Obama vows peace on Israel visit

US President Barack Obama, left, and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netayahu laugh during a welcoming ceremony upon Mr Obama's arrival at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. Picture: AP Source: AP

"PEACE must come to the Holy Land," US President Barack Obama said as he landed in Israel, in a bid to ease tensions with his hosts and to frame policy on Syria and Iran.

Israeli leaders showered Mr Obama with personal praise for defending the Jewish state's security and existence, in a lavish welcoming ceremony at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport at the start of a three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories. It is Mr Obama's first visit to Israel as US President.

"Our alliance is eternal, it is for ever," Mr Obama declared on a bright morning after Air Force One rolled to a stop, warning that tumultuous change sweeping the Middle East brought both promise and peril for Israel.

"It is in our fundamental national security interests to stand with Israel. It makes us both stronger," Mr Obama said, launching a visit draped in symbolism but bringing little hope of progress towards Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Israeli President Shimon Peres praised Mr Obama as a "remarkable world leader" who had shown a deep personal commitment to protect Israel, taking implicit aim at a perception the US president is not sufficiently warm to the Jewish state.

"A world without your friendship would invite aggression against Israel... In times of peace, in times of war, your support for Israel is unshakeable," Mr Peres said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom Mr Obama has had a prickly relationship, was also effusive.

Students of the Holon Institute of Technology for bakery and pastry making, work on an image depicting US President Barack Obama made out of chocolate in Givat Shmuel. Picture: AP

"Thank you, Mr President, for upholding the Jewish people's right for a Jewish state in our homeland and for boldly defending that right in the United Nations," Mr Netanyahu said.

Mr Obama, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Peres, each wearing a white shirt and a blue tie - the colours of the Israeli flag - smiled and joked as they greeted dignitaries.

The US leader then came face-to-face with Israel's preoccupation with security, visiting a mobile battery of the US-funded Iron Dome missile defence system trucked to the airport.

For all the soaring rhetoric, Mr Obama's long-awaited visit - the debut overseas trip of his second term - may be marked more by symbolism than serious diplomatic substance and will expose diminished US ambitions of forging peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mr Obama says he is carrying no new peace plans and instead intends to listen to the new Israeli government and Palestinians disaffected with his approach, leading some experts to question why he is coming at all.

He must also navigate the treacherous regional politics of the Middle East, facing new scrutiny over his wariness of deeper US involvement in Syria as government forces and rebels accuse one another of using chemical arms.

Israeli soldiers scuffle with a Palestinian activist wearing a mask of US President Barack Obama during a protest in the West Bank town of Hebron. Picture: AP

During his visit, Mr Obama will pointedly court the historic symbolism of the Jewish State when he inspects the Dead Sea Scrolls and visits the tomb of Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism.

The choreography is intended to show Israelis, Arabs and political foes back home that Mr Obama is deeply committed to Israel's security and future, despite some scepticism about his motives.

He is on tricky political ground: a survey by the independent Israel Democracy Institute showed that while 51 per cent of the Jewish Israeli considered Mr Obama neutral toward Israel, 53.5 per cent did not trust him with Israel's vital interests.

So, mounting a charm offensive, Mr Obama will deliver a speech to hundreds of young Israelis on Thursday.

Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu will have to smooth over an often difficult personal chemistry following previous spats, but the visit is unlikely to narrow differences over how soon Iran will have a nuclear weapons capability.

Mr Obama told Israeli television that Iran would not be able to build a nuclear weapon for "over a year or so."

US President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and President Shimon Peres (L) listen to the US national anthem at Israels Ben Gurion airport. Picture: AFP

Mr Netanyahu warned last year that Iran would have the capacity to produce a bomb much earlier, within months from the current date, and questions whether sanctions will change Tehran's calculations.

While he will not bring a specific Middle East peace proposal, officials insist Mr Obama's commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians is undimmed.

