Bashed Sydney man's family seeks witnesses

THE family of a man brutally bashed by a stranger in the Sydney CBD have pleaded for two men caught on camera to turn themselves in.

Matthew Blackmore, 33, was crossing George Street to catch a cab home around midnight last Sunday when an unknown man smashed him in the side of the face, in what police have described as an "vicious, unprovoked" attack.

He was knocked unconscious and fell face first onto the pavement, breaking his nose and striking his head.

The Maroubra banker remained in hospital on Sunday, and his sister Karen Blackmore said he faced a long recovery.

"It's one day at a time," she told reporters.

"He's struggling, to be honest ... he doesn't recall anything, he doesn't know why."

Detectives have now released CCTV footage of two men who are wanted for questioning over the incident.

One man is described as being of Caucasian appearance, with an athletic build and short brown hair.

He was wearing a black jacket, white button-up shirt, dark pants and white shoes.

The second man depicted in the footage also looks Caucasian, has a short stocky build and a shaved head.

He was dressed in a dark jacket, white shirt, black pants and black shoes.

City Central Local Area Command's Stephen Warren said CCTV video showed the two men pulling up in a dark 4WD to the CBD street where Mr Blackmore was bashed.

"The males that we wish to speak to are seen to get out of that vehicle, cross George Street, and moments later the assault on Matthew occurs," he told reporters in Sydney.

He said Mr Blackmore didn't know either man, but urged anyone who did recognise them to come forward.

"Tell us what you know, so that we can bring some comfort to this family and try to arrest the offenders," he said.

Acting Inspector Warren also revealed police have obtained CCTV footage of the assault itself.

Mark Blackmore told reporters it was time for his brother's attacker to come forward.

"It's been a week, you've had time to think about your actions," he said.

He's described his brother as "one of the lucky ones" because he escaped severe brain damage in the incident, but Matthew Blackmore still suffers memory loss, severe headaches and difficulty balancing.

17.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Nurses to strike at 160 NSW hospitals

Nurses and midwives will strike at more than 160 public hospitals and community health services. Source: AAP

NURSES and midwives at every major hospital in NSW will be walking off the job on Wednesday.

Staff at more than 160 public hospitals and community health services across the state have notified the union about their plans to strike.

They are protesting over what they say is the state government's failure to provide safe nurse staffing levels.

NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association General Secretary Brett Holmes said more branches were expected to join the cause by Wednesday.

"For a few hundred million dollars a year the state government can dramatically improve patient care in our public hospitals," he said in a statement on Sunday.

The union wants one nurse to four patients in all general medical, surgical and acute inpatient mental health wards.

It's also calling for one nurse per three children in general children's wards and one nurse to three patients in emergency departments.

The extra staffing would "save lives and money", Mr Holmes said, adding that the nurse-to-patient ratios needed to be consistent at every hospital in NSW, including those in the country.

A special general meeting will be held at Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre from 11.30am (AEST) on Wednesday, with a live webcast to 17 regional centres, including Albury, Broken Hill, Kempsey, Tamworth and Wagga Wagga.

During the strike life-preserving services will be maintained in all hospitals and community health services, the union said.

17.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Rudd's PNG boat deal a fake fix: Abbott

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says asylum seekers could still be resettled in Aus. Source: AAP

THE coalition has launched a broad attack on Labor's asylum seeker deal with Papua New Guinea, accusing Kevin Rudd of misleading Australians to win votes ahead of an election.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says the central thrust of the deal - that all asylum seekers arriving by boat will be sent to PNG and will not be resettled in Australia - simply is not true.

"It's clear that neither of Mr Rudd's assertions are actually borne out by the document," he told reporters in Melbourne on Sunday.

"Mr Rudd has been misleading to the point of dishonesty."

Mr Abbott, accompanied by his immigration spokesman Scott Morrison, detailed a long list of alleged flaws with the deal, signed on Friday by Mr Rudd and his PNG counterpart Peter O'Neill.

Under the arrangement, people arriving by boat without a visa were to be sent to Australia's Manus Island facility in PNG for assessment and, if found to be refugees, would be settled there.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus earlier said it was unlikely PNG's leader would have told the coalition anything different.

