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Chile, Argentina trade barbs over mine

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 21 Mei 2014 | 23.48

Boy, 3, hit by car in critical condition

RESERVOIR ROAD, BLACKTOWN. CHILD HIT.

A THREE-year-old boy was last night fighting for life after being hit by a car when he followed his father across the road.

News

Street Watch: Teenage girl groomed

Street Watch: Teenage girl groomed

A BUS driver escaped with only minor injuries when he crashed into the front yard of a Georges Hall home yesterday.

NSW

Cherry picker worker crushed to death

Leard Forest Protesters

A WORKER operating a cherry picker has died after being crushed against an under-construction coal crusher in northern NSW.

News

Father of bride, 12, gave her sex tips

Silhouette of weight scales of justice.

THE father of a 12-year-old child bride advised her to only have unprotected sex after he organised for her to wed an older man, documents claim.

NSW

Killer bills just won't die

Killer bills just won't die

THEY want how much! The telecommunications ombudsman says new guidelines won't kill shock phone and data bills, but may help ease the pain.

Costs

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Gonski urges Abbott to rethink school cuts

David Gonski has criticised the government's decision to end the funding system he helped design. Source: AAP

DAVID Gonski has criticised the government's decision to end the funding system he helped design, saying it will be to Australia's detriment and he has urged the government to reconsider.

The Abbott government's first budget indicates that from 2018 the commonwealth contribution to schools funding will increase only by the consumer price index, with relative adjustments for numbers of students.

This means the previous Labor government plans to hugely increase school funding that year to continue the needs-based Gonski model will be abandoned.

"The concept of aspiration ... ends in 2017," Mr Gonski said in his first major speech since the release of his panel's report.

"There needs to be a commitment to a properly funded, needs-based, aspirational system and a failure to do so will be to our detriment."

The decision to index funds on an indicator not linked to education costs will mean that if funding levels aren't right in 2017, the mistakes will be perpetuated and any changes in circumstance rendered irrelevant.

"No doubt this is simple but like a lot that is simple it is not adequate," Mr Gonski said.

While he had lost his "comfortable and comparative anonymity" since his name had entered the lexicon attached to school funding, Mr Gonski didn't regret his involvement in the review.

He was pleased the funding was guaranteed until 2017 and that parts of the needs-based model were being implemented.

His only regret was the panel's decision to suggest governments needed to put an extra $5 billion a year into schools.

The review's finer details were lost as media focused on the big headline figure.

Mr Gonski also used his "postscript speech" at the University of Melbourne to give some insights into the panel's thinking in coming up with its suggested funding system.


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Nauru refugees not told of Cambodia: govt

Labor is gravely concerned about the Abbott government's Cambodian asylum seeker resettlement deal. Source: AAP

THE Abbott government is rejecting claims that asylum seekers in Nauru have been told their future could be in Cambodia.

Australia is on the verge of signing a memorandum of understanding with the Southeast Asian nation, which would allow refugees processed on Nauru to resettle there.

A number of family groups at the Nauru detention centre have reportedly been told they will be sent to Cambodia if they're found to be genuine refugees.

But a spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison denied those claims on Wednesday, saying no such message had been given by the Australian government to transferees at Nauru.

"It is likely that transferees may have been made aware of media reporting on these issues," the spokeswoman told AAP.

Refugee groups and the Australian Greens have raised concerns about the resettlement plan, citing Cambodia's human rights record.

Federal Labor is also worried but won't say whether it will seek to block it.

Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek says her party is "gravely" concerned about poverty and security in Cambodia, as it seeks more details on the proposal.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been accused of applying a double standard to the Cambodia deal, given his party's criticism and blocking of the Malaysia people-swap plan when Labor was in power.

A Nauru government spokesman said asylum seekers had been told that if granted refugee status, they would be temporarily resettled on Nauru for up to five years.

After that, they would be settled in a third country.

"No one has been told that they will immediately be sent to a third country," the spokesman told AAP.


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Body of Sydney-based hiker found in NZ

A SYDNEY man who watched helplessly as his girlfriend was swept away by a raging stream in New Zealand says he has lost a part of himself after rescuers recovered her body.

