Australian man arrested in Ky. in fake bomb case (AP)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A 50-year-old man was captured Monday while staying with his ex-wife in Kentucky and charged with breaking into an Australian family's home and chaining a fake bomb to a teenage woman's neck, the FBI said.

Paul "Doug" Peters faces charges in Australia that include kidnapping and breaking and entering, said Luke Moore of the New South Wales Police. An FBI SWAT arrested him at a home in an upper-middle-class Louisville suburb, said Elizabeth A. Fries, special agent in charge of the FBI's Kentucky office.

Moore flew from Sydney to Louisville for the arrest, but would not go into detail about what led police to Peters.

"There was a range of pieces of evidence that led us to identify this suspect," he said at a news conference at FBI offices in Louisville.

Peters is an Australian citizen but has lived in the U.S., including Kentucky. His initial court appearance was set for Tuesday in Louisville and the extradition process will take about two months, Fries said.

His capture comes nearly two weeks after 18-year-old Madeleine Pulver was attacked in the wealthy Sydney suburb of Mosman as part of what police say was an extortion attempt.

The Pulvers were relieved to hear of the arrest. William Pulver, CEO of an information technology company, described his daughter as "a bright, happy young woman who for reasons we still don't understand had her life turned upside down going through this dreadful experience."

"These past two weeks have been a very difficult time for us and we are hopeful that this development marks the beginning of the end of this traumatic ordeal for our family," William Pulver told reporters in Sydney, his wife Belinda at his side.

Madeleine Pulver was alone studying for exams when a masked man broke into the house in the middle of the day, chained a device that looked like a bomb to her and left a note with demands before leaving. Moore said the man also tried to kidnap her.

Bomb technicians, negotiators and detectives rushed to the scene. Neighboring homes were evacuated, streets were closed and medical and fire crews waited nearby. Pulver spent 10 terrifying hours chained to the device before the bomb squad was able to free her. She was not hurt, and the device was later found to contain no explosives. Australia's prime minister said the event resembled "a Hollywood script."

Police say a note had been attached to the device, but they haven't released details of what it said.

Peters' ex-wife was not at home at the time of the arrest, and there is no indication she is involved in the case, Moore said.

Her five-bedroom, two-story house, which is on the market for $400,000, is in a quiet subdivision of La Grange, about 30 miles northeast of Louisville. As an FBI investigator combed through items on shelves Monday night in the neat three-car garage, neighbors who declined to identify themselves told The Associated Press that they didn't know Peterses and that they kept to themselves.

A neighbor who refused to give his name said his two daughters were at home doing homework when the SWAT team "came in heavy and hard" to the house next door.

"We had guys with machine guns in our back yard," he said.

No shots were fired and no sirens sounded, he said.

He and his wife estimated that Doug Peters had probably spent about six months out of the last two years at the house. They didn't know him or his ex-wife very well but that there were no problems and that they were both congenial.

Authorities are still investigating why the suspect targeted the young woman, Moore said. Peters had been involved in various businesses but authorities would not elaborate what they were.

"This has been a baffling and frightening experience. It has tested us all," said William Pulver.

___

Associated Press writers Janet Cappiello in Louisville and Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report.

Yahoo! News

Tear gas fired in Australian immigration riots (AFP)

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian police fired tear gas, sound and flash weapons and "bean bag" bullets to quell overnight riots at the troubled Christmas Island immigration detention centre.

Immigration authorities said about 50 detainees were involved in the disturbance, which saw fires lit and police threatened with makeshift weapons at the centre, some 2,600 kilometres (1,600 miles) from Australia's mainland.

"(Police) members made a number of attempts to defuse and de-escalate the situation, but these were not successful," a police spokeswoman told AFP Wednesday.

"Members had cause to deploy a range of use of force options, including less-lethal munitions (such as) bean bag rounds, (tear) gas, and sound and flash distraction devices."

"Bean bag" bullets are small cushions filled with lead shot that are fired from a shotgun, designed to temporarily disable targets.

It is the second time in as many months serious riots have rocked the remote centre, which is the cornerstone of Australia's mandatory detention policy for refugees and home to 600 boat arrivals.

Some of the group escaped their compounds but an immigration spokesman said there was "no breach of the perimeter fence" and police had brought the incident under control without any injuries.

One detainee was arrested and another was still staging a rooftop protest, with police remaining on site, the spokesman added.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said computers in the centre's medical clinic were destroyed and said anyone found guilty of crimes in detention could be shipped home under strict new character laws on visas.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard echoed his warnings.

"If you commit a criminal offence it will count against you," Gillard said.