"I'm certain that's not what Prime Minister O'Neill said," Mr Dreyfus told Network Ten.

But Mr Abbott said the document wasn't even legally binding, but a scant two pages "held together with blue tac and sticky tape" to last until the election.

"This is simply another fake fix from someone who is the great pretender of Australian politics," he said.

Mr Morrison said it was clear from examining the details that PNG was not bound to the agreement, and that Labor had no plan for children arriving by boat.

PNG would not take an unlimited number of asylum seekers, despite Labor claims to the contrary, and it could be years before Manus Island could handle a surge in arrivals, he added.

He said people who are found not to be refugees would become Australia's problem, and those with communicable diseases, terrorism charges or a criminal background would remain in Australia.

"The devil is always in the detail with Mr Rudd, and Mr Rudd always proves to be the devil in that detail," Mr Morrison said.

Mr Rudd's hardline policy will likely feature at a meeting of Labor MPs meeting in Sydney on Monday, with Cabinet member Mark Butler acknowledging a level of discomfort within the party ranks.

"There would be people within the Labor movement and the Labor party and the broader community who would feel uncomfortable with this," he told Sky News.

It comes as Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare announced that the Australian Federal Police would pay rewards of up to $200,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of people smugglers.

But Foreign Minister Bob Carr said asylum seekers were arriving at the rate of 40,000 to 50,000 a year, and a tough response to stop that rising even further was unavoidable.

"If it continues at this level - the prime minister was very persuaded by this - it could rise further as people smugglers really close in to make a financial killing," he told Sky News.

The coalition has said it would "salvage" what it could from the deal if elected to government, but wouldn't be replaced its foremost policy of turning back asylum boats where it's safe to do so.

17.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

10 rebels and soldiers killed in Colombia

Six guerillas from the FARC rebel group and four Colombian soldiers have been killed in clashes. Source: AAP

SIX guerillas from the leftist FARC rebel group and four Colombian soldiers have been killed in clashes in southwest Colombia.

Military officials say the fighting occurred in the town of El Doncello, in the department of Caqueta, a stronghold of the southern bloc of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Three soldiers were injured and two militants captured.

The latest casualties of Colombia's almost half-century-old insurgency came a day after the rebel group announced it had captured a US-ex soldier but said it was ready to release him as a gesture toward peace talks with the government.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, is the country's largest guerrilla group with 8000 fighters.

Talks between the rebels and the government opened last November in Cuba, in the fourth attempt since the 1980s to end the conflict that has left 600,000 dead, more than 3.7 million displaced and 15,000 missing.

17.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Poachers kill two Kenyan wildlife rangers

TWO Kenyan wildlife rangers have been killed in a gun battle with suspected elephant poachers, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said Friday.

A gang of poachers armed with AK-47 rifles opened fire on several rangers on Thursday in the Kipini Conservancy, a private game reserve on Kenya's coast.

Two rangers were killed, according to the state-run conservation group.

Poaching has increased dramatically in the East African country in the past two years due to rising demand for ivory in East Asia.

This year alone, more than 160 elephants have been killed for their tusks.

Since December 2011, six KWS rangers have been killed by poachers, the group said.

17.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indian Kashmir shuts down over killings

INDIAN Kashmir has largely shut down amid heavy security after troops shot dead four people during a protest over a paramilitary raid on an Islamic school.

Shops, banks, schools and most government offices were closed in towns across the region, after a separatist leader called a three-day strike to protest Thursday's killings.

Srinagar, the main city in the region, was largely deserted after hundreds of police and paramilitary troops were deployed on the streets to halt any demonstrations over the deaths, an AFP reporter on the scene said.

Although authorities have not officially declared a curfew in the troubled Himalayan region, residents said they were not being allowed to go about their business.

"Early in the morning, troops appeared all around my neighbourhood disallowing people from coming out onto the streets," a resident of the old part of Srinagar, Farhan Ahmed, said by phone.

"It is undeclared curfew."

Troops fired on protesters on Thursday, after residents of the district of Gool gathered to demonstrate against what they said was a desecration of the Koran by troops during their search of a madrassa.

