'Yeah I've made mistakes': joyride suspect

HE was expected to give evidence at a Sydney inquest into the joyride hit-and-run of a devoted father of two.

Instead, a young man was arrested and handcuffed at Glebe Coroners Court and taken to Newtown police station for questioning in relation to the October 2010 death of 48-year-old Daryl Reid.

The inquest has heard police suspect the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was the driver of a stolen ute that ploughed through a stop sign and into Mr Reid's car.

The man and another boy then ran off and left Mr Reid to die from his "terrible injuries", the inquest before Deputy State Coroner Sharon Freund heard.

On his Facebook page two months ago, the man who was aged 17 at the time of the alleged incident, wrote: "Everyone looks at me as a bad person and really none of you ... know me, yeah I've made mistakes I've payed (sic) for them greatly.

"I just want to be the happy person I used to be why did my life turn upside down."

He was due to take the stand on Tuesday, but instead his lawyer handed up a signed statement after his arrest.

It came a day after Mr Reid's widow Lorraine made an emotional plea for the truth about her husband's death.

"How can someone have an accident and run away and not even call an ambulance?" Ms Reid asked through her tears.

"You don't let somebody die on the side of the road."

Several teenagers in court cried as Ms Reid described how her family struggled to cope with her husband's death.

Police believe two to three teenagers were involved in stealing a ute they discovered with its keys still inside after attending a nearby house party.

They then took it for a spin, reaching speeds of about 90km/h before the crash.

Another boy who said he was a passenger in the car took the stand on Monday and apologised to Ms Reid.

"I'm utterly sorry from the bottom of my heart," the boy, who was just 13 years old at the time, said.

"It's totally up to you but I'd like to help you in any way I can...I'd do anything for you."

The boy also pleaded for the driver of the car to come forward and take responsibility.

Ms Freund suspended the inquest.

The 19-year-old man was later charged with numerous offences, including dangerous driving cause death, failing to stop after impact causing death, reckless and furious driving, stealing a motor vehicle and take and drive conveyance.

He has been refused bail and will reappear at Campbelltown Children's Court on July 29.

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Russian booster rocket crashes

A Russian rocket carrying three satellites has crashed in Kazakhstan shortly after takeoff. Source: AAP

A RUSSIAN booster rocket carrying three satellites has crashed at a Russia-leased cosmodrome in Kazakhstan shortly after the launch.

The Russian Space Agency said in a statement Tuesday that the Proton-M booster unexpectedly shut down the engine 17 seconds into the flight and crashed some 2 kilometres away from the Baikonur launch pad.

Russian officials said there were no casualties or damage immediately reported. Meanwhile, the Interfax news agency quoted Kazakh Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Bozhkov as saying that the burning rocket fuel has blanketed the launch pad with a toxic cloud.

But he said authorities have yet to determine its potential danger to the environment.

Another Proton-M booster crashed in Baikonur in August 2012 when it failed to place two satellites into orbits.

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Girl thrown from car in NSW crash

A YOUNG girl thrown from a car after a collision on a Sydney freeway has escaped serious injury as have a four-year-old boy and a woman also in the vehicle.

The six-year-old girl from Engadine was taken to Westmead Hospital with non life threatening injuries, police say.

When she was found by emergency services after the collision on the F3 at Wahroonga on Tuesday morning she was still strapped into her booster seat.

At first doctors feared the worst and assessed the girl for head injuries.

But they soon discovered she had escaped with only bruising and cuts to her head.

The 27-year-old truck driver was taken to Hornsby Hospital for mandatory blood and urine testing.

Police are investigating the crash and have asked for anyone with information to come forward.

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50 hurt when quake hits Aceh

A STRONG 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia's north western province of Aceh on Tuesday, causing buildings to collapse and injuring at least 50 people.

The quake hit inland at 0737 GMT at a depth of just 10 kilometres, 55 kilometres south of Bireun and 72 kilometres south east of Reuleuet, the US Geological Survey said.

