AAP National News Wire Round-Up for Evening, April 24

AAP General News (Australia)
04-24-2004
AAP National News Wire Round-Up for Evening, April 24
EVENING ROUND-UP: HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AAP RTV FILE AT 1630


KOREA EXPLOSION AID (BEIJING)

A convoy of aid groups and foreign diplomats have left Pyongyang for the site of a
deadly train blast near the Chinese border to assess the damage and help the victims.

An official in the Chinese embassy in Pyongyang says all the foreign diplomats left
together after being invited by the North Korean government to visit the crash site.

The journey by bus and truck comes after the North Korean government sent out a plea for help.

The Red Cross says hospital kits and medical supplies are now being transported to the site.

After days of silence, the North Korean regime's also acknowledged for the first time
there was a very serious train blast on April the 22nd.

It says the explosion happened due to electrical contact caused by carelessness during
the shunting of wagons loaded with ammonium nitrate fertiliser and tank wagons.

North Korea has confirmed that 154 people have died and there are fears that the death
toll could reach hundreds.

The admission comes as China pledges $A1.65 million and South Korea offers $A1.36 million
in emergency aid, including food, medicine, medical supplies and tents.



MITSUBISHI AUST PLAN (SYDNEY)

Mitsubishi Australia managing director TOM PHILLIPS is confident the car manufacturer's
two Adelaide plants will survive despite its parent company facing collapse.

German-US company DaimlerChrysler has announced it won't participate in a capital
increase planned by the debt-ridden Japanese company and will cease further financial
support.

DaimlerChrysler owns 37 per cent of the Mitsubishi Motors Corporation.

The announcement has cast doubt over the future of Mitsubishi Motors Australia, which
has two manufacturing plants in Adelaide and 3,300 employees.

But Mr PHILLIPS' has told the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper he's confident a survival
plan being devised with banks in Tokyo will keep the plants in Adelaide open.

Mitsubishi has released a statement in Tokyo saying the corporation is drawing up a
new mid-term business plan aimed at revitalising its operations.



ATSIC RALLY (BRISBANE)

Australian Democrats leader ANDREW BARTLETT has called on the Labor Party to use its
power in the Senate to block federal government plans to scrap ATSIC.

Senator Bartlett has told a rally in Brisbane that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Commission has some problems but scrapping it isn't the answer.

Around 200 people gathered at the rally in the Roma Street Parklands to protest against
the government's plan to abolish ATSIC.

Senator BARTLETT says ATSIC has real strength in its network of regional councils and
its funding of over 900 community organisations.



SARS CHINA (BEIJING)

China has sealed off a SARS research lab in its capital after two lab workers contracted
the disease and the mother of one died.

The death is the world's first from the lethal respiratory disease this year.

Officials says a nurse who looked after one of the SARS-infected lab workers is suspected
to have caught the disease and is also in isolation.

Meanwhile, Taiwan has implemented anti-SARS measures after China announced the epidemic
has resurfaced on the mainland, killing one person and affecting three others.



CYPRUS VOTE (NICOSIA)

Voting has started in the southern Greek part of Cyprus in a referendum on a UN plan
to reunify the divided island before it joins the European Union on May the 1st.

Polling in a separate referendum in the northern Turkish side has also begun.

Some 624,000 voters - 480,000 Greek Cypriots and almost 144,000 Turkish Cypriots -
are registered to vote on the plan drawn up by UN Secretary General KOFI ANNAN.

But opinion polls strongly suggest Greek Cypriots in the south will vote against the
UN plan for a loose confederation.



IRAQ BOOK POWELL (WASHINGTON)

US Secretary of State COLIN POWELL says a book detailing the run-up to the Iraq war
hasn't tarnished his reputation as a soldier and diplomat.

Journalist BOB WOODWARD's book Plan of Attack says POWELL found himself in a delicate
position trying to argue the case for war while warning President GEORGE W BUSH of possible
pitfalls.

POWELL says he's a loyal member of BUSH's team and gives his best advice to the president
about options and difficulties.

