Two women sexually assaulted in Brisbane

TWO women have been sexually assaulted in broad daylight at a northern Brisbane suburb within an hour.

A woman, 21, was assaulted at a bus interchange at Lutwyche about 3.10pm (AEST) on Wednesday.

Less than an hour later, another woman, 19, was attacked in a nearby street.

Police are investigating whether the two assaults are linked.

They want to speak with a man they describe as being of Indian appearance, slim, about 175cm tall with black hair.

He was seen wearing a hooded jumper, jeans, sunglasses and was carrying a bag.

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Apple losing grip on China tablet market

APPLE'S grip on China's tablet market has loosened as Asian tech companies increase sales with cheaper Android tablet computers.

Dickie Chang, senior market analyst at IDC, said on Thursday that Apple supplied 28 per cent of tablet computers in China during the April-June quarter, down from 49 per cent dominance a year earlier.

The iPad maker was still the biggest tablet supplier in China, its key growth engine, but its momentum has slowed.

Chang said South Korea's Samsung Electronics, China's Lenovo, and Taiwan's ASUS and Acer benefited with a surge in their market share.

He said Samsung claimed 11 per cent tablet market share, up from 6 per cent.

China is a key market for consumer technology companies as growth in sales of smartphones and tablets slows in developed countries.

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Tas Labor MP caught in medals furore

A TASMANIAN Labor MP who questioned an opponent's military record has admitted he incorrectly listed his own medals in election material.

Member for Bass Geoff Lyons has issued his second public apology in as many weeks after claiming he held the prestigious Emergency Services Medal.

He has corrected the listing on his website to the National Medal, which he received in 1997 for services to surf life-saving.

"It's a disappointment that I had the name wrong," Mr Lyons told reporters.

"I thought that's what it was, for service in an emergency service, surf life-saving.

"It's been corrected and I apologise for that."

Last week Mr Lyons apologised to Liberal candidate Andrew Nikolic after suggesting the Iraq veteran had spent most of his defence career as a bureaucrat.

The federal opposition seized on his latest mistake, pointing out the Emergency Services Medal had been awarded only 280 times to the National Medal's 175,000.

"A clear pattern of deceit is emerging here from Mr Lyons," Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz said.

The error was reportedly spotted by a voter who checked on Mr Lyons' record.

Polling suggests the incumbent faces a tough battle to hang on to the northern Tasmanian seat, which Labor holds by a margin of 6.7 per cent.

Mr Nikolic, who rose to the rank of Brigadier, has said he does not want his military career to be the focus of the campaign.

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Canadian man missing in remote Qld

A LAND and air search is underway for a young Canadian man left stranded in a remote area of Queensland when his motorcycle ran out of fuel.

The 22-year-old was riding the four-wheeler through scrub and thick bush near the southwest Queensland township of Quilpie when it petered out.

He called police about 6.30pm (AEST) on Tuesday but has not made contact since.

The man has some food and water on him, a police spokesman said.

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NAB on track for $6b profit

National Australia Bank has lifted its June quarter profit and is on track for a $6bn cash profit. Source: AAP

AUSTRALIA'S largest business lender, National Australia Bank, is on track for a $6 billion full year profit, helped along by improvements in its troubled UK division.

NAB posted a cash profit of $1.5 billion for the three months to June, up from $1.4 billion for the same time last year.

Morningstar analyst David Ellis said the bank was on track to deliver a $6 billion cash profit for the 12 months to September.

That would mark a significant improvement on the $5.4 billion cash profit the bank reported last year.

Mr Ellis said the stronger outlook was linked to improvements and reduced bad debt charges from NAB's British operations.

"The big turnaround for 2013 will be a less of a bad result from the UK and that's both in bad debts and net interest margins as well," he said.

NAB was hit with a bad debt charge of $2.6 billion last year but Mr Ellis expects that to be reduced to $2.1 billion this year.

The bank reported a bad debt charge of $498 million for the June quarter, down 10 per cent on a year ago.

Meanwhile, National Australia Bank group chief executive Cameron Clyne said the company had continued to increase its share of the mortgage market, although conditions in the business banking sector remained subdued.

"Operating conditions for business banking are challenging, with ongoing weak confidence and subdued volumes," he said.

NAB said business banking earnings were flat on the quarter with lower revenues.