Columnist Alex Fishman of Israel's Yediot Aharonot newspaper on Wednesday said that Washington, pushed by new Secretary of State John Kerry, would revive the Arab peace plan of 2002.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas hopes Mr Obama will help broker the release of more than 1000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and wants $US700 million ($674 million) in blocked US aid freed up.

Mr Obama will tell the Palestinians that initiatives like seeking statehood recognition at the UN are counterproductive, while warning Israel that settlement building undercuts the chances of resuming peace talks.

In Israel and Jordan, Mr Obama will experience oases of relative calm in a region rocked by unrest spawned by the Arab Spring uprisings.

But his policy towards Syria's bloody unrest will come under new scrutiny, following new allegations from both government forces and rebels that the other side has deployed chemical weapons.

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Kim has daughter, says Rodman

BFFs Kim Jong Un and former NBA star Dennis Rodman watch North Korean and US players in an exhibition basketball game in Pyongyang, North Korea. Source: AP

DENNIS Rodman has claimed that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is the father to a baby girl.

Rodman made the revelation in an interview with The Sun newspaper, saying Mr Kim's wife, Ri Sol Ju, was a gushing first time mother.

"[Ri Sol Ju] kept talking about their beautiful baby daughter," Rodman told The Sun.

There had been speculation that Ri Sol Ju was pregnant. If she had given birth to a boy, a future leader, it is almost certain that the news would have been broadcast widely.

Rodman said Mr Kim's wife was "very elegant and quite tall for a Korean - maybe 5ft 5in."

The former basketball star said the North Korean leader "doesn't want to kill anyone" and "wants to talk peace."

"Kim is not one of these Saddam Hussein-type characters that wants to take over the world," he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Kim oversaw a live fire military drill using drones and cruise missile interceptors, state media said, amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim had personally guided the exercise that involved training attacks by "super-precision drone planes".

It did not specify the timing or location of the drill, which came a week after Mr Kim presided over a live-fire artillery exercise near the disputed sea border with South Korea.

Military tensions on the Korean peninsula are at their highest level for years, with North Korea - angered by UN sanctions imposed after its nuclear test last month - threatening a second Korean War backed by nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang has also denounced ongoing joint South Korea-US military manoeuvres, involving nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, calling them a provocative rehearsal for invasion.

The North Korean drones used in the exercise were assigned flight paths and timings "with targets in South Korea in mind", KCNA quoted Mr Kim as saying.

North Korea has no confirmed drone capability, although South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported last year that it was developing unmanned strike aircraft using old US target drones imported from the Middle East.

Still photographs of the exercise broadcast on state television seemed to show what looked like a rudimentary drone being flown into a mountainside target and exploding.

The exercise also included tests of small rockets that KCNA said were capable of bringing down cruise missiles.

Last month the South Korean military released video footage of a newly deployed cruise missile that it said could carry out high precision strikes on command centres anywhere in North Korea.
 

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More than 100 missing after boat sinks

A UN security boat on patrol in the Democratic Republic of Congo last year. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

A BOAT that capsized off southern Nigeria in recent days was carrying an estimated 128 passengers and only two survivors have been found so far, an emergency official said.

"One hundred twenty-eight people were suspected to be aboard the boat, but only nine bodies have been recovered, while there were two survivors so far," Yushau Shuaib, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, said.

"The incident happened about two or three days ago, but there is still some confusion as to the origin of the boat."

Mr Shuaib said the accident occurred more than 60 kilometres off the coast of the southern Nigerian city of Calabar.

There were indications that the boat had originated from the Congo, but that has not been confirmed, he said.

He did not have further details.

A rescue source speaking on condition of anonymity said initial indications were that the two survivors were Togolese.

Such accidents occur regularly in parts of Africa, with rickety boats often overloaded with passengers and few reliable records of who was aboard.

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Prison chief shot dead at his home

Tom Clements, Colorado's head of corrections, has been shot dead at his home. Source: AP

THE head of the Colorado Department of Corrections was shot and killed when he answered his front door, as police search for the gunman.