Police have not identified the woman but she has been named in Sydney media as Yessica Asmin, from Indonesia, who is an international student at the University of NSW.

Rescuers found her body on Wednesday, two days after she was swept away while hiking on the Milford Track in the South Island.

She had been walking on the track with her boyfriend Sean McNabb, who is from Sydney, and German backpacker Sebastian Keiholz, Fairfax Media reports.

The two men managed to cross the stream but Ms Asmin got caught on a rock in the middle and panicked and fell. She was swept away.

Mr McNabb paid tribute to Ms Asmin on Facebook.

"Thank you all for your love and support," he posted, according to Fairfax.

"Yessica was fond [sic] today deceased. Today I lost a part of me, I'm very lost at this time."

Ms Asmin's family have arrived in New Zealand and are being supported by police.

She was walking the track, when she was overwhelmed by the water in Pompolona Creek and swept into the Clinton River late on Monday.

A search by a helicopter on Tuesday failed to find any sign of her.

The Clinton River normally flowed at a level of 0.25m but was flowing at 1.8m on Wednesday, having been at 2.2m on Tuesday night.

Mr Keiholz activated an emergency locator beacon and ran to the nearest hut.


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Abbott contradicts budget on uni fees

A student union says Tony Abbott behaved cowardly by cancelling a university visit amid protests. Source: AAP

CONFUSION abounds over government plans to deregulate university fees after Prime Minister Tony Abbott contradicted his own budget.

But students who protested in Sydney and Melbourne are certain of one thing: they'll have to pay for the government's decisions and they're not happy.

Two men were arrested in Sydney's protest - one for using a flare and the other for allegedly assaulting a police officer.

Scuffles also broke out in Melbourne on the steps of Parliament House.

Mr Abbott told ABC radio that only students who start studying in 2016 would face potentially higher fees when universities can charge what they like.

"If you start next year, your conditions of study won't change," he said.

But the budget papers clearly state that anyone who enrols after May 14 will face deregulated fees in 2016.

Only those who were already studying on budget day would continue to have their fees capped - and only if they finish their studies by 2020.

Education Minister Christopher Pyne reiterated this in a separate ABC radio interview after Mr Abbott's comments.

A mother asked him whether her daughter, already at university, would have to pay more.

"If that student stays in the course that she's doing, she'll continue under the rules that she started," he said.

"If she changes course, then quite rightly she will face the new measures."

A spokesman for Mr Pyne said the prime minister "may not have been as clear as he could have been".

Universities Australia told AAP it understands there's not been any change to policy.

It wants the government to take more time to look at any unintended consequences of the higher education changes before setting them in law.

Students were enrolling now to start in the second half of 2014 and universities had to be able to tell them what the costs would be from 2016.

"There is no time for universities to be able to cross the Ts and dot the Is to be able to advise students on what those fees might be," chief executive Belinda Robinson said.

National Union of Students president Deanna Taylor wasn't surprised by the confusion at high levels.

"I don't think the government really put a great deal of thought into their policy," she told AAP, saying it appeared to be very ideologically driven.

The union organised a national day of action on Wednesday with thousands of students protesting the changes.

A police risk assessment before the protests forced Mr Abbott and Mr Pyne to cancel plans to visit a Geelong research facility at Deakin University.

Mr Abbott said students were looking for "a big rumble" and an excuse to riot.

Ms Taylor labelled the prime minister cowardly and said students weren't violent rabble-rousers out to cause trouble.

"They're trying to make us sound like spoiled little brats who don't know how good we've got it. They have a very clear agenda," she said.

The two men arrested in Sydney face court on June 3.


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Regulation focus of Iowa global insurance

INSURANCE companies, trade groups and regulators are gathering in Iowa to discuss the industry's major issues.

As the three-day Global Insurance Symposium is set to get underway in Des Moines, plans to regulate firms like banks and impose national or even international oversight are at the fore.

The gathering includes top insurance officials from Germany, India, Japan and the United States. It was organised by Iowa Insurance Commissioner Nick Gerhart, who oversees a division regulating more than 200 insurance companies based in Iowa.

The financial services industry employs 4,200 workers in the state at companies that include ING Life Insurance, Metlife, Nationwide, Principal Financial Group and Prudential.

