FRENCH police say they have seized 7.5 tonnes of marijuana along the border with Spain, reportedly their biggest haul this year.
The drugs were found hidden in trucks transporting fruit and vegetables in the coastal resort of Hendaye, south of Biarritz, the La Depeche newspaper said on Friday.
Police found about 5.5 tonnes of marijuana under oranges in one truck and two tonnes in another laden with pumpkins.
Documents show ex-French president Nicolas Sarkozy (R) was the top gift-giver to the Obamas in 2011. Source: AAP
FORMER French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his supermodel wife Carla Bruni were clearly taken with President Barack Obama and his family back in 2011.
The Sarkozys gave the Obamas more than $US41,000 ($A40,000) worth of presents that year, becoming the most prolific foreign gift-givers to the first family, documents released on Friday show.
Most other leaders' gifts to the Obamas, however, were more modest.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, for example, presented the president with a green and white iPod shuffle and Aussie rules jerseys, while Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave him an autographed Toronto Raptors basketball.
The Sarkozys' gifts ranged from designer golf and travel bags and fine crystal to soaps and perfumes, according to the State Department's Office of Protocol, which catalogs gifts to US officials from foreign leaders and publishes an annual accounting, often one or two years late due to processing.
Among the goodies presented to the Obamas by the Sarkozys were a large black Hermes golf accessory bag worth $US7750, two Baccarat crystal table lamps on silver pedestals worth $US5500, two Baccarat crystal statuettes depicting golfers, a monogrammed black leather Louis Vuitton business bag, his-and-hers Christian Dior bathrobes and a black leather Dior clutch.
Sarkozy also gave Obama a glass sculpture of Alexander the Great's horse, a Lacoste shirt, a fountain pen and, perhaps in a nod to his tobacco-using days, a Ligne 8 lighter.
But don't expect the Obamas to furnish a post-White House residence with the items, because under law, most non perishable gifts to the president and other US officials must be transferred to the National Archives or General Services Administration unless the recipient reimburses the Treasury for their estimated value.
The Sarkozys largesse may have been a function of France hosting the Group of Eight summit in 2011, at which the world financial crisis was a main topic of conversation.
In an exception to most other leaders modest gifts was a variety of artwork worth $US13,200 that was given to Obama by the governor of the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Although the Sarkozys were the top presidential gift-givers in 2011, the single most valuable package of goodies - $US29,450 in art, watches and electronics - was given to former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen by Kuwait's emir.
Deputy CIA Director Michael Morrell may have received the most unusual gift in 2011, a silver hookah worth $US1500 from a giver whose identity is classified.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn't make out so badly either in 2011, getting a $US3400 silver bowl and a $US7425 gold coin and silk scarf from the sultan of Oman, a $US3200 strand of pearls from a senior Chinese official and artwork from the president of Tajikistan worth $US2850.
The most lavish gift given to Clinton came from the first lady of Zambia, who presented her with an emerald and diamond necklace worth $US7834, according to the records.
A MAN has been shot in a hunting accident in southwest Victoria.
The 55-year-old man from Adelaide suffered wounds to his upper body at Casterton about 2pm (AEST) on Saturday.
An Ambulance Victoria spokesman said he was being taken to Hamilton Hospital.
UK prosecutors have charged celebrity publicist Max Clifford with 11 counts of indecent assault. Source: AAP
PR guru Max Clifford has vowed to clear his name in court as he was charged with 11 historic counts of indecent assault against teenage girls.
The 70-year-old, famed for representing celebrities including Simon Cowell and Jade Goody, said he has been "living a 24/7 nightmare" since his arrest in December.
Clifford was charged with offences linked to girls aged from 14 to 19 between 1966 and 1985 and will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on May 28, Scotland Yard said.
He was arrested as part of Operation Yewtree, the national police inquiry sparked by allegations of abuse against Jimmy Savile.
Clifford told the Press Association: "The allegations in respect of which I have been charged are completely false and I have made this clear to the police during many, many hours of interviews.
"Nevertheless a decision has been taken to charge me with 11 offences involving seven women, the most recent of which is 28 years ago and the oldest 47 years ago.
"I have never indecently assaulted anyone in my life and this will become clear during the course of the proceedings."
Clifford has made a career of taking on some of the most talked-about celebrity stories in the last few decades.
The public relations veteran notably represented OJ Simpson and was behind the rumours that sparked the tabloid headline "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster".
Clifford said: "I am naturally disappointed about today's decision, particularly because of the distress it has caused my wife, Jo, my daughter, Louise, and all those close to me.
"However, at least I will now be in a position to fully consider all the evidence against me and to answer the evidence in public and ultimately clear my name in a court of law.
