AAP National News Wire Round-Up for Breakfast, Dec 18

AAP General News (Australia)
12-18-2011
AAP National News Wire Round-Up for Breakfast, Dec 18
BREAKFAST ROUND-UP: HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AAP RTV FILE AT 0430


WASHI PHIL (MANILA)

More than 440 people are dead in the Philippines, where a tropical storm with pounding
rain has flooded rivers and sent walls of water crushing into two southern cities in the
thick of night.

Philippine Red Cross Secretary General GWEN PANG says the latest toll is based on a
body count in funeral parlours, and she says the fact that many bodies remain unclaimed
indicates whole families have been wiped out.

She says 215 died in Cagayan de Oro alone, and 144 in nearby Iligan cities, and the
rest in several other southern and central provinces.

Most of the dead were asleep when raging floodwaters tore through their homes on Friday
night from swollen rivers and cascaded from mountain slopes, following 12 hours of pounding
rain in the southern Mindanao region.



AZARIA (SYDNEY)

There will be another attempt to finally establish what happened AZARIA CHAMBERLAIN,
who disappeared from her parents' tent at Ayers Rock in 1980.

The Fairfax media says this morning Northern Territory Coroner ELIZABETH MORRIS will
hold a new inquest into the death of the child, starting in February, after information
provided by the CHAMBERLAINS' counsel about dingo attacks since the death of AZARIA.

The information is understood to include an account of attacks by dingoes on children
at Fraser Island in Queensland, which included a fatal attack by two dingoes on a nine-year-old
boy in 2001.



INDON SHIP (JAKARTA)

An overcrowded ship carrying more than 200 migrants from the Middle East has sunk off
Indonesia's Java island.

The official Antara news agency says the people on the boat were from Afghanistan,
Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia and only 25 have been rescued so far.

It says the wooden ship with had a capacity to carry 100 passengers and sank yesterday
off the coast of Prigi in eastern Java.

Indonesia's thousands of islands have made it a key transit point for smuggling migrants,
with many trying to reach Australia.



AFGHAN RAPE (KABUL)

A woman in Afghanistan, jailed for adultery after being raped and then pardoned and
set free, says she is forced to marry her attacker after her brothers are threatening
to kill her and she has nowhere else to go.

GULNAZ, who does not know her exact age but is 20 or 21, has told her story in a quiet
voice with her blue burqa pushed up over her face, as her baby daughter, the child of
her rapist, played on the floor at her feet.

She has told the French newsagency AFP she will have to marry the man as she needs
a father for her child and a home.

The woman says she no other place to live as her brothers have vowed to kill her, her
attacker and her daughter.



SAUDI AMPUTATE (DUBAI)

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has urged Saudi King Abdullah to commute
amputation sentences handed down against six men convicted of highway robbery in the ultra-conservative
Muslim kingdom.

The sentences to chop off the right hands and left feet of the six Saudis are currently
before the Supreme Court for approval and could be carried out within days if ratified
by the king.

Amnesty says cross amputation is a strikingly cruel form of punishment that amounts
to torture and should have no place in a criminal justice system.



US TAX (WASHINGTON)

In rare sign of compromise, the US Congress has passed a one trillion dollar bill to
fund the government through fiscal 2012, averting a pre-Christmas shutdown.

The bill cleared the Senate this morning our time after it was passed in the House
of Representatives.

And, the US Senate has passed a compromise measure extending a workers tax holiday
and jobless benefits, although the deal forces President BARACK OBAMA to look again at
a contentious pipeline plan.

A deal on the measure, which passed in the upper chamber of Congress, was forged the
previous day and could end a bitter, year-end standoff between Republicans and Democrats.

The bill could go to the House of Representatives on Monday.



NZ SPARTA (AUCKLAND)

Equipment and fuel has reached the crew of the stricken Russian fishing vessel the
Sparta in New Zealand's Southern Ocean.

A New Zealand Defence Force Hercules set off from Christchurch yesterday with the supplies
for the Sparta, which is taking on water next to the Antarctic ice shelf in the Ross Sea
about 3700km southeast of New Zealand.

A Maritime New Zealand spokeswoman says the Hercules reached Sparta since and completed the drop.



EGYPT UNREST (CAIRO)

New violence has rocked the administrative heart of Cairo as troops and police deployed
after clashes with protesters against continued military rule left eight people dead and
some 300 wounded.

Caretaker Prime Minister KAMAL AL-GANZURI further raised tensions by accusing the protesters
of being counter-revolutionaries and denying that security forces had opened fire as they
broke up the sit-in launched against his nomination last month.

Meanwhile, the Arab League has threatened to take Syria to the United Nations over
its failure to end its deadly crackdown on dissent.



PAKISTAN (ISLAMABAD)

Pakistan Prime Minister YOUSUF RAZA GILANI has dismissed rumours of a rift with the
country's powerful army over a secret memo that sought US intervention to prevent a feared
military coup.

Tensions between the army and government appeared to have soared in recent days as
intelligence chiefs demanded an inquiry into the scandal that threatens to implicate President
ASIF ALI ZARDARI, who is abroad following an illness.



DAVIES (MELBOURNE)

British comedian ALAN DAVIES says he was told by Qantas steward who used a four-letter
word, to get lost.

DAVIES, who stars with STEPHEN FRY on the ABC's panel show, QI, has taken to Twitter
to complain about the incident, which he says happened on a flight from Bangkok to London
on Friday.

He says a steward made my his two-year-old cry after turfing her out of a 1st class
toilet and told him to f--- off when he complained.



BRIEFLY IN OTHER NEWS ..



MELDRUM (MELBOURNE)

MOLLY MELDRUM'S doctors and loved ones are waiting for swelling of his brain to subside
before they learn the full extent of injuries suffered by the music guru in a fall on
Thursday.



IRAN US SPY (TEHRAN)

Tehran has arrested an alleged US Central Intelligence Agency spy of Iranian origin,
saying he was caught before he could complete his mission of infiltrating the intelligence
ministry.



LIBYA BOOZE (TRIPOLI)

Libyan customs officers working with former rebel militiamen have seized seven-thousand
bottles of contraband alcohol at Tripoli port.



US DUNKIN (ATLANTA)

Police say the rapper SLIM DUNKIN has been gunned down in a Atlanta music studio as
he was preparing to record a video.



IN SPORT ..



CRI AUST (CANBERRA)

The remaining members of Cricket Australia's Chairman's XI will roll into Canberra
this morning ahead of their three-day tour match against India starting tomorrow.

India only had a few participants in yesterday's net session, but their star players
are expected to all play in their primary warm-up game for the first Test against Australia
on Boxing Day.



BBL SCORCHERS (PERTH)

Under-pressure batsman RICKY PONTING will be out to score some much-needed runs when
he opens the batting for the Hobart Hurricanes in tonight's Twenty20 Big Bash encounter
against Perth Scorchers at the WACA Ground.

PONTING will play just one match for the Hurricanes before linking up again with the
Test squad next week ahead of the series against India.



BBL STARS (MELBOURNE)

Sydney Thunder have beaten Melbourne Stars by six wickets in their Big Bash League
match at the MCG.



ENDS BREAKFAST ROUND-UP


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