But cash earnings from the bank's personal banking arm were higher due to the growth in mortgage lending.

Wholesale banking earnings were slightly lower in the quarter due, in part, to reduced customer activity.

Net profit, which includes one-off items, was $1.7 billion for the quarter, up from $1.2 billion last year.

NAB shares were trading 17 cents higher at $31.51.

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N. Korea slams South leader over drill

NORTH Korea has accused South Korean President Park Geun-hye of provocative war-mongering a day after Seoul launched an annual military drill with the US.

Rather than criticising the joint exercise itself - as it has often done in the past - the North focused its anger on comments Park made at a meeting of her National Security Council that coincided with the start of the drill on Monday.

At the meeting, held in an underground bunker, Park made it clear that South Korea should not allow its guard to drop despite a recent easing of tensions with the North.

"No matter how peaceful things are, a crisis would come if we forget about war," Park said.

"It is very important to ensure firm security preparedness in any circumstances," she added.

The 10-day Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise is a largely computer-simulated drill that plays out the scenario of a North Korean invasion.

Pyongyang has bitterly condemned the exercise in the past, but has been muted in its criticism this year following a series of recent breakthroughs in North-South talks on cross-border projects.

Tuesday's denunciation by the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said Park's comments amounted to an "agitation for extreme confrontation" and poured "cold water" on the recent efforts at reconciliation.

"(Seoul) should clearly know that if they continue to pursue confrontation ... (inter-Korea) ties will go back to the worst point, entailing uncontrollably catastrophic consequences," the committee said in a statement.

The statement contained no direct criticism of the military exercise and did not address Park by name, referring only to the South's "chief executive".

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Large projects need 457 workers, says AIG

COMPANIES will struggle to staff large projects like the National Broadband Network (NBN) without importing workers on 457 visas, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

But while hiring temporary foreign workers solves short term problems better programs are needed to train and retain skilled local workers, says Australian Industry Group NSW director Mark Goodsell said.

"The size and nature of the NBN rollout means it does create some challenges," Mr Goodsell told a NSW parliamentary inquiry into skill shortages.

"457 visas and skilled immigration is a really important part of the mix... but it's not a substitute for the nation having a very good skills strategy.

"Skilled migration is sort of the balancing item. It's the tap you can turn on with reliable quality fairly quickly."

What AIG believes Australia needs to meet long term labor shortages is well resourced vocational education programs at schools and TAFEs across NSW.

"(Skilled migrants) aren't a substitute for domestic training," Mr Goodsell said.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard earlier in the year announced a crackdown on alleged rorts of the 457 visa following pressure from unions.

The controversial measures passed parliament in June, requiring employers to prove they searched for Australian staff before hiring temporary workers from overseas on 457 visas.

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Explosives found at Mackay school

HOME-MADE bombs similar to the device that seriously injured a teenage boy have been found on a Queensland high school oval.

A teacher found the devices on the Mackay State High School oval on Monday morning.

Inspector Andy Graham says the devices had been detonated before they were discovered and no one has been hurt.

"We had our local bomb technician go and look at those devices to ensure they are safe," he told reporters.

"They had been exploded so they don't look to be of any danger to anyone."

An exclusion zone has been erected around the school and officers are searching the entire school grounds.

Police are investigating whether the devices are linked to an explosion at a Mackay home on Sunday, which seriously injured the teenage boy.

Two teenage boys were experimenting with explosive household substances when a device they'd made went off.

One of the boys, believed to be 15, suffered severe injuries to his hand, face, chest and throat. The other boy, aged 14, wasn't hurt because he was out of the room when the device exploded.

Queensland Police Assistant Commissioner Mike Condon says explosives in the hands of amateurs are very dangerous.

"Unfortunately you've got a young teenager who will be maimed for the rest of his life through just stupidity," Mr Condon told ABC Radio.

Inspector Graham said the boys were wrapping up some low-level explosive material in insulation tape. They'd planned to explode it by throwing it onto the ground.

"Even though it is low-level stuff and it's readily available around the household it can have catastrophic results," he told ABC Radio.

The injured boy is being transferred to a Brisbane hospital after undergoing surgery at the Mackay Hospital on Sunday night.

