Australian faces Saudi terror trial

An Australian man faces terror charges in Saudi Arabia. Picture: Thinkstock

AUSTRALIA must do all it can to help two West Australian brothers in Saudi Arabia, one behind bars and the other in hiding and facing arrest, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says.

Senator Ludlam says he understands Shayden Thorne, 25, is in custody facing allegations of terrorism.

His brother Junaid, 23, is wanted by authorities after having previously been detained for taking part in a protest against the Saudi government's treatment of political prisoners.

"Saudi Arabia is not renowned for due process, rule of law or fair treatment of suspects. It is essential that the federal government makes the maximum effort to protect the human rights of Junaid and Shayden Thorne," Senator Ludlum said in a statement on Wednesday night.

He said Shayden Thorne had allegedly been tortured.

"The Australian government must investigate these claims as vigorously as possible. It is essential that Foreign Minister (Bob) Carr does all he can to ensure the fair treatment of these two Australians."

A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman confirmed a 25-year-old West Australian man was on trial for alleged terrorism-related offences and was being detained in a prison outside the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

"Consular officials from the Australian Embassy in Riyadh have been providing consular assistance to the man since his arrest in November 2011. Consular staff in Canberra are in regular contact with the man's family in Australia," he said.

The spokesman said the embassy was also assisting a 23-year-old WA man whose Australian passport was currently held by Saudi authorities.

"The man is not detained. Efforts are under way to clarify his legal situation," he said.

Junaid Thorne said his brother, Shayden, had not told him whether authorities had beaten him.

"I have seen a few bruises on his body, but he never wanted to tell me that he was being tortured," Junaid told ABC Television on Wednesday.

"When he managed to see his lawyer he told him he had been beaten very bad, lashed with cables."

Junaid said he had been in hiding for two months.

"So I have been unable to visit or speak to him," he said.

He said the terrorism charges against his brother had no basis.

"My lawyer has attended two of his trials in Riyadh and they have not provided any proof whatsoever," Junaid said.

The 23-year-old said he would leave Saudi Arabia "tomorrow" if he had the opportunity.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says the 25-year-old man from Perth was arrested in November 2011.

A spokesman said he was on trial for alleged terrorism-related offences and was detained in a prison outside the Saudi capital Riyadh.

''Consular officials from the Australian Embassy in Riyadh have been providing consular assistance to the man since his arrest in November 2011,'' he said.

''Consular staff in Canberra are in regular contact with the man's family in Australia.''

The spokesman said the Australian embassy in Riyadh was also assisting a 23-year-old man from Western Australia whose Australian passport was being held by Saudi authorities. He said this man was not being detained and efforts were under way to clarify his legal situation.

Consular staff in Canberra are in regular contact with the man's family in Australia.

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More than 500 likely dead in collapse

The father (front left) and aunt (right) of a Bangladeshi garment worker react after her remains were returned to the family. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

BANGLADESH rescuers say that more than 500 people had likely died in a garment factory block that collapsed last week as the Pope condemned the use of "slave labour" in the local clothing industry.

As bulldozers and cranes worked to remove the rubble of the eight-storey building on the outskirts of Dhaka, senior army officers said the number of confirmed dead now stood at 405 but 149 people were still missing.

The country's worst industrial accident, which has focused attention on the use of factories in Bangladesh by Western clothing companies, drew tens of thousands of protesters onto the streets of the capital.

Workers holding red banners and flags chanted "Hang the killers, Hang the Factory Owners!" during a May Day rally that was largely peaceful unlike larger and more angry protests held since last Wednesday's disaster.

At the Vatican in a private mass for followers, Pope Francis weighed into the controversy, speaking out against labour conditions in Bangladesh, which are regularly decried by campaigners.

Bangladeshi firefighters carry the body of a garment worker. Picture: AFP

"A headline that really struck me on the day of the tragedy in Bangladesh was 'Living on 38 euros a month'. That is what the people who died were being paid. This is called slave labour," the Pope was quoted by Vatican Radio as saying.

In fact, wages are even lower, with the legal minimum salary routinely paid to employees only $US38 ($A37) a month for a six-day week with 10-hour shifts.

The Bangladesh government faces growing foreign pressure to take credible moves to improve conditions in the garment industry, with the collapse at the Rana Plaza factory complex only the latest in a series of deadly disasters.

A fire at a textile factory last November left 111 people dead, and there have been widespread accusations that safety standards are both too lax and rarely enforced in the $US20-billion ($A19-billion) sector.

Protestors demanding the death penalty for those responsible for the collapsed garment factory building. Picture: AP

The European Union said late on Tuesday that it would look at steps to promote better practices after a host of European retailers including Primark, Benetton and Mango admitted using factories in the collapsed building.

Nearly 60 per cent of Bangladesh's garments are shipped to European Union free of duties and tariffs, giving the 27-nation bloc huge say over the country's workplace safety issues.

