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.
PENTAGON chief Chuck Hagel has met his Israeli counterpart Moshe Yaalon to put the finishing touches on a major arms deal and for talks on Syria's civil war and the Iranian nuclear threat.
Speaking at a joint news conference in Tel Aviv on Monday, Hagel confirmed the two had finalised details of a multi-billion dollar arms deal which will see Israel receiving an impressive package of advanced US missiles and aircraft.
"Today we took another significant step in the US-Israel defence relationship," Hagel said, reiterating Washington's "ironclad pledge" to ensure Israel's qualitative military edge in a region rocked by turmoil.
"Minister Yaalon and I agreed that the United States will make available to Israel a set of advanced new military capabilities ... including anti-radiation missiles and advanced radars for fighter jets, KC135 refuelling aircraft, and most significantly the V-22 Osprey, which the United States has not released to any other nation."
Hagel arrived in Israel on Sunday at the start of a six-day regional tour, his first since taking over as Pentagon chief two months ago, which was likely to be dominated by concerns over Iran's nuclear program and Syria's civil war.
Syria was a central part of their talks, with Yaalon admitting that Israel had already "acted" to stop advanced Syrian weapons from falling into militant hands, in what was seen as implicit confirmation of Israeli involvement in a strike on an arms convoy inside Syria in January.
Yaalon said Israel had laid down three "very clear red lines" for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the first of which was "not to allow sophisticated weapons to be delivered or be taken by rogue elements like Hezbollah or other rogue elements."
"When they crossed this red line, we acted," he said, in what was widely understood to be the January 30 strike which hit what a US official said were surface-to-air missiles near Damascus that Israel suspected were en route to Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah.
The second red line was maintaining the calm along the Israeli-Syrian ceasefire line on the occupied Golan Heights, and the third was the transfer of chemical weapons into the hands of militants, which "has not been tested yet," Yaalon said.
Last month, Syrian rebels and the regime traded accusations of chemical weapons use for the first time in the two-year conflict, with similar allegations made by European diplomats in recent weeks.
Although Washington is investigating such claims, it has yet to reach a definitive conclusion.
The White House has warned however that use of chemical agents in the Syrian civil war would constitute a "game changer" but Hagel refused to be drawn on any possible US response.
Israel, believed to be the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power, has refused to rule out a pre-emptive military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, and Hagel on Monday reiterated Washington's credo that "every sovereign nation has a right to defend itself."
INDUSTRIAL heavyweight Caterpillar reported a big drop in quarterly earnings and profit forecast, citing a weakening outlook in its mining business.
Caterpillar said net income came in at $US880 million ($A860 million), down 45.4 per cent from the same period 12 months ago. Revenues also fell sharply, dropping 17.3 per cent to $US13.2 billion.
Caterpillar usually adds inventory in the first quarter, as in 2012, when it added about $US2 billion. But this year the company trimmed inventory by about a half billion dollars.
"What's happening in our business and in the economy overall is a mixed picture," said chief executive Doug Oberhelman. "Conditions in the world economy seem relatively stable, and we continue to expect slow growth in 2013."
Caterpillar said the range for 2013 revenues would be $US57-$US61 billion, down from the previous range of $US60-$US68 billion.
The company said profits would come in at around $US7.00 per share, down from the previous forecast of $US7-$US9 per share.
Caterpillar said its outlook for two of its three business segments - construction industries and power systems - is similar to the previous outlook. But conditions in the mining division "have decreased significantly."
The revised outlook now sees a sales decline of about 50 per cent from 2012 for traditional Cat machines used in mining. Caterpillar's revenues in resources, which includes mining, came in at $US3.7 billion in the most recent quarter, down from $US4.8 billion in the year-earlier period.
"From an operational standpoint, we have taken action to align production, costs and capital expenditures with the sales and revenues outlook. While 2013 will be a challenging year, we are confident about the long-term," said Oberhelman.
Caterpillar said it would take advantage of its depressed stock price to undertake stock repurchases for the first time since 2008. The company will resume stock repurchases in the second quarter and expects repurchases of about $US1 billion.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Falciani told El Pais newspaper 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," Falciani 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.
Hundreds of people are dead or injured after a 6.6 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province. Source: AAP
A POWERFUL earthquake struck the steep hills of China's southwestern Sichuan province on Saturday, leaving at least 156 people dead and more than 5,500 injured, nearly five years after a devastating quake wreaked widespread damage across the region.
Saturday's quake, while not as destructive as the one in 2008, toppled buildings, triggered landslides and disrupted phone and power connections in mountainous Lushan county.
The village of Longmen was hit particularly hard, with authorities saying nearly all the buildings there had been destroyed in a frightening minute-long shaking by the quake.
"It was such a big quake that everyone was scared," said a woman who answered the phone at a kindergarten hours later and declined to give her name. "We all fled for our lives."