"Since last December I have been living a 24/7 nightmare."
THE ranks of World War II veterans are thinning, but thousands of younger men and women stepped up to carry on the Anzac tradition as Sydney marked the Gallipoli landing of exactly 98 years ago.
After a solemn dawn service at the Cenotaph in Sydney's Martin Place, an estimated 20,000 veterans, serving defence force personnel and relatives of old soldiers took part in the Anzac Day parade up George St.
Thousands of flag-waving onlookers cheered as sturdy old veterans marched past and their more frail comrades were pushed in wheelchairs or rode in army vehicles.
Maurice Kriss, 76, a navy gunner in Malaya, said Anzac Day was his favourite day of the year.
"In my life I live from one Anzac Day to another," he said.
"As long as I can do the march I feel alive."
James Thompson marched in honour of his father Horace Thompson, who was just 17 when he landed at Gallipoli, in Turkey, in 1915.
He said it was important to keep the Anzac legacy alive now that no World War I diggers were left and that was a lesson he impressed on his son, who also marched.
"I told him about how proud he should be to have had someone that participated in that war," Mr Thompson said.
Rear Admiral Rothesay Swan, who led the navy's contingent in the parade, reflected on the doubts and fear he felt as a midshipman on HMAS Shropshire in World War II.
It was hard to convey the feeling of being in a big sea battle like Leyte Gulf in 1942, he said.
"It was not easy knowing that you may not be alive at the end of the day or even the next day," Mr Swan said.
Former Defence Force chief Peter Cosgrove, who joined the parade in Sydney, said the cheers from the crowd were uplifting for veterans.
"People wearing grandpa's medals, great-grandpa's medals, turned up and marched with the veterans who are still up and about," General Cosgrove said.
"To me that's special ... I like the idea that there's a transference of something important within family groups from one generation to the next."
At the midday memorial service, NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell said Anzac Day was Australia's most sacred national day, but not a glorification of war.
"No veteran that I've ever met has sought to glorify war.
"Rather, it's a celebration of freedom and a commemoration of those who sacrificed for us and guaranteed the freedoms that we enjoy here today."
RSL NSW President Don Rowe said the younger veterans turning up to march were helping make up for the thinning out of World War II veterans.
"There are battalions there now down to literally platoon size, in other words half a dozen men where there used to be a battalion with a thousand to 1200 men."
Mr Rowe said younger veterans now felt they were part of the Anzac tradition and were more inclined to march.
"So they should, because a lot of those guys have spent more time on the frontline than my father did during the Second World War."
The death toll from a building collapse in Bangladesh reached 113, as rescuers search for survivors. Source: AAP
A GARMENT factory building in Bangladesh that collapsed, killing at least 175 people, had been ordered to be evacuated due to deep cracks but the factories flouted the order and continued working, officials say.
One day after Wednesday's collapse, as hundreds of rescuers clawed through the rubble, the cries of trapped survivors could still occasionally be heard, with the screams of a woman pinned between concrete slabs mingling with the wails of distraught relatives waiting for news or collecting bodies.
An enormous section of the concrete structure appeared to have splintered like twigs.
The disaster in the Dhaka suburb of Savar came less than five months after a blaze killed 112 people in a garment factory.
The incidents underscore the unsafe conditions faced by Bangladesh's garment workers, who produce clothes for global brands worn around the world.
After the cracks were reported on Tuesday, managers of a local bank that also had an office in the building, evacuated their workers and suspended their operations.
However, the garment factories continued working, ignoring the instructions of the local industrial police, said Mostafizur Rahman, a director of the industrial police.
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association had also asked the factories to suspend work starting Wednesday morning, just hours before the building fell.
"After we got the crack reports, we asked them to suspend work until further examination but they did not pay heed," said Atiqul Islam, the group's president.
On Thursday morning the odour of rotting bodies was evident as rescue workers continued to search for more survivors and victims.
Junior minister for Home Affairs, Shamsul Haque, said that by late Thursday morning a total of 2000 people had been rescued from the wreckage.
Brigadier General Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder, who is overseeing army rescue teams, said the death toll had climbed to 175 on Thursday afternoon.
Dozens of bodies, their faces covered, were laid outside a local school building so relatives could identify them.
The garment manufacturers' group said the factories in the building employed 3122 workers but it was not clear how many workers were in the building when it collapsed.
Searchers worked through the night to probe the jumbled mass of concrete with drills or their bare hands, passing water and flashlights to people pinned inside.
"I gave them whistles, water, torchlights. I heard them cry," said fire official Abul Khayer.
Abdur Rahim, an employee who worked on the fifth floor, said a factory manager gave assurances that the cracks in the building were no cause for concern, so employees went inside.
