N. Korea carries out apparent nuclear test

North Korea has pulled manpower and equipment out of its nuclear test site, a report says. Source: AAP

NORTH Korea has staged an apparent nuclear test in a striking act of defiance that, if confirmed, is sure to trigger global condemnation from enemies and allies alike.

Regional seismic monitoring agencies detected a seismic event, of a magnitude between 4.9 and 5.1, at 11.57am (1357 AEDT) on Tuesday with the epicentre in the same location as the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

China's Earthquake Administration said it was a "suspected explosion", while South Korean and Japanese agencies concluded that the tremor was the result of a possible nuclear test.

"At this point, the seismic activity ... appears to indicate a nuclear test by North Korea," the South's Yonhap news agency cited an unidentified foreign ministry official as saying.

The US Geological Survey noted the tremor had a very shallow depth of just one kilometre.

The South Korean defence ministry and the presidential Blue House both said they were trying to verify whether a nuclear detonation had taken place.

Pyongyang has been threatening a nuclear test for weeks despite warnings of severe repercussions from the UN Security Council.

If confirmed, it would mark the third time the North has detonated a nuclear device, following previous tests in 2006 and 2009.

It would throw down a stark security and diplomatic challenge to US President Barack Obama at the start of his second term, and to regional neighbours China, Japan and South Korea, all of which have new or incoming leaders.

The first priority for the international community will be determining the precise nature and yield of any test and what it reveals about the technical level of the North's nuclear weapons program.

Pyongyang's promise of a "higher level" test had fuelled speculation it would be of a uranium device, compared to the plutonium ones detonated in 2006 and 2009.

A uranium test would confirm suspicions that the North has been secretly enriching weapons-grade uranium for years and would open a path for Pyongyang to significantly expand its small nuclear arsenal.

Some experts had suggested a simultaneous test of both a plutonium and a uranium device.

Even with sophisticated seismic monitoring and "sniffer" planes capable of detecting radioactive fallout, external analysis will provide only limited information on the test, especially if it was well-contained.

There will be particular concern at any sign that the North has made progress in the technically complex process of "miniaturising" a bomb to fit on the head of a long-range missile.

Proven miniaturisation ability would take on added significance in the wake of December's rocket launch which marked a major step forward in ballistic prowess.

Pyongyang had announced its nuclear test plan as a defiant response to a UN Security Council resolution that condemned the launch as a disguised ballistic missile experiment and tightened sanctions.

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Feds must admit hospital cuts: Vic

THE commonwealth must admit it has cut funding to Victorian hospitals as both sides prepare to meet over the dispute, Premier Ted Baillieu says.

Mr Baillieu said a claim Victoria's emergency departments were deprived of $12 million of federal government funding this month because his government had failed to submit the required paperwork was "ridiculous".

"We have complied with all the requirements of the agreement and there is no reason for the government to withhold any money from Victoria and there is no reason for (Prime Minister) Julia Gillard to withdraw $107 million in this financial year alone from Victorian hospitals," he told reporters on Tuesday.

"It is a ridiculous claim. All they're doing is hurting patients and hurting families."

The state government has accused the federal government of using an incorrect estimate of Victorian population figures to slash $475 million from the state's health budget over four years.

But the federal government says the performance of the state's hospitals is getting worse despite increasing Commonwealth funding to Victoria by $900 million over the next four years.

Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek and Victorian Health Minister David Davis will hold further talks in Canberra on Wednesday, after a brief meeting in Melbourne earlier this month failed to find a solution to the issue, which has resulted in hundreds of beds being closed and thousands of elective surgeries being delayed.

Mr Baillieu said the federal government should reverse its decision.

"The health minister in Canberra ought to admit in the first instance that they announced these funding cuts in November and to seek to deny them now is just a ridiculous claim," he said.

"The Victorian government has honoured all its budget commitments in regard to hospitals, the commonwealth have walked away from their budget commitments.

"They should reverse the decision.

"That's the only outcome which is going to serve the people of Victoria."

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UN pushes talks as battles rage in Syria

SYRIAN rebels have launched fierce assaults on government troops in several parts of the country, as a UN envoy urged the leader of the opposition to seek dialogue with the Damascus regime.

