AAP General News (Australia)
12-04-2009
Fed: News of the week at a glance
MILESTONES:
WON - the leadership spill of the federal Liberal Party by Tony Abbott defeating Malcolm
Turnbull and Joe Hockey.
INSTALLED - Kristina Keneally as NSW's first female premier, by the Labor caucus who
dumped Nathan Rees.
DEFEATED - The government's second attempt to get its emissions trading scheme through
the Senate.
PLEDGED - That Australia will increase its police training and civilian commitment
in Afghanistan, by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
RAISED - The official cash rate by 25 basis points to
3.75 per cent by the Reserve Bank.
SENTENCED - Australian man Jock Palfreeman to 20 years in prison by a Bulgarian court
for murdering a man and wounding another in a brawl.
WON - The IBO cruiser weight world title, by Australian boxer Danny Green, who knocked
out his American opponent Roy Jones Jr.
QUOTES:
- "I do feel humbled and daunted by what lies ahead but I also feel proud and exhilarated
at the prospect of leading this party to the next election." - Newly elected Liberal leader
Tony Abbott.
- "Political parties don't work when people just announce what they're doing and expect
everyone else to follow. I will not be that kind of leader." - Tony Abbott.
- "The only thing as far as the future is concerned is that there will not be a by-election
in Wentworth, assuming there isn't a bus waiting around the corner when I leave the parliament.
Absent some other disaster of a fatal kind, I can assure you that I'll be serving out
my full term." - Former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull.
- "The CPRS is dead and no amount of CPR will revive it." - Liberal senator Eric Abetz,
following the defeat of the emissions trading scheme in the Senate.
- "The Senate has delivered a big win to the people of Australia who have been saved
from a massive
new tax that would have been foisted on them without proper scrutiny."
- Liberal leader Tony Abbott.
- "More delay, denial and dragging out debate for a year or more creates uncertainty
for business that would see them haemorrhaging money, jobs and investments." - The Climate
Institute's John Conner.
- " ... what you were saying to us last night in our apartment ... your scathing attacks
on him and his character. You would have been far better advised not to accept that role."
- The contents of a leaked email, sent by Malcolm Turnbull to his former deputy Julie
Bishop, accusing her of being a hypocrite for declaring her admiration for Tony Abbott.
- "The best way to describe me is a complete classical nerd." - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
- "I am convinced that my son's story is true. In this sense my son's right to fair
and speedy trial has been trampled." - Simon Palfreeman, following the sentencing of his
son Jock to 20 years in jail for murder after a fight in Bulgaria.
- "I almost feel bad doing that, that almost most hurt me to do that to someone whom
I aspire to look up to as a professional fighter inside and outside the ring. He's a bloody
legend." - Australian boxer Danny Green following his defeat of American boxer Roy Jones
Jr.
- "We don't make excuses, it was a great performance by Danny." - American boxer Roy
Jones Jr following his defeat.
"Should I not be premier by the end of this day, let there be no doubt in the community's
mind that any challenger will be a puppet to Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi," Nathan Rees
on Thursday morning ahead of the leadership challenge.
"Let me be absolutely clear on this: I'm nobody's puppet. I am nobody's protege, I
am nobody's girl." - Kristina Keneally after becoming NSW premier.
ODDITIES:
+ An American author has won Britain's Bad Sex in Fiction Prize for comparing female
genitalia to a one-eyed Greek mythological monster, using the description "a motionless
Cyclops whose single eye never blinks".
Jonathan Littell won the Literary Review magazine award for his book The Kindly Ones,
an epic narrated by a fictional German officer, which describes sex as "a jolt that emptied
my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg".
The award celebrates crude or ridiculous depictions of sex in modern literature.
+ An Auckland mother spent seven hours locked in a small, dark closet after her 14-month-old
son shut the door on her.
Karen Kilgour, 32, sat helplessly listening to her son Harry "crashing and banging"
around their Mt Eden home.
She was freed when her husband came home from work, after deciding to skip a function
he had planned to attend because of traffic.
"He's very accident-prone right now. We have a ladder in our wardrobe that he likes
to climb. I was scared he would get up it and fall," says Kilgour.
Harry eventually tired himself out and fell asleep on his bedroom floor.
+ Washington police have admitted that they killed Jesus - a 60kg Rottweiler-pittbull
mix who had attacked his owner.
Jesus' owner called police in Rockville, Maryland, after the dog became aggressive.
Police managed to catch Jesus but after failing to find sedatives to subdue the animal
and after a Taser had no effect, they shot and killed the dog.
Jesus' owner was hospitalised with bites to the arms, chest and thighs.
+ A US groom who loves social networking as much as his bride pulled out a cell phone
during their wedding to "tweet" and update his Facebook page.
Youtube footage - which has had more than 350,000 views so far - shows Dana Hanna,
from Maryland, whip out a telephone from his suit, interrupting the minister. Thoughtfully,
he then produces a second phone and hands that to the bride.
"Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where a second ago she became my wife! Gotta
go, time to kiss my bride," Hanna wrote on his Twitter account from the altar steps.
He also updated his status on Facebook to "married".
"I now pronounce you husband and wife. It's official on Facebook, it's official in
my book," the minister says to laughter from guests. "You may now kiss the bride."
AAP bm/wjf/mn/cjb/mo
KEYWORD: THE WEEK
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