"After about an hour or so, the building collapsed suddenly," Rahim said.
The next thing he remembered was regaining consciousness outside.
On a visit to the site, Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir told reporters the building had violated construction codes and that "the culprits would be punished".
Abdul Halim, an official with the engineering department in Savar, said the owner was originally allowed to construct a five-storey building but he added another three storeys illegally.
Local police chief Mohammed Asaduzzaman said police and the government's Capital Development Authority have filed separate cases of negligence against the building owner.
Habibur Rahman, police superintendent of the Dhaka district, identified the owner as Mohammed Sohel Rana, a local leader of ruling Awami League's youth front.
Rahman said police were also looking for the owners of the garment factories.
POLICE have named a man they want to question about the murder of a mother and daughter at a western Sydney home.
Officers are looking for Hong Rui Fu, 28, who is described as being of Asian appearance and medium build.
Police say there are concerns for Mr Fu's welfare and are also warning that he not be approached.
He is wanted for questioning over the murder of two women, aged 49 and 26, whose bodies were found about 10pm (AEST) on Wednesday in a house at Auburn.
Police are declining to say whether or not Mr Fu was related to the women or if he lived with them in the Paul Street residence.
Earlier on Thursday Auburn Detective Inspector Angelo Memmolo announced police were investigating the deaths as murders.
However, with post-mortem examinations continuing, no details about how the women died have been released.
Insp Memmolo described the crime scene as "extensive" and "confronting", but said it was too early in the investigation to offer more information.
A WORLD War II merchant navy ship sunk by the Japanese off the coast of northern NSW has been given historic protection by the federal government.
The cargo ship MV Limerick was part of a coastal wartime convoy travelling from Sydney to Brisbane when it was torpedoed on Anzac Day 1943 by a Japanese submarine, killing two of its crew.
The vessel had been missing for almost 70 years, but was located by local fisherman near the NSW town of Ballina at the end of last year.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke on Thursday declared the Limerick a protected historic shipwreck, making any damage or interference to the site illegal.
"The ship and her crew put themselves in danger to protect us, it's only right that we now protect the shipwreck of the Limerick forever," Mr Burke said in a statement.
"In making the declaration the Australian government recognises and acknowledges the exceptional heritage significance of the shipwreck of the MV Limerick and is ensuring its legacy is protected forever under Australian law."
US Marines and Australian veterans are looking forward to marching alongside each other when Darwin holds Anzac Day commemorations.
About 200 US Marines are stationed in Darwin for the dry season for training, and two platoons of Americans, about 90 people, are set to take part in Anzac Day proceedings on Thursday.
Marine Gunnery Sergeant Larry Thomas, 35, has been in Darwin for about three weeks and said he was looking forward to honouring Australian soldiers.
"I am going to the dawn service in Darwin and the parade there and then I will be trying to go to the Palmerston parade as well," Sgt Thomas said.
"I think it is a good bonding experience between us and the Australian army.
"It is not like our own Memorial Day event ... you do a lot more traditional things," he said.
In 2012 Marines marched in the Anzac parade in Darwin for the first time.
Australian Vietnam War veteran Peter Mansell, the NT coordinator of the Returned and Services League (RSL), said he supported US Marines taking part in Anzac Day.
"Last year while (RSL) president I invited the American Marine Corps to march with us," Mr Mansell said.
"They are brothers in arms. We have fought alongside American forces for a long time," he said
A dawn service will be held at Darwin's cenotaph on Thursday not far from where the American warship the USS Peary sank during the bombing of Darwin in 1942.
AUSTRALIAN authorities have intercepted two more suspected asylum seeker boats with 175 people on board.
The first, with 107 passengers, was spotted near Cocos (Keeling) Island and the other with 65 aboard was intercepted northeast of Darwin, both on Tuesday.
The passengers will soon be transferred to Australian government facilities for security and health checks.
Under current laws, asylum seekers intercepted near the Ashmore Islands, Cartier Island, Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands risk being sent to offshore processing centres, while asylum seekers who reach the Australian mainland have to be processed onshore.
The federal government is seeking to remove this legal loophole with legislation currently before the Senate. If passed, the laws will excise the Australian mainland from the migration zone.
More than 15,000 people have arrived by boat since Labor reintroduced offshore processing in August 2012.
THE violence Sean Lee King inflicted on his teenage girlfriend the night he killed her was "light years" away from anything he had ever done before.
That was because the now 27-year-old Sydney man was "off his face" on ice when he beat 18-year-old Jazmin-Jean Ajbschitz to death in July 2011, his murder trial has been told.
