Two dead, three critical in road crashes

TWO people are dead and three are fighting for their lives following separate crashes in NSW.

A woman in her 20s died during a single-car crash near Dorrigo in northern NSW just before 2pm (AEDT) on Saturday.

The driver, a woman in her late 40s, and another woman in her late 20s, were taken to hospital with serious injuries.

Two girls and a boy, all aged under 10, were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Police said the vehicle was heading east along the Waterfall Way, when it left the road and rolled down an embankment.

In another crash, one male passenger died and three others from the same vehicle including the driver were critically injured in a two-car crash in Sydney's southwest.

The vehicles collided on Douglas Park Drive in Douglas Park about 6.20pm (AEDT).

The three critically injured men were airlifted to Liverpool Hospital.

A man from the second car was taken by road to Liverpool Hospital with serious injuries.

Three other men from the second car suffered minor injuries.

The road remains closed in both directions while the scene is examined.

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Pistorius was an avid gun collector

IN his Olympic year, Oscar Pistorius steadily became an avid firearms collector, joining a gun-collecting club and purchasing a collection of firearms that included a .500 Magnum pistol dubbed by its manufacturer as "the most powerful production revolver in the world" and a civilian version of a military assault rifle.

At the end of 2012, in the first blush of his romance with Reeva Steenkamp, the model he later shot and killed on Valentine's Day, Pistorius got deeper into his hobby.

It was known that Pistorius liked guns but only now, from Associated Press interviews with other collectors, is it becoming clear the extent to which he became a dedicated firearms aficionado in the 12 months before the Steenkamp tragedy.

The track star not only applied for licences to own more guns, but actually bought them, too, according to John Beare, vice chairman of the Lowveld Firearm Collectors Association which accepted Pistorius as a paid-up member last April.

He and Pistorius were introduced at a Johannesburg hotel in January 2012, and it was there that Beare first explained to the athlete and some of his friends how to become certified collectors.

Had he not become a collector, Pistorius would under South African law have been limited to a maximum of four firearms for self-defence, of which only two could have been handguns, according to Johannesburg attorney Martin Hood, who specialises in firearms law.

Carvel Webb, chairman of the National Arms and Ammunition Collectors Confederation of South Africa, an umbrella group for the country's 2,000 approved private collectors including Pistorius, said that in the wake of Steenkamp's death his group will now verify that Pistorius fulfilled the necessary requirements to be accepted as a collector and a decision in January to let him start collecting semi-automatic rifles.

"We will review all of those just to see if we are happy with it," Webb said.

Pistorius made no secret of his passion for firearms. Reporters who visited him at home in Pretoria, the capital, saw the pistol he kept by his bed and was licensed to own. He practiced at firing ranges both in South Africa and in Europe where he trained for the London Games. But apparently less well-known was his involvement with gun collectors to start building a firearms collection.

Beare said he twice observed Pistorius shoot at firing ranges and also at a clay pigeon shoot, but saw nothing to suggest he could be a menace with a gun.

"His safety was good," Beare told the AP. "He wouldn't do anything irrational with a firearm, because then I would have nailed him immediately."

Pistorius says he mistook his girlfriend Steenkamp for a home intruder and shot her while she was in his bathroom toilet, firing through the closed door.

Pistorius' license for the 9 mm pistol was issued on September 10, 2010, according to the South African Police Service's National Firearms Centre. It was registered for self-defence.

Prosecutors have charged Pistorius with premeditated murder for killing Steenkamp with three of four shots fired in the early hours of February 14.

Some have questioned why Pistorius felt he needed such a variety of weapons and whether the association should have certified him.

Andre Pretorius, president of the Professional Firearm Trainers Council, a regulatory body for South African firearms instructors, said he struggles to see how pistols, shotguns and a semi-automatic rifle could be regarded as a coherent collection.

"The makes differ, the models differ and generally a collection needs to have a theme," said Pretorius. "I don't see there's a theme here."

But Webb, of the collectors' confederation, disagreed.

"There was a logic," Webb told the AP. "He's got three approved areas of interest."

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Aust troops 'kill two Afghan children'

AUSTRALIAN soldiers in southern Afghanistan shot dead two children tending cattle, local officials said on Saturday as the international coalition launched an inquiry into the incident.

Civilian casualties caused by NATO-led troops have been one of the most contentious issues in the campaign against Taliban insurgents, fuelling public anger and often triggering criticism from President Hamid Karzai.

The two children, aged seven and eight, were killed on Thursday morning as Australian soldiers fought back after a Taliban attack in southern Uruzgan province, said provincial governor Amir Mohammad Akhundzada.

"The children were killed by Australian troops, it was a mistaken incident, not a deliberate one," Akhundzada told AFP, adding that insurgents had first shot at a helicopter carrying Australian soldiers.

