.

The magistrate noted Jurrah's work with troubled youth, his sporting and other awards and his lack of any previous convictions.

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Protests outside Germany's neo-Nazi trial

Several organisations protested outside a German courthouse where a neo-Nazi trial is being held. Source: AAP

DOZENS of anti-racist demonstrators have rallied outside a German courthouse where the biggest neo-Nazi murder trial in the country's history is about to start.

Several organisations fighting the far right gathered for the protest on Monday, where activists hoisted banners with slogans such as "Against Nazi terror, state and everyday racism" and urged German authorities to take a harder line against extremists and their crimes.

Two women jostled with security forces and smashed a bottle outside the barricades, police said, amid a massive turnout of international media for the trial in the southern city of Munich.

Beate Zschaepe, 38, the last surviving member of a far-right trio calling itself the National Socialist Underground (NSU), is charged with complicity in the murders of eight ethnic Turks, a Greek immigrant and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007.

Four alleged accomplices will join her in the dock for the trial secured with a major police presence.

Zschaepe is also accused of involvement in 15 armed robberies, arson and attempted murder in two bomb attacks.

The investigation was bungled by German authorities, who for years suspected Turkish mafia groups were behind the killings. They later admitted that files relevant to the case were shredded.

In custody since turning herself in on November 8, 2011, Zschaepe arrived at the court from her cell in solitary confinement at Stadelheim prison, one of Germany's largest.

She was led into the courtroom wearing a black blazer, a pressed white shirt and large hoop earrings. She stood with her back to television cameras waiting for the proceedings to begin.

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Bomb kills 3 at Pakistan political rally

A BOMB has torn through a Pakistan election rally killing three people and wounding 45 others in the first campaign attack on a political party in the northwestern tribal belt.

The attack on Monday brings to 72 the number of people killed in violence targeting politicians and political parties since April 11, according to an AFP tally, ahead of Pakistan's historic elections on Saturday.

The explosion targeted the right-wing Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), a religious party in the outgoing government coalition, in Kurram, one of the seven districts making up Pakistan's Taliban-infested tribal belt on the Afghan border.

"Three people have died and 45 are injured. Eleven of them are in a critical condition," Riaz Khan, the top administrative official in Kurram, told AFP.

Khan said the bomb was planted inside the building where two national assembly candidates representing the JUI faction led by cleric Fazul-ur-Rehman were speaking to supporters.

One of the candidates, Munir Orakzai, escaped unhurt while the other, Ain u Din Shakir, was slightly injured, Khan said.

It was the first deadly attack on a political party in Pakistan's tribal belt since campaigning began for the polls, which will mark the first democratic transition of power after a civilian government completes a full-term in office.

Pakistan's interim Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso strongly condemned the attack and said that another national assembly candidate, had been injured.

Repeated calls from the interim administration for candidates to be granted more security have failed to stop a wave of attacks, most of them claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest blast. The tribal belt is a stronghold of Islamist militants and Kurram has been bogged by sectarian violence between Pakistan's Sunni Muslim majority and Shi'ite minority.

Elections have been postponed in three constituencies, in the southwestern province Baluchistan, in Pakistan's biggest city of Karachi and in the southern city of Hyderabad, where candidates have been killed.

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Nobel Prize winner de Duve dies at 95

A BELGIAN university says that biochemist Christian de Duve, who won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1974, has died in an act of euthanasia. He was 95.

His university, UCL in Louvain-la-Neuve, confirmed it was a case of euthanasia but did not disclose the method.

De Duve shared the Nobel Prize with two other scientists for their work and discoveries on the structural and functional organisation of the cell.

One month before his death last Saturday, he had taken the decision to end his life through euthanasia and had granted a big interview to the daily Le Soir to be published after his death.

He said he had been getting weaker and decided to plan, as he put it, "my own disappearance."

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UK deputy speaker denies sex allegations

Nigel Evans has denied a gay rape charge, saying the allegations are "completely false". Source: AAP

A DEPUTY speaker of Britain's lower house of parliament said that allegations of raping one man and sexually assaulting another were "completely false", adding that he had previously regarded both men as friends.

Nigel Evans, 55, a lawmaker in Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party, issued the denial a day after he was questioned over the alleged attacks on two men aged in their twenties.