They gathered outside a base of the Border Security Forces (BSF) in Gool region, 230km south of Srinagar.

Residents accused BSF troopers of beating up a caretaker and desecrating a Koran, during a search for militants inside the madrassa in Gool late on Wednesday.

Police officers initially said six protesters were killed in the firing. But inspector-general of police, Rajesh Kumar, clarified on Friday that only four had died.

"The fact is that the number of dead is four. The confusion was because we were busy in dealing with law and order and also due to the spotty nature of telecommunications in the mountainous area," Kumar told AFP.

He said 37 protesters were also injured in the incident.

The region's chief minister, Omar Abdullah, condemned the shootings while India's Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde ordered an investigation, saying the deaths were regrettable.

A top separatist leader, Syed Ali Geelani, called for a shutdown to protest the killings.

17.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Rudd beat Abbott at his own game

TERMINATING the carbon tax and forbidding boat people from settling in Australia.

Sounds like Kevin Rudd has joined Tony Abbott in the coalition.

But with two of his biggest policy transformations since resuming power last month, Rudd has actually left the Opposition Leader floundering.

Abbott's plan for the past three years has been to cast the upcoming federal election as a referendum on the carbon tax, which he's promised to legislate into oblivion if the coalition wins government.

The impost paid by big polluters has been a factor in rising household and business electricity costs - and was the foundation of the coalition's promise to reduce living costs.

So Abbott wasn't going to let Rudd's claim he'd terminated it go unchallenged.

"He's not the terminator, he's the exaggerator, he's the fabricator," Abbott said.

Abbott's aim was to ridicule Labor's plan to scrap the controversial fixed carbon price in favour of moving earlier to a market-based emissions trading scheme.

"It is a so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one," he thundered.

Abbott's comments as a whole were taken as a sop to climate change sceptics, including those in his own ranks, and a clumsy attempt to reignite the carbon pricing battleground.

It was an unusual thing to see the party of free markets dismissing a market-based pricing system.

Rudd must have looked to the heavens and thanked a higher power.

"When I see statements like the one that Mr Abbott made the other day, when he described carbon pollution as invisible - and therefore I presume is not real - it is a bit like saying that because air is invisible, it is not real," he gleefully responded.

"I mean, it just doesn't make sense."

The carbon tax is one of three politically corrosive issues Rudd needed to address before calling an election.

ALP internal reform will be dealt with at a special caucus meeting on Monday in the inner Sydney suburb of Balmain, one of the birthplaces of the party.

On Friday, he decisively, and divisively, dealt with asylum seeker boat arrivals.

His decision to strike a deal to resettle asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea and to not allow anyone arriving by boat to live in Australia - even if they are legitimate refugees - was described by Greens Leader Christine Milne as leapfrogging Abbott to the political right.

Abbott seemed uncertain how to respond.

"I welcome it, but it won't work under Kevin Rudd," he said.

As with the carbon tax, Mr Rudd had pulled the rug from under him. The conservative voters Mr Abbott seemed certain to capture at the election, now had appealing options from the government.

Now that he's sorted the carbon tax, ALP reform and asylum seekers, Rudd's clear to call an election with the momentum swinging away from the once unbeatable coalition.

His decision to "terminate" the carbon tax has simultaneously disabled a key weapon in the coalition's election arsenal and looped back to his successful 2007 campaign.

A cursory glance at the body language of coalition MPs suggests Rudd may have them rattled, even though the opposition is still the bookies favourite to win the 2013 poll.

Gone is the swaggering confidence. In its place is a sort of defensiveness that can in part be explained by a new line of reporter questions on the viability of Abbott's own leadership.

Certainly, Rudd has improved Labor's prospects over the past three weeks - and mainly just by being there.

The commanding lead the opposition held over Julia Gillard's regime for more than a year has been stripped to nothing - Labor and the coalition are now neck-and-neck in the current polls.

But a 50-50 split isn't enough for Labor to retain government.

After three years of minority government, it needs seats - and it needs voters to believe Rudd can take the pressure off power prices, fix the boats, grow the economy, support families and make things "better".

