Cyprus cuts hit charities, schools

Charities, private schools and insurance firms with deposits in troubled Bank of Cyprus will suffer. Source: AAP

CHARITIES, private schools and insurance firms with deposits in the troubled Bank of Cyprus will suffer a 27.5 per cent haircut under the island's EU bailout, the central bank said.

They had all previously been exempt from a haircut in the bank restructuring required under the terms of the 10 billion euros ($A12.81 billion) bailout for Cyprus.

All insurance firm deposits will receive a hit while unregistered financial companies, charities and some educational institutions with deposits over 100,000 euros in the Bank of Cyprus will also get a 27.5 per cent cut.

"The review was undertaken with the aim to limit the extent of the exemptions so as to lighten the burden on affected (large) depositors in the Bank of Cyprus," the central bank said in a statement late on Sunday.

A bail-in from depositors was a key element of a deal which Nicosia struck with its EU partners and the International Monetary Fund last month to help fund a 23 billion euro rescue package.

Bank of Cyprus depositors are already facing a certain 37.5 per cent loss on deposits over 100,000 euros - to be exchanged for shares - with another 22.5 per cent locked depending on the cost of restructuring.

Large depositors could lose all of the remaining 60 per cent of their balances over 100,000 euros depending on the costs of winding up and merging second-largest lender Laiki.

Savers in that bank will have to wait years to see any of their cash over 100,000 euros.

Central bank spokeswoman Aliki Stylianou told state radio Monday that the move was to ease to pressure on large Bank of Cyprus depositors but a final estimate on how much they would lose will not be ready before the end of June.

Banks have been operating under stringent capital controls since they reopened on March 28, after a near two-week lockdown prompted by fears of a run on deposits.

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Second arrest over Indian girl's rape

INDIAN police arrested a second man over the kidnap and rape of a five-year-old girl, as officers on Monday faced further protests and a hail of accusations that they botched their handling of the case.

After a weekend of demonstrations in the capital, crowds again vented their anger over levels of sexual violence in New Delhi, which first erupted in December after the savage gang-rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus.

Doctors, meanwhile, said the five-year-old victim of the latest attack was in a stable condition after being left for dead and was able to talk to her parents.

Police said they had arrested a second man late Sunday over the attack, which began on April 15 when the youngster was allegedly abducted from her home before being raped and mutilated.

Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar conceded "there were shortfalls" in the police reaction and that "they had not responded as they should have", but rejected protesters' calls for him to quit, saying it would serve no purpose.

"If my resigning will prevent such depraved action of the society then I am prepared to resign 1,000 times, but that is not going to address the problem," he told a packed news conference.

"The problem is one of mental depravity," he said, adding rapes were "opportunistic crimes", with 97 per cent carried out by people known to the victim, such as relatives and neighbours.

The two accused are garment worker Manoj Kumar, 22, a tenant in the girl's house who was arrested last Friday, and his friend Pradeep Kumar, taken into custody at his uncle's home in eastern Bihar state.

Commissioner Kumar denied allegations that police were slow to register the disappearance of the child. The allegations were made by the parents, who live in a working-class neighbourhood.

The parents' complaint "was lodged on the same day it was reported. And let us assume - even if it was registered within five minutes - the rape had already been committed," Kumar said.

He added that police were trying to identify two officers who allegedly offered the parents 2,000 rupees (around $A34) to keep quiet about the case and told them they should be grateful their daughter was still alive.

He also said the chief investigating officer and a senior colleague who was seen on camera slapping a protester had been suspended.

The latest developments came as protesters massed outside the hospital where the victim is being treated and at police headquarters to voice their fury at the force's conduct.

"I want justice for this little girl. If they had acted in time the tragic incident could have been averted," said student Amod Kumar, 25.

"They should have taken the missing complaint seriously and acted immediately. The parents were turned away only because they are poor and helpless," he said.

India's noisy and often dysfunctional parliament was repeatedly adjourned amid protests by opposition lawmakers demanding better security for women.

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Late 20thC was warmest in 1400 years

New climate records show Earth was warmer in the late 20th century than in the previous 1400 years. Source: AAP

EARTH was cooling until the end of the 19th century and a hundred years later the planet's surface was on average warmer than at any time in the previous 1400 years, according to climate records.

In a study spanning two millennia published in Nature Geoscience, scientists say a "long-term cooling trend" around the world swung into reverse in the late 19th century.

In the 20th century, the average global temperature was 0.4C higher than that of the previous 500 years, with only Antarctica bucking the trend.

From 1971-2000, the planet was warmer than at any other time in nearly 1400 years.

This measure is a global average, and some regions did experience warmer periods than that - but only for a time. Europe, for instance, was probably warmer in the first century AD than at the end of the 20th century.

The investigation is the first attempt to reconstruct temperatures over the past 2000 years for individual continents.

