Rider critical, man charged after SA crash

A MOTORCYCLIST has been critically injured in a collision with an alleged drink-driver in Adelaide.

Police say the driver performed a burnout in his Holden sedan in a service station at Seaview Downs on Saturday afternoon before colliding with the motorcycle on the road.

The rider was taken to the Flinders Medical Centre in a critical but stable condition.

The driver, a Dover Gardens man, 62, was breath-tested at the scene.

Police allege he returned a reading of .178, more than three-and-a-half times the legal limit.

He has been charged with aggravated driving without due care, drink driving and causing injury by dangerous driving.

It's expected he will be bailed to appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court at a later date.

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Rebels kill 12 in anti-election campaign

Police say Maoist rebels have killed 12 people in two separate attacks in India. Source: AAP

POLICE say Indian Maoist rebels killed 12 people in two separate attacks in the central state of Chhattisgarh as they continue a campaign of violence aimed at disrupting a five-week national election.

Police Director General A.N. Upadhyay says a land mine set by the rebels exploded Saturday and killed five election officials and two bus drivers travelling from Kutru to Bijapur before planned balloting there next week. The blast also injured four people.

In another attack, the rebels killed five paramilitary soldiers travelling in the remote Darbha Forest.

The rebels have also asked voters to boycott the polls. They have been fighting since the 1960s for a greater share of natural wealth and more jobs for the poor. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called them India's greatest internal security threat.

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NT by-election win for Country Libs

THE Northern Territory's Country Liberals government has held on to the seat of Blain, ensuring it won't have to govern from a minority position.

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Abbott briefs President Xi on MH370 search

The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has detected a new signal that is being analysed. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has briefed Chinese President Xi Jinping about the search for missing aircraft MH370, warning him there could be a long and painstaking road ahead.

Mr Abbott on Friday updated President Xi on the Australian-led search effort for the Malaysia Airlines plane in the Indian Ocean during a bilateral meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

The prime minister said Australian authorities had very much narrowed down the search area to some kilometres after receiving "strong detections" from what they're confident is the plane's black box.

But he didn't mince words, warning his Chinese counterpart there was still a long way to go.

"This will be a very long, slow and painstaking process," he said.

Mr Abbott's comments came after a day of somewhat mixed messages from authorities leading the search for MH370, which has been missing for five weeks, since March 8.

The prime minister told business leaders in Shanghai on Friday that the search in the Indian Ocean was narrowing.

"We are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within some kilometres," Mr Abbott said.

However, those comments appeared to be contradicted a short time later by Australian search coordinator, retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who indicated there was little change in the search area.

"On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370," Mr Houston said.

He said signals apparently detected by an Australian search aircraft on Thursday were ruled not to have come from a black box flight recorder.

The Joint Agency Coordination Centre issued a statement on Friday morning saying the search area still totalled 46,713 square kilometres - vastly different from Mr Abbott's statement.

Nonetheless, there remains strong hope that the flight's all-important black box recorder could be found.

Its batteries are expected to expire soon, so time remains critical.

The Australian vessel Ocean Shield has to date recorded four signals that are believed to have come from at least a black box recorder.

The Ocean Shield on Friday was in an area about 2200km northwest of Perth continuing sweeps of its pinger locator to detect further signals.

Orion aircraft were also continuing acoustic searches.

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Cyclone Ita makes landfall

DESTRUCTIVE winds are battering far north Queensland after Cyclone Ita crossed the coast at Cape Flattery, more than 300km north of Cairns.

The category four cyclone made landfall around 9pm with winds of up to 230 kilometres an hour at its core.

Gales stretched 185 kilometres from the centre and powerful wind gusts of more than 125km/hr are expected between Cape Melville and Cooktown on Friday night and as far south as Port Douglas by Saturday morning.

Residents have been warned that properties built before 1985 may not withstand the powerful winds.

Hundreds have left their homes for cyclone shelters.

About 800 people - more than half the town's population - in Hope Vale, 50km northwest of Cooktown, have sought refuge in the local cyclone shelter.

Hope Vale Mayor Greg McLean thinks the eye of the storm passed over the town.

"The wind has been picking up and it's started going for it over the last half an hour," he told AAP after Ita crossed the coast.

"It's like the wind is roaring."

At least one roof has been torn from a house in Cooktown, which is being battered by strong gales and heavy rain.

Cooktown Mayor Peter Scott says winds up to 125km/h are ripping though the small town.

"Here's hoping we don't see any more damage," he said.

Queensland's Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Alasdair Hainsworth said Cooktown can expect stronger winds soon.

"The average wind speed has not yet reached gale force but it's not far short and we're seeing very heavy rain, 40mm in the last couple of hours," he said.

The power has been cut and about 320 people are gathered in the town's cyclone shelter, while some have taken refuge in local pubs.

There's a possibility that Ita could track south close to the coast, bringing wind gusts of 150km/h to Cairns on Saturday.

Coastal residents between Cape Flattery and Cape Tribulation, including Cooktown, are being warned of the dangerous storm tide.

"The sea is likely to rise steadily up to a level which will be significantly above the normal tide, with damaging waves, strong currents and flooding of low-lying areas extending some way inland," the bureau says.

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Prosecutor grills Pistorius over testimony

Brumbies win to leave Reds on brink

THE Brumbies have withstood a second-half onslaught by a transformed Queensland pack to put the Reds' Super Rugby finals hopes on the brink.

