World News joined 2

[OMEN]

STUDENT PROTEST: Primary school teacher Lynne Tziolas with her husband Antonios with the magazine shot that got her sacked. One of her former students appears to have started a petition to have her reinstated
The Australian primary school teacher sacked for posing nude with her husband in a magazine has sparked a classroom protest.

One of her 10-year-old students at Narraweena Public School on Sydney's northern beaches appears to have started a petition to get her reinstated.

But one parent, who did not wish to be named, said the buzz at the school was that the principal had taken the book with the petition and ripped out the pages - a claim the principal was not prepared to comment on today.

This act of youthful activism follows the sacking last week of 24-year-old Lynne Tziolas after she and her husband appeared in a Cleo magazine article titled "Buck naked couples talk about their sex lives".

The article ran interviews with 10 couples about "what they get up to between the sheets" and asked Ms Tziolas and her husband, Antonios, how many times they have sex a week, their favourite body part and the most risque sexual thing they've done.

"Leaving the blinds up and the lights on, which is all the time," Antonios said in response to the last question.

Ms Tziolas's sacking prompted some parents to complain.

One parent, Eileen Sawaid, organised a petition to demand Ms Tziolas's reinstatement, and she said she has received about 300 signatures.

"I fully support Lynne and will fight damn hard to help her because what happened is wrong," she said this morning.

Instead of protecting the children from the contents of the magazine, the sacking of Ms Tziolas had in fact brought it to their attention, she said.

"The way the children found about about Ms Tziolas's [magazine shoot] was after she was sacked, it had been out for a while before then and none of them had even heard about it," she said.

Ms Sawaid also said she had misgivings about how the children at the school had become part of the issue, and criticised a story in the Manly Daily today which discussed the student petition to reinstate Ms Tziolas.

"Her dismissal affects the children in many ways but the [issue] is an adult one and I don't think it's good for the children to be involved," she said.

Ms Tziolas's husband Antonios also said he regretted the involvement of the children.

"We're a little bit upset that the kids are being damaged collaterally by all this ... it would upset Lynne and I if they get punished for what they've done," he said.

The principal of the school, Julie Organ, referred questions about the alleged confiscation of the classroom petition to the Department of Education.

A spokesman for the department said: "As the situation is complex and not one easily explained to junior primary school age children, it is inappropriate for them to be asked to sign a petition without the advice and guidance of parents.

"A parent raised her concern with the school about a petition being created during class time.

"The petition, which had only a small number of signatures, was provided to the principal and the exercise book in which it had been written was returned to the parent of the student involved."

Mr Tziolas also said the couple were due to meet a lawyer provided by the Teacher's Federation this afternoon to begin legal action to have Ms Tziolas reinstated, he said.

"Lynne and I have just been overwhelmed by the response - people we've never met have been sending us letters, people have been stopping us in the streets to give us their support," he said

SMH

[JohnCenaFan28]

She shouldn't be fired just because she decided to take a nude photo... it's not like the children would be seeing it...

[JHTitans89]

thats just stupid, she should not be fired.

[OMEN]

China has poured more troops into the earthquake-ravaged province of Sichuan to speed up the search for survivors as time ran out for thousands of people buried under rubble and mud.

Weary rescuers pulled at tangled chunks of buildings and peered into crevices for signs of life after Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake crumpled homes, schools and hospitals.

The government dispatched 50,000 troops to the southwestern province to dig for victims as the national death toll climbed past 13,000. It is likely to rise steeply after state media said 19,000 were buried in the province's Mianyang area alone.

On the edge of Mianyang city, people roamed around a sports ground housing the homeless, holding cardboard signs with the names of relatives in hopes of information. Most were from nearby rural Beichuan county, one of the worst-hit areas.

"They have said nothing about what's going to happen to us. This is just a temporary place. I don't know when or if we'll be able to go home," said Hu Luobing, from a Beichuan village where she said everything had been destroyed.

She was leaving her daughter in the shelter of the sports ground, where some 10,000 Beichuan survivors had gathered, to look for clothes.

Others were seeking food and relief from the cold rain.

"I've had nothing to eat since last night. I've only been given some bread and a bottle of water for my child," said Bai Chenchu, one of thousands camped out at the sports ground.