"Yesterday, I was interviewed by the police concerning two complaints, one of which dates back four years, made by two people who are well known to each other and until yesterday, I regarded as friends," Evans said in a statement to the media outside his home.

"The complaints are completely false and I cannot understand why they have been made, especially as I have continued to socialise with one as recently as last week.

"I appreciate the way the police have handled this in such a sensitive manner and I would like to thank my colleagues, friends and members of the public who have expressed their support and, like me, a sense of incredulity at these events."

Evans revealed he was gay in 2010, eight years after he was elected, saying he was "tired of living a lie".

He represents Ribble Valley in Lancashire, northwest England, and is one of the House of Commons' three deputy speakers, who are responsible for maintaining discipline in parliament in the absence of the speaker, John Bercow.

Police said the alleged attacks took place in the village of Pendleton, where Evans lives, between July 2009 and March 2013.

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Killings up Sudan tensions in Abyei region

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for calm following the killing of a top chief in Sudan. Source: AAP

TENSION and anger gripped the Abyei region disputed by Sudan and South Sudan after the killing of a tribal chief and a peacekeeper, residents said, as the UN boosted security.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called for calm after the Ngok Dinka chief Kual Deng Majok and the Ethiopian peacekeeper died in an "attack" by a Misseriya tribesman in the region on Saturday.

"It looks like Dinka are very angry," one local resident told AFP.

He reported gunfire in Abyei's town centre, where Misseriya run small shops.

A curfew was in effect, with the UN Interim Security Force in Abyei setting up extra checkpoints trying to restrict movement and prevent gatherings, said the resident on condition of anonymity.

The resident, who is familiar with the incident, said five Misseriya also died in Saturday's skirmish.

"There is high tension and all sides are alert, ready for anything," Mohammed Al-Ansari, a Misseriya chief in Abyei, told AFP.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, Toby Lanzer, said on Twitter that UNISFA was "expanding patrols with aim of maintaining calm".

UN chief Ban urged both tribes as well as the governments of Sudan and South Sudan to "avoid any escalation of this unfortunate event," a statement from his spokesperson said late Saturday.

The United Nations said the "attack by a Misseriya assailant on a UNISFA convoy" also seriously wounded two of its peacekeepers.

The status of Abyei has not been resolved despite steps which Sudan and South Sudan have taken since March to normalise their relations in other areas, after months of intermittent clashes along their undemarcated frontier.

Abyei's status was the most sensitive issue left unsettled when South Sudan separated from Sudan in 2011.

The territory was to hold a referendum in January 2011 on whether it belonged with the north or South, but disagreement on who could vote stalled the ballot.

Majok was heading north from Abyei town with UNISFA peacekeepers, who are the only authority in the area, when a group of Misseriya stopped them, another Misseriya leader said.

Despite negotiations, "a clash happened when a UNISFA soldier shot one of the Misseriya who was readying his weapon," said the Misseriya chief who asked to remain anonymous.

During the resulting clash, "the Dinka leader's car was hit by an explosion and he and his driver were killed".

Majok was travelling with UNISFA commander Yohannes Tesfamariam, who was unhurt, said the Abyei resident familiar with the situation.

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Road pricing would cut traffic: report

MAKING Aussie motorists pay to use roads would ease traffic congestion in the nation's major cities and help boost economic productivity, a report has found.

The Grattan Institute report found a system of road pricing would also be a good way to raise funds for better public transport, such as better bus services.

The report, Productive Cities: opportunity in a changing economy, said the system could take the form of road user charges, congestion charges, or time-of-day tolling.

It found that charging motorists to use roads would result in "a more efficient use of road space" and ultimately help to lift labour productivity.

"In order to address traffic congestion, it is not enough to rely solely on building new roads without also paying attention to managing the demand for road space," the report states.

Road pricing would "also go some way towards raising the revenue needed to increase the capacity of public transport".

However the report conceded that governments would have to spend "political capital" to implement such a system.

It also urged governments to build more homes in established suburbs, saying rising house prices meant many blue-collar workers risked being locked out of areas that offered the best access to jobs.

"This will be good for the economy and good for the fair go," the report found.

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