Highlights of the AAP National wire at 15:30 =2 Sydney

AAP General News (Australia)
04-30-1999
Highlights of the AAP National wire at 15:30 =2 Sydney

CANBERRA - Australia will face a $70 million bill to transport and house Kosovo refugees
for three months in military camps in New South Wales and Tasmania. (KOSOVO REFUGEES, N/L to
come)



CANBERRA - A leading East Timorese advocate says he may seek political asylum in Australia
after being forced to flee the island because of threats from pro-Indonesian militias. (TIMOR
AUST D/L, see also TIMOR TERROR, TIMOR ACTU to come)

CANBERRA - Science and innovation remained central to lifting Australia's economic growth
and the standard of living, Science Minister Nick Minchin said today. (SCIENCE)



CANBERRA - A United Nations commitee that condemned the amended Native Title Act as racist
has been denied government permission to visit Australia. (WIK UN to come)



CANBERRA - Australian businesses were developing new markets in industries ranging from
fresh fruit to home loans and cutting operating costs through electronic commerce, a federal
government e-commerce report card released today showed. (ECOMMERCE to come, see also BUSINESS
IT to come)



ADELAIDE - The federal government's tax reform package would deliver unarguable benefits to
the Australian trucking and road transport industries, Prime Minister John Howard said in
Adelaide today. (TRUCKIES HOWARD)



ADELAIDE - Australia's first Internet auction flopped today when two Hungarian porcelain
vases once owned by Adolf Hitler were passed in without a bid. (VASES)



ADELAIDE - The idea of selling marijuana in corner stores as a strategy to help solve the
drug problem was just wishful thinking, South Australian Premier John Olsen said today. (DRUGS
OLSEN, see also DRUGS QLD)



ADELAIDE - Doctors have been airlifted to a container ship in the Great Australian Bight to
help a crewman originally thought to be choking on his own false teeth. (TEETH, N/L to come)



ADELAIDE - Abalone may be as smart as they are valuable on Asian markets, stunting their
growth to avoid being harvested. (ABALONE to come)

MELBOURNE - The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne is to be redeveloped over the next five
years at a cost of $36 million, with a new integrated care centre, breast unit, information
centre and other services. (BUDGETVIC HEALTH, BUDGETVIC N/L to come)



MELBOURNE - A mother of two who made a down payment on a $50,000 contract for the hiring of
a "hitman" to kill her second husband because she had "grown tired" of him, was today found
guilty of murder. (FREEMAN GUILTY to come)



MELBOURNE - Former prison officer Heather Parker, notorious for helping her lover blast his
way out of jail six years ago, pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods in a Melbourne Court
today. (PARKER)



MELBOURNE - Rural women were more likely than their urban counterparts to resort to radical
surgery such as mastectomies to fight breast cancer, according to a survey released today.
(BREAST)



MELBOURNE - A 41-year-old man pleaded guilty in court today to creating a public nuisance
by wielding a sword for two hours at one of Melbourne's busiest intersections one evening last
September, blocking traffic and trams. (SWORD)



MELBOURNE - Melbourne's infamous Pentridge Prison will open its gates to the public for the
last time on Sunday, more than 30 years after its gallows snapped open under the last man
executed in Australia. (PENTRIDGE)



BRISBANE - Controversial herbal cigarettes which can legally be sold to children in
Queensland pose many of the same risks as tobacco ones, according to a thoracic surgeon.
(CIGARETTES N/L, 2ND N/L to come)



BRISBANE - Divers have been pulled out of the search for missing Rockhampton schoolgirl
Keyra Steinhardt because of the threat of crocodiles in the Fitzroy River. (SCHOOLGIRL CROCS,
SCHOOLGIRL N/L to come)



BRISBANE - Civil libertarians today called for work-based performance tests rather than
drug testing to tackle safety in the workplace, as mining giant Comalco foreshadowed random
drug tests at their Weipa bauxite mine. (RANDOM)



BRISBANE - Surgeons have criticised a Brisbane radio competition offering $6,000 worth of
breast enlargement surgery as first prize. (COSMETIC)



BRISBANE - It was an absolute myth that judges were remote and lived in ivory towers, a
Supreme Court judge said in Brisbane today. (LEE)



GOLD COAST, Qld - A probationary police constable was apparently "trackwalking" on an
indoor monorail line when he fell 30 metres onto a Gold Coast shopping centre floor, witnesses
said today. (MONORAIL)



HOBART - Cot deaths could be cut further if mothers didn't smoke while they were pregnant,
according to new Australian research. (SIDS)



SYDNEY - A businessman who blew more than $3 million at Sydney's Star City is suing the
casino claiming it induced him to gamble and let him bet when he was drunk. (PRESTON N/L)



SYDNEY - A Newcastle security guard would face a Sydney court today charged with fraud,
firearms and drug offences, police said. (GUARD CHARGE, see also GUARD N/L to come)



SYDNEY - A man who tried to defraud the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Edward
Clancy, of $40,000 was jailed today for 20 months. (KIKUBI)



SYDNEY - A man was today found not guilty of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of a
teacher who was suffocated nine years ago. (ANDREW)



SYDNEY - Exasperated detectives hunting for notorious jail escapee John Reginald Killick
believe he and his girlfriend could still be in Sydney. (BREAKOUT)



PERTH - The National Crime Authority is confident it has smashed a national heroin
syndicate following the arrests of seven people in Perth and Melbourne over the past
fortnight. (RAMMED LEAD)

AAP mo

KEYWORD: HIGHLIGHTS NATIONAL 2 SYDNEY

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