Meanwhile, a United States Marine has died of wounds from combat in the area of the
flashpoint Iraqi city of Fallujah.



KOREA NUCLEAR (BEIJING)

North Korea says it will push ahead with its nuclear deterrent, saying time is not
on US President GEORGE W BUSH'S side in trying to resolve the atomic crisis.

The news has come from a US expert on North Korea said today after meeting top officials
in Pyongyang.

He says North Korean officials have also vowed never to let nuclear weapons fall into
the hands of al-Qaeda or other militants.



UNDERWORLD (MELBOURNE)

Victorian Police Commissioner CHRISTINE NIXON's tough new stance on organised crime
and underworld figures has been welcomed by the state's police union.

The Melbourne Herald Sun newspaper says Ms NIXON has said she'll use every technique
and tool available to crack down on organised crime.

Police Association secretary PAUL MULLETT says the union has long been calling for
a tougher hard-nosed policing style.



FINGERS (BRISBANE)

A 28-year-old man has been extradited from Sydney this morning to face charges over
the mutilation of a music student's fingers last year.

The career of 20-year-old saxophonist PHIL EVANS was destroyed in July when two men
chopped off three of his fingers during a home invasion in northern Brisbane.



NANEVSKI (SYDNEY)

A court has been told a Sydney man charged with sexually assaulting two women posed
as a businessman seeking a personal assistant to lure them from interstate.

Thirty-four-year-old TOMI NANEVSKI has appeared in Parramatta Local Court charged with
two counts of sexual intercourse without consent and one count of robbery.

Police prosecutor FABIOLA ORMENTO told the court NANEVSKI lured the women on separate
occasions to two hotels near Sydney airport.



WORLD HEART (WASHINGTON)

A new report says cheap food, cigarettes and city life are causing millions of early
deaths in the developing world.

The report by Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York says heart disease
was once an illness of the rich, but now it's killing more and more people in poor countries.

STEPHEN LEEDER, a professor at the University of Sydney who worked on the report, says
in the five countries surveyed, at least 21 million years of life are lost every year
because of heart disease.



ANZAC HARDGRAVE (CANBERRA)

Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Minister GARY HARDGRAVE has urged newly arrived
migrants and refugees to observe Anzac Day tomorrow.

Mr HARDGRAVE says some newly arrived migrants might not understand what Anzac Day stands
for and think it's a day only for Anzac troops and their descendants.

But in an Anzac Day statement, Mr HARDGRAVE says the day is relevant to all Australians,
regardless of how long their families have been in Australia.



AND BRIEFLY . . .



A landslide has smashed into a bus on Indonesia's Sumatra island, killing at least
12 passengers and leaving 16 others buried under tonnes of mud.




A company in California has been given a licence to fly a manned rocket on suborbital flights.




Thousands of people in Britain will be carrying identity cards next week in a trial
of an anti-terrorism program.



AND IN SPORTS . . .


LEAGUE EELS (SYDNEY)

Parramatta trio NATHAN CAYLESS, NATHAN HINDMARSH and DAVID VAEALIKI have all been cleared
to play in tonight's National Rugby League clash with Cronulla at Parramatta Stadium.

CAYLESS and HINDMARSH played in last night's Test between Australia and New Zealand
while VAEALIKI suffered rib cartilage damage in the Eels' victory over Manly last weekend.

Kiwi skipper CAYLESS missed a large chunk of the Test in Newcastle after being concussed
in the first half.



LEAGUE DRAGONS (Sydney)

Australian rugby league forward LUKE BAILEY has been ruled out of tomorrow's Anzac
Day clash with the Sydney Roosters at Aussie Stadium.

BAILEY strained a calf muscle playing for Australia in its 37-10 win over New Zealand
in the Test at Newcastle last night.



LEAGUE AUST (SYDNEY)

Australian winger TIMANA TAHU will be sidelined for a fortnight after tearing his left
hamstring in last night's 37-10 victory over New Zealand in Newcastle.



ENDS EVENING ROUND-UP

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