In the unlikely event Labor retains all of its current 71 seats, particularly in the key battleground of western Sydney, the party still needs five to govern in its own right.

The coalition needs just one, given the NSW lower house seats of retiring independent MPs Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott are set to fall to the Nationals.

If the coalition also counts former Labor MP Craig Thomson's seat of Dobell, also in NSW, they could have the election in the bag.

In 2007, Rudd was swept to power with 52.7 per cent of the two-party vote.

A similar result would guarantee him a second - and astonishing - election victory.

17.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Lost man a 'Bear Grylls': Blue Mt search

Family of a man missing in the Blue Mountains have flown from the UK to join in the search for him. Source: AAP

DAVID Tweddle doesn't know where his son is but he hopes he'll be having a beer with him soon.

David Tweddle and other family members have flown from the UK to join the search for Gary Tweddle, 23, who disappeared from a work conference in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney four days ago.

About two dozen friends and family gathered at the Fairmont Resort on Friday as 70 emergency service workers and rescue volunteers combed bushland around Leura.

"I am sure I will be drinking a beer with him soon," father David Tweddle wrote on Facebook before boarding a flight to Sydney.

Sister Amy Tweddle spoke of her worry and hope.

"You're a Tweddle, a survivor, our very own Gary 'Bear' Grylls. We will find you," she wrote.

Operation commander Mick Bostock told AAP the number of searchers would swell to 150 on Saturday.

"We're going to have a bigger search area and we're going to completely go over what we've done (with) fresh eyes," Detective Inspector Bostock said.

It comes as the Bureau of Meteorology warned temperatures will plunge across NSW this weekend.

The last confirmed contact with the Cremorne man was a 15-minute conversation early on Tuesday morning, when Mr Tweddle called colleagues at the resort to say he was lost in the bush but thought he could see a light up a hill.

Det Insp Bostock said Mr Tweddle was an "extremely fit" man who regularly attended boot camps and had been rock climbing in harsh Scottish and Welsh terrain with his British army officer father.

"At this stage we're still hopeful of finding Gary alive," he said.

Police believe he may have become injured, and locals are being urged to check sheds or empty properties.

"If someone heard someone cooee at one o'clock on Tuesday morning, we want to know," Det Insp Bostock said.

17.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

1 dead, 31 injured as Typhoon Soulik hits

One person was killed as Typhoon Soulik slammed into Taiwan, bringing powerful winds and heavy rain. Source: AAP

TYPHOON Soulik has battered Taiwan with torrential rain and powerful winds, leaving one person dead and at least 30 injured.

Roofs were ripped from homes, debris and fallen trees littered the streets and some areas were submerged by flood waters during Saturday's wild weather.

One town in central Taiwan reported "widespread" landslides and water levels a storey high.

More heavy rain and strong winds are predicted throughout Saturday with the authorities warning of further landslides and flooding.

Around 8000 people were evacuated from their homes before the typhoon struck, with hundreds of soldiers deployed to high-risk areas and the whole island declared an "alert zone" by the authorities.

In the capital Taipei, a 50-year-old police officer died after being hit by bricks that came loose during the typhoon, the Central Emergency Operation Centre said.

Three people were left seriously injured with 31 reported hurt across the island, most injured by trees or flying debris.

Soulik made landfall on the northeast coast around 3am Saturday (0600 AEST), packing winds of up to 190km/h, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said.

"Heavy rains are expected throughout the day, especially in the mountainous areas in the centre and south," a weather forecaster from the bureau told AFP.

Strong winds were also predicted, he said, but added that the CWB was likely to lift the current land warning on Saturday night as the threat from the typhoon diminishes and it churns towards mainland China.

Nine people were rescued from flooded homes in the Shiangshan area of Puli, a town in central Nantou county, which was also hit by landslides.

"The water came very fast, catching residents totally unprepared - in some areas, it was one-storey deep," township official Wu Yuan-ming told AFP.

The nine caught in the floodwaters were rescued by firefighters in rubber boats after the river broke its banks, Wu said.