There were reports of tension between rival rebel groups in the rebel-held northwest of the country, where witnesses say local fighters faced off with a hardline Islamist group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects reports from a network of activists and medics in civilian and military hospitals on the ground, said at least 50 people were killed in violence across Syria on Sunday.

UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Sunday and urged him to keep seeking dialogue with the Damascus government, the UN said.

Brahimi repeated his backing for Khatib's push for talks and "encouraged the Coalition to continue in this direction", said a UN statement.

Riad Seif, vice president of the National Coalition, was also present at the meeting.

Khatib said in late January he was prepared to hold direct talks with regime representatives who did not have "blood on their hands", provided replacing President Bashar al-Assad was on the agenda.

Damascus has said it is open to talks but with no pre-conditions.

On the ground, rebels used tanks to shell Brigade 113, just north of the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, the Observatory said.

Surrounded for weeks now, Brigade 113 and the besieged military airport of Deir Ezzor are some of the last regime holdouts in the city, part of a province largely held by the rebels.

The opposition Deir Ezzor press network, a grassroots group of activists, reported increasingly desperate conditions there.

"The western countryside is out of water and electricity supplies for the 11th day in a row due to the indiscriminate shelling by the regime forces," it said.

In the northeast province of Raqa, fighters from the jihadist Al-Nusra Front and other rebel battalions took over an army company in Tabqa along the Euphrates river.

They secured a major cache of artillery and ammunition, and captured a key checkpoint in the town, the Observatory said.

Rebels kept up their assault on Wadi Deif military base, a major regime holdout in the largely rebel-held northwest province of Idlib. The army retaliated by shelling the nearby town of Maaret al-Numan.

Elsewhere in Idlib province however, witnesses reported growing tension between the hardline Al-Nusra Front fighters and other rebels.

Near Atme, local fighters and Al-Nusra almost started fighting when the Islamists attempted to try a man in an Islamic court for swearing, witnesses told AFP.

Locals kidnapped an Al-Nusra leader, put a grenade in his mouth and cut off his beard, before releasing him a few days later, they added.

The hardline Al-Nusra Front group has claimed the bulk of the deadly suicide bombings that have rocked Syria since its March 2011 uprising against Assad.

It has a number of foreign fighters and is believed to be closely linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq, and has been blacklisted as a terrorist organisation in the US.

In the northern province of Aleppo four soldiers were killed and more than 20 wounded in a bombing by the Al-Nusra Front targeting a military building, the Observatory said.

Rebels also attacked an army convoy south of Aleppo city, and a cement plant in the central Hama province killing five guards.

In the capital Damascus, a blast near a police station injured two civilians, while a mortar hit the nearby Shahbandar Square causing no injuries, the Observatory said.

The United Nations estimates that more than 60,000 people have been killed since the revolt against Assad's regime began in March 2011.

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SA won't budge on business taxes

THE South Australian government won't entertain cutting business taxes if it means ordinary working families pay more, Premier Jay Weatherill says.

Key business groups in SA have called for tax reform including cuts to stamp duties and payroll tax.

They have also suggested a review of the GST to increase revenue flowing to the states.

In its submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the state's tax system, the Motor Trade Association (MTA) said changes were needed to encourage growth.

"We are the highest taxing state on business, rather than being a state which is attracting more businesses to add more revenue," MTA chief executive John Chapman said.

"And the best way to attract more businesses to South Australia, is by making our tax system more competitive with the other states."

But Mr Weatherill said big business wanted to shift the burden of taxation to ordinary working families.

"We won't co-operate with them. It's as simple as that," he said.

The premier said all of the services that people wanted, including health care or police, had to be funded through government revenue.

"The revenue comes from the taxation that big business is complaining about," he said.

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NSW must act on Gonski reforms: unions

AROUND 60 parents, teachers and principals have gathered in Sydney to pressure the NSW government to act on the recommendations of the Gonski review.

The action is part of the Australian Education Union's (AEU) national campaign, involving television and newspaper advertising and sponsored green-coloured Gonski buses which are running in western Sydney, the Central Coast and Brisbane.

The AEU wants the states and the commonwealth to agree on a funding model for the Gonski reforms before the next Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in April.

"We're calling on the state government and Premier Barry O'Farrell to put politics aside and start negotiating for funding reform," AEU president Angelo Gavrielatos told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.

"Let the negotiations commence against a backdrop of commitment to invest, which thus far has been lacking from Barry O'Farrell.

