THE mother of a two-year-old boy found wandering alone on a far north Queensland street has been located.
The boy was found wearing only a nappy at an intersection in the Cairns suburb of Westcourt about 1.45pm (AEST) on Monday and authorities appealed for help to find his parents.
By 8pm, the boy's mother had been found, with police thanking the public for their assistance.
Ratings agency Moody's has downgraded the credit rating of NAB's troubled UK Bank. Source: AAP
RATINGS agency Moody's has downgraded the credit rating of National Australia Bank's troubled UK subsidiary Clydesdale Bank.
Moody's downgraded the long term bank deposit and senior debt rating of Clydesdale to Baa2, from A2.
That means the loss-making bank is labelled a higher risk investment, going from upper-medium grade to a more speculative and moderate but still medium-grade credit risk.
NAB chief executive Cameron Clyne said he was disappointed by the downgrade, as he believed a restructure of the UK operations was driving improvements in its balance sheet.
"Clydesdale has a smaller and stronger balance sheet following the transfer of the vast majority of its commercial real estate portfolio to National Australia Bank Ltd in October 2012, materially improving Clydesdale Bank's risk profile," he said.
The ratings agency cited a deterioration in the business loan portfolio in the last year, with bad debts increasing 30 per cent over the period amid falling property values.
NAB took over Clydesdale's STG5.6 billion ($A9.73 billion) commercial loan book last October.
Moody's said the lowering of the rating reflected its view that Clydesdale faced longer-term structural challenges from its weakened franchise and past risk-management-control weaknesses.
The fact that NAB was also trying to sell Clydesdale left it in an uncertain position, it said.
The bank has started shedding jobs, with 1,400 to go in total.
A man and a woman have died after a motor scooter collided with a truck on a major Sydney road. Source: AAP
SEVEN people have been killed on NSW roads in less than 12 hours.
Police have launched an investigation into the death of an 84-year-old man who was hit by a Toyota Tarago as he crossed a road at Banora Point, near the Queensland border, just after 6pm (AEST) on Monday.
The pedestrian was critically injured, and although a doctor and bystanders rushed to help, he died in Tweed Hospital.
The driver was not hurt.
Later in the evening, a 26-year-old woman driving along the Wakehurst Parkway at Narrabeen, in Sydney's north, was killed when she crashed into a tree.
The first NSW road deaths of the day came about 9.45am, when a man and woman on a motor scooter collided with a truck in Haberfield, in Sydney's inner west.
Both died at the scene.
Three people also died in two separate single-vehicle crashes on the NSW mid-north coast on Monday afternoon.
The first came at 3.20pm, when a car carrying a man and a woman left the Old Pacific Highway at Lake Inness and hit a tree.
An hour later, a male driver hit a tree on Arakoon Road, Arakoon.
None of the three people who died on mid-north coast roads on Monday has been formally identified.
PEACE talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have been cancelled after Israeli security forces shot dead three Palestinians during clashes in the West Bank, a Palestinian official said.
"The meeting that was to take place in Jericho ... today (Monday) was cancelled because of the Israeli crime committed in Qalandiya today," the official said, referring to the refugee camp where the clashes erupted before dawn.
He did not set a new date.
"What happened today in Qalandiya shows the real intentions of the Israeli government," Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina, told AFP as reports of the shooting started to emerge.
He called on the US administration to "take serious and quick steps" to prevent the collapse of peace efforts.
Medics earlier reported three Palestinians shot dead and 19 wounded by Israeli security forces in Qalandiya camp, between Ramallah and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, very early Monday.
They named the dead as Rubeen Abed Fares, 30, and Yunis Jahjouh, 22, both shot in the chest, and Jihad Aslan, 20, who died of brain damage.
The hospital officials said all the casualties had been hit by live ammunition.
An Israeli police spokeswoman said that border police used "riot dispersal means" to disperse a stone-throwing crowd of 1,500 people, but she did confirm the use of live fire.
"In the early hours of the morning a border police team went into Qalandiya camp to arrest a hostile terrorist activist," spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.
"After his arrest a mob of about 1,500 residents began a disturbance, throwing petrol bombs and stones, endangering the lives of force members, who responded with riot dispersal means," she said.
She said that three border policemen were lightly injured by stones.
The peace talks formally resumed this month after a hiatus of nearly three years, thanks to an intense bout of shuttle diplomacy by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Palestinian sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, had at the weekend said they expected a new round of talks to be held Monday in the West Bank town of Jericho, but there had been no official confirmation from either side, in accordance with a US-imposed news blackout.
The talks have been overshadowed by Israeli plans to build more than 2,000 new homes for Jewish settlers on occupied Palestinian territory.