Authorities are also looking for a dark-colored "boxy" car seen near the house of Tom Clements, 58, when he was shot around 8:30pm Tuesday (1:30pm Wednesday AEDT) in Monument, north of Colorado Springs. The vehicle's engine was running and a witness reported seeing one person driving away in the car.

Lt. Jeff Kramer, of the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, said investigators have not ruled anything out, but it could have been related to Clements' job.

"As the director of the Department of Corrections or any similar type position, it could in fact open someone up to be a target of a crime such as this. Although we remain sensitive to that, we also want to make sure that we remain open-minded to other possibilities as well," Kramer said.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper appointed Clements to the post in 2011 after he served for more than three decades in the Missouri Department of Corrections. He replaced Ari Zavaras, a former Denver police chief who led the department under two governors. The department operates 20 adult prisons and a juvenile detainment system.

Gov Hickenlooper was red-eyed and sombre and spoke haltingly on Wednesday morning at a news conference in which he said he doesn't think the killing was part of any larger attack against his cabinet, members of which stood behind him, several of them crying. Others dabbed their eyes.

"Corrections is a very different job. You make difficult decisions every time that affect different people," Gov Hickenlooper said, calling Clements dedicated, funny, caring and an expert on the latest and best methods in his field who decided not to retire when he took the Colorado job.

"Tom Clements dedicated his life to being a public servant, to making our state a better place and he is going to be deeply, deeply missed."

Gov Hickenlooper planned to go to Monument to meet with Clements' family after signing gun bills and holding a press conference on them.

A family member called 911 to report the shooting. Search dogs were called in to comb through a wooded area around Clements' home, and authorities were going house to house trying to find out what neighbours heard and saw.

Clements lived in a wooded neighbourhood of large, two-storey houses on expansive 2-acre lots dotted with evergreen trees in an area known as the Black Forest. Long driveways connect the homes to narrow, winding roads that thread the hills. Clements' home was out of view, behind a barricaded of crime-scene tape in the road.

After Clements was appointed, Gov Hickenlooper praised Clements for his approach to incarceration, saying Clements relied on proven methods to improve prison safety inside and programs that have been shown to improve successful outcomes after offenders are released from prison.

While Clements generally kept a low profile, his killing comes a week after Clements denied a Saudi national prisoner's request to be sent to his home country to serve out his sentence. Homaidan al-Turki was convicted of sexually assaulting a housekeeper and keeping her as a virtual slave. Clements said state law requires sex offenders to undergo treatment while in prison and that al-Turki had declined to participate.

Gov Hickenlooper ordered flags lowered to half-staff at public buildings until the day after Clements' funeral. Arrangements are pending.

Clements is survived by his wife, Lisa, and two daughters, Rachel and Sara. Gov Hickenlooper asked the public to respect their privacy.

Clements worked for 31 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections, both in prisons as well as probation and parole services. He received a bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's degree in public administration from the University of Missouri.

Government leaders in Missouri are mourning the loss. Clements was the former director of Adult Institutions for the Missouri Corrections Department and had been with the Missouri department since 1979.

George Lombardi, director of Missouri's Department of Corrections, said Clements was "just a very good, decent person."

Missouri Gov Jay Nixon said in an emailed statement that Clements "dedicated his professional life and his considerable skills to public service and protection, and the citizens of Missouri join the people of Colorado in mourning this tremendous loss."

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Cyprus scrambles for Plan B

Protesters chant slogans outside the Cypriot parliament against a plan to seize a part of depositors' bank savings, in central Nicosia. Picture: AP Source: AP

CYPRIOT officials rushed to find a new plan to stave off bankruptcy, a day after Parliament rejected an initial scheme to contribute to the nation's bailout package by seizing up to 10 percent of people's bank savings.

Tuesday's decisive rejection of the plan to take a slice of all deposits above 20,000 euros ($24,900) has left the country's bailout in question. Without the bailout, the Cypriot banking sector would collapse, devastating the country's economy and potentially causing it to leave the euro.

That could roil global financial markets as well as endanger deposits in the country even further.

