* Australian Troops in Afghanistan fire from a checkpoint * Rudd still won't debate me over IR issues * Balding killer wants time off to marry
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Balding killer's secret fiancee By Janet Fife-Yeomans ONE of the state's most notorious killers will next week ask the High Court to slash his life sentence because he is in love and wants to get married.
The man - who can be identified only as "B" - is one of the murderers of building society clerk Janine Balding.
B, who was 14 at the time of Ms Balding's 1988 rape and murder, has revealed he has a fiancee who has been visiting him in jail at least twice a week for the past seven years.
Kim Ly, who is in her 30s, met B during a Bible group visit to Minda Detention Centre in 1991 - the year after B became the youngest person in Australia to be jailed for life.
In his appeal to the High Court, B will tell how he has been baptised in jail and has callouses on his knees from praying every day for Ms Balding's family.
Psychiatric reports, filed with the court as part of B's submissions, state he has become "ruled" by rigid religious beliefs and cries daily for Ms Balding.
He won his day in the High Court because of a remarkable legal blunder, when a missing staple in his court file was discovered by his lawyers.
They claim because the NSW Supreme Court registry did not staple the original indictment to the court file, B's original appeal back in 1992 was never "finalised".
The lawyers say they can re-argue the appeal as if it had never been heard. The outcome of B's appeal could overturn the sentences of all nine NSW murderers who were recommended "never to be released" by judges who jailed them before truth in sentencing was introduced.
A life sentence before 1989 meant about eight years, but laws passed since then have cemented those nine men, including the killers of nurse Anita Cobby and young mother Virginia Morse, behind bars until they die. Lawyers for B, and his accomplice Matthew Elliott, will argue those laws are unconstitutional because they stop judges from exercising discretion.
B's love for Ms Ly is detailed in two sympathetic psychiatric reports.
"While they obviously share common religious beliefs, there is presumably something else there, given the length of the relationship and the commitment both have to it," one report said.
B told another psychiatrist he wanted to apologise to Ms Balding's family - something her mother is not interested in.
"God may have forgiven B but my family never will," Bev Balding said last night.
Ms Balding was engaged to be married when she was abducted on September 8, 1988 by B, Elliott and three other street kids.
Aussie troops open fire on vehicle from news.com.au AUSTRALIAN soldiers attached to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Task Force opened fire on a vehicle which accelerated towards a checkpoint, the Defence Department said tonight.
Defence spokesman Andrew Nikolic said soldiers shot at the vehicle after the driver failed to heed visual and verbal warnings as it approached a checkpoint at an engineer work site in the Tarin Kowt region of Oruzgan Province.
The vehicle stopped immediately after being hit by rifle fire.
The driver received non-life-threatening injuries and soldiers provided him with first aid and assisted in his evacuation to a hospital after it was determined he no longer posed a threat, Brigadier Nikolic said.
"There is a significant threat of improvised explosive devices in the Tarin Kowt area," Brigadier Nikolic said.
"On this occasion the driver's failure to comply to signals from the soldiers and his decision to accelerate as he approached the checkpoint caused the RTF soldiers to open fire."
The Reconstruction Task Force had launched an investigation into the shooting, Brigadier Nikolic said.
PM refuses Rudd IR debate from news.com.au PRIME Minister John Howard has shrugged off a challenge by Labor leader Kevin Rudd to go head-to-head in an industrial relations debate in the run-up to the election.
Mr Rudd wants the Prime Minister to bring on the poll and give the public the opportunity to have the final say on their respective workplace policies.
A day after unveiling the final instalment of Labor's industrial blueprint, Mr Rudd was launching a new advertisement to air on prime time television promoting the workplace strategy.
"I've been talking to business and to working families across Australia because I'm determined to get the balance right," he promises in his pitch to voters.
The long-anticipated policy involves a mix of measures aimed at assuring business a Labor government can offer flexible workplaces and it will not mean the return of union domination.
It also promises workers they will be treated more fairly than under the Government's Work Choices laws, with Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) to be abolished by 2012.
Mr Rudd wants Mr Howard to be up-front about his further plans for working Australians so they had clear choice when they went to the polls.
Mr Howard has been highly critical of the Labor policy, warning it will give unions carte blanche to interfere in workplaces and that it will threaten economic prosperity.
But Mr Rudd claimed the Government wasn't telling people what it was planning if it was elected for a fifth term.
"The key question for the future is what will Mr Howard's industrial relations policy and law be if Mr Howard wins the next election," he said.
"If Mr Howard is fair dinkum about his attacks on industrial relations, let's have a debate now.