Hundreds of Hindu nationalists have clashed with police outside India's parliament. Source: AAP
HUNDREDS of Hindu nationalists have clashed with police outside India's parliament after being barred from conducting a religious march at a disputed holy site at the heart of deadly clashes between Hindus and Muslims.
Police used water cannons and bamboo batons on Monday to disperse 500 members and supporters of the World Hindu Council as they broke security barriers near the parliament building.
The city of Ayodhya, 550 kilometres east of New Delhi, has been under heavy security since last week, when the local government banned the march fearing communal violence.
Muslims say the site is the location of a former medieval mosque, while Hindus say it is the birthplace of their god Rama and that a temple stood there before the mosque was built.
GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned granting Greece another round of debt relief will unleash uncertainty in the eurozone and hit investment in the region.
"I explicitly warn against a haircut," Merkel told the news magazine Focus.
"It could trigger a domino effect of uncertainty which would result in private investors' readiness to invest in the eurozone falling again to zero."
The Greek economy has emerged as a campaign issue in the runup to the German election on September 22.
German taxpayers would be required to meet the lion's share of any new rescue package.
Merkel and her senior ministers have consistently ruled out debt relief for Greece.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble rejects the idea of debt relief for Greece but has said the cash-strapped nation will need a third bailout to meet its financial commitments.
The opposition Social Democrats (SDP) stepped up its drive to push Greece to the centre stage of the election campaign.
"Greece as a member of the European Union was certainly correct, but granting it membership of the eurozone was certainty wrong," SDP leader Sigmar Gabriel told the news magazine Der Spiegel.
Merkel meanwhile told Focus the question of further aid to Greece would not be discussed until next year.
"We will, as has been set out, once again deal in 2014 with the question of the development of debt and structural reforms in Greece."
Until then, Athens had a lot to do and must continue to implement its economic reform plans, Merkel said.
THE death toll in a fire at a state-owned oil refinery in southern India has risen to 10 after six bodies were recovered from the accident site.
The fire broke out on Friday at a refinery of Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd, in the southern city of Vishakhapatnam, after an explosion at a distillery unit where expansion work was taking place.
Two bodies were recovered from the accident site on Friday while two injured died later the same night.
Six charred bodies were found on Saturday, Vishakhapatnam Police Commissioner B Shivadhar Reddy said.
At least 30 people, most of them contract workers, are being treated for burn injuries.
The condition of six is said to be serious. The dead included one employee of the company.
The cause of the explosion was not yet clear but the fire was brought under control late Friday, Reddy said, adding that no one else was trapped in the debris.
Federal Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily said an official of the Oil India Safety Directorate had been asked to inquire into the incident and submit a report within 15 days. Local police are also investigating.
A PROMINENT human rights lawyer has compared the major political parties to the Taliban as he endorsed the re-election of Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young as an alternative voice on refugees.
Speaking to reporters alongside Senator Hanson-Young in Adelaide on Sunday, Julian Burnside QC said it was the first time in his life he had publicly supported a political party.
"I'm doing it because this is the first time in Australia's history that we've seen both major parties promising to outdo each other in cruelty to one group of human beings," he said.
His comments came as Senator Hanson-Young launched the Greens' refugee policy.
She said analysis from the parliamentary budget office showed taxpayers could save $3.2 billion if all offshore detentions centres were shut down, as well as some onshore centres.
The money could instead be used to give asylum seekers work rights so they could contribute to the economy and the community, she said.
"Many Australians want a new way, a more human way, and what we've shown today is that (this) is cost-effective as well as being the right thing to do."
Mr Burnside said Australia's asylum seeker policy had hurt the country in the eyes of civilised nations and it was now regarded as selfish and cruel overseas.
More than half the boat refugees who had arrived in the last 15 years were ethnic Hazara fleeing the Taliban, he said.
"We make ourselves look even nastier than the Taliban so that people won't try to come here," he said.
"Is that the Australia you want to live in?"
The Greens would also put a 30-day limit on the length of time asylum seekers could be kept in detention for health and security checks before being released into the community on bridging visas.
They would also increase Australia's humanitarian intake from 20,000 a year to 30,000.
A MAN has been arrested after a fight with family southwest of Sydney.
Police were responding to reports someone had been attacked with an axe when they attended a Tahmoor house, near Camden, about 3.10pm (AEST) on Sunday.
When they arrived they discovered the axe had actually been used to smash a window during an alleged family dispute.
A 52-year-old man was taken to Liverpool Hospital for treatment.
A 24-year-old was arrested and taken to Narellan Police Station where he is being questioned.
POLICE and local vessels are searching for a missing kayaker off Tasmania's south coast.
The police helicopter is searching for the kayaker around Dover and the Hope Island area, police say.
Waters are calm in the area and the helicopter is expected to stop its search at midnight (AEST).