Defence barrister John Stratton SC told the Supreme Court in Sydney there was evidence King and Ms Ajbschitz had a "turbulent, passionate relationship punctuated with terrible fights".
He submitted it was a much more equal relationship than the crown has put forward during the three-week trial.
And he said while King had been violent towards Ms Ajbschitz before, her previous injuries amounted to a bruise on her arm, a black eye and possibly a lump to her head.
"In terms of the actual injuries (previously) observed on Ms Ajbschitz, the injuries were light years away from the sort of injuries inflicted on Ms Ajbschitz the night she was killed," Mr Stratton said.
He said King acted quite differently that night "because of the extreme levels of ice that were pulsing through his veins".
King has admitted to the manslaughter of Ms Ajbschitz on July 10, 2011, but has denied murdering her on the grounds that he was affected by drugs and didn't intend to kill her.
Crown prosecutor Kara Shead pointed to several pieces of evidence which she said showed King was capable of thinking logically and of forming an intent to kill that night.
She referred to phone calls to Ms Ajbschitz that night in which he threatened to kill her and anyone who was with her, evidence he tried to disguise his appearance as he left the building and how he had told his friend to call triple-zero from a nearby phone box after he'd killed her.
She said King was controlling of Ms Ajbschitz - who was seven years younger than him - and had assaulted her on several occasions before her death.
She described how King injured Ms Ajbschitz "over and over again" in different rooms in her apartment during the fatal attack, which lasted a significant amount of time.
"This wasn't a momentary lapse of judgment," Ms Shead said.
"This wasn't a one-punch momentary thing where the accused snapped and killed her.
"... A struggle occurred. A long struggle in a number of places in which the deceased fought Mr King for her life and she failed in the end."
There was evidence King used up to four different objects to strike Ms Ajbschitz, that he beat her and stomped on her and that he forced her head down the toilet while face was bleeding.
There was also evidence he may have jumped on her body as she lay defenceless on the floor, Ms Shead said.
King, 27, put his head into his hands during parts of the crown prosecutor's address.
The trial continues before Justice Geoffrey Bellew.
MELBOURNE'S Northern Hospital will receive a $29 million state government upgrade to serve a population that will double by 2030.
The new three-storey wing with 32 in-patient beds at the Epping site is expected to be completed by 2016, Premier Denis Napthine says.
The money for the project will be allocated in the May state budget.
"More beds, more services to a growing population," Dr Napthine told reporters on Wednesday.
"I will expect this will meet the needs for the next five to 10 years."
The population of Melbourne's northern fringe has grown steadily over the past decade and is tipped to swell by a further 55 per cent between now and 2026.
Work on the state-of-the-art facility will begin late next year.
"We are acting now to make sure that people and families in Melbourne's north continue to have access to top quality health services in the long term," Dr Napthine said.
The new funding is in addition to a $24.5 million redevelopment of the hospital's emergency department and special care surgery, which the government announced in 2011.
Health Minister David Davis said that with Wednesday's announcement, the government had now delivered more than 180 Victorian hospital beds.
Dr Napthine said the Northern Hospital expansion added to $4 billion in hospital works the government already had under way.
He said the government would make a further announcement on Sunday for extra mental health beds in Werribee in Melbourne's southwest.
SECURITY staff at the Christmas Island detention centre intervened to break up two brawling groups of detainees, the Department of Immigration has confirmed.
The disturbance broke out on Sunday evening in a section of the detention centre that houses asylum seeker families and Indonesian crew members.
An immigration department spokeswoman said two groups housed in the Aqua and Lilac section of the centre became involved in the brawl and had to be separated by security staff.
"Serco was quickly able to separate the parties involved and the good order of the centre was restored," the department said.
No children were in the area where the disturbance occurred.
ABC reported the centre was locked down for a short time and said several detainees needed medical treatment onsite for injuries, although the department was unable to confirm this.
The spokeswoman said the section of the centre housing the brawling detainees was "tight" for space, but was coping.
Tents are sometimes used to house detainees arriving at the island, more than 1500km off the coast of Western Australia, as overflow from the main facility.
Last week, it was revealed services company Serco last year sent three messages to the immigration department warning of the threat of violence at the island's detention centre.
Serco warned that tents could be used "as a source of weapons and a target for arson".
It advised the use of tents "as alternative or emergency accommodation should be reconsidered and an alternative sought".
NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell says the question of where to find $1.76 billion for education funding put him between the "devil and a hard place", but his government ultimately decided to put school kids first.
The coalition-led state is the first to sign up to Federal Labor's offer of a two-for-one funding arrangement, which would deliver $3.27 billion in commonwealth funds for NSW schools over six years, starting next year.