Government spokesman Christos Stylianides said a meeting was underway at the central bank to discuss an alternative plan for raising funds, but also for reducing the 5.8 billion euros that must be found domestically.

President Nicos Anastasiades met with the representatives of his country's potential creditors - the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission - but issued no statement on the result. The three, collectively known as the troika, must sign off on any Plan B the Cypriots come up with if it is to be approved as part of the bailout.

The ECB, which is keeping the Cypriot banking sector alive by allowing the central bank to extend emergency support, has said it would end that aid if there was no bailout deal and it was clear the banks had no hope of becoming solvent again.

For now, the ECB says it will continue supporting that help for Cyprus' banks. But experts say that if there's no bailout deal within days, the ECB will have to end it.

Cypriot MPs vote on a controversial bailout agreement during a parliament session in Nicosia. MPs overwhelmingly rejected a tax on bank deposits demanded by international lenders as a condition for a bailout deal, with a vote of 36 against, 19 abstentions and none in favour. AFP PHOTO/YIANNIS KOURTOLOGOU

Under the initial bailout plan conceived in Brussels last weekend, other eurozone countries and the IMF would give Cyprus 10 billion euros in rescue loans if the country raised 5.8 billion euros through the bank deposit seizures.

The central bank's deputy governor, Spyros Stavrinakis, said no decision had been taken on when banks, which have been shut since the weekend, would reopen, and that a new plan has not yet been presented to the country's euro partners and IMF.

The banks remained shut for the third day running to avoid a bank run, and there are growing expectations they may not reopen until next week - certainly not until Cypriot authorities come up with a credible financial package that has the troika's blessing.

The new plan must also win approval from lawmakers.

In a two-pronged approach to the crisis, Finance Minister Michalis Sarris was in Moscow for meetings with his Russian counterpart. Russia could play a key role in any alternative package that may emerge. Russians are believed to account for just under a third of Cyprus's 68 billion euro bank deposits.

"We will be here until some kind of agreement is reached," Mr Sarris said.

A Cypriot woman protests against an EU bailout deal plan to take up to 10 per cent of personal bank accounts outside parliament in Nicosia. The plan was rejected by MPs, leaving the nation rushing to find a Plan B to avoid a banking collapse. Picture: AFP

In Nicosia, residents waited anxiously to see what lay in store for them.

Avetis Bahcecian has been running his Armenian restaurant in Nicosia for years. Now, with the uncertainty swirling around Cyprus, he's worried about his business.

"Whatever they do, they have to do it quickly because this uncertainty is hurting business," the 41-year-old said as he kneaded dough to make lahmacun, a traditional Armenian pizza-style food.

"Our business is down by 40 per cent in the last couple days."

ATMs have been dispensing cash and debit and credit cards have been working, so Cypriots have not faced any immediate cash shortage for day-to-day living.

A Cypriot financial official said authorities were working on bills which would need parliamentary approval aiming to limit the amount of money leaving the country, and that a decision would be announced later on how long the banks would remain closed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to release the information.

Protesters line on the ground in front of the riot police outside of the parliament in Nicosia. Picture: AP

A government official said an alternative plan to raise the 5.8 billion euros had been drafted and was to be presented to the troika, most likely overnight. The plan would raise money from domestic sources, including pension plans and subsidiaries of foreign banks active in Cyprus.

One of those domestic sources may be the country's influential Orthodox church.

Its head, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, said he would put the church's assets at the country's disposal, saying the church was willing to mortgage its assets to invest in government bonds. The church has considerable wealth, including property, stakes in a bank and a brewery.

"The wealth of the church is at the disposal of the country," Archbishop Chrysostomos said after meeting with Anastasiades on Wednesday morning.
 

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Flood of dead pigs but few answers

Workers remove a dead pig from a river in Jiaxing, in eastern China's Zhejiang province. In the nearly two weeks since thousands of pig carcasses started littering a river running through Shanghai, its residents have been told not to worry, reminding many of the government's bungled handling of the SARS crisis. Source: AP

THE pig carcasses - now nearly 14,000 of them - have been floating down rivers that feed into Shanghai for nearly two weeks.

