Plane catches fire at Perth Airport

A plane has made an emergency landing in Perth after flames were spotted coming from its engine. Source: AAP

A PLANE has made an emergency landing at Perth Airport after a suspected engine fire erupted shortly after take-off.

The Cobham Aviation flight landed safely after the mid-air incident on Tuesday, a Perth Airport spokeswoman confirmed.

Witnesses have reported seeing the flames coming from the right engine.

The Perth Airport website shows that a Cobham Aviation flight was scheduled to depart at 10.45am for Barrow Island.

Pictures have emerged on social media of a plane with an engine appearing to be on fire, but it has not been confirmed as the plane involved in the emergency.

The aircraft is currently being assessed at the airport.

Cobham operates aircraft on behalf of Qantas regional subsidiary QantasLink.

A spokesman for the regional carrier said a statement would be issued later on Tuesday.

Cobham Aviation Services said the engine fire occurred soon after take-off and that the four-engine BAE 146 jet was bound for Barrow Island.

A spokesman said the pilot and crew safely returned the jet to Perth Airport at 10.53am (WST).

"The aircraft was climbing after take-off when the fire occurred in engine No.2, which is on the inner port side of the aircraft," he said.

"When the fire was detected, the engine was shut down and the fire extinguished.

"There were no injuries among the 92 passengers or two pilots and three cabin crew."

The incident is being investigated and regulatory authorities have been informed, the spokesman says.

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Two MPs allege Palmer approach

A Queensland MP has told police an envoy for Clive Palmer offered him an inducement to jump ship. Source: AAP

TWO Queensland government MPs have accused Clive Palmer's team of trying to lure them away from the Liberal National Party.

Mr Palmer says the claims made by MPs Michael Hart and Jason Costigan were made up by premier Campbell Newman, while police have looked at one of the accusations and will take no action.

Mr Newman, however, has stepped up his war with the mining magnate turned federal MP, arguing he needs to reveal the full truth.

Mr Hart on Tuesday alleged a Palmer United Party envoy tried to entice the Burleigh MP with financial sweeteners - an assertion refuted by the party's state leader Alex Douglas.

Also on Tuesday, Whitsunday MP Mr Costigan said a PUP member approached him a week later on April 16, but without a financial incentive.

"They said they could ... help me with my campaign if I was their candidate and rambled on how they needed one more MP to form the official opposition," he told AAP.

Mr Hart took his claims to police who said they had "concluded that, based on current available information, no further action will be taken".

Mr Hart said he cut short a conversation with a PUP official after being made an offer to become one of the party's leading candidates at next year's Queensland election.

"The words that were used I took as a form of inducement or that there was about to be an inducement. I didn't want that to happen," he told AAP.

Mr Hart's allegation has escalated the bitter feud between Mr Palmer and the LNP, with the mining magnate accusing Mr Newman of inventing the story.

"This is just concocted by the premier because he's going to be sued by me," Mr Palmer told AAP.

"He's just trying to mislead the press."

But a spokesman for Mr Newman says Mr Palmer is the one who needs to come clean after Dr Douglas confirmed the party approached Mr Hart.

"Mr Palmer denies inducements were offered to Mr Hart, but Alex Douglas has confirmed that Mr Hart was told that 'we would look after him if he joined us'," the spokesman said.

Dr Douglas says while contact was made, claims about any inducement are entirely false.

"It was basically to say: 'Michael we know you're not going to be preselected or endorsed by the party and if you want to have a career you are welcome to come and discuss that with us'," he said.

The latest claims follow Sunday's allegations by Mr Newman that Mr Palmer had tried to "buy" his government, and had offered inducements to successfully entice three renegade Northern Territory MPs to join his party.

Comment has been sought from Dr Douglas about Mr Costigan's claim.

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Partial eclipse ruined by cloud

IT was billed as the "super fat banana".

But Tuesday's rare partial solar eclipse was more like a rotten tomato.

Thick cloud blanketed most of the continent for much of the day, ruining any sustained view of the eclipse for astronomers and enthusiasts from Perth to Port Arthur.

At 4.14pm the moon nudged in front of the sun - causing a partial eclipse that experts predicted would darken the sky a little and make the sun look like a fat yellow banana.