It seeks to shed light on a fiercely contested aspect in the global warming debate.

Sceptics have claimed bouts of cooling or warming before the Industrial Revolution - including two episodes in Europe called the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age - are proof that climate variations are natural, not man-made.

The new study does not wade into the debate about greenhouse gases, but points to two planetary trends.

The first is a clear, prolonged period of cooling. It may have been caused by a combination of factors, including an increase in volcanic activity, with stratospheric ashes reflecting the sunlight, or a decrease in solar activity or tiny changes in Earth's orbit, both of which would diminish sunlight falling on the planet.

The cooling - between 0.1-0.3C per thousand years, depending on the region - went into reverse towards the end of the 19th century, and was followed by an intensifying period of warming in the 20th, the paper said.

Previous research into climate change has pointed to a warming spurt in the 20th century and attributed it to the rise of heat-trapping carbon gases emitted by burning coal, oil and gas.

The warming trend shifted up a gear in the middle of the 1970s, in line with record-breaking levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), according to this past research.

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Police catch NSW prison escapee

A PRISONER who escaped from a jail in NSW's Upper Hunter has been recaptured by police.

Dean Wells, 29, was reported missing from the St Heliers Correctional Complex in Muswellbrook after 4pm (AEDT) on Monday.

He was arrested at Muswellbrook police station on Monday evening, police said.

Wells had been serving a sentence of six years and six months for a range of offences.

He's been charged with escaping lawful custody and will appear in court on Tuesday.

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Turks in talks over chopper hostages

A TURKISH transport helicopter with at least 11 civilians was forced to make an emergency landing in a Taliban-controlled area in eastern Afghanistan, and the insurgents took all the people on board hostage, including eight Turks and a Russian, officials say.

The civilian aircraft landed in strong winds and heavy rain on Sunday in a village named Dahra Mangal in the Azra district of Logar province, southeast of Kabul, District Governor Hamidullah Hamid told The Associated Press.

He said the helicopter came down in a gorge in the densely forested region, known for narrow gorges and rugged mountains, about 20km from the Pakistani border.

The Taliban fighters then captured everyone aboard the helicopter and took them away, Hamid said on Monday.

In a phone interview, Arsala Jamal, Logar's provincial governor, identified the hostages as eight Turks, one Afghan translator and two foreign pilots of unknown nationality.

In Ankara, a spokesman at Turkey's Foreign Ministry confirmed that eight Turks were aboard the helicopter but had no information on their condition or what had happened to them after the emergency landing.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with ministry regulations.

Stepan Anikeyev, the Russian embassy's press attach in Kabul, said in a phone interview that a Russian man was being held hostage.

He said the Russians knows he was one of the two pilots but that they don't have details about his identity yet and that they're in "constant touch" with local officials in Afghanistan.

Security forces were dispatched to the area where the helicopter came down and engaged in firefights with the Taliban but quickly retreated because they had no support, said Logar Deputy Police Chief Rais Khan Abdul Rahimzai.

"We brought the police back because there was no help from the (NATO) coalition or the Afghan army. The police were unable to secure the area, which is very rural, and we were worried," Rahimzai said.

He added that information they had from the region was that the hostages were taken by the Taliban to Hisarak district of neighbouring Nangarhar province.

Hamid said that repeated calls for the Afghan army or NATO help went unanswered, and that the police were unable to secure the area, which is located 15km from the district police compound in the town of Azra.

NATO confirmed that the Turkish helicopter went down on Sunday, but the International Security Assistance Force did not have any other details.

It did say there were "no ISAF" or "US personnel on board the Turkish helicopter", denying an earlier Taliban claim that they had detained Americans on the aircraft.

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Nine killed in separate Afghan attacks

AT least nine people have been killed in two separate incidents in Afghanistan, while Taliban militants allegedly chopped off hands and legs of two Afghan men, officials say.

In eastern Paktika province, three civilians were killed and seven others including two policemen were injured after a suicide bomber blew himself up on Sunday.

"A suicide bomber blew himself up this morning in a busy area in Jani Khel district, killing three civilians and wounding five (other civilians) and two policemen," the Paktika provincial governor's office said.

"Ehsanullah, former district governor for Jani Khel was among the dead," it said in a statement, blaming the "enemies of Afghans" for the attack, a term usually used by Afghan officials to refer to Taliban militants.

Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying a cruel commander "Ehsanullah who was previously district governor for Jani Khel, was killed along with his friend and three bodyguards.

In south-eastern Ghazni province, six members of the Afghan local police were killed after the Taliban attacked their checkpoint, said Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, the deputy governor.

"Last night, a group of Taliban attacked the checkpoint of local police, killing six policemen and wounding another," Ahmadi said.

He said another policeman was missing and suspected of having helped the insurgents.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Ghazni attacks.

Meanwhile, Taliban militants allegedly chopped off a hand and a leg each of two men working for a company that provides logistics for NATO convoys in western Herat province, police said.