A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul said he was unable to confirm details.

"We are aware of the reports and we take all such reports very seriously," he said.

"An incident assessment team in Uruzgan is now there looking into it."

In a recent case of civilian deaths, on 13 February, 10 Afghan civilians, including five children, were killed by a NATO airstrike in Kunar province.

Following the attack, Karzai barred Afghan forces from seeking air support from foreign troops in a bid to curb civilian casualties.

Security responsibility for Uruzgan, a restive province where the Taliban insurgents have been holding sway, is being handed over to Afghan forces.

The bulk of Australia's 1,550 troops are based in the province, and are focused on training and mentoring Afghan soldiers ahead of the withdrawal of NATO combat troops by the end of next year.

Comment is being sought from Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

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Gonski appointed to SingTel board

FUTURE Fund chairman David Gonski has been appointed to the board of Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel).

SingTel is the parent of Australian telco Optus.

The announcement of the appointment of the prominent Sydney-based businessman and philanthropist was made in a statement after the close of share market trading on Friday evening.

SingTel is dual Singapore-Australian stock exchange listed company.

The 59-year-old Mr Gonski is also a non-executive director of Singapore Airlines, as well as chairman of Coca-Cola Amatil in Australia.

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Prof welcomes overturned murder conviction

A 30-YEAR-OLD murder conviction has been overturned by Western Australia's Court of Appeal on the back of Nobel Prize-winning ulcer research by Perth-based scientist Barry Marshall.

Chris von Deutschburg was a teenager in 1983 when convicted of murdering Stavros Kakulas in a scuffle during a burglary at the 86-year-old man's home in Perth's seaside suburb of Scarborough.

Mr von Deutschburg, then 19, received a life sentence on the basis Mr Kakulas died of a bleeding duodenal ulcer seven days after the crime.

The ulcer was said to have been brought on by the stress of the home invasion.

Professor Marshall and his colleague Robin Warren won Nobel Prizes in 2005 for proving bacteria, rather than stress, caused stomach ulcers.

Prof Marshall told AAP he had been involved in the case from the beginning, when he had already conceived his award-winning theory, but was yet to prove it.

"There were just a couple of people on our side and everyone else just believed this traditional theory," he said.

In proving his theory, Prof Marshall acted as a human guinea pig, downing a bacterial brew that made him very ill, but gave new hope of treatment for millions of sufferers.

Once the research gained worldwide attention, Mr von Deutschburg, who spent seven years in prison before being paroled in 1990, looked to Prof Marshall's work as a way to clear him of his murder conviction.

The scientist got behind him, writing to the State Solicitor's Office saying Mr von Deutschburg could not be guilty, prompting former state attorney-general Christian Porter to refer the case to WA's Court of Appeal.

On Friday, Justices Carmel McLure, Robert Mazza and Michael Buss announced their unanimous decision, saying the basis of the conviction had been overtaken by the groundbreaking discovery by Prof Marshall and Mr Warren.

The judges said Mr Kakulas's duodenal ulcer was likely to have existed before the home invasion in June 1983.

Evidence provided by Prof Marshall, and also by PathWest Laboratory Medicine chief forensic pathologist Clive Cooke, raised enough doubt in the judges' minds to make them conclude Mr von Deutschburg should not have been convicted of murder.

"If the jury had heard Professor Marshall's and Dr Cooke's evidence, in addition to the evidence adduced at trial, it must be necessarily have entertained a doubt about the appellant's guilt," the judgment read.

"A miscarriage of justice occurred at the trial."

In his petition on behalf of Mr von Deutschburg, Prof Marshall said there was no likelihood that Mr Kakulas's injuries either worsened or contributed to the duodenal ulcer.

On Friday, Prof Marshall said the case was one for the law books.

"This is really a landmark case ... a milestone if you like," he said.

It was important for Mr von Deutschburg to clear his name, he said.

"To have a conviction at a young age ... that affects your career and your job prospects for the rest of your life.

"These things are very important and maybe you can't just be a bit irresponsible in your youth in case something does happen like that.

"It affects you for a long time."

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US sailors jailed for Okinawa rape

TWO US sailors who raped a Japanese woman in Okinawa last October were jailed on Friday for a crime that reignited long-smouldering anger against the American military in Japan.

The Naha District Court in Okinawa said Seaman Christopher Browning, 24, should go to prison for 10 years for the brutal rape of the young woman, from whom he also stole 7,000 yen ($A73).

Petty officer 3rd class Skyler Dozierwalker, 23, was jailed for nine years, also for raping the woman before dawn in a car park.

Browning and Dozierwalker, who were not stationed in Okinawa, had been drinking on the evening of the attack, and "were contemptible and violent", Judge Hideyuki Suzuki said.

"The ruling may seem severe, but the damage to the feelings of the victim and residents is more severe," he said in a statement after the case, according to Kyodo News.

