AN off-duty policeman has been caught drink driving in Victoria.
The officer encountered a random breath testing site on the Old Princes Highway, at Beaconsfield in Melbourne's south-east, just after 8pm (AEST) on Friday.
The Leading Senior Constable is alleged to have recorded a blood alcohol level of .077 per cent, which is mid-range offence.
The officer was issued a penalty notice for $433, which also carries a loss of license for six months.
THE effort to find missing flight MH370 is at a "very critical juncture", Malaysia's transport minister says as authorities mull whether to reassess a challenging search of the Indian Ocean seabed that has so far found nothing.
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A YOUNG man in Australia on a student visa allegedly drove his hire car more than 150km/h on a Victorian highway in peak Easter holiday traffic.
Police say the Chinese man was observed overtaking a tourist bus and numerous cars, including an unmarked police car, at high speed on the Bass Highway on Friday afternoon.
He was intercepted by highway patrol officers just before 5pm (AEST) after driving in holiday traffic and in excess of the highway's 100km/h speed limit.
The 22-year-old allegedly told officers he was "running late to get to Phillip Island".
Police did not impound the vehicle as it was a hire car, however, the man is facing multiple charges including driving at a dangerous speed.
He will face court on a date to be set.
AUSTRALIA'S Easter road toll now stands at four after a tragic opening to the holiday long weekend in both Western Australia and Tasmania.
Young men aged 17 to 20 account for three of the deaths, all in WA, and the fourth fatal crash involved a Chinese woman who was on holiday in Tasmania.
All of the fatal crashes occurred on Thursday and authorities have not reported a road death on Good Friday.
On Thursday afternoon, a 17-year-old boy died after being thrown from a car which rolled several times on the Gnaraloo-Quobba Road near the WA town of Carnarvon.
Police said the East Carnarvon boy was a passenger in a Nissan Patrol when the driver lost control of the vehicle.
People who had been following the vehicle stopped and performed CPR on the boy until ambulance crews arrived. He was taken to Carnarvon Regional Hospital but was unable to be revived.
The 17-year-old male driver was treated for cuts and bruises.
Hours later, a 20-year-old man was killed when a Ford Falcon ute he was driving hit a tree on the Collie-Williams Road near Collie at about 3pm (WST).
His passenger, a 22-year-old man from Bunbury, was knocked unconscious and taken to hospital after a passing motorist pulled him from the burning wreckage.
On Thursday evening and again in WA, a 19-year-old Bruce Rock man died after his car hit a large tree on Narembeen Rd near Bruce Rock east of Perth.
In Tasmania, the 32-year-old Chinese woman was a passenger in a vehicle being driven by her 30-year-old husband, also a Chinese national.
Their Volkswagen hatchback was involved in a head-on collision with a Hyundai delivery van on the Bass Highway, west of Port Latta, on Thursday afternoon.
The couple were taken to the North West Regional Hospital, where the woman died. The man has undergone multiple surgeries and is in a serious condition.
A 31-year-old Burnie man who was driving the van suffered minor injuries but has been released.
(EDS: The Easter road toll figures are for the period 0001 April 17 to 2359 April 21)
Michael Kirby, the head of a special UN inquiry, has urged the UN to slap sanctions on North Korea. Source: AAP
THE United Nations Security Council should slap targeted sanctions on North Korean officials responsible for grave human rights abuses, the head of a special UN inquiry says.
Michael Kirby told an informal meeting of the Security Council convened by Australia, France and the US that he also wanted the reclusive regime hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution.
"More monitoring and engagement alone cannot suffice in the face of crimes that shock the conscience of humanity," said Kirby, a former Australian High Court justice. "Perpetrators must be held accountable, it is necessary to deter further crimes."
North Korea did not send a representative and the meeting was snubbed by China, Pyongyang's sole major ally, and Russia.
"A new generation of senior officials now surround the supreme leader Kim Jong-Un," Kirby said.
"They must be made to understand that they will themselves face personal accountability if they join in the commission of crimes against humanity or fail to prevent them where they could.
"The commission of inquiry therefore recommends to the Security Council the adoption of targeted sanctions against those individuals most responsible for crimes against humanity."
Kirby said the proposal to refer North Koreans to the ICC had found favour with most countries present, but UN diplomats said any move would likely face fierce opposition from China, the North's economic lifeline.
