NSW: Shell denies 8c a litre hike overnight

AAP General News (Australia)
08-22-2000
NSW: Shell denies 8c a litre hike overnight

Oil giant Shell has denied petrol prices across Sydney have jumped by eight cents a
litre overnight, but it admits there's been an average four cents a litre hike in under
24 hours.

However, Shell's senior economist PETER HARRIS insists the jump, which has unleaded
petrol soaring to 99.9c a litre, is not a case of profiteering.

Mr HARRIS says Shell makes one-fifth of what the government takes on petrol through
the GST and an increase in federal government excise.

He says the company has been making just 3.1 cents a litre for the last two weeks while
it absorbed the increase in government taxes as well as jump in the price of crude oil
and the regional price.

The New South Wales government has accused oil companies of arrogance as some stations,
particularly in Sydney's north, ask $1.05 a litre.

AAP RTV dmc/maur/rsm/jn

KEYWORD: PETROL ( SYDNEY)

2000 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.

Vic: Aspro heir loses appeal against drug sentence

AAP General News (Australia)
04-07-2000
Vic: Aspro heir loses appeal against drug sentence

MELBOURNE, April 7 AAP - A grandson of the founder of the Aspro pharmaceutical firm
today lost an appeal against his conviction over a $12 million heroin deal.

But David Michael Nicholas' 15 year sentence was reduced to 12 years.

The Victorian Court of Appeal ruled that the minimum non-parole term the 59-year-old
was sentenced to in February last year should be cut to eight years.

The County Court trial heard that Nicholas was caught in an Australian Federal Police
"sting" operation involving 6.5 kilograms of heroin with an estimated street value of
$ 12.5 million.

Nicholas, formerly of the Melbourne suburb of Malvern, who owned the Victorian franchises
for KFC and Pizza Hut in the 1970s, pleaded not guilty to possessing a trafficable quantity
of heroin and attempting to possess a commercial quantity of the drug.

Nicholas in his appeal against conviction and sentence submitted that the trial judge
had erred by failing to rule that a listening device warrant was invalid and therefore
evidence obtained with the aid of such a device was illegal.

The presiding judge, Chief Justice John Harber Phillips, said in today's judgment that
Nicholas had received a fair trial in the County Court.

"We cannot detect any unfairness or accept, as claimed, that it was impossible to have
a fair trial," said the judgment.

However, in reducing the sentence, the judgment stated that the trial judge attached
too much weight to Nicholas' prior convictions on fraud charges in 1990.

AAP sew/jlw/bdm

KEYWORD: NICHOLAS (CARRIED EARLIER)

2000 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.

WA: 10 hour family seige ends peacefully

AAP General News (Australia)
01-10-2000
WA: 10 hour family seige ends peacefully

A man who shot his de facto wife before holding five members of his family hostage
is being questioned by police in Perth.

Police say the 38-year-old man surrendered this morning, following an overnight siege
of more than 10 hours.

His wife received hospital treatment for a wound to the arm, but nobody else was hurt
during the ten-hour stand-off.

The drama began shortly after 10pm yesterday, when police received an emergency call
from a woman who said she'd been shot.

Officers found the woman …

NSW: Charity urges people not to respond to hoax e mail

AAP General News (Australia)
08-19-1999
NSW: Charity urges people not to respond to hoax e mail

Australian charity Make-A-Wish has urged Internet users not to respond to a hoax chain
e-mail calling on people to help in a campaign to raise funds for a sick child.

The Foundation says the fraudulent e-mail is claimed to have been written by a seriously
ill seven-year-old girl whose family cannot afford life-saving medical treatment.

The e-mail asks people to continue sending the e-mail and for every person on the list of
recipients, a seven-cent donation would be made to the child by the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Make-A-Wish chief executive officer TONY WALSH says the foundation, as a matter of policy,
does not provide monies or grant wishes that involve funding medical treatment for children.

He says Make-A-Wish Foundation of Australia's sole objective is the granting of the most
cherished wishes to children under 18 with a life-threatening illness.

AAP RTV nd/sb/msk/jn

KEYWORD: WISH (SYDNEY)

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.

VIC: Priest who molested children escapes jail

AAP General News (Australia)
02-26-1999
VIC: Priest who molested children escapes jail

A Catholic priest, who indecently molested numerous young children in his Victorian
parishes during the 1960s and 70s, has escaped a jail term.

Father BRYAN DESMOND COFFEY's sentence of three years' jail was suspended -- despite the
judge describing his crimes as a heinous (pron: HAY-ness) betrayal of his role as a priest.

A jury in the Ballarat County Court found the 64-year-old priest guilty …

NSW: Arena claims Carr crossed her off = 2 Sydney

AAP General News (Australia)
12-09-1998
NSW: Arena claims Carr crossed her off = 2 Sydney

A secretary at the Italian Consulate confirmed that state parliaments protocol office had
been told by Mr Carr not to invite Mrs Arena to Fridays event.

"Protocol said it was directions of the Premier not to invite her, its his invitation, we
cant interfere in who the Premier wants to invite," the secretary said.

She said the consulate had been asked to compile a list of 30 MPs with Italian background
to the Premiers office and did not know whether other suggested guests had been omitted from
the list.

A spokesman for Mr Carr said the matter was being investigated.

AAP cm/sb/bjm/br

KEYWORD: ARENA 2 SYDNEY

1998 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.

TAS:Man charged with murder over bashing death

AAP General News (Australia)
02-20-2011
TAS:Man charged with murder over bashing death

An 18-year-old man has been charged with murder over the fatal bashing of a man at
a public housing estate in the Hobart's north.

Police in Hobart say a 39-year-old man died after being bashed at Stainforth Court
in New Town on Friday .. while a …