"You don't get any changes to the process and treatment of your claims by misbehaving."

Australia's immigration facilities are under strain from a record influx of boatpeople last year -- almost 6,900 -- and tensions have run high in crowded centres on both Christmas Island and at Villawood, in Sydney.

Up to 100 detainees rioted on the Indian Ocean island last month, and another 250 were involved in violent protests there in March over the slow processing of asylum claims, with some locked up for 18 months or more.

Nine buildings were torched in wild riots the following month at Villawood that involved up to 100 detainees.

Bowen said 30 people had been charged over those disturbances.

Australia's mandatory detention policy has been criticised by human rights groups and the UN's refugee agency, with depression and suicide major concerns.

Refugees are a thorny issue in Australia, despite their relatively small numbers and the fact that many who arrive in leaky boats from Asia have fled strife in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Iraq.

Canberra has announced a controversial refugee swap with Malaysia in a bid to slow the flow of boats, and Bowen said it had been an effective deterrent though the "operational finer details" were still being hammered out.

"We've already seen a substantial reduction in the number of boat arrivals to Australia in recent times," said Bowen.

"I don't say that the announcement of the Malaysia arrangement is entirely responsible for that (but) clearly our very clear message through the region has had some impact."

Boats fell from 134 last year to 28 in the six months to June 30, carrying 1,675 arrivals.

Yahoo! News

Australian Facebook killer gets life (AFP)

MELBOURNE (AFP) – A vengeful Australian man who wrote on his Facebook page he was "bout to kill ma kid" minutes before stabbing his two-year-old daughter to death was jailed for life on Friday.

Consumed by hatred and a desire to punish his ex-partner Rachelle D'Argent, Ramazan Acar, 24, kidnapped daughter Yazmina from her Melbourne home last November.

The Victorian Supreme Court heard that as well as posting the disturbing Facebook message, Acar sent taunting text messages to D'Argent before killing his daughter.

At the time, he was serving a suspended sentence for assaulting his ex-partner and Justice Elizabeth Curtain said it was a chilling murder and a fundamental breach of trust.

"The victim was your innocent daughter. She was killed by the one man in the world whose (role) was to love, nurture and protect her," Curtain said.

"You committed this murder for the worst possible motive -- revenge and spite. You killed your daughter to get back at her mother."

Acar was jailed for life with a 33-year non-parole period.

Yahoo! News

Tour boat abandons US snorkeler on Australian reef (AP)

SYDNEY – Australian officials said Wednesday they were investigating a dive boat company that accidentally left behind a U.S. tourist snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, forcing the panicked man to swim to another boat for help.

A spokesman for the company denied Ian Cole was ever in danger. But it drew immediate comparisons to the infamous case of Americans Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who died in 1998 after their tour boat left while they were scuba diving on the reef. Officials believe they drowned or were eaten by sharks.

Cole, 28, of Michigan, said he was snorkeling on Saturday when he lifted his head out of the water and realized his tour boat, the Passions of Paradise, was nowhere in sight.

"The adrenalin hit in and I had a moment of panic, which was the worst thing I could have done at that point," Cole told The Cairns Post. "I was able to calm myself just a little bit because there was another boat still out there and I made my way to that vessel. Lucky it was there because otherwise I may have drowned. I did not handle the situation well and I was tired."

A spokeswoman for the state work safety agency, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, confirmed the department was investigating, but declined to comment further.

Passions of Paradise referred calls to Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators executive officer Col McKenzie, who did not immediately return messages from The Associated Press. But he told the Post that Cole was never in danger of drowning, since other boats were nearby.

A staff member who conducted a head count aboard the boat broke the rules by failing to get Cole's signature to confirm he was on board before it left, McKenzie said. The staffer was fired.

Cole's father, Jim Cole, said his son grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan but has been living and working in Australia for about a year and plans to return to the U.S. on July 4.

"Everyone told him, 'You've got to see the Great Barrier Reef,'" Jim Cole said. "He was getting a little touring in before he came home."

Attempts to reach Ian Cole at numbers provided by his father were unsuccessful.

Safety standards for recreational dive boat operators on the reef were strengthened after the Lonergans were abandoned in 1998. Their case inspired the 2003 movie "Open Water."

Still, a handful of reef tourists have found themselves adrift since then. In 2008, a British diver and his American girlfriend became lost when they resurfaced from a dive on the reef and found themselves far away from their dive boat. A helicopter rescued them after they spent 19 hours in the ocean.

___

Associated Press writer Jeff Karoub in Detroit contributed to this report.