In March, the UN's top rights body also called on the Security Council to act against officials responsible for a litany of crimes against humanity in North Korea.
Kirby's commission of inquiry on North Korea released a hard-hitting report on the nuclear-armed totalitarian state in February that documented a range of gross human rights abuses, including extermination, enslavement and sexual violence.
North Korea refused to co-operate with the probe and said the evidence was "fabricated" by "forces hostile" to the country.
After the meeting, US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power praised council members for joining other countries for the first time to discuss the North's "tragic human rights situation in North Korea".
"We heard directly from the authors of a thorough, objective and credible UN report, and from victims of North Korean atrocities themselves," she said.
"These firsthand accounts - horrific stories of torture, rape, forced abortions and forced infanticide, extermination and murder - paint a chilling picture of the regime's systematic and remorseless repression of its citizens."
LOCAL Christian Arabs and pilgrims from around the world have made their way down the cobbled Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, where Jesus is believed to have walked to his crucifixion.
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The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will push on over the Easter long weekend. Source: AAP
AN oil slick in the southern Indian Ocean is not linked to a missing Malaysian Airlines jet, Australia's search agency says.
The slick was found in a focus search area on Sunday, further raising hopes that the global effort to find flight MH370 might have narrowed in on the patch of ocean where the airliner went down on March 8, carrying 239 passengers and crew.
But late on Thursday, the Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) ruled out any connection.
"Preliminary analysis of the sample collected ... has confirmed that it is not aircraft engine oil or hydraulic fluid."
Despite the news the search will continue throughout the Easter long weekend, with both aerial and underwater sweeps planned.
A Bluefin-21 underwater drone is scanning the Indian Ocean seabed, more than 2000 kilometres northwest of Perth, but is yet to find the wreckage.
The JACC also refuted US Navy claims from earlier in the week that the drone would take up to two months to sweep the search area.
In its latest statement, it revealed that the underwater search area has been "significantly narrowed" in recent days.
The drone has also been cleared to reach depths of more than 4.5 kilometres, with a small but acceptable level of risk.
"This expansion of the operating parameters allows the Bluefin-21 to search the sea floor within the predicted limits of the current search area."
But there has been criticism of the Bluefin-21 system, which has to surface to download information for analysis.
Richard Gillespie, who led the search for aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart's plane in the Pacific Ocean has told CNN that the Bluefin-21 "didn't work for us".
The US Navy has offered Australia the use of its Orion-towed search system, which can send back real-time data.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is confident the search is focused on the right area, based on acoustic signals detected by a pinger locator towed by an Australian Navy vessel.
He told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the best leads would be exhausted in about a week.
"If we don't find wreckage, we stop, we regroup, we reconsider," he said.
Saturday will mark six weeks since the disappearance of flight MH370.
AN Australian journalist accused of defaming the Royal Thai Navy remains defiant, saying the case against him risks Thailand's reputation as a democracy.
Alan Morison, 66, formerly of Melbourne, and local reporter Chutima Sidasathien, face prison terms of up to seven years as well as fines of 100,000 baht (A$3,300) if found guilty of criminal defamation and breaches of the Computer Crimes Act.
Both were released on bail on Thursday from holding cells at a Phuket court.
Morison is editor of the online English language news service Phuketwan which last July published a story which carried excerpts from a Reuters report alleging the Thai military was involved in trafficking refugees from Myanmar's ethnic Rohingya minority to Malaysia.
Outbreaks of ethnic conflict in Myanmar in recent years have led to thousands of Rohingya, who are largely denied citizenship in Myanmar, to flee the country.
The Reuters report alleged Thai naval forces and police cooperate with people smugglers to hold Rohingya in camps while ransoms are demanded from their families.
Speaking to AAP soon after his release on bail, Morison said the Thai navy was acting as if its reputation "is much more important than Thailand's reputation as a democracy".
But he also lashed out at Reuters, saying that like the navy, the news agency was putting its reputation "above the principles of media freedom".
"We still have Reuters not really coming out and saying 'this is our paragraph and we'll fight to the death to make sure that everybody who publishes it has the right to (do) so."
Morison believes the charges, filed by the navy, are a "set up" and part of efforts to shut down his website.
Human rights organisations and the media have called for the charges to be dropped.
A spokesman from US-based Human Rights Watch, Brad Adams, called the trial "unjustified".
The navy "should have debated these journalists publicly if they had concerns with the story rather than insisting on their prosecution under the draconian Computer Crimes Act and criminal libel statutes," Mr Adams said.