The city's residents have been told not to worry, and not much else.

Where the pigs came from, how they died and why they suddenly showed up in the river system that supplies drinking water to a city of 23 million has not been explained. Officials have told residents their drinking water is safe, while authorities have censored microblog posts suggesting that the public organise peaceful protests.

The official response reminds many of the government silence that surrounded previous health concerns, from the SARS epidemic to bird flu to contaminated milk.

"They are only giving the runaround," said Huang Beibei, a Shanghai microblogger whose revolting photographs of the pigs first prompted local media coverage and government attention.

"'Who believes what they are saying?"

"Those pigs must have come from somewhere," author Li Mingsheng said. "That's a basic question, but the government still has not told us that."

A worker hauls away bodies of dead pigs with a net in Shanghai. The lack of clarity about the nearly 14,000 dead animals in a river system that supplies drinking water has spawned both theories and dark humor: Residents joke that they can turn on their faucets and get pork broth. (AP Photo/File)

Authorities have retrieved at least 13,765 dead pigs as of Tuesday, and have released daily bulletins saying drinking water in Shanghai remains within national standards.

Except for pig tallies by Shanghai authorities and one late-night news conference by a local official in nearby Zhejiang province, where the pigs are suspected to originate, no top official and no head of any government agency dealing with the environment, health or agriculture has made any public comment.

Officials so far have punished only the eight small-time hog farmers whose pigs could be traced through ear marks. The farmers in the Zhejiang town of Jiaxing, where hog farming is a major industry, were each slapped with a fine under 3000 yuan ($460).

The central government in Beijing, which has been enmeshed in a leadership transition, dispatched a chief Agriculture Ministry veterinarian, but Yu Kangzhen's conclusion was merely that there had been no major outbreak of swine disease to blame for the dumping.

Villagers have told local media that pig dumping spiked in the wake of a police crackdown on the illicit trade in pork products harvested from dead, diseased pigs.

With no black-market traders to collect their dead pigs, farmers are simply dumping them in rivers, they say.

A worker in protective clothing prepares to haul away dead pigs pulled from a river along Zhonglian village of Jinshan district in Shanghai. Picture: AP

Other observers have suggested that farmers are feeding pigs small amounts of arsenic to make their skins look shinier, thus increasing their mortality rate. Government officials have not addressed either theory.

Jiaxing's vice mayor, Zhao Shumei, told reporters late last Friday that pigs were succumbing to cold weather, and suggested it was largely baby pigs that were dying. Critics of that explanation swiftly noted that most of the carcasses downstream have been of adult hogs and that this winter has not harsh.

The Associated Press sought comment from the governments of Shanghai, Jiaxing and Zhejiang and from the Agriculture Ministry, but the calls were either referred to another agency or never answered.

Authorities have not censored a popular joke spreading online in China, in which a resident of smoggy Beijing boasts he doesn't need cigarettes because he can simply open his window, and a Shanghai resident responds that he gets pork soup from his faucet.

But when Shanghai-based poet Pan Ting suggested in a microblog that the public take a stroll as a subtle way to complain about the dead pig tide, her posts were scrubbed and she lost access to her account.

"From hog farming to industry regulation, from animal disease control to public health and to regional coordination for investigation, every government link has malfunctioned - except social control," said Zhao Chu, a Shanghai-based independent scholar and media commentator.

A dead pig lying in a dirty tributary of the Yangtze River in a village in Yichang, in central China's Hebei province, some 1200 kms from the eastern city of Shanghai. Residents are demanding answers about where the pigs are coming from, after government told people not to worry.  Picture: AFP

"The government is not holding itself accountable to the public," Mr Zhao said.

"Because there's no parliament or administrative law, government officials do not care about the public but only look up to their bosses - because their positions come from above."