"Our plans are there. Where are his?"
Campaigning in the Northern Territory, Mr Howard dismissed Mr Rudd's call for a debate.
The Prime Minister was greeted by noisy protesters chanting anti-government slogans and waving banners critical of the IR laws during his visit to Darwin.
"I debate Mr Rudd all the time," Mr Howard said. "I am sure we will debate each other during the election campaign."
He warned the public to be wary of suggestions that Labor and the unions were at odds over the workplace policy.
Unions have been critical of the Labor's plan to keep in place laws severely restricting their rights to enter workplaces, and the delays in getting rid of all AWAs.
Mr Howard said the disagreement was all a facade.
"We are witnessing this pantomime where union officials are wringing their hands in front of the cameras but they are popping champagne corks in private," he said.
"They have got what they wanted, they have got a toe-hold into every workplace in the country."
But Mr Howard's warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
Betting agency Sportsbet Australia said punters began pouring their money into a Rudd victory after the release of the Labor policy.
A Labor victory now has odds of $1.52, against the Government's price of $2.48.
"It seems that all publicity is good publicity for Kevin Rudd," Sportingbet Australia chief Michael Sullivan said.
So far, more than 70 per cent of money wagered, including a $10,000 punt on Mr Rudd, has been in support of Labor.
"The betting would indicate that Australian punters are confident that Mr Rudd can handle the tough issues falling his way and lead his party to election victory," Mr Sullivan said.
Taliban release five more hostages from news.com.au THE Taliban released five more South Korean hostages in Afghanistan today, hours after three others were freed, Red Cross officials said.
"I confirm we have received five more hostages,'' International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representative Greg Muller said. AFP journalists at the handover site, outside the small town of Ghazni south of Kabul, saw the group bundled into ICRC vehicles.
A Taliban commander, Mullah Abdullah, said his group had earlier handed over four women and a man to a tribal elder who delivered them to the Red Cross.
The elder, Mohammad Zahir, handed his mobile phone to a woman who said she was one of the four women. "I'm happy, very happy," she said in Afghanistan's Dari language.
Their release came a day after the Taliban announced it would free all 19 hostages in the wake of South Korea's pledge to withdraw its small military force from Afghanistan and ban missionary groups from the country.
The hostage-takers said yesterday it would take several days to free all the captives as they were dispersed in several provinces
4 comments:
Balding killer's secret fiancee
By Janet Fife-Yeomans
ONE of the state's most notorious killers will next week ask the High Court to slash his life sentence because he is in love and wants to get married.
The man - who can be identified only as "B" - is one of the murderers of building society clerk Janine Balding.
B, who was 14 at the time of Ms Balding's 1988 rape and murder, has revealed he has a fiancee who has been visiting him in jail at least twice a week for the past seven years.
Kim Ly, who is in her 30s, met B during a Bible group visit to Minda Detention Centre in 1991 - the year after B became the youngest person in Australia to be jailed for life.
In his appeal to the High Court, B will tell how he has been baptised in jail and has callouses on his knees from praying every day for Ms Balding's family.
Psychiatric reports, filed with the court as part of B's submissions, state he has become "ruled" by rigid religious beliefs and cries daily for Ms Balding.
He won his day in the High Court because of a remarkable legal blunder, when a missing staple in his court file was discovered by his lawyers.
They claim because the NSW Supreme Court registry did not staple the original indictment to the court file, B's original appeal back in 1992 was never "finalised".
The lawyers say they can re-argue the appeal as if it had never been heard. The outcome of B's appeal could overturn the sentences of all nine NSW murderers who were recommended "never to be released" by judges who jailed them before truth in sentencing was introduced.
A life sentence before 1989 meant about eight years, but laws passed since then have cemented those nine men, including the killers of nurse Anita Cobby and young mother Virginia Morse, behind bars until they die. Lawyers for B, and his accomplice Matthew Elliott, will argue those laws are unconstitutional because they stop judges from exercising discretion.
B's love for Ms Ly is detailed in two sympathetic psychiatric reports.
"While they obviously share common religious beliefs, there is presumably something else there, given the length of the relationship and the commitment both have to it," one report said.
B told another psychiatrist he wanted to apologise to Ms Balding's family - something her mother is not interested in.
"God may have forgiven B but my family never will," Bev Balding said last night.
Ms Balding was engaged to be married when she was abducted on September 8, 1988 by B, Elliott and three other street kids.
Aussie troops open fire on vehicle
from news.com.au
AUSTRALIAN soldiers attached to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Task Force opened fire on a vehicle which accelerated towards a checkpoint, the Defence Department said tonight.