Anger in Bangladesh remains palpable and the demonstrations on Wednesday again saw demands for the building owner and four arrested factory bosses to face capital punishment. They have been charged with death due to negligence.

Many of the country's 4500 garment factories have been closed since last Wednesday, a major blow for the Bangladeshi economy which depends on garments for 80 per cent of its exports.

"We want the severest punishment possible for those responsible for this tragedy," said Kamrul Anam, head of the Bangladesh Textile and Garments Workers League.

"Enough is enough," said Liakot Khan, another of those taking part in the Dhaka protest, which echoed to the sound of drums and horns.

"The government should hang the building proprietor and the factory owners. We want justice for these murders."

Police put the number of protesters at the main rally in Dhaka at more than 20,000, and there were smaller-scale protests elsewhere in the capital and in other cities.

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Here's Humphrey star a top diplomat

A fiend of Humphrey B Bear is now a top New Zealand diplomat in the UK. And he can sing the theme song to Here's Humphrey to prove it. Picture: Bob Barker Source: News Limited

IT'S not everyday you get to hear the Here's Humphrey theme song sung at a diplomatic function, but then it's not everyday a former star of a popular children's show gets appointed to high office.

At the New Zealand High Commission in London today, newly appointed Kiwi high commissioner to the UK Dr Lockwood Smith broke into song as he recounted his background as a former star of the hit Australian children's show.

Dr Lockwood has had a stellar career in politics as a long serving MP and Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament but said his many years in Australia as a children's entertainer was what had set him up for life.

Dr Lockwood was a struggling PhD student in Adelaide when he auditioned and got the role on TV as a Humphrey B. Bear host and said while starring alongside a bear wearing only a waistcoat in the mid to late 1970s may have been disconcerting, it prepared him for public life.

The acclaimed politician then surprised but delighted guests by singing a full rendition of the popular Here's Humphrey children's show theme song.

The impromptu performance was met with resounding applause particularly by those who could remember the iconic television program and character.

Dr Lockwood hosted other TV shows particularly on Channel 9 and later in NZ on quiz shows, before he entered politics in the 1980s.

He had a noted successful career leading the trade bloc APEC and was one of the first western leaders to have an open trade agreement with China.

Dr Lockwood begins his role as NZ high commissioner to London this month.
 

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IBM makes world's smallest movie

A video image of a scene from the world's tiniest stop-action movie, A Boy and his Atom, which shows individual carbon monoxide molecules rearranged to show a boy dancing and bouncing on a trampoline. Picture: AP/IBM Source: AP

SCIENTISTS have taken the idea of a film short down to new levels. Molecular levels.

IBM says it has made the tiniest stop-motion movie ever - a one-minute video of individual carbon monoxide molecules repeatedly rearranged to show a boy dancing, throwing a ball and bouncing on a trampoline.

Each frame measures 45 by 25 nanometres - there are 25 million nanometres in an inch - but hugely magnified, the movie is reminiscent of early video games, particularly when the boy bounces the ball off the side of the frame accompanied by simple music and sound effects.

The movie is titled A Boy and His Atom.

Videos showing atoms in motion have been seen before but Andreas Heinrich, IBM's principal scientist for the project, said this is the first time anything so small has been manoeuvred to tell a story.

"This movie is a fun way to share the atomic-scale world," Mr Heinrich said. "The reason we made this was not to convey a scientific message directly, but to engage with students, to prompt them to ask questions."

Jamie Panas of Guinness World Records said Guinness certified the movie as "Smallest Stop-Motion Film."

IBM used a remotely operated two-ton scanning tunnelling microscope at its lab in San Jose, Calif., to make the movie earlier this year. The microscope magnifies the surface over 100 million times. It operates at 450 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (268 degrees below zero Celsius).

The cold "makes life simpler for us," Mr Heinrich said. "The atoms hold still. They would move around on their own at room temperature."

Scientists used the microscope to control a tiny, super-sharp needle along a copper surface, IBM said. At a distance of just 1 nanometre, the needle physically attracted the carbon monoxide molecules and pulled them to a precisely specified location on the surface.

The dots that make up the figures in the movie are the oxygen atoms in the molecule, Heinrich said.

The scientists took 242 still images that make up the movie's 242 frames.

Mr Heinrich said the techniques used to make the movie are similar to what IBM is doing to make data storage smaller.

"As data creation and consumption continue to get bigger, data storage needs to get smaller, all the way down to the atomic level," he said.

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Miscommunication leads to prom debacle

Bloomington High School students before leaving for the prom that never happened.

STUDENTS at a Californian high school were bitterly disappointed when it turned out they had been stood up – by their own end-of-year dance.

The final year students from Bloomington High School travelled 64km to the function centre in Santa Anita Park, only to find the date on their prom invitations did not match the booking, KABC-TV and the LA Times report.