"We have received around 50 people with injuries suffered when the walls of their houses collapsed," Ema Suryani, a doctor at a health clinic in Lampahan city, Bener Meriah district, told AFP.

"The injuries vary from open wounds to broken bones."

Injured people had been transported from several affected villages in two trucks, she said.

People also ran out of buildings in panic in the provincial capital Banda Aceh as the quake shook houses for around one minute, an AFP journalist at the scene said.

A massive quake struck off Aceh in 2004, sparking a tsunami that killed 170,000 people in the province on Sumatra and tens of thousands more in countries around the Indian Ocean.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where continental plates collide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

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Pakistan backing Afghan peace efforts

British Prime Minister David Cameron has arrived in Pakistan for talks on the Afghan peace process. Source: AAP

PAKISTAN has assured visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron that it will promote efforts to reach a peace deal in neighbouring Afghanistan before NATO's planned withdrawal.

Cameron is the first foreign government leader to visit Islamabad since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took office in June after winning landmark elections in May.

Relations between Kabul and Islamabad are traditionally mired in distrust. The apparent headway made at a summit hosted by Cameron in February has since unravelled in a series of public rows.

Cameron flew to Pakistan from Afghanistan, where he joined an international push to revive peace efforts that recently collapsed in ignominy after the Taliban opened an office in the Qatari capital Doha.

"We hope that the UK will continue these efforts to seek sustainable peace and stability in Afghanistan," Sharif told reporters after Sunday's talks with Cameron.

He supported Afghan President Hamid Karzai's position that any peace process should be "Afghan-owned and Afghan-led".

"I have assured Prime Minister Cameron of our firm resolve to promote the shared objective of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan, to which the three million Afghan refugees currently living in Pakistan can return with honour and dignity," said Sharif.

Cameron welcomed Sharif's remarks about the "vital importance of the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan".

"I profoundly believe that a stable, prosperous, peaceful, democratic Afghanistan is in Pakistan's interest, just as a strong, stable, peaceful, prosperous, democratic Afghanistan is in Pakistan's interest, and I know that you and President Karzai will work together towards those ends," Cameron said.

The search for a peace deal is an urgent priority as 100,000 US-led NATO combat troops prepare to withdraw next year and Afghan forces take on the fight against insurgents that has lasted more than a decade.

The Taliban office in Qatar that opened on June 18 was meant to foster talks but instead enraged Karzai, who saw it as being styled as an embassy for a government-in-exile.

He broke off bilateral security talks with the Americans and threatened to boycott any peace process altogether.

On Saturday however, Karzai told Cameron that a subsequent Taliban attack on the presidential palace "will not deter us from seeking peace".

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Robin Thicke enjoys eighth week at top

Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines has become the longest running No. 1 single of 2013 on the ARIA charts. Source: AAP

NOT since last winter has a song spent so long at the top of the ARIA charts, with Robin Thicke with TI and Pharrell with Blurred Lines spending an eighth week at No.1.

The last song to achieve eight weeks was Flo Rida with Whistle across May, June and July 2012.

If Thicke only stays for eight weeks, he will have tied for third place in the longest running No.1 this decade, as Gotye and Kimbra also spent eight weeks at the top in 2011 with Somebody That I Used to Know.

Ahead with the longest running No.1s this decade are two LMFAO songs - Sexy and I Know It, at the top for nine weeks, and Party Rock Anthem, at the top for ten weeks.

Blasting up 40 places from last week's debut at No.42 to No.2 this week is Avicii featuring Aloe Blacc with Wake Me Up, becoming his highest charting single.

Jumping up six places each within the Top 10 are Timomatic with Parachute to No.3 and Olly Murs with Dear Darlin' to No.4.

After returning to No.2 last week, Passenger slips down three places to No.5 with Let Her Go, Bastille's pending August tour in Australia helps keep Pompeii at No.6 this week, and down three places to No.7 are Daft Punk with Pharrell and Get Lucky.