Federal Minister for School Education, Peter Garrett, joined the rally in Sydney, to back calls for an urgent deal.

"We have had slow negotiations with the states around identifying those details of a national plan for school improvement," Mr Garrett told reporters.

"We need to see states coming to the table to deliver and commit," he said.

Mr Garrett said the federal government is also prepared to allocate additional funding for education to the states, as long as they commit to the funding model for the Gonski reforms.

"If we don't successfully negotiate, Australian students around the country will be worse off."

The Gonski review outlined a new model for funding schools and set an ambitious goal of increasing spending on education by about $6.5 billion.

Victoria and Western Australia say the plan lacks details, which is a threat to achieving education reforms.

NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli says his state remains strongly in favour of Gonski but he is furious the Commonwealth and unions have politicised the issue.

"The Commonwealth is obviously intent on turning school funding into a political football during an election year," Mr Piccoli said in a statement on Sunday.

He said Mr Garrett had no additional details to share when he called education ministers to Sydney on February 1, to discuss Gonski.

Mr Piccoli said the federal government had been stalling on the issue for over a year and it was time the states were given more details on the funding arrangements.

"Minister Garrett should spend more time working on an offer and less time staging bogus political stunts," he said.

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Two die after car flips into Qld creek

A WOMAN and a young boy have died and two people are in hospital after a car flipped and crashed into a creek in north Queensland.

Police say four people were travelling in the car on the Bruce Highway, north of Proserpine, about 7.20am (AEST) on Sunday.

The car skidded off the road before flipping over and landing on its roof in Greta Creek.

A woman, aged 50, died at the scene and three other passengers were taken to hospital.

A four-year-old boy died later in hospital.

Two other passengers, a man aged 40 and an 18-year-old woman, are receiving treatment.

A report will be prepared for the coroner.

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Gillard has a bite of bet-losing NZ apple

UPHOLDING her end of a two-year-old bet on the Rugby World Cup has left a bitter taste in the mouth of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Ms Gillard made a bet with New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key on the outcome of the 2010 Rugby World Cup - a deal that would see the leader of whichever country lost eat an apple from the winning country.

Luckily for Mr Key, the All Blacks reigned supreme.

The bet was symbolic of the end of Australia's 90-year ban on New Zealand apples, following a World Trade Organisation ruling that it must allow imports.

Ms Gillard finally honoured the bet during dinner with Mr Key, his wife Bronagh, and Ms Gillard's partner Tim Mathieson in Queenstown, New Zealand, on Friday night.

"I'd have to say, of course, Australian apples are better," Ms Gillard said.

She added that Mr Key had tried to serve her New Zealand apples on multiple occasions.

The two leaders laughed over the bet when they posed with the Cricket World Cup trophy in Queenstown on Saturday.

The two countries will share hosting rights to the event in 2015.

Despite the New Zealand Black Caps' poor performance of late, Mr Key said he was hopeful they could take out the cup in two years' time, but admitted Australia was in a stronger position.

While Ms Gillard was backing the Aussie side, she said she would not be making any more bets on sport with Mr Key.

"I think I've learnt my lesson," she told media, with a laugh.

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'Unbalanced' woman vandalises Delacroix

FRENCH police are holding a mentally "unbalanced" woman after an attack on one of France's most iconic paintings, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People.

The incident happened at the recently opened northern satellite of the Louvre museum, in Lens, northern France, when a visitor scrawled on the painting with a black marker.

It was not believed to have caused any permanent damage.

Prosecutors in the town said that after having received a psychiatric report on the 28-year-old woman, they would probably have her committed on Saturday.

The attack on the painting happened on Thursday evening, just before the 6pm closing time.

A security guard apprehended the woman with the help of a visitor to the museum.

The attacker scrawled "AE911" on the painting.

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) is a US group that supports a conspiracy theory that New York's World Trade Center collapsed as the result of a controlled demolition after the September 11 attacks of 2001.

Local prosecutor Philippe Peyroux said: "We are leaning towards hospitalising her immediately in a psychiatric facility given that the psychiatrist appointed by the prosecutors concluded that she is not criminally responsible."

The Louvre said specialists had already been able to completely remove the approximately 30-centimetre mark on the bottom right of the painting.