The sky did turn dark on the eastern seaboard - but only because thick cloud and rain ruined the moment with less than heavenly timing.

"We got clouded-out on the east coast from the absolute moment the moon just touched the sun - it was incredible timing," Melbourne-based astronomer Dr Alan Duffy told AAP.

"The next eclipse in Melbourne of this quality will be 2028.

"So this was very disappointing."

Astronomical Society of Victoria media spokesman Perry Vlahos was equally miffed.

He didn't even go outside to check out the partial eclipse.

"I have given up all hope, the best optical telescope cannot see through rain and clouds," he added.

Tasmania should have given the best view of the eclipse - the further south you were the more of the sun would have been covered.

Members of the Astronomical Society of Tasmania gathered at the rainy Rosny Lookout in Hobart's east.

"We've actually got three telescopes here but at the moment they're sitting in the boots of cars," the society's Bob Coghlan told AAP.

"The committee are telling jokes and saying who brought the cloud-busting laser just to keep their spirits up."

Sydney Observatory had about 150 guests to watch the celestial activity.

Astronomer Andrew Jacobs said the partial eclipse was of little research value - scientists learn far more from full eclipses.

"We saw the very beginning of it, just a couple of minutes before it went into the clouds," he said.

West Australian residents had a slightly better view but only towards the end of the eclipse when some of the cloud cleared.

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Whitehaven pushes ahead with new mine

WHITEHAVEN Coal sold less coal in the March quarter while battling low prices, but its flagship Maules Creek project is more than one-third complete.

The controversial NSW mine is the target of a long running campaign that has included legal action and human barricades to delay construction, in protest against the alleged destruction of the Leard State Forest.

More than 90 protesters faced court in Narrabri on Tuesday and a mother and son were arrested on Monday after chaining themselves to a gate at a Whitehaven site.

Whitehaven said construction progress at Maules Creek was 36 per cent complete and on schedule and budget.

First coal should be railed in March 2015 and the company was confident it would get Commonwealth approval for its biodiversity offsets package, which involves a package to balance the effects on flora and fauna.

The highly regarded $767 million project would more than double Whitehaven's production to 25 million tonnes a year.

Whitehaven produced 1.81 million tonnes in the three months to the end of March, down 29 per cent on a year ago.

It recently flagged a cut in full year production by up to eight per cent, to between 9.8 million and 10 million tonnes of saleable coal, due to operational problems.

Whitehaven sold 2.29 million tonnes for the March quarter, down five per cent.

It achieved a weaker average price for export thermal coal sales of $US75.19 a tonne, compared to the benchmark Newcastle index, which was down seven per cent to $US78.05 for the quarter.

The reasons included a well-supplied market with little disruption from weather related events, a lack of buying by China based coal customers from the seaborne market, and the end of the high demand northern hemisphere winter.

However, thermal coal demand was growing in South Korea, which is increasing coal in its energy mix, and analysts including Bell Potter have a positive long term view on the company, and coal generally.

Whitehaven shares had dropped 2.5 cents to $1.48.

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Pakistan PM's gas cut off for unpaid bills

PAKISTANI authorities have disconnected gas supply to the prime minister's official residence and the national parliament secretariat over unpaid bills.

The move was part of a drive to recover unpaid bills from defaulters in a country facing a sever energy crisis, said an official of the state-run Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited.

The company said a bill of 4.7 million rupees ($A51,760) was due from the premier's residence in the capital Islamabad.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif last week ordered authorities to get tough on defaulters to recover billions of rupees in unpaid bills, in what appeared to be the first such major initiative in the country's history.

The supply to the national parliament secretariat, offices of legislators, a federal court and a string of other government buildings was also disconnected for overdue bills totalling more than 20 million rupees, the official said.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose party won parliamentary elections last year, promised to end the energy crisis that has caused power outages of up to 12 hours a day and shortages of gas for cooking and heating.

Power and gas theft is common in Pakistan and influential defaulters hardly face any legal action.

Also on Tuesday, Water and Power Minister Abid Sher Ali said he had ordered the suspension of electricity to the official residence of the president for not paying bills.

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PM to states: more roads, less red tape

State leaders will sit down with PM Tony Abbott on Friday to work out how to cut duplication. Source: AAP

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott will enlist the help of the states to cut red tape and get new road and rail projects moving.

