UK man loses Longley murder appeal

A YOUNG British man found guilty of murdering his aspiring New Zealand model girlfriend has lost his appeal against conviction.

Wealthy jeweller's son Elliot Turner, now 21, from Bournemouth was present in the dock at the Court of Appeal in London for Wednesday's ruling by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, sitting with Justice Royce and Justice Globe.

In May last year Turner was sentenced to life and ordered to serve at least 16 years before he can apply for parole after he was convicted by a jury at Winchester Crown Court of murdering 17-year-old Emily Longley.

After hearing argument on Turner's behalf and from a QC representing the prosecution, Lord Judge announced the court had decided to reject Turner's challenge.

He said the court had reached the "clear conclusion" that the appeal should be dismissed.

The court also threw out Turner's bid to have his sentence reduced.

The judges will give their reasons for their decision at a date to be announced.

A large number of Ms Longley's family were in court, including members who had travelled from their home in New Zealand.

During his trial Turner claimed that he acted in self-defence when Emily attacked him and he grabbed her by the throat for five or six seconds, then woke up to find her dead in his bed at his home.

The prosecution said Turner used a pillow to smother Emily and then strangled her after she went back to his house to talk things over following a violent argument that night.

When sentencing Turner, Justice Dobbs said he had "bullied, harassed, threatened and assaulted" Emily to control her as his "trophy" girlfriend.

Turner's QC Anthony Donne told the appeal judges: "The appeal against conviction centres on the use by the police of a covert listening device at the appellant's family home in Bournemouth following his release on police bail after his arrest on suspicion of the murder of his girlfriend Emily Longley on the night of 6/7 May 2011."

As well as hearing submissions on the safety of the conviction from Donne, the judges also heard argument from Timothy Mousley QC, opposing the appeal on behalf of the prosecution.

Justice Dobbs described Emily as a "lovely, kind, fun-loving girl who brought a ray of sunshine to those she touched".

The teenager had come from New Zealand to study at college just eight months before her death.

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Shooting zone needed in NSW parks: union

THE Australian Workers Union (AWU) is urging the NSW government to enforce a 10-kilometre shooting exclusion zone around the homes of employees who live and work in the state's national parks.

Recreational hunters will be allowed to hunt in national parks with bows and arrows and guns under a plan agreed to by the state government last year.

A survey of 365 national park workers reveals they have "deep fears" about the policy, AWU state secretary Russ Collison said.

He said nearly 100 employees live in national parks, prompting calls for an expanded exclusion zone.

"Unfortunately bullets don't stop at 1.5 kilometres, and can easily travel three to five kilometres. We can't have a situation where families are dodging bullets in their backyard," Mr Collison said.

The AWU survey also found 99 per cent of those polled want supervision and competency testing of shooters.

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US stocks open mixed

US stocks are mixed in opening trade after Tuesday's one per cent-plus gains, with trade tempered by Apple's fall in profits and a poor read on durable goods orders in March.

Five minutes into trade on Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 21.81 points (0.15 per cent) at 14,741.27.

The broad-based S&P 500 added 2.26 (0.14 per cent) to 1581.04, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.64 (0.05 per cent) to 3267.69.

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Two days of Iraq violence claims 118 lives

TWO days of violence in Iraq have killed 118 people, 99 of them in clashes and attacks involving security forces, protesters and their supporters, officials say.

The violence also wounded 245 people, 194 of them in protest-related unrest, they said.

The trouble began early on Tuesday, when clashes broke out after security forces moved into an area near Hawijah in northern Iraq, where protests have been held since January.

The fighting killed 53 people, and a series of revenge attacks left another 27 dead. A further 15 were killed in apparently unrelated unrest, officials said.

On Wednesday, another 23 people died in violence, 19 of them in protest-related unrest.

Protesters have taken to the streets in Sunni-majority areas of Iraq for more than four months, calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and decrying the alleged targeting of their minority community by the Shi'ite-led authorities.

The latest spate of violence is the worst protest-related unrest since the demonstrations began.

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S Africa's Tutu in hospital for infection

PEACE icon Desmond Tutu has checked into a South African hospital for non-surgical treatment and tests related to an ongoing infection.

"Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has checked into a Cape Town hospital for the treatment of a persistent infection and to undergo tests to discover the underlying cause," his foundation said in a statement.

A photograph of the 81-year-old showed him smiling at his office where he spent the morning before being admitted to the undisclosed hospital.

"He was in good spirits and full of praise for the care he receives from an exceptional team of doctors," said the statement from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.

"The non-surgical treatment is expected to take five days."

Officially retired, Tutu is often referred to as South Africa's moral guide due to his outspokenness of wrongdoing at home and in the world.

Just under two weeks ago, he took part in a celebration to mark a recent award, getting up to dance, at the cathedral where he rallied against the apartheid state.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997 and underwent repeated treatments.

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Flash floods kill 11 in north Afghanistan

ELEVEN people are confirmed dead and three are missing after flash floods swept through part of northern Afghanistan, damaging almost a thousand homes.

The floods on Tuesday hit the Kishindih, Sholgara and Nahri Shai districts of Balkh province, said Munir Ahmad Farhad, a provincial government spokesman.

Eastern areas of the city of Mazar-e-Sharif were also hit but no one was hurt, Farhad told AFP.

"The floods have also damaged close to a thousand homes as well as hundreds of hectares of farmland," the spokesman said.

"We have sent delegations to the affected areas to assess the damage and casualties."

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Russia nabs gunman suspected of killing 6

A GUNMAN suspected of shooting six people dead in the western Russian city of Belgorod has been captured after a massive manhunt last more than 24 hours, police say.