Under the agreement signed by Mr O'Farrell and Prime Minister Julia Gillard in Sydney on Tuesday, the NSW government must find savings in its own budget to round out the total funding boost to $5 billion.
Some of that money may come from the TAFE system.
"Vocational educational reforms are being pursued by the government and yes, IPART will be looking at issues around fees and subsidies, and that will be part of the package," Mr O'Farrell said.
"Ultimately, we've had to make some tough decisions ... we are prioritising school education."
Other funds would be unlocked by keeping Inter-Governmental Agreement taxes in place longer than planned and by introducing a business efficiency dividend by July 2015, he said.
Announcing the partnership on Tuesday, Ms Gillard said the reforms would boost funding for 1.1 million NSW schoolchildren and included a promise from NSW to index its school spending at three per cent annually from 2016.
Under the plan, the state would achieve at least 95 per cent of the school resource standard by 2019.
Ms Gillard said beyond offering a bigger pot of money, the deal would cater better to children with special needs and those in regional areas and top teachers would be rewarded with $100,000 salaries for staying in the classroom.
Asian languages would be a focus and principals and parents would be given more control over school-level decisions.
"No child will be left behind and no school will be left behind," Ms Gillard said.
The Labor-led NSW opposition has cautiously applauded the deal, with leader John Robertson telling reporters any cuts made in the next budget would be scrutinised.
"We'll be looking very closely at that. But today is a very pleasing and historic day for NSW and education in this state," he said.
The Greens said it was "heartening" to see money going into schools but TAFE should not foot the bill.
"It is one step forward and one step back to increase funding to public schools while imposing further cuts on the already struggling TAFE sector," Greens MP David Shoebridge said.
The Greens argue that ending subsidies to the wealthiest private schools, or lifting the tax rate on pokies in clubs to match taxes on poker machines in pubs, would allow a boost to primary and secondary schools without a cut to the tertiary sector.
The head of the NSW Teachers' Federation, Maurie Mulheron, said any further cuts to the TAFE system would be a "travesty".
"TAFE is already underfunded and under-resourced and needs more funding," he told AAP.
"We'll seek a meeting with the minister to clarify exactly what he meant."
Meanwhile, the Public Service Association wants the government to immediately reverse cuts to school support jobs, such as office staff.
"We're thrilled that NSW schools will receive more funding under the agreement. But we won't see real improvements in schools if we continue cutting jobs of the staff who support education," PSA president Sue Walsh said.
THE Australian dollar has fallen to its lowest level in six weeks following the release of disappointing Chinese manufacturing figures.
Easy Forex currency dealer Tony Darvall said the Australian dollar fell on Tuesday after HSBC's Flash China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index showed activity in the sector grew at a slower pace in April.
"That really put a dent in demand for the Aussie dollar," he said.
The currency fell to 102.21 US cents during the afternoon session, its lowest level since March 11.
At 1700 AEST on Tuesday, the currency was trading at 102.33 US cents, down from 102.83 cents on Monday.
Mr Darvall said the Chinese figures added to the downward pressure on the Aussie dollar, which had been weighed down for the past week or so due to weaker commodity prices.
He said traders would be closely watching the release on Wednesday of official Australian inflation figures for the March quarter.
If the figures show inflation remains relatively benign it would mean the Reserve Bank of Australia has room to cut further the cash rate, currently at three per cent.
That would put further downward pressure on the Aussie dollar, Mr Darvall said.
At 1700 AEST, the Australian dollar was at 101.12 Japanese yen, down from 102.62 yen on Monday and at 78.35 euro cents, down from 78.67 euro cents.
Meanwhile, Australian bond futures strengthened following the Chinese manufacturing figures.
Westpac senior market strategist Damien McColough said the local bond market started Tuesday strongly following a rise in US Treasuries and that prices continued to rally from there.
"It's as strong as 10 men today, really," he said.
At 1630 AEST on Tuesday, the June 10-year bond futures contract was trading at 96.865 (implying a yield of 3.135 per cent), up from 96.785 (3.215 per cent) on Monday.
The June three-year bond futures contract was at 97.380 (2.620 per cent), up from 97.310 (2.690 per cent).
ANIMAL activists say the "pointless" killing of eight baboons used in a Sydney study highlights the need to end animal experimentation.
In the study, reported in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, surgeons from Royal North Shore Hospital cut the shoulder tendons of the baboons and then undertook tendon-to-bone repair of the rotator cuff of each animal to study healing rates.
The ageing female baboons were killed in the course of the research, which was approved by the University of NSW Ethics Committee and the Central Sydney Area Health Service Animal Welfare Committee.
Humane Research Australia's CEO Helen Marston said the study, published in 2010, highlighted the plight of lab animals during Global World Week For Animals in Laboratories.