"Flooding and landslides were widespread in the town, especially in the areas near mountains," he added, calling the effects of the typhoon "more serious than we predicted".

Landslides reached the backyards of residents' homes but they had already evacuated, Wu said.

A major landslide on a mountain road leading to Taian, a central town famous for its hot spring resorts, was also reported by local media.

The northern village of Bailan saw the heaviest rain, measuring 900mm over the past two days, with winds gusting up to 220km/h.

Streets were submerged under 30cm of seawater in the port city of Keelung, the National Fire Agency said, with flooding also reported in the coastal area of Yilan and in New Taipei City, the area surrounding the capital.

Low-lying houses along the Hsintien River through greater Taipei were flooded, including one aboriginal village from which residents had been evacuated Friday, a police officer told AFP.

Local television showed roofs ripped from homes in northern Keelung and in Taipei, where 120km/h winds and downpours disrupted power, uprooted trees and left the streets strewn with rubbish.

Across Taiwan, electricity supplies in nearly 800,000 homes were down but half had been restored by Saturday afternoon, according to the Taiwan Power Company.

Around 170 flights into and out of Taiwan were cancelled or delayed, while offices and schools remained closed, with the public advised to stay indoors.

17.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Search for answers after French rail crash

A passenger train has derailed and crashed into a station outside Paris, killing at least seven. Source: AAP

INVESTIGATORS are working to determine the cause of a train crash near Paris that claimed six lives as the French transport minister warned more victims could yet be found.

Praising the quick reflexes of the driver, who sent up the alert that halted all train traffic in the area, Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier virtually ruled out human error in the disaster.

He said the probe would focus instead on the "rolling stock, infrastructure and the precise signalling area".

"Fortunately the locomotive driver had absolutely extraordinary reflexes by sending the alert immediately, which avoided a collision with a train that was coming the other way and just a few seconds later would have smashed into the cars that were derailing. So it's not a human problem," Cuvillier told French radio on Saturday.

The train derailed and crashed into a station platform on Friday afternoon, killing six and leaving 30 injured, eight seriously.

Rescue teams worked through the night checking the wreckage of overturned carriages to see if any passengers remained trapped inside.

Cuvillier said earlier on Saturday that further "unfortunate discoveries" could not be ruled out.

The regional train was heading from Paris to the west-central city of Limoges. It derailed as it passed through the station at Bretigny-sur-Orge, about 25km south of Paris.

Four carriages of the train jumped the tracks, of which three overturned. One carriage smashed across a platform and came to rest on a parallel track; another lay half-way across the platform.

Passenger Marc Cheutin, 57, told AFP he had to "step over a decapitated person" after the accident, to exit the carriage he had been travelling in.

A witness who had been waiting for a train at the station, Vianey Kalisa, told AFP: "I saw a lot of wounded people, women and children trapped inside (the carriages).

"I was shaking like a child. People were screaming. One man's face was covered in blood. It was a like a war zone."

Guillaume Pepy, head of France's SNCF rail service, told reporters that SNCF, judicial authorities and France's BEA safety agency would each investigate the cause of the derailment.

A railway passenger association denounced what it called "rust-bucket trains" and the practice of coupling different types of trains together, demanding proper inspections.

Visiting the scene on Friday night, President Francois Hollande said: "We should avoid unnecessary speculation. What happened will eventually be known and the proper conclusions will be drawn."

Officials said the derailment happened at minutes after the intercity train left the Paris-Austerlitz station.

"The train arrived at the station at high speed. It split in two for an unknown reason. Part of the train continued to roll while the other was left on its side on the platform," a police source told AFP.

Cuvillier, who also visited the crash site, said the train had been travelling at 137km/h at the time of the crash.

That was below the 150km/h limit for that part of the track.

Some 300 firefighters, 20 paramedic teams and eight helicopters were deployed to treat casualties at the scene and airlift the most seriously injured to nearby hospitals.

In total, 192 people were treated by emergency services, officials said. There were 385 passengers on the train, which means it was not overcrowded.

The derailment was France's worst rail accident since 2008, when a train collided with a schoolbus, killing seven schoolchildren.

17.01 | 0 komentar | Read More