During an earlier court appearance the two men had admitted the rape, which caused outrage on the sub-tropical islands and beyond, and led to a nationwide night-time curfew on all US military personnel in Japan.

Despite the curfew, misconduct involving servicemen, much of it drunken, has continued to fuel anti-US sentiment in communities with bases.

Wary of yet another public relations disaster, the US moved quickly to try to lower the temperature immediately after the rape, with ambassador John Roos holding a special news conference at which he appeared visibly angry and upset.

"The United States will cooperate in every way possible with the Japanese authorities to address this terrible situation."

"I understand the anger that many people feel with respect to this reported incident," he said. "I have a 25-year-old daughter myself, so this is very personal to me."

The attack came amid already high tensions in Okinawa, which saw demonstrations last year against the US deployment to the island of the tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft.

The aircraft's perceived poor safety record has been picked over in Japanese media and by local opponents, but commentators say it is a proxy issue and resentment over what many see as an unfair burden is at the root of objections.

Okinawa is the reluctant host to more than half of the 47,000 American service personnel in Japan, and the crimes, noise and risk of accidents associated with their bases regularly provoke ire in the local community.

In 1995 the gang rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by US servicemen sparked mass protests resulting in a US-Japan agreement to reduce the huge US military presence on the Okinawan chain.

Okinawans say other parts of Japan should take more of the burden and want bases closed or reduced in size.

But with islands stretching out from mainland Japan to Taiwan that obscure rising China's access to the Pacific, Okinawa is too strategically important for either Washington or Tokyo to be able to countenance a large-scale drawdown.

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Spain's Bankia posts $A24.57bn loss

Bailed-out Spanish banking giant Bankia suffered a loss of $A24.57 billion in 2012. Source: AAP

BAILED-OUT Spanish banking giant Bankia suffered a loss of 19 billion euros ($A24.57 billion) in 2012, it said in an earnings statement.

Bankia, which has become a symbol of Spain's banking collapse, said the losses were in line with its expectations after the Spanish government nationalised it in May.

In December it received 18 billion euros in eurozone aid to restructure it.

Bankia's chairman Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri said that despite the net losses of 19.193 billion euros the bank's financial situation was in line with its aims.

"We have a very solvent balance sheet. We are a tremendously solvent and solid entity," he told a news conference.

The European Commission approved the payment of 18 billion euros to rescue Bankia, obliging it to restructure by closing branches and cutting jobs.

The bank has announced it will close a third of its branches. Unions say the restructuring will lead to 4,500 job cuts.

A long recession brought on by the collapse of a building boom in 2008 left Bankia saddled with unpaid loans.

In Thursday's earnings report BFA-Bankia, the financial group that includes the troubled lender, said it made provisions of 26.8 billion euros in 2012.

It offloaded 22.3 billion euros' worth of bad property-linked assets to a "bad bank" set up to purge the bad loans of Spain's banks. Of this figure, 19.5 billion were from Bankia.

After the government stepped in to rescue Bankia by nationalising it, Spain then had to seek a broader bailout for its whole banking sector from the eurozone.

The recession has driven Spain's unemployment rate to 26 per cent.

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Bangladesh Islamist sentenced to death

A SPECIAL Bangladeshi court sentenced a senior Islamist opposition official to death for crimes including murder, rape and religious persecution during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Delwar Hossain Sayedee, the vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami party and a fiery Islamic preacher, is the third person to be found guilty by the International Crimes Tribunal, a much-criticised domestic court based in Dhaka.

"He has been sentenced to death. It's a victory for the people," said prosecutor Syed Haider Ali, adding Sayedee was found guilty of eight charges including murder, arson, rape and forceful conversion of Hindus to Islam.

"The nation is now free of stigma," he said, adding the verdict would bring justice to the people who lost hundreds of thousands of their relatives at the hands of pro-Pakistani militias which included Sayedee and other Jamaat leaders.

Sayedee who was in the packed court amid huge security protested the judgement saying it was influenced by "atheists" and pro-government protesters, thousands of whom have been demanding his execution and that of other war criminals for weeks.

Protesters at a central Dhaka intersection erupted in cheers as news of Sayedee's sentence filtered through.

There was no immediate reaction from Jamaat to the verdict, but the party has enforced a nationwide strike demanding a halt to what it dismisses as politically motivated trials of its entire leadership.

Police fired live rounds at scores of Jamaat protesters Thursday morning, leaving five people injured, deputy commissioner of Dhaka police Biplob Sarker told AFP, adding they reacted after the Islamists attacked them.

Security was tight in the Bangladeshi capital on Thursday, with around 10,000 policemen on patrol.

Earlier this month the tribunal, a local court with no international oversight, sentenced Jamaat's assistant secretary general Abdul Quader Molla to life imprisonment, sparking protests by Islamists that left 16 people dead.