Mr Abbott will join state and territory leaders in Canberra on Friday for the year's first Council of Australian Governments meeting.

On the agenda will be the terms of reference for a new federalism policy, which Mr Abbott promised at the 2013 election.

Combined with the results of the national commission of audit, the white paper will map out how better cooperation between the different levels of government can improve the lives of all Australians and get budgets under control.

Overlap between the functions of local, state and federal governments is wasting billions of dollars a year.

The previous COAG meeting in December agreed on a "one-stop shop" approach to environmental regulation for major economic projects.

The premiers are expected to sign off on the white paper terms of reference on Friday.

The state leaders will be seeking an indication of how much they will receive in infrastructure funding following an asset sales deal struck in March with Treasurer Joe Hockey.

Under the deal, the commonwealth will provide an additional 15 per cent of the value of an agreed asset sale back to the states.

The proceeds of any assets sold - such as electricity networks or ports - would be put into new road, rail and port projects.

Also on the agenda is the removal of red tape and overlap from the system of adopting children from overseas.

School and disability care funding will be discussed, as will a report on the future of manufacturing.

It will be the first COAG meeting for Tasmania's new Liberal premier Will Hodgman.

SA's Jay Weatherill and the ACT's Katy Gallagher will be the only Labor leaders in the room.

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Senate reform may end giant ballot papers

The major political parties want a voting overhaul that may end tablecloth-sized ballot papers. Source: AAP

THE major political parties are ganging up on the little players to try to shut them out of the Senate.

In changes that could mean an end to tablecloth-sized ballot papers, the Liberal, Nationals and Labor parties are calling for radical reform of the way senators are elected.

Top of their lists is the introduction of optional preferential voting, which would dispense with the need to rank all candidates.

They also want minimum membership numbers before a party can register for an election, and a cap on minimum voter support before a candidate can be elected.

Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane says loopholes in the voting system are being exploited by the micro-parties.

Using a web of complex preference arrangements diverse micro-parties have swapped votes in the hope that one of them wins a seat.

At September's federal election candidates from the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party and Family First were elected to the Senate with just a fraction of the primary vote.

"Political parties are an important part of the tapestry of the democracy, and the more the merrier," Mr Loughnane told a parliamentary inquiry hearing in Canberra on Monday.

But they needed to have level of support that distinguished them from interest groups, he said.

Candidates should meet a primary vote cap before being elected, which would amount to about 1.4 per cent of the vote.

Parties should be required to demonstrate they had at least 2000 members nationally, or have at least one member already sitting in parliament.

Labor's national secretary George Wright said party rules should not be so tough as to discourage "conviction micro-parties".

"They should though be sufficiently rigorous to discourage opportunist micro-parties motivated by the potential to preference harvest," he told the hearing.

The Nationals federal director Scott Mitchell said the Senate voting system wasn't working nor was it transparent.

"Below-the-line voting has become ultimately intimidating so that no-one does it," he said.

The Australian Greens are also calling for optional preferential voting, saying the system is being gamed.

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The Logies tank in the TV ratings

The 56th Annual Logie Awards has failed in the TV ratings, attracting fewer than 1 million viewers. Source: AAP

TV'S night of nights tanked in the ratings.

The Nine Network's delayed telecast of the Logies, which is basically a popularity contest with the readers of a glossy magazine, and the red carpet arrivals attracted fewer than one million viewers each and finished well down in the overnight ratings top 10.

The red carpet arrivals program was seventh overall with 974,000 viewers and the Logies Awards telecast was even less popular. It was eighth with 962,000 viewers.

Both shows were soundly beaten by Network Ten's Modern Family: Australia which was sixth with 1.049 million viewers.

Modern Family: An Aussie Adventure, a behind-the-scenes look at the US sitcom being filmed Down Under, was 12th with 642,000 viewers. Ten's new US sitcom The Millers, starring Beau Bridges, launched in 13th place with 611,000.

The clear winner for the night was the first semi-final of My Kitchen Rules, which attracted an audience of 1.912 million while Seven News was second (1.378 million).

More people tuned in to the Seven Network's investigative show Sunday Night than the Logies.

Sunday Night went head to head with the industry awards and easily won the ratings with 1.246 million viewers and third place.