As insurance increasingly becomes a global business, one of the biggest concerns is an effort to set international standards for insurance regulation.

Most other countries have a centralised government regulatory system, unlike the United States where the insurance industry is largely regulated on a state-by-state basis.

Each state has a commissioner responsible for making sure companies retain sufficient capital to remain financially healthy and are appropriately serving consumers.

Some US and international regulators have advocated for regulations that closely resemble those imposed on banks.

"From our perspective, one-size-fits-all-bank-centric world doesn't work in insurance," Gerhart said.

"Insurance is not banking, so that's what we're working on. That will be a theme repeated over the next day and half."

The Great Recession of 2007-2009 brought new financial regulation for US banks and some of it spilled over into the insurance industry, said Leigh Ann Pusey, the CEO of American Insurance Association, a trade group representing 300 property-casualty insurers.

Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, which forces banks to comply with strict regulations on reporting, cash reserves and investment guidelines. The law also set up a Federal Insurance Office in the US Department of Treasury.

It is seen as the first step toward federal government regulation of insurance, a worry for many in the industry who say states have safety regulated insurance for more than 140 years.

Critics say the fragmented nature of the state-based regulatory system makes it more expensive and difficult for companies that sell insurance nationally to comply with 50 different regulatory schemes.

They also argue that as the industry gravitates toward a globalised insurance market an overall federal regulatory system makes more sense.

Pusey, who plans to participate in a panel discussion at the Des Moines symposium, said the Financial Stability Board, the international panel established by the G-20 working toward global financial standards, is bank-centered and moving too quickly.

"I think the industry globally, not only here in the United States, is sort of very worried about more bank-centric approach to views of capital," she said.

"There's a pace here that is both unrealistic and dangerous leading to potentially unintended consequences."

Strict bank-style requirements that insurance companies hold certain levels of restricted cash in reserve could reduce the ability of insurers to cover policy and claims obligations and might prompt some to cut back their business, reducing insurance available on the market, she said.

"I think consumers should be paying attention both to making sure they are still protected as they are today and that nothing undermines that system that the US has designed," Pusey said.

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, like many governors in states with a major insurance presence, is protective of the state-based regulatory system.

"What's important is for the international people to know the tremendous benefit of the state-regulated insurance industry that we have in America compared to the disaster they have in Europe," he says.

Speakers are to include Mike McRaith, director of the Federal Insurance Office; Ben Nelson, the former Nebraska governor and US senator who is now the CEO of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners; Naruki Mori, assistant commissioner for international affairs of the Japan Financial Services Agency; and T.S. Vijayan, chairman of Indian Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.


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Tiffany shines in the first quarter

Boy, 3, hit by car in critical condition

RESERVOIR ROAD, BLACKTOWN. CHILD HIT.

A THREE-year-old boy was last night fighting for life after being hit by a car when he followed his father across the road.

News

Street Watch: Teenage girl groomed

Street Watch: Teenage girl groomed

A BUS driver escaped with only minor injuries when he crashed into the front yard of a Georges Hall home yesterday.

NSW

Cherry picker worker crushed to death

Leard Forest Protesters

A WORKER operating a cherry picker has died after being crushed against an under-construction coal crusher in northern NSW.

News

Father of bride, 12, gave her sex tips

Silhouette of weight scales of justice.

THE father of a 12-year-old child bride advised her to only have unprotected sex after he organised for her to wed an older man, documents claim.

NSW

Killer bills just won't die

Killer bills just won't die

THEY want how much! The telecommunications ombudsman says new guidelines won't kill shock phone and data bills, but may help ease the pain.

Costs

23.48 | 0 komentar | Read More

Settlement for US school shooting victims

THE families of three students killed in a 2012 shooting at a Ohio high school will receive settlements of about $US890,000 ($A963,000) each from a lawsuit filed against the shooter's family.

A probate judge has approved the settlement of a lawsuit.

Judge Timothy Grendell told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the amount is fair and reasonable.

Then-17-year-old TJ Lane killed the three students and wounded three others inside the Chardon High School cafeteria on February 27, 2012.

Lane pleaded guilty to aggravated murder charges last year and was sentenced to three consecutive life terms.

Lawyers who filed the lawsuit will receive 40 per cent of the settlement amounts.


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