Defence spokesman Andrew Nikolic said soldiers shot at the vehicle after the driver failed to heed visual and verbal warnings as it approached a checkpoint at an engineer work site in the Tarin Kowt region of Oruzgan Province.
The vehicle stopped immediately after being hit by rifle fire.
The driver received non-life-threatening injuries and soldiers provided him with first aid and assisted in his evacuation to a hospital after it was determined he no longer posed a threat, Brigadier Nikolic said.
"There is a significant threat of improvised explosive devices in the Tarin Kowt area," Brigadier Nikolic said.
"On this occasion the driver's failure to comply to signals from the soldiers and his decision to accelerate as he approached the checkpoint caused the RTF soldiers to open fire."
The Reconstruction Task Force had launched an investigation into the shooting, Brigadier Nikolic said.
PM refuses Rudd IR debate
from news.com.au
PRIME Minister John Howard has shrugged off a challenge by Labor leader Kevin Rudd to go head-to-head in an industrial relations debate in the run-up to the election.
Mr Rudd wants the Prime Minister to bring on the poll and give the public the opportunity to have the final say on their respective workplace policies.
A day after unveiling the final instalment of Labor's industrial blueprint, Mr Rudd was launching a new advertisement to air on prime time television promoting the workplace strategy.
"I've been talking to business and to working families across Australia because I'm determined to get the balance right," he promises in his pitch to voters.
The long-anticipated policy involves a mix of measures aimed at assuring business a Labor government can offer flexible workplaces and it will not mean the return of union domination.
It also promises workers they will be treated more fairly than under the Government's Work Choices laws, with Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) to be abolished by 2012.
Mr Rudd wants Mr Howard to be up-front about his further plans for working Australians so they had clear choice when they went to the polls.
Mr Howard has been highly critical of the Labor policy, warning it will give unions carte blanche to interfere in workplaces and that it will threaten economic prosperity.
But Mr Rudd claimed the Government wasn't telling people what it was planning if it was elected for a fifth term.
"The key question for the future is what will Mr Howard's industrial relations policy and law be if Mr Howard wins the next election," he said.
"If Mr Howard is fair dinkum about his attacks on industrial relations, let's have a debate now.
"Our plans are there. Where are his?"
Campaigning in the Northern Territory, Mr Howard dismissed Mr Rudd's call for a debate.
The Prime Minister was greeted by noisy protesters chanting anti-government slogans and waving banners critical of the IR laws during his visit to Darwin.
"I debate Mr Rudd all the time," Mr Howard said. "I am sure we will debate each other during the election campaign."
He warned the public to be wary of suggestions that Labor and the unions were at odds over the workplace policy.
Unions have been critical of the Labor's plan to keep in place laws severely restricting their rights to enter workplaces, and the delays in getting rid of all AWAs.
Mr Howard said the disagreement was all a facade.
"We are witnessing this pantomime where union officials are wringing their hands in front of the cameras but they are popping champagne corks in private," he said.
"They have got what they wanted, they have got a toe-hold into every workplace in the country."
But Mr Howard's warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
Betting agency Sportsbet Australia said punters began pouring their money into a Rudd victory after the release of the Labor policy.
A Labor victory now has odds of $1.52, against the Government's price of $2.48.
"It seems that all publicity is good publicity for Kevin Rudd," Sportingbet Australia chief Michael Sullivan said.
So far, more than 70 per cent of money wagered, including a $10,000 punt on Mr Rudd, has been in support of Labor.
"The betting would indicate that Australian punters are confident that Mr Rudd can handle the tough issues falling his way and lead his party to election victory," Mr Sullivan said.
Taliban release five more hostages
from news.com.au
THE Taliban released five more South Korean hostages in Afghanistan today, hours after three others were freed, Red Cross officials said.
"I confirm we have received five more hostages,'' International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representative Greg Muller said. AFP journalists at the handover site, outside the small town of Ghazni south of Kabul, saw the group bundled into ICRC vehicles.
A Taliban commander, Mullah Abdullah, said his group had earlier handed over four women and a man to a tribal elder who delivered them to the Red Cross.
The elder, Mohammad Zahir, handed his mobile phone to a woman who said she was one of the four women. "I'm happy, very happy," she said in Afghanistan's Dari language.
Their release came a day after the Taliban announced it would free all 19 hostages in the wake of South Korea's pledge to withdraw its small military force from Afghanistan and ban missionary groups from the country.
The hostage-takers said yesterday it would take several days to free all the captives as they were dispersed in several provinces
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