The verdict also enraged secular protesters and bloggers, tens of thousands of whom have since poured onto the Shahbag intersection in central Dhaka to reject the "lighter sentence" and demand the execution of Jamaat leaders.

In January the tribunal handed down its first verdict when it sentenced fugitive Muslim TV preacher Maolana Abul Kalam Azad to death.

The tribunal has been tainted by controversies and allegations it is targeting only the opposition with trumped-up charges.

Rights groups say its legal procedures fall short of international standards.

The government rejects the accusations, saying the trials are needed to heal the wounds of the war that it says killed three million people.

It accuses Jamaat leaders of being part of pro-Pakistani militias blamed for much of the 1971 carnage.

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Spain's recession deepens

SPAIN'S economy sank deeper into recession in the fourth quarter of last year as high unemployment and biting austerity measures prompted households to slash spending, official data showed Thursday.

The eurozone's fourth largest economy shrank by 1.4 percent on an annual basis in 2012, a slightly better performance than the decline of 1.5 percent forecast by the government.

The economy shrank 0.8 percent in the final quarter of 2012 from the previous three months, after dropping 0.3 percent in the third quarter, the national statistics institute said.

The figures were slightly bleaker than preliminary data released last month by the statistics institute which saw the economy contracting by 0.7 percent in the final quarter on a quarterly basis and by 1.37 percent for the entire year.

Spain is grappling with a double-dip recession and 26 percent unemployment, having never recovered from a real estate crash in 2008.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government forecasts the economy will return to growth in the second half of 2013.

It forecasts an economic contraction of 0.5 percent in 2013 followed by an expansion of 1.2 percent in 2014, a significantly more optimistic forecast than that of most analysts and international organisations.

Activity is being cramped by his government's programme of spending cuts and tax rises, aimed at saving 150 billion euros ($194 billion) between 2012 and 2014, which have prompted mass street protests.

The Spanish economy appeared to continue its contraction in the first quarter of 2013 due to sluggish domestic demand, the Bank of Spain said Wednesday in its latest monthly economic bulletin.

The government has vowed to lower the public deficit from the equivalent of 9.4 percent of annual gross domestic product last year to 2.8 percent in 2014.

Analysts say those targets will be hard to reach in a period of declining economic activity.

Rajoy on Wednesday announced that Spain missed the budget deficit target agreed with the European Commission as the shortfall reached 6.7 percent of GDP in 2012, compared with a target of 6.3 percent.

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Taliban suicide bomber targets Kabul army

Six people have been wounded in a suicide bomb attack on a Afghan military bus in Kabul. Source: AAP

A TALIBAN suicide bomber has attacked a bus carrying Afghan army personnel in Kabul, wounding 10 people and highlighting a growing trend of strikes on Afghan rather than NATO military targets.

The bomber struck on a main street in the heavily secured Afghan capital, where the Taliban have already claimed responsibility for suicide attacks on the intelligence and traffic police headquarters this year.

Western officials say the trend reflects a shift in strategy, away from focusing on the US-led NATO combat mission, which is due to withdraw next year, to targeting Afghan forces preparing to take over.

"At around 7.10am (1340 AEDT), a suicide attacker on foot targeted a military bus in third district of Kabul city," said police spokesman Hashmatullah Stanikzai.

He said six members of the defence ministry and four civilians were wounded, revising upwards an initial toll of six wounded. Most of the civilian injuries were caused by shattered glass, he added.

A witness told the TOLO television channel the bomber was carrying an umbrella to shield himself from snow.

"I was standing across the street when I saw a man holding an umbrella approach the army bus. He then slid under the bus. I thought he was the driver, but moments later the explosion happened," he said.

A spokesman for the Taliban, which is leading an 11-year fight against the Western-backed government, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP that 17 personnel were killed and 17 others were seriously injured. The Taliban routinely exaggerate the tolls from attacks they claim.

Among the nine attacks recorded by AFP in Afghanistan so far this year, only one of them, on January 25, targeted NATO troops, in the troubled eastern province of Kapisa. Five civilians were killed in that attack.

All other attacks have targeted tribal elders, police or Afghan intelligence agents.

"Since the start of the year, the objective has mainly been Afghans, even if NATO remains a target," a Western security official told AFP.

The Pentagon admitted on Tuesday that NATO's International Security Assistance Force had wrongly reported a seven per cent decline in Taliban attacks last year, saying that the number was in fact roughly the same as in 2011.

"This is a regrettable error in our database systems that was discovered during a routine quality check. We are making the appropriate adjustments," Pentagon spokesman George Little said.

The US government and NATO have repeatedly touted a purported drop in insurgent attacks as proof that the Taliban are on the retreat. The error raised questions about how governments and commanders are portraying the war effort.

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