Yahoo! News

Police nab Australian cult leader in Fiji raid (AFP)

SYDNEY (AFP) – A fugitive Australian cult leader has been arrested during a raid on a former resort in the South Pacific island nation of Fiji, authorities and reports said Sunday.

Police said Agape Ministries leader Rocco Leo was picked up by Fijian officials a week ago, along with two associates, for alleged visa breaches and remains in detention. It is not known whether he will be deported.

"It's the call of the Fijian authorities as to whether or not they (Rocco Leo and associates) are breaching any immigration laws or not," Detective Superintendent Jim Jeffery told reporters in Adelaide.

"If Fijian authorities determine that they are going to deport Rocco Leo, we will execute that (arrest) warrant," the Adelaide Advertiser reported him as saying.

"And if Rocco Leo is deported back to Australia we will extradite him from whatever state it is back to South Australia to put him before the courts."

In May 2010, Australian police raided 12 properties associated with Agape and netted 15 guns, slow-burning fuses, detonators, extendable batons and 35,000 rounds of ammunition.

Police have previously said they believed the Agape leaders were planning to move their organisation offshore, possibly to a Pacific island country.

Leo had reportedly told his followers they must move to Vanuatu before the end of the world, which he predicts will happen in 2012.

Adelaide's Sunday Mail newspaper said that the fugitive was detained at the former Tiri Villas eco-resort, about 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the Fijian capital Suva.

Yahoo! News

Australian carbon tax cash to flow to families: PM (AFP)

SYDNEY (AFP) – Prime Minister Julia Gillard Sunday moved to reassure Australians that her planned carbon tax would not hurt their finances, saying 90 percent of families would be compensated for higher costs.

Labor leader Gillard has been plunging in the polls since she announced plans for a carbon tax earlier this year, seemingly contradicting an election campaign statement there would be no such tax under her government.

She said Sunday she was determined to tackle climate change by placing a price on carbon pollution, which would be paid by the country's major industrial polluters, and using this money to assist families.

"So I can confirm today that nine out of 10 households will get assistance -- that's seven million Australians getting assistance," Gillard told Channel 10's "Meet The Press" programme.

"We want to help people through tax cuts, through changes to family payments, and of course through pension rises as well.

"And the vast majority of people we assist actually won't pay any price, because of the 0assistance that they receive."

The conservative opposition has attacked the proposal for a carbon tax, which is yet to be finalised, saying it will damage industry and cost jobs, at the same time as raising the daily living expenses of Australians.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott, who has accused Gillard of pushing for a tax for which she has no mandate, has vowed to repeal the carbon levy if elected.

Gillard again defended her decision to push for a fixed price on carbon, after initially ruling it out during the campaign, saying she still intended for it to develop into a cap and trade scheme within three to five years.

"I understand (that) people looking at that statement before the last election would say to themselves: 'She said no carbon tax then -- there's going to be a carbon tax now,'" Gillard said.

"But it's a stepping stone to getting to where I always wanted this nation to get to and what I talked about before the election campaign, which is an emissions trading scheme to tackle climate change."

Yahoo! News

Australian ex-PM denies planning leadership bid (AFP)

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia's ex-prime minister Kevin Rudd has again batted away suggestions he wants to retake the leadership, as his successor Julia Gillard flails in opinion polls a year after taking power.

Labor Party figures are reportedly furious that Rudd, who was brutally ousted by his then deputy Gillard in an internal coup, has given a series of interviews ahead of the one year anniversary of his dumping.

But asked whether he was plotting a comeback, Rudd, now foreign minister, told The Sun-Herald: "Nice try."

"I am set on being the best foreign minister I can be. But nice try."

Gillard led a backroom coup which removed Rudd in June 2010, and shortly afterwards called national elections which resulted in a hung parliament, losing Labor its clear majority.

After narrowly scraping back into power by securing the support of several independents and a Greens MP following 17 days of negotiations, Gillard named Rudd as her foreign minister.

Gillard said Saturday she felt "very secure" in her position, but the nation's first woman prime minister has experienced an unprecedented slump in the polls while Rudd remains popular with the public.

A Nielsen poll published Saturday put support for Labor at 27 percent -- the lowest first-preference share for a major party in the poll's 39-year history -- while dissatisfaction with the prime minister hit 59 percent.

Asked who they preferred as Labor leader, the survey of 1,400 voters overwhelmingly preferred Rudd, who scored 60 percent to Gillard's 31 percent.

But independent lawmaker Rob Oakeshott, whose support is crucial to Gillard's fragile hold on power, said there was no evidence that Rudd would make a leadership comeback.

"Kevin Rudd hasn't been on the phone to me, nor has anyone else," he said.