Another had only the clothes on his back.

"I'm wearing everything I own," said 15-year-old Xi Dongli.

Pictures from Beichuan, a hilly area that rescuers have struggled to reach, showed near total devastation. Survivors lay alongside the dead in the open air, surrounded by buildings reduced to mangled slabs of concrete.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who has been in Sichuan leading rescue efforts, making emotional appeals to urge on workers and visiting crying, orphaned children, was in Beichuan by midday.

"Your pain is our pain," he said on state television. He stood amid a cluster of residents, one with blood on her head and some of whom wiped away tears.

"Saving people's lives in the most important task."

Beichuan county alone was in urgent need of 50,000 tents, 200,000 blankets and 300,000 coats, as well as drinking water and medicine, Xinhua said.

"Beichuan has just disappeared. There's nothing left," said Li Changqing, a salesman in Mianyang.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

I feel for China, this was a horrible disaster and I hope they get through it quickly.

[OMEN]

A 39-year-old man killed five members of his family, some apparently with an axe and reported the deaths to police himself, police said.

The dead were his wife, daughter aged 7, and his parents and father-in-law.

The man went to police on Wednesday and they found the bodies of the wife and daughter in an apartment in Vienna. They may have been killed with an axe, Austrian news agency APA quoted police as saying.

He admitted the other killings and the bodies were found outside Vienna in Upper Austria. It was unclear how they died.

- Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

What the hell? That guy's insane and needs help...

[OMEN]

A car bomb has exploded at a police barracks in northern Spain's Basque country, killing one person and wounding four, police said.

The bomb exploded in a Civil Guard barracks in the town of Legutiano just before 3am today (1pm NZT), a Basque Country police spokeswoman said, and a police rescue team with dogs was used to search for people trapped in the rubble.

One person trapped under the wreckage died and the blast wounded four others, two men and two women.

There was no warning before the attack, which took place in an area that is often the target of Basque separatists. No one has claimed responsibility, police said.

The Basque separatist group ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades of violent struggle for independence for the Basque Country, which lies in northern Spain and southwestern France.

ETA's last fatal victim was a former small town politician for Spain's governing Socialist Party, gunned down just before a national election in March, police said.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[OMEN]

A Perth man has failed to have his lengthy sentence reduced for a "brutal, callous and degrading" crime on a young boy he and his boyfriend kidnapped and raped for three weeks.

Robbie Sebastian Wheeler, 43, was sentenced to 23 years and eight months jail in the Western Australian District Court last May after admitting to the kidnapping and sexual abuse.

He and his partner Victor Leslie Urquhart, 46, were also found guilty by a jury of plotting to murder the then 14-year-old boy, who they held as a sex slave in their Perth home between August 30 and September 19, 2005.

Urquhart was sentenced to a total of 20 years and seven months in prison.

Wheeler appealed his sentence on the grounds it was too long for the crime.

But the WA Supreme Court today dismissed the appeal.

"I accept that the total sentence in this case was very severe," Justice Christopher Steytler said.

"However, the circumstances of the case are truly exceptional."

Psychological and psychiatric reports prepared for the appeal said Wheeler was a borderline psychopath with a high risk of re-offending.

Wheeler was more concerned for his own wellbeing than that of his victim, the reports said.

Justice Steytler said the boy was shackled for 21 days and subjected to depraved, degrading and humiliating acts.

"The appellant's behaviour was brutal, callous, degrading and sustained," he said.

During sentencing last year, the court was told the boy suffered from eating and sleeping disorders, frequent flashbacks and nightmares, that he had become reclusive and had at least once attempted suicide.

Wheeler and Urquhart abducted him from a Perth street, dragged him inside their house, handcuffed him to a bed and gagged him with gaffer tape.

Over the next three weeks they repeatedly had unprotected sex with him, forced him to use sex toys on himself, made him watch pornographic videos, had sex with each other in front of him and made him defecate in a bucket.

They also made plans to kill him, dump his body in bushland and dissolve it with acid.

Wheeler will be eligible for parole after serving 21 years and eight months.

Urquhart will be eligible for parole after serving 18 years and seven months.

- AAP