Government silence has played a role in several health crises over the past decade, and allowing the SARS pneumonia to spread in 2003. SARS killed 774 people and infected thousands of others, mostly in China but also in two dozen other countries.

In the wake of the epidemic, the Chinese government revamped its public health crisis management. Not included was a requirement to tell the public. In recent years, the government was silent while bird flu spread, and while it became clear that milk and infant formula had been contaminated with an industrial chemical, killing at least six babies and sickening thousands of others.

The government's earlier behaviour raises doubts about whether officials are revealing everything they know about the pigs.

"As to the cause of death and the risks, the government has been evasive and vague. The explanations are bordering on being ridiculous," columnist Liu Shengjun wrote on his microblog.

"It reminds me of SARS, and I hope history will not repeat itself."

The crisis has exposed a systematic failure in China's management of environmental issues that cross municipal boundaries, said Peng Xizhe, dean of the School of Social Development and Public Policy of Fudan University.

"Shanghai might be the victim, but the problem originates in the upstream Jiaxing," Mr Peng said.

"Under the current management system, the upstream government is unlikely to conduct responsible investigation.

"As for the central government, it's hard to say it is directly responsible because it is not responsible for the daily operations, but when it comes to watershed management, it should provide some policy and guidance in management," Mr Peng said.

Zhang Jian, a biotechnology salesman in Shanghai, said governments in various municipalities involved should cooperate or set up a task force on the pigs befouling their waterways.

"It is just disgusting and the government's statements have been unbelievable and disappointing," Mr Zhang said.

"I bet it will end up with nothing definite. That is the typical Chinese-style solution."
 

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N Korea 'behind S Korea computer crash'

Employees react at the newsroom of the all-news cable channel YTN as the broadcaster's computer network was paralysed in Seoul. Source: AP

COMPUTER networks at South Korean banks and TV broadcasters crashed simultaneously prompting speculation of a cyber attack by North Korea.

Screens went blank at 2pm (4pm AEDT), the state-run Korea Information Security Agency said, and more than seven hours later some systems were still down.

Police and South Korean officials couldn't immediately determine responsibility and North Korea's state media made no immediate comments on the shutdown. But some experts suspected a cyber attack orchestrated by Pyongyang. The rivals have exchanged threats amid joint US-South Korean military drills and in the wake of UN sanctions meant to punish North Korea over its nuclear test last month.

The network paralysis took place just days after North Korea accused South Korea and the US of staging a cyberattack that shut down its websites for two days last week. Loxley Pacific, the Thailand-based Internet service provider, confirmed the North Korean outage but did not say what caused it.

The South Korean shutdown did not affect government agencies or potential targets such as power plants or transportation systems, and there were no immediate reports that bank customers' records were compromised, but the disruption froze part of the country's commerce.

Some customers were unable to use the debit or credit cards that many rely on more than cash. At one Starbucks in downtown Seoul, customers were asked to pay for their coffee in cash, and lines formed outside disabled bank machines.

Shinhan Bank, a major South Korean lender, reported a two-hour system shutdown, including online banking and automated teller machines. It said networks later came back online and that banking was back to normal. Shinhan said no customer records or accounts were compromised.

Another big bank, Nonghyup, said its system eventually came back online. Officials didn't answer a call seeking details on the safety of customer records. Jeju Bank said some of its branches also reported network shutdowns.

Broadcasters KBS and MBC said their computers went down at 2pm, but that the shutdown did not affect TV broadcasts. Computers were still down about seven hours after the shutdown began, according to the state-run Korea Communications Commission, South Korea's telecom regulator.

The YTN cable news channel also said the company's internal computer network was paralysed. Footage showed workers staring at blank computer screens.

KBS employees said they watched helplessly as files stored on their computers began disappearing.

Last year, North Korea threatened to attack several news companies, including KBC and MBC, over their reports critical of children's' festivals in the North.

"It's got to be a hacking attack," said Lim Jong-in, dean of Korea University's Graduate School of Information Security. "Such simultaneous shutdowns cannot be caused by technical glitches."