The baboons had died in a "pointless and cruel surgery experiment", she said.
"The final conclusion was a recommendation that excessive tension on the repair site should be avoided for at least 12 weeks, hardly a new revelation, and one that is already well known and documented by orthopaedic surgeons around the world," Ms Marston said.
The University of NSW said the baboon research was done almost 20 years ago, although it conceded that it sometimes conducted research that required the use of animals.
"All research involving animals at UNSW is subject to the Australian Code of Practice for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purpose and is subject to strict ethical guidelines and monitoring by the UNSW Animal Care and Ethics Committee," a spokeswoman said in a statement.
The article also notes that "ethical problems associated with primate research have generally prevented the undertaking of systematic experimental study of the pathology of the rotator cuff in such animals".
Seven million animals are used annually for experimentation in Australian research labs in "a largely self-regulated system," Humane Research claims.
A National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) spokesman said it developed animal experimentation guidelines but each state was responsible for implementing them and regulating animal research.
AN investigation has been ordered into the escape of two teenagers armed with a knife from a boot camp in far north Queensland.
The boy, 13, and girl, 14, held a carer at the Kuranda facility for young offenders, near Cairns, at knifepoint before running away late on Sunday.
Police say the pair then broke into a nearby home and threatened a woman with the knife, before being arrested about 4am (AEST) on Monday.
State Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie has ordered an investigation.
Mr Bleijie says the girl had been at the boot camp for around two weeks and was showing signs of progress.
"Unfortunately the boy, who arrived on Friday, has involved her in this," he told 4BC radio.
Mr Bleijie said the government has a "no nonsense approach" when it came to the boot camps and the two teenagers will be sent back to detention. "The boot camps are all about diversion," he said.
"We're trying to turn the revolving door cycle around of youth in detention centres, and try and get them on a job and education, but it's a no questions asked, no-nonsense approach."
The pair were the first and only youth offenders to be enrolled in the Kuranda-based boot camp which opened earlier this month.
Shadow Treasurer and Member for Mulgrave Curtis Pitt says Mr Bleijie needs to guarantee the safety of Kuranda residents.
"They've put dangerous people in a residential area and what we want to know is have the health and safety guidelines been followed," he told reporters in Cairns on Monday.
Mr Pitt is calling for a review of the program to determine whether the firm that runs the boot camp, Safe Way, is meeting standards.
Tablelands Regional Council Mayor Rosa Lee Long said residents were concerned and she would pass their concerns to the state government.
"My understanding is that if (the teenagers) abuse the contract they signed up to, then they will be dealt with much more severely by the government," she told AAP.
"In a case like this, I think they do need to make an example of this sort of behaviour."
Ms Long would not be drawn on whether she thought the camp should be shut down.
Another boot camp opened on the Gold Coast in January.
Premier Campbell Newman announced in March that more camps are planned for Townsville, Rockhampton and the Fraser Coast by September.
Youths spend four weeks at the camps cooking, cleaning, doing physical activities and studying while under constant surveillance.
Brendan O'Connor says no decision has been made to send asylum seekers to Curtin detention centre. Source: AAP
THE federal government has yet to decide whether children will be sent to a controversial West Australian detention centre, noted for its history of riots and self-harm.
The government is reportedly considering housing asylum-seeker families, who have arrived by boat, at the isolated Curtin detention centre which is currently only used for single adult males.
The former Howard coalition government opened the facility in 1999 but closed it three years later following incidents of self-harm, riots and a mass escape.
The news comes as another two asylum-seeker boats, with 132 people on board, were intercepted near Christmas Island and Darwin on Sunday.
Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor would not rule out sending children to the Curtin detention centre.
"What we will do is make decisions about what's the best way to look after those who are in our care," he told ABC Radio on Monday.
"That decision will be made ensuring we protect the interests of those kids."
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the only way to avoid detaining women and children was to stop the boats.
"I regret to say that it's very difficult to avoid having women and children in some form of detention if you've got illegal arrivals on this scale," he told reporters in Perth.
Mr Abbott reiterated a coalition government would reinstate Howard-era policies such as temporary protection visas and turning boats back.
"The Howard government was able to end the detention of women and children because it stopped the boats - it's as simple as that," he said.
Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young urged the Gillard government not to send children to the "disastrous" Curtin facility while refugee advocates ChilOut said community detention was a more cost-effective and less harmful option.
Meanwhile, Mr O'Connor accused Mr Abbott of being "happy to risk the safety of our servicemen and women" after the opposition leader conceded on Sunday that turning boats back might be dangerous.
But the opposition leader says Australian authorities, who managed to turn seven boats around under former prime minister John Howard, will be able to do it again.