A Nine spokesperson dismissed the poor ratings during the network's post Logies brunch on Monday.

The spokesperson said Nine was pleased with the result and won their key demographic.

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At least 18 killed as tornadoes strike US

Officials say a tornado has killed at least two people and destroyed buildings in Oklahoma. Source: AAP

POWERFUL tornadoes have killed at least 18 people across south-central United States as they flipped cars, ripped up homes and uprooted trees, emergency officials have reported.

Rescuers worked through the night using searchlights in blacked-out areas as they sifted through mountains of rubble searching for survivors.

Forecasters warned the twisters would continue to threaten much of the region through Tuesday.

The Arkansas Department of Emergency Management said that 15 people were killed when tornadoes touched down on Sunday, while an official with the Oklahoma Emergency Management Agency said there were at least two tornado victims in the state. Local media reported another fatality in the state of Iowa.

In far-away Manila, President Barack Obama, who is on a tour of Asian nations, offered condolences and promised federal government aid.

"I want everybody to know that your country will be there to help you recover and rebuild as long as it takes," he said.

"It's chaos right now," the mayor of the Arkansas town of Vilonia, James Firestone, told CNN late Sunday as emergency crews clawed through the debris overnight in some of the hardest-hit areas.

The central part of the town of 4,000 "seems like it's completely levelled. There's a few buildings partially standing, gas lines spewing. Fire lines down. We've had some casualties."

Firestone said that police and firefighters from nearby cities as well as National Guard troops were heading to Vilonia.

Twisters also devastated large sections of the town of Mayflower, population 2,300, just northwest of the Arkansas state capital Little Rock.

Pictures of tornado damage posted by Arkansas TV station THV 11 showed big-rig trucks crushed like empty cans, homes violently ripped in half, and whole residential blocks levelled and reduced to rubble.

Officials said that parts of Interstate 40, a major east-west highway across the United States, was closed due to debris and overturned vehicles in the Mayflower area.

Two regional utility companies, Entergy and First Electric Cooperative, said that more than 15,000 customers were in the dark.

Firestone later told CNN that emergency sirens blared some 45 minutes before the tornadoes struck, warning residents to head to shelters and likely saving lives.

Sadly, Vilonia has seen this before: the town was struck by a tornado that took "almost the same path" three years ago, Firestone said.

"It's been a truly awful night for many families, neighbourhoods and communities, but Arkansans always step up to help each other recover," Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe wrote on Twitter.

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Hospital attack kills 22 in C Africa

AT least 22 people including three staff members of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres have been killed during an attack by gunmen on a Central African hospital, in the latest atrocity to hit the violence-plagued country.

The brutal attack in the northwest was blamed on the mostly Muslim rebels known as the Seleka, whose coup in March last year unleashed a vicious cycle of sectarian violence.

"Armed men from the ex-Seleka and of Fula ethnicity on Saturday afternoon attacked a hospital supported by MSF in the region of Nanga Boguila, killing at least 22 people, including three Central African employees of MSF and leaving a dozen wounded," an officer from the African-led MISCA peacekeeping force told AFP on Monday.

MSF confirmed the death of its three employees, without giving further details.

The gunmen had stormed into the building as local representatives and MSF employees held a meeting, the MISCA officer said.

"The assailants first opened fire at a group of people, gunning down four of them. Then they went to the hospital where they killed 15 other people and three members of MSF.

"They took computers and several other assets, breaking down doors probably in search for cash," added the officer.

The Seleka rebels were ordered to disarm by their leader Michel Djotodia several months after they installed him in power in a coup. But some ignored orders and went on a killing, raping and pillaging rampage.

Mostly Christian communities then formed "anti-balaka" vigilante forces to wreak revenge against Muslims, usually targeting innocent people.

Djotodia resigned in January after failing to quell the violence that has claimed thousands of lives and displaced a quarter of the country's 4.6 million population. And today, extremists of the Seleka alliance actively encourage de facto partition.

African and French peacekeepers, backed up recently by an EU force, have been struggling to curb the fighting ripping the country apart.

"It is a region that is not completely secured because our forces (are not large enough) to be deployed in other sites than the main cities like Bossangoa," said the MISCA officer, referring to a city about 100 kilometres from the scene of the MSF attack.

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