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Jailed agent stole trust money to gamble

A SYDNEY real estate agent who laundered nearly $1 million of his clients' money to feed his gambling addiction will spend at least one year behind bars.

Former big-time Surry Hills agent Patrick Scott was jailed this week for siphoning $813,936 from his company trust account, NSW Fair Trading says.

The former LJ Hooker director was the sole signatory of the account, and moved the money into a personal account set aside for betting.

On one occasion he bet $77,000 from the Sportingbet account in a single day.

His total losses over two years amounted to $518,788.

Scott confessed to NSW Fair Trading investigators in November 2011, telling them he had a gambling problem, before handing over his real estate licence.

He was sentenced in Parramatta Local Court on Wednesday to 16 months' jail, with a non-parole period of one year.

Fair Trading commissioner Rod Stowe said the sentence was fair, given the amount of money involved.

"Consumers have the right to have their investments being held in trust by agents kept safe," Mr Stowe said.

"Mr Scott abused this position of trust, by dipping into trust accounts containing hundreds of thousands of dollars belonging to his clients."

Scott's sentencing was part of a wider crackdown on real estate agents.

A Fair Trading spokeswoman told AAP it was investigating 29 other cases.

A trust account is used to hold money on behalf of a client until the funds are needed to complete a sale.

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Egypt Islamists vow new demonstrations

Egyptian Islamists announced fresh demonstrations after police cleared a Cairo mosque of protesters. Source: AAP

EGYPTIAN Islamists have announced fresh demonstrations after police ended a tense stand-off with protesters in a Cairo mosque, as the death toll from four days of violence surpassed 750.

Security forces on Saturday dragged Islamist supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi from the Al-Fath mosque, passing through angry crowds who called them "terrorists" and tried to beat them.

The interior ministry said 385 people inside the mosque had been arrested.

The clashes came as the government said the country's death toll had risen to more than 750 since Wednesday, when police cleared two camps of Morsi loyalists in the capital.

A statement by the Anti-Coup Alliance said several marches would take place in Cairo on Sunday afternoon, continuing the daily campaign of protests in defiance of an intensifying crackdown.

According to an AFP tally, more than 1000 people have been killed since mass demonstrations at the end of June against the unpopular rule of Morsi, accused of concentrating political power in the hands of his Islamist backers and of failing to address economic woes.

He was deposed by the military on July 3 in what his supporters say was an armed "coup d'etat" that deepened splits in an already highly divided society.

Meanwhile, international criticism of the bloodshed mounted, with Germany and Qatar jointly condemning the "brutal violence" and United Nations boss Ban Ki-moon urging "maximum restraint" and "de-escalation" at what he termed a "dangerous moment" for Egypt.

The siege of the Al-Fath mosque in Ramses Square began on Friday, with security forces surrounding the building where Islamists were sheltering and trying to convince them to leave.

The Islamists had lined up the bodies of dozens of protesters who had been killed on Friday inside the mosque-turned-morgue.

By Saturday afternoon, the situation turned violent, with an AFP reporter at the scene saying gunmen inside the mosque were trading fire with police outside.

Police eventually dragged people from inside the mosque, firing in the air to hold back residents who tried to attack the Islamists with sticks and iron bars.

Both outside the mosque and elsewhere in Cairo, residents targeted those suspected of being Islamists, often for no more than wearing a beard or a veil.

The tense siege came at the end of "Friday of anger" demonstrations called by Morsi's supporters that left at least 173 people dead across the country, including 95 in the capital and 25 in Alexandria.

Among those killed on Friday was a son of Mohamed Badie, chief of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement.

The interior ministry said it had arrested 1004 Brotherhood "elements" during the unrest, and on Saturday security sources said the brother of Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri had been detained.

Sources also said one soldier was killed in northern Sinai where militants have launched daily attacks against security forces.

Egypt's interim army-backed government has defended the crackdown, with presidential adviser Mustafa Hegazy saying forces had acted with "a huge amount of self-restraint and self-control".

The cabinet has also insisted the security services were acting to confront a "terrorist plot".

But international criticism poured in on Saturday.

Thousands marched in Turkey against Morsi's ouster, and the Vatican said Pope Francis was following events with "mounting concern."

The United States has announced the cancellation of its biannual military exercise with Egypt, but stopped short of suspending $US1.3 billion ($A1.43 billion) in annual aid.

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