White House defends Guantanamo releases

US defence secretary Chuck Hagel has defended a prisoner exchange with the Taliban for a US soldier. Source: AAP

THE White House has defended the release of five Guantanamo detainees in exchange for a US soldier held by the Taliban, saying a potential threat had been "sufficiently mitigated."

Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl - the only US soldier held by the Taliban after being captured in Afghanistan - was freed on Saturday in a dramatic deal brokered by Qatar.

In exchange, five Taliban prisoners were turned over to the Arab emirate, where they will remain for a year, sparking criticism from some Republicans, who claimed they could return to the battlefield and pose a threat to Americans abroad.

But White House Press Secretary Jay Carney took to the US morning talk shows on Monday to downplay the threat posed by the men - influential former officials of the Taliban regime that was toppled by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

"We have a history in this country of making sure that our prisoners of war are returned to us, we don't leave them behind," Carney told CNN.

"And it's entirely appropriate, given the determination made by the secretary of defence, in consultation with the full national security team, that the threat potentially posed by the returned detainees was sufficiently mitigated to allow us to move forward and get Bowe Bergdahl back home where he belongs."

Carney added that a travel ban and monitoring was in effect, giving Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel "the confidence to make the determination he did.

"I can say that we do believe and have confidence that the measures put in place in agreement with the host country allow us to feel confident that the threat is sufficiently mitigated," he said.

Bergdahl's almost five years in captivity saw him transferred between various militant factions along the volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan border, finally ending up in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal district, according to militant sources.

The circumstances of the Idaho native's disappearance, from a base in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province in 2009, remain unclear.

He arrived Sunday at the US military medical centre in Landstuhl in southern Germany where he is to continue his "reintegration process," the army said.

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Businesses worried about budget cuts

MORE than half of Australia's businesses are worried about the fallout from the federal government's tough budget will have on them.

Nearly 60 per cent of businesses surveyed by Dun & Bradstreet expressed concern about the budget.

Retailers are bracing themselves for a tough September quarter, with expectations of falling profits following the steep spending cuts announced in last month's budget.

A quarter of retailers expect a fall in earnings, pulling the sector's profits index into negative territory for the first time in two years.

"The fall in expected earnings for retailers is reflective of the mood among consumers, which has dropped significantly following the release of the budget," the head of Dun & Bradstreet's Australasian operations Gareth Jones said on Tuesday.

"Combined with soft wages growth, and signs from D&B's consumer financial stress index that individuals are finding conditions more difficult, it's unsurprising that many businesses expect to see spending levels fall away."

Despite the gloom in the retail sector, manufacturers raised their expectations for sales and profits to 10-year highs.

Forty six per cent expected higher profits in the September quarter, with 57 per cent forecasting better sales.

Wholesalers were just as upbeat, with 43 per cent expecting a rise in earnings and 56 per cent flagging a lift in sales.

However their optimism was not enough to offset the lower expectations among retailers and those in the transportation, communications and utilities sector as well as those in finance, insurance and real estate, and services.

As a result the D&B all-industries sales expectations was flat at 33.4.

Overall, 62 per cent of businesses expressed confidence about growth this year compared to 2013.

Hiring expectations also lifted for a fourth consecutive quarter, buoyed by the better-than-expected 5.8 per cent unemployment rate announced in May.

More than a fifth of businesses plan to hire workers in the September quarter, with nine per cent planning to cut staff.

"Despite concerns from business about the potential impact of the budget, expectations are, on balance, favourable for the next three months," said Dun & Bradstreet's economic advisor Stephen Koukoulas.

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Lucy rejects Malcolm leadership talk

Malcolm Turnbull says claims he might mount a leadership challenge are 'demented' and 'unhinged'. Source: AAP

MALCOLM Turnbull's fluey quest for spicy soup has been miscast as a leadership challenge, the cabinet minister's wife and former Sydney lord mayor Lucy Turnbull says.

Lucy Turnbull told the ABC's Q&A on Monday there was no conspiracy when her husband met Mr Palmer, the leader of the Palmer United Party, for dinner last Wednesday night.

Mr Turnbull sent a text message at 6pm on Wednesday saying he had the flu and needed some spicy soup.

"He sent me a message at 6.30 in the morning saying 'guess what, having dinner and then Clive came along.'"

"It was completely spontaneous.

"It has been completely miscast."

Mr Turnbull on Monday labelled conservative political commentator Andrew Bolt "demented" and "unhinged" for suggesting he's trying to take back the Liberal leadership.

Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, also a guest on the program, said he thought Mr Turnbull went too far in criticising Mr Bolt.

"It was inappropriate, it was unwise to do," he said.

It kicked the whole thing along.

"Malcolm I just think went a bit too heavy today."

On Sunday Mr Bolt asked Prime Minister Tony Abbott at the weekend whether Mr Turnbull's recent dinner with Mr Palmer was an indication Mr Turnbull has designs on the party's top job.

Mr Abbott on Sunday played down Mr Turnbull's actions, saying it was "perfectly reasonable" for senior members of the coalition to talk with crossbenchers to help get the budget passed.

Mr Bolt has written on his popular blog that he is sure Mr Turnbull is not contemplating any imminent challenge.

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Brown wooed as face of Tasmanian tourism

Greens patriarch Bob Brown is being courted as the face of Tasmania's tourism campaigns. Source: AAP

BOB Brown is being wooed as the face of Tasmanian wilderness tourism.

The former Greens leader has been sounded out by the state's tourism industry to promote Tasmania's World Heritage Area.

The idea builds on the recent Go Behind the Scenery campaign, which sought to make the state's environmental battles a point of interest for tourists.

Tourism Industry Council boss Luke Martin has said Dr Brown defines the state's recent history.

But the Greens' patriarch may not be easily wooed.

Tasmania's new Liberal state government wants to open up national parks to eco-tourism development, a move Dr Brown has called "stupid" and "greedy".

Premier Will Hodgman is also backing a federal government move to cut 74,000 hectares from the World Heritage Area.

Dr Brown says he already pushes destination Tasmania but there would be conditions to him fronting a tourism campaign.

"I'm very woo-able but not unless they get the (balance) right," he has told the Hobart Mercury.

"Private development should be outside World Heritage and outside national parks, and developments inside national parks should be public and they should be well funded."

The Hodgman government has called for potential investors to pitch "sensitive and appropriate" eco-tourism ideas.

Mr Martin says they are the norm in countries such as New Zealand and Canada, where green groups support them.

Greens leader Christine Milne said the tourism industry should oppose the federal government's World Heritage wind-back.

"It's a bit rich for the Tourism Industry Council to be appealing to Bob Brown to help it sell tourism in World Heritage Areas while the Abbott government is trying to destroy them," she said in a statement.

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Better airliner tracking announced: IATA

AVIATION industry plans to improve global tracking following the Malaysia jet disappearance will be ready in September, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) says.

Announcing the date, the association's chief Tony Tyler repeated his earlier message that there must be "no repeat" of the flight MH370 incident.

Nothing has been found of the Malaysia Airlines' Boeing 777, which vanished on March 8 with 239 people on board en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"The loss of MH370 points us to an immediate need," Mr Tyler, IATA's director general and chief executive, told a world air transport summit in Doha on Monday.

"A large commercial airliner going missing without a trace for so long is unprecedented in modern aviation. It must not happen again.

"IATA, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and experts from around the world are working together to identify the best recommendations for improved global tracking.

"By September, we will deliver draft options to ICAO.

IATA's global aviation data management project is building the world's largest resource of operational information with data from a global spectrum of industry and government contributors.

"Our ultimate goal is to predict the potential for accidents and so ensure that they don't happen," Mr Tyler added.

"This is not science fiction. Each new data contribution and every improvement in our analytical capabilities moves this closer to reality."

Last week, Australia's Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre announced an end to the search in the southern Indian Ocean for the missing plane, after nothing had been found.

The agency said that an expanded search, based on satellite analysis of the plane's most likely route, would probably begin in August after commercial side-scan sonar operators were contracted.

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NATO, Russia views on Ukraine 'far apart'

NATO'S and Russia's views on the crisis in Ukraine "remain far apart," a spokeswoman for the military alliance says after its ambassadors met with Moscow's envoy to NATO, Alexander Grushko, for the first time since March.

"It is clear that there are fundamentally different views on this crisis, on its origins, on what is happening now and how it should be resolved," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen concludes after the talks, according to spokeswoman Oana Lungescu.

The NATO ambassadors call on Russia to engage constructively with Ukraine's newly elected president, Petro Poroshenko, and say they would not recognise the annexation of Crimea.

"They also called on Russia to respect its international commitment to stop the flow of arms and weapons across the border, to stop supporting armed separatists in Ukraine and to withdraw in full and verfiable manner their troops from the border," Lungescu says.