A chilling look inside Chernobyl

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Don't get dudded on refunds

YOUR chances of getting a refund are greatly improved if you keep good records. But some companies won't budge — even when presented with irrefutable proof.

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New signal detected in plane search

The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will resume with up to 14 planes and 13 ships. Source: AAP

AN Australian aircraft involved in the hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 has picked up a possible fifth signal in the search zone where previous signals consistent with the plane's black box were detected.

An RAAF AP-3C Orion aircraft, which had been dropping buoys dangling microphones, detected a signal in the vicinity of the vessel Ocean Shield on Thursday afternoon.

"The acoustic data will require further analysis overnight but shows potential of being from a man-made source," retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said in a statement from the Joint Agency Coordination Centre.

Royal Australian Navy Commodore Peter Leavy said each sound-locating buoy was dangling a hydrophone listening device about 300 metres below the surface.

The naval ship Ocean Shield detected two signals on Tuesday after another two were picked up on the weekend.

Thursday's search of 57,923 square kilometres by 14 planes and 13 ships was the smallest yet in the month-long hunt.

Ocean Shield meanwhile continues to tow a special US Navy "towed pinger locator" slowly through the water hoping to find the signals again and get a fix on the location.

The black box batteries are due expire as they have about a 30-day life and the flight disappeared on March 8.

Earlier this week, Mr Houston said once the battery was declared expired, the automated underwater vessel Bluefin-21 would be deployed to relaying side-scan sonar data and images from the silty sea floor some 4.5km from the surface.

The search continues for debris on the surface of the ocean, although none of the objects found so far have had any connection with MH370, which disappeared with 239 people on board.

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Copyright allegations 'false': Dotcom

Megaupload's Kim Dotcom says claims that his website encouraged copyright infringement are false. Source: AAP

ALLEGATIONS made by six major Hollywood film studios that file-sharing website Megaupload was designed to profit from copyright infringement are "completely false", its New Zealand-based founder Kim Dotcom says.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced earlier this week that 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros had filed a lawsuit against Megaupload and its key operators - including Dotcom - in a US court.

It's alleged the now defunct website facilitated, encouraged and profited from massive copyright infringement of movies and television shows before the website was shut down by US authorities in January 2012.

MPAA global general counsel Steven Fabrizio says Megaupload was never designed to be a cloud storage website and users were rewarded for uploading popular content.

The MPAA says Megaupload users were paid based on how many times the content was downloaded by others.

But Dotcom told Radio New Zealand these allegations are "completely false".

Megaupload wouldn't allow rewards to be paid for files that were bigger than 100MB and movies and television shows that were downloaded were much larger than this, Dotcom said.

Mr Fabrizio denied that the MPAA is making an example of Dotcom and Megaupload.

"We are trying to bring some justice to a site that existed for the purpose of engaging in massive copyright infringement," he said.

Dotcom is already facing extradition to the US on charges of copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering relating to Megaupload.

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More relocatable units for Vic prisons

MORE shipping container-style "relocatable units" are being rolled out to boost the capacity of Victoria's prison system.

The Victorian government has announced another 27 units will be installed by August at two correctional facilities near Geelong, a gain of 81 medium-security beds.

"Relocatable units are already providing an important, immediate boost to capacity in Victoria's corrections system, and today's announcement will build on this," Corrections Minister Edward O'Donohue said on Wednesday.

"The security and design of the units will be consistent with the standard security accommodation already at Fulham and Marngoneet prisons."

The government has previously likened the units - which each house three inmates - to mining camp accommodation and has also pointed to their use in prisons in Western Australia, South Australia and New Zealand.

Expansion plans for Victoria's Loddon Prison, announced in March, include 15 of the units.

The government says it has added 1000 prison beds since 2011 with another 2500 in the pipeline, including the 1000-bed prison under construction at Ravenhall in Melbourne's west.

However, Community and Public Sector organiser Andrew Capp said the use of relocatable units, known as "dongaS", was inadequate because the doors could be prised open.

"The government is increasing the escape risks at the prisons that use these dodgy Dongas putting officers the community and other prisoners at risk," he said.

Mr Capp said Corrections Victoria had re-classified medium-security prisoners in walled prisons to those in lower security levels so they could be shifted to the units without fences at Dhurringile, Beechworth and Langi Kal Kal, and issued with monitoring bracelets that were not reliable.

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Great Wall's SUVs to be made in Malaysia

Premier ditches trade trip to meet cyclone threat

UPDATE: Premier Campbell Newman is abandoning his Asian trade mission to return to Queensland and help the State prepare for Cyclone Ita.

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Last thing you want under your pillow

IT'S the stuff of nightmares: climbing into bed, only to discover a snake got there first. It was a horrifying reality for one Brisbane boy this week. Check the video

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'Drug kingpin' extradited to Coast

THE alleged kingpin of a massive drug operation smashed by Gold Coast police has landed in Queensland to face charges.

QLD News

Seeney: 'No case' in $5k scandal

DEPUTY Premier Jeff Seeney has defended Premier Campbell Newman, saying he has no case to answer over a $5000 donation scandal.

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Morcombe killer appeals conviction

LAWYERS for Brett Cowan, the man convicted of Daniel Morcombe's murder, have filed a notice of appeal.

QLD News

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