The Korea Information Security Agency had reported that an image of skulls and a hacking claim had popped up on some of the computers that shut down, but later said those who reported the skulls did not work for the five companies whose computers suffered massive outages. KISA was investigating the skull images as well.

An official at the Korea Communications Commission said investigators speculate that malicious code was spread from company servers that send automatic updates of security software and virus patches.

LG Uplus Corp, which provides network services for the companies that suffered outages, saw no signs of a cyberattack on its networks, company spokesman Lee Jung-hwan said.

The South Korean military raised its cyber attack readiness level but saw no signs of cyber attacks on its networks, the Defense Ministry said.

No government computers were affected, officials said. President Park Geun-hye called for quick efforts to get systems back online, according to her spokeswoman, Kim Haing.

The shutdown raised worries about the overall vulnerability to attacks in South Korea, a world leader in broadband and mobile Internet access. Previous hacking attacks at private companies compromised millions of people's personal data. Past malware attacks also disabled access to government agency websites and destroyed files in personal computers.

Seoul believes North Korea runs an Internet warfare unit aimed at hacking US and South Korean government and military networks to gather information and disrupt service.

Seoul blames North Korean hackers for several cyber attacks in recent years. Pyongyang has either denied or ignored those charges. Hackers operating from IP addresses in China have also been blamed.

In 2011, computer security software maker McAfee said North Korea or its sympathisers likely were responsible for a cyberattack against South Korean government and banking websites earlier that year. The analysis also said North Korea appeared to be linked to a 2009 massive computer-based attack that brought down US government Internet sites. Pyongyang denied involvement.

The shutdown comes amid rising rhetoric and threats of attack from Pyongyang over the UN sanctions. Washington also expanded sanctions against North Korea this month in a bid to cripple the government's ability to develop its nuclear program.

North Korea has threatened revenge for the sanctions and for ongoing US-South Korean military drills, which the allies describe as routine but which Pyongyang says are rehearsals for invasion.

On Wednesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected military drills in which drone planes hit targets and rockets shot down mock enemy cruise missiles. Mr Kim told officers the North should "destroy the enemies without mercy so that not a single man can survive to sign a document of surrender when a battle starts," according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

Last week, North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea warned South Korea's "reptile media" that the North was prepared to conduct a "sophisticated strike" on Seoul.

North Korea also has claimed cyber attacks by the US and South Korea. The North's official Korean Central News Agency accused the countries of expanding an aggressive stance against Pyongyang into cyberspace with "intensive and persistent virus attacks."

South Korea denied the allegation and the US military declined to comment.

Mr Lim said he believes hackers in China were likely culprits in the outage in Pyongyang, but that North Korea was probably responsible for Wednesday's attack.

"Hackers attack media companies usually because of a political desire to cause confusion in society," he said. "Political attacks on South Korea come from North Koreans."

Orchestrating the mass shutdown of the networks of major companies would have taken at least one to six months of planning and coordination, said Kwon Seok-chul, chief executive officer of Seoul-based cybersecurity firm Cuvepia Inc.

Kwon, who analysed personal computers at one of the three broadcasters shut down Wednesday, said he hasn't yet seen signs that the malware was distributed by North Korea.

"But hackers left indications in computer files that mean this could be the first of many attacks," he said.

Mr Lim said tracking the source of the outage would take months.
 

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'Baby on board' gift for Kate

Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, reacts as she is presented a badge that says "baby on board", normally available to pregnant passengers to encourage others to give them a seat on the Tube. Picture: Matt Dunham Source: AP

THE Duchess of Cambridge has been given a gift every pregnant woman travelling on the London Underground probably needs - a "Baby on board" badge.

Kate still has a slim figure but, at five months pregnant, her baby bump is growing by the week.

She was given the practical present as she joined the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh at Baker Street Tube station to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the transport network.

The engagement was the Queen's first public event in more than a week, but she looked well and chatted to senior London Underground managers, train drivers and station staff during her visit.