Rescuers turned the square outside the Lushan County Hospital into a triage centre, where medical personnel bandaged bleeding victims, according to footage on China Central Television.
Rescuers dynamited boulders that had fallen across roads to reach Longmen and other damaged areas lying farther up the mountain valleys, state media reported.
CCTV reported that at least 156 people had died. The government of Ya'an city, which administers Lushan, said in a statement that more than 2,600 people were injured, but other reports suggested the real figure was probably more than double that.
The quake - measured by the China Earthquake Administration at magnitude-7.0 and by the US Geological Survey at 6.6 - struck the steep hills of Lushan county shortly after 8am (1000 AEST), when many people were at home, sleeping or having breakfast.
People in their underwear and wrapped in blankets ran into the streets of Ya'an and even the provincial capital of Chengdu, 115km east of Lushan, according to photos, video and accounts posted online.
The quake's shallow depth, less than 13km, likely magnified the impact.
Chengdu's airport shut down for about an hour before reopening, though many flights were cancelled or delayed, and its railway station halted dozens of scheduled train rides Saturday, state media said.
Lushan reported the most deaths, 76, but there was concern that casualties in neighbouring Baoxing county might have been under-reported because of inaccessibility after roads were blocked and power and phone services cut off.
As the region went into the first night after the quake, rain started to fall, slowing rescue work. Forecasts called for more rain in the next several days, and the China Meteorological Administration warned of possible landslides and other geological disasters.
Tens of thousands of people moved into tents or cars, unable to return home or too afraid to go back as aftershocks continued to jolt the region.
Lushan, where the quake struck, lies where the fertile Sichuan plain meets foothills that eventually rise to the Tibetan plateau and sits atop the Longmenshan fault.
It was along that fault line that a devastating magnitude-7.9 quake struck on May 12, 2008, leaving more than 90,000 people dead or missing and presumed dead in one of the worst natural disasters to strike China in recent decades.
"It was just like May 12," Liu Xi, a writer in Ya'an city, who was jolted awake by Saturday's quake, said via a private message on his account on Sina Corporation's Twitter-like Weibo service. "All the home decorations fell at once, and the old house cracked."
The official Xinhua News Agency said the well-known Bifengxia panda preserve, which is near Lushan, was not affected by the quake. Dozens of pandas were moved to Bifengxia from another preserve, Wolong, after its habitat was wrecked by the 2008 quake.
As in most natural disasters, the government mobilised thousands of soldiers and others - 7,000 people by Saturday afternoon - sending excavators and other heavy machinery as well as tents, blankets and other emergency supplies.
Two soldiers died after the vehicle that they and more than a dozen others were in slipped off the road and rolled down a cliff, state media reported.
Premier Li Keqiang flew to Ya'an to direct rescue efforts, and he and President Xi Jinping ordered officials and rescuers to make saving people the top priority, Xinhua said.
The Chinese Red Cross said it had deployed relief teams with supplies of food, water, medicine and rescue equipment to the disaster areas.
With roads blocked for several hours after the quake, the military surveyed the disaster area by air.
Aerial photos released by the military and shown on state television showed individual houses in ruins in Lushan and outlying villages flattened into rubble.
The roofs of some taller buildings appeared to have slipped off, exposing the floors beneath them.
The number of people killed in the Chinese earthquake has risen to 113, with at least 2,600 injured. Source: AAP
THE earthquake that has struck the steep hills of China's southwestern Sichuan province has left at least 113 people dead and more than 2,600 injured.
Nearly five years after a devastating quake wreaked widespread damage across the region, Saturday's quake toppled buildings, triggered landslides and disrupted phone and power connections in mountainous Lushan county.
The village of Longmen was hit particularly hard, with authorities saying nearly all the buildings had been destroyed.
Rescuers turned the square outside the Lushan County Hospital into a triage centre, where medical personnel bandaged bleeding victims, according to footage on China Central Television.
Rescuers dynamited boulders that had fallen across roads to reach Longmen and other damaged areas lying farther up the mountain valleys, state media reported.
The official Xinhua News Agency, citing the Sichuan earthquake bureau, said at least 113 people had died.
The government of Ya'an city, which administers Lushan, said in a statement that more than 2,600 people were injured, 330 of them severely.
The quake - measured by China's seismological bureau at magnitude 7.0 and the US Geological Survey at 6.6 - struck the steep hills of Lushan county shortly after 8am local time, when many people were at home, sleeping or having breakfast.
People in their underwear and wrapped in blankets ran into the streets of Ya'an and even the provincial capital of Chengdu, 115 kilometres east of Lushan, photos, video and accounts posted online showed.
The quake's shallow depth, less than 13 kilometres, likely magnified the impact.
It was along that fault line that the devastating magnitude-7.9 quake struck on May 12, 2008, leaving more than 90,000 people dead or missing and presumed dead in one of the worst natural disasters to strike China in recent decades.