"I don't pretend for a second that this is simple or easy but it can be done," he said.
"I have a lot of faith in the professionalism of the Royal Australian Navy and I am confident that what they have done in the past they can do again in the future if needs be."
Mr O'Connor said the opposition's tow-back policy was irresponsible and against the national interest.
A culture of ignoring children helped child sex abuse go undetected, the Anglican Church says. Source: AAP
CHILDREN complaining of sex abuse were rarely believed and sometimes punished under a culture in church and community organisations that helped the crime go undetected, Melbourne's Anglican archbishop says.
Archbishop Philip Freier said an unwillingness to face up to difficult and shameful things had created opportunities for people who wanted to breach the trust of children to do so.
Since the 1950s the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne has received 46 complaints of child sex abuse, the majority of which were perpetrated by the clergy, a Victorian parliamentary inquiry heard on Monday.
Twenty-six of these allegations were received after 2002.
"As you look backwards you can see broadly as a culture we've not readily listened to children when they've made complaints," Dr Freier told the inquiry.
"There have been opportunities for people who wanted to breach the trust of children to do that and often for children's accounts of that trust being broken, being disbelieved.
"Some were even punished for having raised a question about the conduct of an adult."
He said this was the case for many community organisations not just churches.
Dr Freier said the church had strived to ensure all priests were made aware of their responsibilities but acknowledged in the past there had been gaps in the system.
"We've always had high expectations and I expect that as a culture, churches generally, and community organisations have not had the necessary checks and balances," Dr Freier said.
However the Anglican Church's requirement that allegations of criminal misconduct be reported to police only applies to contemporaneous complaints.
Dr Freier said in the cases of historic abuse the church encouraged people to work with a solicitor.
He acknowledged the church's responsibility to report, but said they didn't want to risk "revictimising" the complainant.
Of the 46 complaints recorded by the church, 12 were reported to police and 20 were not, according to the church's independent director of professional standards, Claire Sargent.
She said the church's policy is to always report current allegations of child sex abuse but not historic allegations.
"If someone has knowledge they are required to report that," Ms Sargent said.
Dr Freier said he wished he could undo the harm that had been done.
"It is unfortunate that we cannot change the past, I wish I could - but I give a real and genuine commitment to enhance the processes and culture of our organisation," he told the inquiry.
"The abuse of children has no place in our society."
Since 2003, there have been 10 financial settlements for child sex abuse totalling $268,000 in the Melbourne diocese.
A SEASONED government spin doctor has told a corruption inquiry he thought a training mine in the NSW Hunter Valley had as much credibility as scientific whaling.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is probing a coal exploration licence at Doyles Creek in the Hunter Valley granted by then mining minister Ian Macdonald to former CFMEU boss John Maitland and his associates in December 2008.
The inquiry had previously heard Mr Maitland proposed a training mine at the site that would address skills shortages and be propped up by a commercial mine.
But on Monday, Alex Cramb, who was communications director for former Labor premier Nathan Rees, told the inquiry he had "deep-seated cynicism" about the proposal, which was by 2011 allegedly worth nearly $15 million to Mr Maitland.
When a staffer for Mr Macdonald sent Mr Cramb a media release spruiking the training mine two days before Christmas 2008, he wrote back asking: "Is this like scientific research on whales?"
"To be honest, it was a default position that no journalist would believe any heading placed on any press release written by that government at that time," Mr Cramb said on Monday.
"It was a highly-charged environment, and to say that the government was under siege is probably not an overexaggeration."
Earlier on Monday, a mining lobbyist told the commission she herself was lobbied morning and night by Mr Macdonald to support the proposal.
Former NSW Minerals Council chief executive Nicole Williams said in 2008 Mr Macdonald called her at home, "at 7.30 in the morning as well as on Sunday evening", urging public support for the training mine.
"Reversal of role is a good description," Dr Williams said.
She told the inquiry the only project Mr Macdonald had as much enthusiasm for was an idea to send the Sydney Symphony Orchestra to the bush.
Mr Macdonald's barrister Tim Hale told the commission he had only "asked the Minerals Council to consider" the Doyles Creek proposal.
It was around this time that Mr Maitland was putting the hard sell on local residents in the Hunter, the commission heard.
Grazier Ian Moore told the inquiry that the unionist had promised to lavish investment on nearby Jerrys Plains, including a supermarket, housing and better medical facilities, if his plan came through.
"He was like the ice-cream truck, he come to offer all these goodies to Jerrys Plains," Mr Moore said.
But Mr Maitland also told a June 2008 community meeting that resistance to the mine wouldn't succeed, the inquiry heard.