The Queen, who has been suffering the symptoms of gastroenteritis, had been forced to miss a number of engagements since she was first declared ill by Buckingham Palace almost three weeks ago.

As the royal party stood on a platform, London Underground chief operating officer Howard Collins made the presentation of the white badge printed with the words "Baby on board" and featuring the famous London Underground roundel.

Watching guests laughed as Mr Collins handed over the gift and Kate held it against her teal-coloured Malene Birger coat and joked "I'll make sure I wear it at home".

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, wears a Transport For London badge that reads "baby on board", given to her during a visit to Baker Street tube station. Picture: Chris Radburn

"Kate said 'Oh yes, I've seen this before'. She used to travel on the Tube so she probably saw them then," Mr Collins said afterwards.

"She asked me 'How do they work?' and I said they're fantastic, they really do make a difference - saves men the embarrassment of having to guess if a woman is pregnant.

"She asked so many great questions of the staff and seemed really interested in our work."

The badges, available from Transport for London, overcome the awkwardness often felt by pregnant women of having to ask someone to give up their seat.

Britain's Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, right, accompanies the Queen, left, and Prince Philip, center, as they arrive at Baker Street underground station in London. Picture: Sang Tan

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Rat may have caused Fukushima outage

TEPCO says a rat may be responsible for a power outage at the Fukushima nuclear plant this week. Source: AP

THE power outage at Japan's troubled Fukushima power station may have been caused by a rat.

Masayuki Ono, spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, says a 15-centimetre rat was found dead Wednesday near a switchboard.

He says the rat may be linked to the power failure, but that more investigation is needed to be sure.

Technicians have restored power to all cooling systems at the reactors after a blackout sparked a new crisis.

Equipment in pools used to cool used fuel are now fully operational, some 30 hours after the blackout, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said.

Used nuclear fuel becomes dangerous if its temperature is allowed to rise uncontrollably to the point where a self-sustaining critical reaction begins, causing a meltdown.

"We have deeply worried the public, but the system has been restored and we have been able to stably cool" the pools, TEPCO spokesman Mr Ono told a press conference.

The utility was yet to find out what caused the power outage, but suspected a problem with a switchboard. "It will require some time because of detailed analysis required," Mr Ono added.

The incident was a reminder of the vulnerable state of the Fukushima plant two years after the tsunami which sparked the meltdowns, despite the government's claim that the reactors are in a "cold shutdown" state and no longer releasing high levels of radiation.

The latest crisis began Monday night with a brief power outage at a building that serves as the central command for work to contain the nuclear accident and to dismantle the reactors.

The initial glitch cut electricity to the cooling pools at three of four heavily damaged reactors as well as to a common pool at 7pm on Monday (9pm AEDT), according to TEPCO.

By Tuesday evening engineers had managed to restart cooling systems in the three affected reactor pools, TEPCO said.

A separate cooling system for the common pool was restarted just after midnight Wednesday, ending the latest problem, the company said.

TEPCO has stressed that the glitch was fixed before any lasting damage was caused, saying the temperatures of all the fuel pools remained well below the safety limit of 65 degrees Celsius.

The firm added that it was building a backup power supply to the pools.

Company officials say there has been no major change to the level of radioactivity at nearby monitoring spots.

Monday's outage knocked out power to nine facilities at the plant, its largest simultaneous electricity failure since it was brought under control in December 2011.

The firm says the incident did not affect the injection of cooling water into reactors whose cores melted down soon after the start of the 2011 nuclear crisis.

The meltdown of three of Fukushima's six reactors occurred after an earthquake and huge tsunami on March 11, 2011, which shut off the power supply and cooling system.

TEPCO drew flak for playing down the scale of the disaster in the first few months. It has since admitted it had been aware of the potential dangers of a big tsunami but did nothing for fear of the reputational and financial cost.

The latest incident rekindled public concern about whether the politically connected utility is being fully transparent.

TEPCO informed the government's regulatory agency about the blackout shortly after it started, but waited three hours before issuing a public press release.

With AP
 

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