"The integrity of the work has not been affected, as the inscription was superficial and remained on the varnished surface without reaching the layer of paint," the museum said in a statement.

In the United States the founder of the AE911Truth group, Richard Gage, told AFP: "I was shocked and horrified to learn of this senseless act of vandalism.

"I sincerely hope that this unbalanced person is not in any way associated with our numerous volunteers in France."

The painting by Eugene Delacroix commemorates France's July Revolution of 1830.

It shows a bare-breasted woman personifying Liberty leading the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the French tricolour in one hand and a bayoneted musket in the other.

The wing housing the painting was closed on Friday but expected to reopen Saturday.

The woman would have faced up to seven years in prison and a 100,000 euro ($A131,000) fine if found criminally responsible and convicted of defacing a cultural object.

Prosecutors did not release the woman's identity, but said she was unemployed, had a master's degree and did not have a criminal record.

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'Horse lasagne' sparks new UK food scare

Testing on Findus lasagne in the UK has revealed that some of the ready meals contain horsemeat. Source: AAP

BRITISH authorities have warned the public not to eat beef lasagne sold by the Findus brand and made in France after tests found it contained up to 100 per cent horse meat.

In the latest in a string of food scares in Britain, the Food Standards Agency said that "criminal activity" was likely to blame and ordered further tests on the meat for a veterinary drug.

Findus tested 18 of its beef lasagne products manufactured by supplier Comigel in France and found 11 meals containing 60 per cent to 100 per cent horse meat, the agency said.

"Findus withdrew the beef lasagne products after its French supplier, Comigel, raised concerns about the type of meat used in the lasagne," the agency said in a statement.

The agency said tests on the lasagne were ordered "as part of its ongoing investigation into mislabelled meat."

"We have no evidence to suggest that this is a food safety risk."

But it said it had ordered further tests on the suspect lasagne for the veterinary drug phenylbutazone, as animals treated with it are not allowed to enter the food chain in Britain.

The agency's chief executive Catherine Brown said it was an "appalling" situation".

"I have to say that the two cases of gross contamination that we see here indicates that it is highly likely there has been criminal and fraudulent activity involved," she told BBC news.

She added: "We are demanding that food businesses conduct authenticity tests on all beef products, such as beef burgers, meatballs and lasagne, and provide the results to the FSA.

"The tests will be for the presence of significant levels of horse meat."

Findus UK apologised to customers.

"We understand this it is a very sensitive subject for consumers and we would like to reassure you we have reacted immediately. We do not believe this to be a food safety issue," a spokesman said.

The spokesman added that "fully compliant beef lasagne will be in stores again soon."

It is the latest horsemeat-related scare after horse DNA was found two weeks ago in beefburgers in Britain and Ireland, countries where horse meat consumption is generally taboo.

Two weeks ago, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) had revealed that up to 29 per cent of the meat content of some beefburgers was in fact horse, while they also found pig DNA.

The frozen burgers were on sale in high-street supermarket chains Tesco and Iceland in both Britain and Ireland, and in Irish branches of Lidl, Aldi and Dunnes Stores.

The consumption of horse meat is more common in parts of Europe including France and in central Asia, China and Latin America.

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Coal trains halted as workers walk off job

HUNDREDS of coal haulage workers have walked off the job for 48 hours after union negotiations with Pacific National over a new enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) collapsed.

Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) members employed at Pacific National, Australia's largest private rail freight business, stopped work at noon (AEDT) on Friday for 48 hours.

About 800 staff, including train drivers and terminal operators, are striking after EBA negotiations between the RTBU and Pacific National broke down.

The union has been negotiating with Pacific National for more than 12 months.

RTBU national secretary Bob Nanva said the company had forced the union into taking the industrial action.

"Pacific National have refused to budge despite 290 days having passed since negotiations began," Mr Nanva told AAP.

"This is about more than just the EBA, this is about the right of these men and women to collectively bargain and have their voices heard."

A spokesman for the union said that about 200 Pacific National employees were currently rallying outside the company's Newcastle site.

Pacific National director David Irwin has previously told AAP that the company will not change its offer.

The company's major customers include Xstrata and Whitehaven Coal, who have cut workers recently and are considering legal action against the union if the strike affects income.

Pacific National hauls 70 per cent of the state's coal, but other rail companies and coal producers will also be affected by trains standing idle on lines.

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