The incident took place on Saturday in western Herat province, said Noor Khan Nekzad, the spokesman for the Herat police.

"These two men are from Koshk Robat Sangi district. They were caught by the Taliban. Each of them have lost one hand and one leg."

He said the Taliban charged them with working for NATO security companies. They are both in hospital.

Taliban officials were not available for comment on the incident.

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Jordan arrests eight Syrian refugees

Jordanian demonstrators have called on authorities to close a refugee camp housing Syrians. Source: AAP

POLICE have arrested eight Syrians on suspicion of inciting riots at a refugee camp near the Jordan-Syria border.

About 100 Syrian refugees threw stones at police on Friday for preventing some of them from sneaking out of their desert camp. Ten officers were wounded, including two who remain critical.

A security official said a military prosecutor will question the eight suspects later on Sunday.

If convicted, they face up to three years in jail.

The Zaatari camp houses 150,000 refugees from the Syrian civil war. Another 350,000 Syrians have found shelter in Jordanian communities.

Conditions in the overcrowded camp have worsened since it opened last July, and there have been several riots.

In Syria on Sunday, troops backed by pro-government gunmen pounded rebel areas near the Lebanese border, activists and state media said.

The clashes came as US officials said the Obama administration was poised to send up to $US130 million ($A126.77 million) more in non-lethal military aid to rebels trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights said there was no immediate casualty report from the fighting in Basatin in Homs province.

The state television said the army was trying to "uproot all the terrorists from the area" - a reference to the rebels.

Elsewhere, the Observatory said fighting was also reported in the northern province of Aleppo, three areas in the suburbs of Damascus and the central province of Idlib.

In the past two weeks, the Syrian military - supported by pro-government fighters backed by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group - has pursued a campaign to regain control of areas near the Lebanese border.

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Girl indecently assaulted at Sydney beach

POLICE are searching for man in his 60s who they allege indecently assaulted a seven year-old girl at an eastern Sydney beach.

They say the incident occurred while the girl was on a day out with her family at Coogee Beach, about 2pm (AEST) on Sunday.

She and her four-year-old brother were climbing a tree at the northern end of the beach when a man approached.

Described as Caucasian and overweight, police say he tickled the boy before inappropriately touching the girl.

The kids later told their parents.

The man was last seen walking south from the location along a footpath.

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84 arrested at western Sydney rave

Most of the 84 arrests made at a Sydney music festival were due to sniffer dogs, police say. Source: AAP

POLICE have made 84 mainly drug-related arrests at a rave in western Sydney.

Dance music festival IQON ran most of Saturday at the Sydney International Dragway at Eastern Creek.

Officers attached to Operation Charthouse arrested 84 partiers for offences including goods in custody, assault police and breach of bail.

But police had sniffer dogs to thank for most of the arrests.

They laid 78 charges for possess prohibited drug, four charges for deem supply and one cannabis caution.

Police on Sunday said inquiries into the drug matters were continuing.

Blacktown Local Area Commander Superintendent Mark Wright said in spite of the numbers arrested and charged, the overall crowd was well behaved.

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Ex-HSBC worker: US said to head for Spain

A FORMER HSBC employee fighting extradition to Switzerland for allegedly stealing banking data that exposed thousands of suspected tax dodgers reportedly says US officials advised that he flee to Spain because his life was at risk.

Herve Falciani, a 40-year-old French-Italian citizen, was arrested in Barcelona in July 2012 after he arrived by boat from the port of Sete in France.

He was apprehended under an international warrant seeking his extradition to Switzerland, where he is wanted for violating banking secrecy laws.

He collected data on at least 24,000 customers of HSBC's Swiss subsidiaries from 2006 to 2008 while working in the bank's information technology development unit in Geneva which he then passed on to French authorities.

The files, which were subsequently relayed by investigators to their counterparts in the United States, Spain, Italy and several other European Union countries, led to a raft of prosecutions.

Falciano told daily newspaper El Pais on Sunday about a month before he fled to Spain, US justice officials who he was collaborating with from Paris warned him his life was at risk.

"The United States warned me that it would be easy for someone to pay to try to kill me. I had to plan my escape carefully. I chose Spain knowing that I would go to jail and that Switzerland would ask for my extradition," he said.

"I had two options: start a new life in the United States or travel somewhere else to gain time. They told me that the only safe place in Europe would be Spain, which had used my information with success in important cases.

"They thought it would be very unlikely that Spain would approve my extradition to Switzerland," Falciano said.

Spanish prosecutors opposed Falciani's extradition to Switzerland during his court hearing on April 15 in Madrid. The court is expected to give its decision in the coming weeks.

Falciani told the court in Madrid last week his intention was to raise the alarm about what was going on at the bank and denied he sought to sell the information as alleged by Swiss officials.

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