Convicted criminal Sergei Pomazun, 31, was shown on television pinned down by police who found him trying to board a freight train in Belgorod, close to the Ukrainian border, where the shootings took place.

"I didn't shoot children. I was shooting at hell," said the wild-eyed man lying face-down on the ground in handcuffs in a police video broadcast on Rossiya 1 channel.

He is believed to be the gunman who opened fire in a hunting store on Monday before going outside and shooting passersby in a central square, including two girls aged 14 and 16, who both died, before fleeing.

Pomazun stabbed a policeman during his capture late Tuesday. The police major was in intensive care in hospital with non-life-threatening wounds.

Investigators said that Pomazun took a hunting rifle belonging to his father which he used to shoot dead two staff and a customer in the hunting store.

He then took another gun from the store and shot at passersby who witnessed his getaway in his father's BMW.

Rossiya 24 television reported that Pomazun had carried out the shooting in apparent revenge after staff in the store earlier in the day had refused to sell him ammunition.

His parents had recently called police twice over their son's aggressive behaviour. He had several convictions and was last released from prison in 2012 after serving time for car theft.

His father had reportedly worked as a gamekeeper and Pomazun was familiar with guns. Izvestia daily reported that he killed his six victims with just six shots.

Around 2000 police, including riot police from Moscow, searched for the gunman in the city and the surrounding area, while townspeople piled flowers at the site of the murders.

Pomazun declined to give evidence to investigators. If convicted, he faces life in jail for mass murder.

AFP

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EU mulls easing Syria oil embargo

THE European Union is considering a case-by-case easing of its oil embargo against Syria in order to help the opposition, diplomatic sources say.

A decision, which would be formally agreed by EU foreign ministers at talks next Monday in Luxembourg, would enable EU companies to import oil on a case-by-case basis from areas under opposition control, the sources said.

It would also allow a resumption of EU investments and export of equipment intended for the oil and gas sector.

The 27-nation bloc slapped a ban on investments in Syrian oil in September 2011 followed by a ban on imports of oil in December.

Syria's largest oil reserves are in Deir Ezzor in the east of the country.

Syria's production of some 420,000 of barrels of oil a day has been sliced in half since the United States and the European Union banned the import of Syrian petroleum.

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Eurozone periphery firms' debt worries IMF

THE International Monetary Fund says banks and businesses are still fragile in the eurozone periphery, which extends from Cyprus and Greece to Italy and Spain.

"The debt overhang at listed companies in the euro area periphery is sizeable" and "unsustainable", especially in the context of weak growth, the IMF said in its twice-yearly Global Financial Stability Report, citing in particular companies in Portugal and Spain.

"Many banks in the euro area periphery remain challenged by elevated funding costs, deteriorating asset quality, and weak profits," the IMF said.

The bank crisis in Cyprus has exacerbated the situation by scaring investors region-wide and sparking a sell-off in bank shares throughout the eurozone, the IMF said.

The Fund expressed concerns about the health of some non-financial companies because of debt accumulated before the financial crisis, especially in Ireland and Spain.

The problem of excessive debt does not mean companies will default, the IMF said, but they will need to take steps, such as cutting operating expenses and investment, to bring debt down to sustainable levels.

Even so, the IMF called for vigilance over the quality of periphery firms' assets, stressing their capacity to pay back debt is "much weaker" than in the eurozone core.

Although acute risks in the euro area have declined in the six months since the last report due to "strong policy action," significant challenges remain, the IMF said.

"More work needs to be done in the short term to improve bank and capital market functioning, while moving steadily toward a full-fledged banking union," it said.

As for the sovereign debt crisis in the 17-nation bloc, the IMF noted that the European Central Bank's government bond-purchase program had helped boost confidence in public debt but its impact was dwindling.

In September 2012, the ECB unveiled its new Outright Monetary Transactions program but has not used it, with its existence alone helping to bring down eurozone countries' borrowing costs in the markets.

"This dynamic could change" under political developments that could complicate OMT implementation, the IMF said, pointing to "the uncertainty surrounding the election outcome in Italy."

The eurozone's third-largest economy still lacks a government after a general election in February narrowly won by the left.

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Russia's growth slows drastically

RUSSIA has reported a sharp slowdown in growth over the first three months of the year to 1.1 per cent from 4.9 per cent in the same period of 2012, amid growing alarm over the state of its economy amid a slew of poor data and falling oil prices.

Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Klepach said the estimate came in after downward revisions for the figures for January and February - a month in which the economy contracted by 0.4 per cent.

But he added that a stronger March helped Russia's overall performance in the first quarter.

"By our estimate, GDP grew in March by 2.3 per cent in annual terms, and we confirm our estimate of 1.1 per cent for the first quarter," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Klepach as saying.

The estimate was released a week after Russia slashed its 2013 growth forecast to 2.4 from 3.6 per cent due to a slowdown in both industrial output and consumer demand.

Klepach spoke at the same time as Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was delivering an economic performance review before the lower house of parliament.

Medvedev told deputies that Russia's slowdown was caused in large part by poor economic performance among its main trading partners abroad.

"The first months of the year show that the global trend toward slower growth remains in place," Medvedev said in a speech lasting nearly two hours. "There are serious risks here."

President Vladimir Putin - whose strong popularity ratings come from the prosperity brought by years of high prices for Russia's energy exports - himself admitted on Monday that the world economy was in "crisis".

He then instructed Medvedev to quickly assemble a meeting of ministers and Kremlin officials that could devise a strategy for pulling the country out of its economic malaise.

Medvedev said on Wednesday that the government already had a proper strategy in place.

"The government has its own vision of what must be done," he said.

"But these measures must be discussed in detail with the experts and the deputies."

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