The Bangkok-based Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand said it shared the view of the UN Human Rights Commissioner "that such a prosecution serves only to stifle media freedom on an issue of profound importance to the rights of a persecuted people".
The next hearing date is set for May 26.
MAN who tried to kill a Brisbane woman in front of her children, beating her with a baseball bat until she lost an eye, jailed for 15 years.
A CONVICTED murderer and an armed robber are on the run after escaping from a correctional centre in Queensland - and here's how they got away.
A bar? A park? Retail space? What's to become of the West End police station? The State Government is tight-lipped, but that's not stopping the real estate chatter.
FEARS Clive Palmer's nickel refinery in Townsville may have leaked contaminated water due to Cyclone Ita's effects.
UPDATE: State tourism minister says Cyclone Ita won't have a negative impact on the industry in far north Queensland.
COMBAT youth unemployment with national service.
That's what Palmer United Party senator-elect Jacqui Lambie suggests.
The former Australian Army soldier who joins the upper house in July wants to see a greater utilisation of military national service.
"You can put them in for 12 months, I'm not saying they sign on for war," she told ABC TV on Monday night.
Such a stint would arm young people with valuable experience for the workforce, Ms Lambie said.
"It's got to be better than being on the dole."
Ms Lambie said she hasn't discussed her plan with party leader Clive Palmer or other PUP colleagues, but wanted to throw the idea into the public arena.
She said volunteer and charity sectors are also crying out for manpower.
"We need to do a bit of tough love," Ms Lambie said.
"If you're not going to go out and volunteer yourself for charity services ... then you know what, it's time to cut your dole back."
The idea does not stretch to conscription, but Ms Lambie said young people should stand for their country.
"If war shows up on our shores then we're in trouble," she added, citing a shortage of military personnel.
US retail sales in March rose by the largest amount in 18 months, led by strong gains in sales of cars, furniture and a number of other products.
The Commerce Department said on Monday that retail sales rose 1.1 per cent in March, the best showing since September 2012. The government also revised February to a 0.7 per cent gain, more than double its previous estimate. Sales had fallen in January and December.
Sales of cars climbed 3.1 per cent while sales at general merchandise stores, a category that covers retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target and department stores, increased 1.9 per cent, the strongest one-month gain since March 2007, before the country went through the recession.
The strong March gain was evidence that the economy is emerging from a harsh winter with some momentum.
The Greens want the Victorian government to start a clean energy fund to make solar panels cheaper. Source: AAP
THE Greens want the Victorian government to establish a state-based clean energy fund to make solar panels more affordable.
Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne call for the creation of a Victorian Solar Fund to help homes and businesses deal with the upfront costs of solar panels.
Senator Milne said the fund would make money for the state and reduce power bills.
"Australia is a leader in solar science but is underinvested in solar power, depriving us of jobs that the community is calling out for," she said on Sunday.
"We can create the financial incentives to put solar panels on roofs, for no money down, delivering immediate savings on electricity bills."
Experts have warned that motorists could be at risk after buying substandard tyres to save money. Source: AAP
EXPERTS have warned that more than a million motorists could be at risk of serious accidents and prosecution after buying substandard used tyres to save money.
New figures show 1.5 million drivers have purchased tyres illegal to use on the road in the UK in the past five years.
Police have responded by waging a campaign against drivers caught with defective tyres. The number of drivers pulled over for using illegal tyres has soared 9 per cent since 2009.
Officers can impose roadside penalties of up to STG100 ($A179) and three penalty points for each substandard tyre.
Despite the law saying used tyres must be stamped "part-worn" to prove that quality control and safety checks have been undertaken, only two out of five people who bought second-hand tyres found them to be appropriately marked.
Inadequate tread can cause skids and significantly increase a vehicle's stopping distance and fuel consumption, according to a report commissioned by insurers LV.
Of the 23 million used tyres sold since 2009, a quarter did not meet safety requirements. The number of trading standards investigations into part-worn tyre dealers has almost doubled in the past five years.
John O'Roarke, managing director of LV car insurance, said: "In the current economic climate, motorists are understandably looking to cut costs wherever they can and buying quality used tyres is one way to do this.
"Unfortunately some second-hand tyres sold do not meet the legal safety requirements and are not fit for the road, putting motorists at risk of a criminal conviction or worse."