Jessie J lands her fourth Top 10 single in Australia as her latest track Wild is up six places to a new peak of No.8.

Imagine Dragons land their first Top 10 hit with Radioactive up three places to No.9, and returning to the Top 10, back up a place to No.10, is Matt Corby with Resolution.

On the ARIA albums chart, the Voice Season 2 winner Harrison Craig sees his debut album More Than a Dream debut at the top, selling enough to achieve Gold in its first week of sales.

Last week's top two debuts move down one place each this week, with Yeezus for Kanye West dropping to No.2 and Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey's The Great Country Songbook down to No.3.

Rising back up to No.4 is The Great Gatsby Soundtrack and back up two places to No.5 is Bruno Mars with Unorthodox Jukebox.

Daft Punk hold steady at No.6 in their sixth week on the chart with Random Access Memories, Pink is back up five places to No.7 with The Truth about Love, and Bernard Fanning drops four places to No.8 with Departures.

Ice on the Sun for Empire of the Sun falls six places to No.9 and down to No.10 is Passenger with All the Little Lights.

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South China Sea row heats up ASEAN talks

THE Philippines has accused China of a "massive" military build-up in the disputed South China Sea, warning at a regional security forum that the Asian giant's tactics were a threat to peace.

Sunday's statement by Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario ensured the growing row over rival claims to the strategically vital and potentially resource-rich sea would again be a key focus of the annual four-day Asia-Pacific talks.

"Del Rosario today expressed serious concern over the increasing militarisation of the South China Sea," said a Philippine government statement released on the first day of the event in the Brunei capital.

Del Rosario said there was a "massive presence of Chinese military and paramilitary ships" at two groups of islets within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone, called Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal.

Del Rosario described the Chinese presence at these islets as "threats to efforts to maintain maritime peace and stability in the region".

He did not give details of the alleged build-up but said the Chinese actions violated a pact in 2002 in which rival claimants to the sea pledged not to take any actions that may increase tensions.

The declaration on conduct signed by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China also committed claimants to settle their disputes "without resorting to the threat or use of force".

China claims nearly all of the sea, even waters approaching the coasts of neighbouring countries.

ASEAN members the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia, as well as Taiwan, also have competing claims to parts of the sea.

The rivalries have for decades been a source of regional tension, with China and Vietnam fighting battles in 1974 and 1988 for control of some islands in which dozens of Vietnamese soldiers died.

Tensions have again grown in recent years with the Philippines, Vietnam and some other countries expressing concern at increasingly assertive Chinese military and diplomatic tactics to stress control of the sea.

ASEAN has been trying for more than a decade to secure agreement from China on a legally binding code of conduct that would govern actions in the South China Sea.

China has resisted agreeing to the code, wary of making any concessions that may weaken its claim to the sea.

Nevertheless, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said ASEAN would continue to press its case with China in Brunei.

"We will be really zeroing in on the need for the code of conduct," Natalegawa told reporters on Saturday.

Toxic smoke from uncontrolled burning of Indonesia's enormous rainforests that has drifted across to neighbouring countries was also discussed on the first day of the Brunei talks.

Natalegawa said the fires had been greatly reduced and were coming under control.

The talks will expand on Monday and Tuesday to include the US, China, Japan, Russia and other countries across the Asia-Pacific, providing the platform for face-to-face diplomacy on many of the world's hot-button issues.

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Abortion drug overshadows new PBS listings

Health Minister Tanya Plibersek says the abortion pill RU486 will be listed on the PBS. Source: AAP

THE inclusion of controversial abortion drug RU486 on Australia's subsidised medication program has been labelled an "abuse of power" by pro-life supporters.

Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek announced on Sunday that Mifepristone and Misoprostol - used in combination to terminate a pregnancy of up to seven weeks gestation - would be added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

"By offering this different option at a very difficult time in a woman's life, I hope that we are giving more choice in what are often extraordinary difficult circumstances," the minister said.