Oakeshott said Gillard had won his support and that of fellow independents during the long days of negotiations that followed the deadlocked polls and he would not guarantee Labor's hold on power if she was removed.

"My agreement at the time was with the chief negotiator who was left to negotiate by everyone in the Labor Party on her own essentially -- she successfully did that, and my handshake is with her," he told Channel Ten.

"If there is any move to change that, then quite rightly I, and I think the other crossbenchers as well, have the right to consider our options."

Labor Senator Doug Cameron denied tensions within the party, saying the prominence of Rudd, who swept to power in a 2007 landslide which ended more than a decade of conservative rule, was understandable given his position.

"If you're the Foreign Minister of Australia you will have a high profile," he told Sky News. "He's a man of ideas and he'll continue to have a high profile. I just don't think that will go away."

The conservative opposition seized on the reports of Labor divisions, suggesting in a new political advertisement that Rudd wants his old job back.

Opposition MP Christopher Pyne said the Queenslander's media prominence was no accident.

"I've been in this business for long enough to know that when a putative candidate for leader is constantly in the press they are doing everything they can to remove the current person in the job, not making their life easier," he said.

"The only thing Kevin Rudd hasn't done is ride a unicycle into Question Time blowing on a vuvuzela, demanding the leadership back."

Yahoo! News

Afghan soldier fatally shoots Australian mentor (AP)

CANBERRA, Australia – An Afghan soldier has shot dead his Australian mentor, a puzzling death that Australia's leader said Tuesday would not weaken the nation's commitment to its military role in Afghanistan despite an expected public backlash.

Army Lance Cpl. Andrew Gordon Jones, 25, had been on guard duty with his killer at a forward patrol base in the Chora Valley in Uruzgan province on Monday when the Afghan opened fire then fled, officials said.

No details of the killer's motive have been released. He was being hunted by his Afghan National Army colleagues, officials say.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the death would puzzle and anger many Australians. She said while hundreds of Afghan National Army soldiers had been trained by the Australian task force, none had ever turned on his mentors before.

"I understand on hard days like this one, the Australian community does question our involvement in Afghanistan — I think that's very natural and very understandable too," Gillard told Parliament.

"To Australian community members who are asking themselves that question, it is in our nation's interest to continue our deployment to Afghanistan, to see our mission through, to make sure that Afghanistan does not again become a safe haven for terrorist training," she added.

The death was one of two Australian fatalities on Monday that brought Australia's toll in the conflict to 26.

The second fatality was 27-year-old Lt. Marcus Sean Case, who was killed when a Chinook helicopter crashed while on a resupply mission 56 miles (90 kilometers) east of the Australian base in Tarin Kot in Uruzgan.

Australia has 1,550 soldiers in Afghanistan with a primary focus on training an Afghan National Army battalion to take responsibility for security in restive Uruzgan.

Australia, the largest military contributor to the U.S.-led alliance in Afghanistan outside NATO, plans to start withdrawing troops once the Afghan battalion is fully trained as early as next year.

The Greens party, whose support is crucial to Gillard's Labor Party maintaining power, on Tuesday called for Australian troops to withdraw by the end of this year.

"We should bring our troops home safely to our shore to be better deployed in Australia's interests," Greens leader Sen. Bob Brown told reporters as he offered condolences to the families of the soldiers who were killed.

Australia joined the U.S.-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, but opinion polls show that public support for the campaign has waned over the years as the death toll has mounted and victory proved elusive.

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Australian robots have learned to talk the talk (Reuters)

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) – They're not discussing the latest celebrity gossip or passing on stock tips just yet, but Australian robots have begun talking to each other -- and in a language of their own devising.

The two "Lingodroids," developed by the University of Queensland, have picked up their shared language by playing location games that led them to construct a shared vocabulary for places, distances and directions.

"In their current state all they can talk about is spatial concepts, which I think is pretty cool as a starting point," said Ruth Schulz, director of the project. "But the important part is that they are forming these concepts, they are starting to really understand what words mean and this is actually all up to the robots themselves."

Schulz describes the robots as "basically a laptop on wheels," but each is equipped with sonar, a camera, a laser range finder, microphones and speakers that allow them to speak to each other as they move around and map out their environment in "where are we" games.

With a small whirring sound the robots whiz around the maze-like office environment, negotiating obstacles such as desks and chairs and beeping when they are within hearing distance of each other.

Communicating through the beeps, the robots have an internal lexicon table that associates experiences, where they think they are in the overall map of the office, and place names they already know.