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Ex-Montana gov, others seek money for mine

A GROUP of investors that includes former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer is seeking $10 million from a mining company in exchange for access to a huge copper and silver reserve - a move the company's chief executive says was "extortion" and included a threat to stir up negative publicity for the project.

Schweitzer, who has hinted at a 2016 presidential run, rejected the accusation and said he had been making a good-faith effort to resolve the dispute with a cash and stock settlement.

The two-term Democratic governor last year joined a handful of investors to form Optima Inc. That business controls mining rights - known as claims - on underground parcels needed by Mines Management Inc to access the proposed Montanore mine beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness near Libby.

The mine would tap into underground veins of copper and silver ore valued at more than $8 billion and employ 350 people. A federal judge in April gave Montanore a preliminary condemnation order giving it rights to access the reserves through tunnels passing through Optima's claims.

The order entitles Optima to just compensation. Schweitzer says $10 million represents a "ballpark figure" of what the claims are worth, and it is based on an earlier offer from Optima that was rejected by Mines Management.

Mines Management Chief Executive Officer Glenn Dobbs told The Associated Press that when Schweitzer called him in March to make the offer, the former governor threatened retribution if Optima didn't get its way.

"It was an extortion call," Dobbs said. "They were going to announce to the world that we didn't have access to the project. They would create controversy and depress our share price ... It's really gutter-type gangsterism."

Schweitzer responded that Dobbs' accusation was "silly."

"How would it make sense for us to depress the value of the shares if that's the way we were hoping to be paid compensation? These are illogical allegations, and they are not true," he said.

Schweitzer left office last year and now serves as chairman of Stillwater Mining Inc, where he helped engineer a corporate board takeover that ousted the company's former chairman and CEO. Stillwater - Montana's largest mining company - is not involved with Optima or the Montanore mine, Schweitzer said.

A formal compensation claim against Mines Management from Optima is expected to be filed in federal court Thursday. If the two sides cannot agree on compensation, the court will appoint a commission to resolve the matter, according to Montana condemnation laws.

The mining claims at issue were originally owned by another member of Optima, Arnold Bakie, according to court documents.

Spokane-based Mines Management needs the Bakie claims to access a 4,200 metre tunnel and build another that would give it access to the silver and copper reserves, the company said in court documents.

Bakie and others with claims at the Montanore site were sued by Mines Management in an attempt to cancel out their claims.

After a state court rejected the lawsuit, the company filed a separate complaint in US District Court to condemn the claims under Montana's eminent domain law.

A previous $100,000 offer to Bakie was rejected last year.

Schweitzer said he had followed the case as governor, and he got involved once he left office. Optima was incorporated after conversations between Schweitzer and Bakie that the governor said were "mutually" initiated.

"I was familiar with the doings here as governor," Schweitzer said. "I saw what was happening: These guys from MMI (Mines Management) thought they would come in here and strong-arm Arnold Bakie and their big lawyers are going to scare him ... Now he has partners that stand with him."

In March, Mines Management turned down Schweitzer's offer to resolve the claims dispute in exchange for cash and stock worth about $10 million, according to Dobbs and Schweitzer. That's when Dobbs said Schweitzer made his threats.

Dobbs also accused Schweitzer's administration of delaying the project during his two terms in office - another claim that Schweitzer said is untrue.

"Quite the opposite. This is an opportunity to settle this thing and have it over with" so work on the mine can proceed, he said.

Mines Management has been seeking state and federal permits since 2005 for Montanore. Its reserves hold 230 million ounces of silver and 1.7 billion pounds of copper, according to Mines Management.

A permit decision by the US Forest Service and other agencies is targeted for 2015.

That timeline is largely dictated by the federal agencies, not the state, said Kristi Ponozzo, project coordinator at the Montana Department of Environmental Protection. She said she was unaware of any involvement by Schweitzer when he was in office.

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Moose disrupts handicraft class in Sweden

SCHOOLCHILDREN in western Sweden received a surprise visit during their handicraft class when a moose jumped through the window.

The teacher and a dozen teenagers fled the classroom on Monday to another part of the school and locked themselves into a room to escape the thrashing animal, which had wounded itself on the broken window.

Goteborg police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg told daily Aftonbladet that the young moose "was in a panic and so were the children and teacher".

Officers broke a window to let the schoolchildren out and later shot the wounded animal that couldn't find its way out of the school.

Except for the moose, no one was injured during the incident at the high school in Molndal, near the western city of Goteborg.

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