However Right To Life president Margaret Tighe said the decision was a "gross abuse of power" by the government.

"The PBS is designed to include life-saving drugs," she told AAP.

"In this case these drugs are just going to make it easier and cheaper and quicker to have more abortions in Australia and that's an absolute disgrace and goes against the purpose of the PBS."

Listing of the abortion drugs overshadowed the addition of cancer treatments and an anti-stroke medication which were also named by Ms Plibersek as newcomers to the PBS.

Breakthrough skin cancer drug ipilimumab, late-stage prostate cancer treatment abiraterone and breast cancer medication vinorelbine were added to the list in a move that will cost taxpayers $430 million over the next four years.

"The exciting thing about these new treatments is that they will extend the life of patients with melanoma, with prostate cancer, with breast cancer," Ms Plibersek said.

"If we didn't subsidise these medicines through the PBS they would be out of the reach of most Australians."

The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia welcomed news of abiraterone's listing to help in the fight against a cancer that kills 3300 men each year.

"Affordable access to therapy at all stages of the condition is vital and the minister's decision to include the therapy on the PBS highlights her commitment to all Australians touched by prostate cancer," foundation CEO Anthony Lowe said in a statement.

Cancer Australia also welcomed the new PBS listings.

"All these agents are important in their own way and to have them available more widely is very important to patients," Professor Jim Bishop said on behalf of the national body.

The government will also put up $450 million over the coming four years for the PBS inclusion of anti-stroke medication rivaroxaban.

"It's a drug that will be used by patients who have been on Warfarin in the past," Ms Plibersek said.

The revised PBS listings are effective from August.

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Crowds set to farewell Sydney monorail

LARGE crowds are expected to head to Sydney's monorail on Sunday to witness the steel giant's last spin around town.

The Sydney character will take its final ride at 9.30pm on Sunday, after a quarter of a century trundling above people's heads.

Labelled as a "fad" and a "white elephant" by NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian on Friday, ticket sales have increased leading up to its farewell.

"In the last three weeks we've seen a 15 per cent increase in customers, compared to this time last year," a NSW Transport spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday.

"With the final weekend of monorail operations, along with school holidays, we're expecting very large crowds."

A single loop ticket will be available for those wanting to get a last look at the monorail.

All sales will go to five charities and a ballot will be drawn to select the final people riding the monorail.

Ticket sales will stop at 8.30pm with the final passenger loop to take place from 9.30pm for the ballot winners.

Workers will begin dismantling the monorail, with almost all of its 1500 tonnes of steel and 400 cubic metres of concrete to be recycled.

However, two monorail carriages and 10 metres of the track will be preserved in the Sydney's Powerhouse Museum in the short term.

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Review of Qld power tariff reforms begins

ERGON Energy has begun a review of electricity pricing in Queensland, with tariff reforms due to be phased in from 2014.

Earlier this year the government proposed scrapping uniform tariffs to entice greater competition and merge government-owned retailers Energex and Ergon.

It's hoped the merging would save $580 million over seven years and reduce duplication of infrastructure.

Queensland Energy Minister Mark McArdle announced on Saturday that Ergon Energy had begun a review of power tariffs.

Restructured tariffs will commence in 2014-15, with further tariff reforms to be brought in over the 2015-2020 period.

Mr McArdle also urged Queenslanders and interest groups to get involved with the review.

"It makes sense that we now need to reconsider these tariffs so they better reflect the needs of Queenslanders," he said.

He says reforms will give customers more options and encourage electricity use to off-peak times.

Representatives from Ergon Energy, Energex, the Queensland Competition Authority, Treasury and Mr McArdle's department will provide oversight of the tariff reforms.

The Greens have criticised the absence of a representative from the solar industry in the group.

"Solar is the elephant in the room in the energy debate," a spokesman said.

"They are not making room in the working group for this important new industry player."

Electricity prices will rise by about $260 a year for the average household from Monday under a ruling by the Queensland Competition Authority.

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