When a robot finds an area without a name it randomly generates a word for it. When the robots talk to each other, they tell the other robot about the area they have discovered, slowly building up an agreed lexicon. So far, the robot language includes words such as "pize," "jaya" and "kuzo." The research has proved so advanced that each robot can direct the other robot to a chosen location in the office, using only their shared language.

Schulz hopes the project will progress still further, with the next phase likely to be robots interacting with objects, such as by gripping them, and not just spatial concepts. "The long term vision is robots that you can use in a domestic environment, a sort of you know, real people interacting with real robots in a natural way," she said. Robots currently being used in households are reliant on button pushing, but Schulz feels this must be carried further so communication becomes more natural. "You don't want to be pressing buttons to communicate with your robot in the home that you just want to clean your kitchen," she said.

"If you want it to clean your kitchen, you just have to say, 'can you please clean my kitchen.'"

(Editing by Elaine Lies)

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Australian doctor accused of infecting patients (AP)

SYDNEY – An Australian doctor was charged Friday with endangering his patients' lives after police alleged he infected nearly 50 women with hepatitis C at an abortion clinic.

James Latham Peters, 61, who worked as an anesthesiologist at the Melbourne clinic, was charged with 54 counts each of conduct endangering life, negligently causing serious injury and recklessly causing serious injury. The most serious charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Peters was released on 250,000 Australian dollars ($267,000) bail when he appeared briefly in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.

He was not required to enter pleas to the charges, which relate to 49 patients at the clinic who health officials say contracted the same strain of hepatitis C as Peters between 2008 and 2009.

Hepatitis C can cause serious liver problems, including cirrhosis and cancer. It is spread through the blood.

Police have not released details on how they believe the disease was transmitted. But Bram Alexander, a spokesman for the Victoria state Department of Health, said officials with the department closely investigated all the infection control procedures at the clinic and didn't find any problems with them.

"That's precisely why, back in early last year, we referred these matters to the police for further investigation — because our investigation could find no plausible reason as to why the infection took place," Alexander said.

Peters had his registration suspended in February 2010.

Under his bail conditions, Peters must not work in any medical- or health-related field and must not contact staff at a number of medical centers where he previously worked, including the abortion clinic. He was also required to surrender his passport.

Health officials tested more than 4,000 of Peters' patients during their investigation, and found 49 who were infected with a strain of the virus genetically linked to his.

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Tiger bites handler at Australian theme park (AFP)

SYDNEY (AFP) – A Bengal tiger bit one of its handlers at an Australian theme park on Sunday, with paramedics treating the man for five deep puncture wounds to his thigh and upper calf.

The animal, named "Kato", was being led to the Tiger World natural habitat at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast when he lunged.

Staff at the park, popular with overseas tourists, said it was just "a nip" and the handler should be back at work in a few days.

"The handler's taken a bit longer than the tiger would have liked and has given him just a little nip on the thigh," Dreamworld spokeswoman Melinda Lloyd said.

"The tiger's just nipped, but because of the natural bite force of a tiger it's gone through his skin and muscle there.

"If the tiger wanted to attack the handler, it would have been a lot worse. This is just the tiger saying 'let's move things along'."

The amusement park will conduct an internal investigation into the incident.

"Kato", who was born in captivity, has been at Dreamworld for 10 years.

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Fire at Australian factory ignites gallons of oil (AP)

MELBOURNE, Australia – Firefighters have brought a massive fire at a Melbourne petrochemical factory under control after it ignited tens of thousands of gallons (liters) of mineral oil.

The blaze started Thursday on the outskirts of the Australian city, setting off explosions and sending massive fire balls into the air. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. says it raced through 130,000 gallons (500,000 liters) of mineral oil. Firefighters feared at one point that it would reach massive drums holding motor oil.

Country Fire Authority spokesman Gerard Scholten said Friday that they were continuing to hose down those tanks to keep the fire from restarting there.

Scholten urged residents of nearby towns to stay indoors as much as possible, even though he denied the fumes were toxic.

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Fire at Australian factory ignites gallons of oil (AP)

MELBOURNE, Australia – Firefighters have brought a massive fire at a Melbourne petrochemical factory under control after it ignited tens of thousands of gallons (liters) of mineral oil.

The blaze started Thursday on the outskirts of the Australian city, setting off explosions and sending massive fire balls into the air. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. says it raced through 130,000 gallons (500,000 liters) of mineral oil. Firefighters feared at one point that it would reach massive drums holding motor oil.

Country Fire Authority spokesman Gerard Scholten said Friday that they were continuing to hose down those tanks to keep the fire from restarting there.

Scholten urged residents of nearby towns to stay indoors as much as possible, even though he denied the fumes were toxic.

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.