World News joined 5

[OMEN]

The NSW State Rail Authority (SRA) was not responsible for the rape of a woman who could not flee her attacker because she broke her ankle weeks earlier at a Sydney station, an appeal court has ruled.

A District Court judge last year decided the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, would not have suffered a sexual assault at a private home had she not been injured and immobilised because of her fall at the railway station.

He also found the sexual assault was a "foreseeable" consequence of the SRA's "breach of duty".

But the NSW Court of Appeal overturned the findings, concluding it was not her lack of mobility that principally constrained her from leaving her attacker's room.

"In my view, it was not reasonably foreseeable that a young woman who was immobilised to the extent of having to use crutches would thereby be exposed to a criminal sexual assault," said Acting Justice Jane Mathews.

The Taiwanese woman, who was 31 at the time and in Australia to study English, fell while walking down slippery, wet stairs at Sydenham railway station in December 2002.

She successfully sued the SRA, but her $A239,405 ($NZ282,217) damages award was today reduced to $A217,324.

The original amount was reduced by the $A71,245 awarded in relation to the psychological damage relating to the rape.

But her lawyers successfully argued for a $A49,164 increase in the award for her future economic loss.

AAP

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[Black Widow]

School Bans Hugs Over 2 Seconds
Students Don't Embrace 'Public Display Of Affection' Policy


MESA, Ariz. -- A school policy banning student hugging prompted dozens of east Valley students to protest with a giant group hug across the street from campus.

"I think it's ridiculous," said Chelsea Branham, a 14-year-old student at Shepherd Junior High School in east Mesa.

Branham said she got detention this week for hugging her friend after school.

"It's not like it's supposed to mean anything," she said. "It's not like I was making out with him or something."

Branham joined her classmates on Friday for a 20-minute, public hug-a-thon.

"She's taking a stand and I'm standing behind her to do it," said Stephanie Wiegold, her mother.

The "no-hugging" rule had previously been in the student handbook. After many students began expressing concern about public hugging and kissing in the hallways, the school began reinforcing the guideline by punishing huggers, which led to Friday's protest.

Prior to the demonstration, the district said the principal and students brokered an agreement to clarify the "no-hugging" rule. According to the guidelines, small hugs, less than two seconds, are permitted but longer ones and kissing are not.

"We can only hug two seconds? That's ridiculous," Branham said. "It's barely even a hug."

"What we're doing here is hoping to help kids understand what's happening," said Kathy Bareiss of Mesa public schools.

The district said a list of acceptable and non-acceptable behaviors will be handed out to students on Monday.

kpho.com

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A Russian man suspected of being one of the world's biggest illegal arms dealers has been arrested in Thailand.



Viktor Bout - who has been dubbed the "merchant of death" - was picked up by police at a luxury hotel in Bangkok.

The Thai authorities acted on a warrant issued by the US, which accuses Mr Bout of supplying arms to Colombian rebels.

He has also been accused of breaking UN embargoes on arms sales to many countries from central Asia to Africa, but has never been prosecuted.

When Belgium and Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for him in 2002, Mr Bout returned to Russia, where he was protected from extradition by the country's constitution.

Deportation

Lt Gen Pongpat Chayapan, head of the Thai Crime Suppressino Bureau, said Mr Bout was arrested at a hotel in Bangkok shortly after he arrived in Thailand while attempting to "procure weapons for Colombia's Farc rebels".

The left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) have been seeking to overthrow the Colombian government for more than four decades.

"We have followed him for several months. He just came back to Thailand today," Gen Pongpat said.

"We will take legal action against him here, before deporting him to face trial in another country, likely the US."

The US warrant stemmed from an earlier one issued by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), he said.

Unconfirmed US media reports say Mr Bout was arrested during negotiations to sell weapons in a sting orchestrated by a DEA special operations unit.

A spokesman for the US embassy in Bangkok congratulated Thai police on the arrest, but could not provide any details about the possible role of US officials.

The US treasury department imposed sanctions on Mr Bout's businesses in October 2006, seizing his fleet of cargo planes and freezing many of his assets.

UN embargoes

Mr Bout, 41, is said to have graduated from Moscow's military institute in the early 1990s and was a major in the Soviet KGB.

According to a 2007 book about him - entitled Merchant of Death - Money, Guns, Planes and the Man Who Makes War Possible - he set up a network of companies using redundant Soviet military planes.

A 2005 report by the human rights group, Amnesty International, said Mr Bout was "the most prominent foreign businessman" breaking UN embargoes on arms sales to countries such as Bulgaria, Slovakia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

He has also been accused of supplying weapons to supporters of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Taleban in Afghanistan and even al-Qaeda during the 1990s.

Mr Bout's life is believed to have been the inspiration for Nicolas Cage's character in the 2005 film, Lord of War.

Although he has been investigated by the authorities in several countries, Mr Bout has never been prosecuted for arms dealing.

BBC News

[OMEN]

A group of South Korean women were falsely lured to Australia and forced to work up to 20 hours a day in a Sydney brothel, police say.

Federal Police officers raided six inner-Sydney properties yesterday, arresting three women and two men allegedly linked to a sex trafficking syndicate worth more than $A3 million a year.

"Police will allege the syndicate recruited women in Korea by deceiving them about the conditions under which they would be employed and then organised their entry into Australia under false pretences," the Australian Federal Police said in a statement.

A 46-year-old woman from Greenacre in south-west Sydney, a 42-year-old woman from Hornsby in north-western Sydney and 35-year-old Korean woman are due to appear in Central Local Court today.

They are charged with offences including people trafficking, deceptively recruiting for sexual services, dealing in the proceeds of crime worth more than $A1 million, and arranging a non-genuine marriage.

Two Sydney men, aged 23 and 28, have been charged with knowingly conducting a business involving the sexual servitude of others and will appear in court at a later date.

AAP