"'If you don't accept us, you'll get someone else but they'll be a hell of a lot worse than us.' That's what he said that night," Mr Moore said.
It's expected that Federal Labor minister Greg Combet will be among witnesses to appear before Commissioner David Ipp next week.
Mr Macdonald himself is yet to front Operation Acacia - the investigation into the granting of the Doyles Creek licence.
COMMUNIST guerrillas have wounded a town mayor and killed two of her aides in a pre-election ambush in the southern Philippines.
Ruth Guingona, a member of President Benigno Aquino's Liberal Party whose husband is a former vice president, sustained wounds in her arms and feet in late Saturday's attack on Mindanao island, police said.
"Ms Guingona was with six police escort on their way back from attending a town fiesta when they were ambushed by New People's Army (NPA) rebels," national police spokesman Generoso Cerbo told reporters.
Chief superintendent Cerbo said the rebels fled after a 10-minute gunfight with the police. However, the mayor was safely retrieved only at dawn on Sunday, hours after the attack, because the ambush site was in a remote area.
The mayor's driver and another aide were killed, while one of the six policemen was wounded.
The attack came less than a month before local elections in May. NPA guerrillas often take advantage of election seasons to raise funds, by demanding protection money from candidates who want to campaign in areas under their control.
"We feel sorry about the incident, but Guingona was warned last week not to bring an armed security escort with her while on the campaign trail," NPA spokesman George Madlos said, admitting the rebels staged the attack.
Guingona is seeking another term as mayor of Gingoog city in Mindanao, the country's main southern island which is plagued by decades of communist and Muslim insurgencies.
She is married to former vice president Teofisto Guingona. Their son, also called Teofisto, is a member of the Philippine Senate.
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.
QUEENSLAND'S premier has recalled his haunting visit to the Western Front while farewelling five students who will follow his steps.
The students have won the inaugural Premier's Anzac Prize to visit the Western Front and Gallipoli.
Mr Newman, who is the son of a war veteran and former member of the army, farewelled the students at Brisbane airport on Sunday.
Marking the occasion, he recounted an emotional experience in 2008 while visiting the battlefields in France where his great uncle died in World War I.
His body was never recovered.
"To stand on a field where your ancestor died and to be there perhaps one hundred metres from where he was last seen, and knowing his body lies somewhere on the field, is a truly amazing, very sobering and surreal experience," he said.
Mount Isa student Elijah Douglas, 16, won a spot for his multimedia presentation on indigenous soldiers fighting despite not being classified as Australian citizens.
He played a didgeridoo at the farewell which he made and painted.
He will give it to a school in France.
"I thought of travelling, but I never thought this would come," he told AAP.
Some 50 students will be chosen to visit the battlefields over the next three years.
Mr Newman wants them to have priority for the 2015 centenary celebrations at Gallipoli, after the federal government announced it would hold a ballot to decide who goes.
Victorian Labor candidate Martin Pakula is expected to win the Lyndhurst by-election on April 27. Source: AAP
LABOR faces no real danger of losing the Melbourne electorate of Lyndhurst at next weekend's by-election.
Former shadow treasurer Tim Holding triggered the contest for the outer south-eastern seat when he resigned in February.
He was first elected MP for Springvale in 1999 and returned in 2002 after a redistribution in which the seat was re-named Lyndhurst.
Mr Holding won more than 55 per cent of the primary vote at the last state poll and was 13.9 per cent ahead of the Liberals on a two-party preferred basis.
Labor is likely to win Saturday's race comfortably given the Liberal Party is not fielding a candidate and the Greens achieved little more than six per cent of the primary vote in 2010.
Lyndhurst includes parts of Springvale, Noble Park and Keysborough as well as Dandenong South and Hampton Park.
Almost half its electors are overseas born and more than a quarter are manufacturing workers with local glass, dairy, pharmaceutical and other factories.
ALP candidate Martin Pakula is the favourite in a field of eight candidates comprised of the Greens, the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), Family First, the Sex Party and three independents.
Mr Pakula is using the by-election to move into the lower house from the Legislative Council, where he represented the western metropolitan region.
He says the issues most concerning Lyndhurst constituents are jobs, local roads and TAFE cuts.
The Chisholm Institute of TAFE, which has a campus in the neighbouring electorate, has lost $30 million in funding cuts and about 200 jobs as part of state government reforms.
"I have been down at Noble Park footy club, I've been at the Cambodian festival - I've been everywhere," Mr Pakula said.
"I've treated the by-election as if it's a one per cent seat."
Greens candidate Nina Springle, who contested the seat at the last state election, is campaigning on closing the local toxic waste dump, increased bus services and building a new primary school in Keysborough.