"We thought it was a joke," said student Selena Reyes.

The invitations listed the event on April 27, but it was booked at the venue for May 4.

The invitation for the Bloomington High School prom, with the incorrect date.

An alternative venue was hastily arranged and fast foods brought in. "The first hour and twenty minutes it was just a lady playing music off her laptop," said George Carbajal.

A visibly distressed parent, Diana Gomez, told a reporter: "It's hard for me to provide for my child and this is a magical moment and it's not going to be able to be replaced."

Ignacio Carbrera said in his 13 years as school principal he had never seen this happen before. He is taking responsibility for the mix-up in communication between the school and the event planner.

A makeshift dance was cobbled together, with fast food served and music played for the first 90 minutes from a laptop.

A second prom – free of charge - has been arranged for late May, but many of the parents and students are already out of pocket for limousines and other expenses.

"This is [my daughter's] last year, this is what they remember," said Ms Gomez. "There is no going back."

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Mystery surrounds ancient orb discovery

A view of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent at the archaeological site of Teotihuacan, 45 kilometres northeast of Mexico City. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

IN A discovery set to delight alien invasion enthusiasts, 1800-year-old, once-metallic orbs have been found under an ancient pyramid in Mexico City.

The spheres, covered in pyrite, or fool's gold, are interesting on their own but the fact that they were found deliberately buried under a pyramid in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, once the most populated city in the world, has led some to call it an "unprecedented discovery."

Anthropologists deduce that the Teotihuacans knew they were not going to survive and mysteriously abandoned the city in 700AD. Some say that may have been due to a famine or due to some kind of invasion.  Before the Teotihuacans disappeared they hid the orbs at the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in tunnels so deep that it took scientists years of planning before they could even dig.

Gizmodo reports that wireless robots are currently scouring the area for any new discoveries with researchers still having three chambers left to dig through.

Scientists are still in the dark about what the orbs may have been used for but possibly they were used for religious purposes to present to the gods.

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Boy, 5, shoots and kills sister, 2

A five-year-old boy in Kentucky accidentally shot and killed his two-year-old sister after he was given a rifle as a gift. Picture: AFP/Getty Source: AFP

A FIVE-year-old boy who was playing with a .22 caliber rifle he'd been given as a gift accidentally shot and killed his two-year-old sister in their Kentucky home, officials said.

The shooting happened on Tuesday in rural Cumberland county and the little girl was rushed to a hospital where she was pronounced dead, the state police said.

Cumberland County Coroner Gary White identified the girl as Caroline Starks and said the children's mother was cleaning the house at the time and had stepped outside onto the porch.

"She said no more than three minutes had went by and she actually heard the rifle go off. She ran back in and found the little girl," Mr White told WKYT news.

The rifle had been given to the boy last year and was kept in the corner of a room. The parents didn't realise a shell had been left in it.

"It's a Crickett," he told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "It's a little rifle for a kid...The little boy's used to shooting the little gun."

An autopsy was set to be conducted overnight, but Mr White said he expects the shooting will be ruled accidental.

"Just one of those crazy accidents," Mr White said.

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Murder suspect watched child porn

The disappearance of April Jones, 5, sparked a huge search effort with hundreds of local volunteers combing nearby woods and fields. Picture: AP Photo/Dyfed-Powys Police Source: AP

Murder suspect Mark Bridger, 47, watched a cartoon of a young girl being raped and looked up child murders on his computer hours before April went missing. Source: AFP

THE man accused of murdering five-year-old British girl April Jones watched child pornography on the day of her disappearance and exchanged text messages with his ex-girlfriend over their break-up, his trial has heard.

Mark Bridger, 47, watched a cartoon of a young girl being raped and also looked up child murders on his computer hours before April went missing, prosecutor Elwen Evans told a court in north Wales.

Outlining the prosecution's case on the second day of evidence, she said search terms discovered on Bridger's laptop included "British girl murdered in France", and "ten-year-old girls naked".

The schoolgirl's disappearance sparked one of the biggest police searches ever mounted in Britain and drew in hundreds of local people to scour the mountainous area, but her body has never been found.

The trial heard that blood and tiny bone fragments found at Bridger's cottage were a near-perfect match with April's DNA.

Showing the jury photographs of the living room, Evans said the blood stains near the wood-burning stove, on the carpet and on the sofa were a "one-in-a-billion" match to April's DNA profile.

Bridger, an experienced slaughterman who once worked at an abattoir, denies abducting and murdering April as she played near her home in the small town of Machynlleth in mid-Wales on October 1 last year.

The prosecution says he went to great lengths to clean up the evidence of her murder, although police officers who went to his home had not realised the significance of his efforts at the time.

Evans said: "When they went in there they stated that the house was uncomfortably hot, that there was a strong smell of detergent, and a smell of cleaning products, air freshener and washed clothes."

Bridger made a series of statements to police, but his final account was that he had run over April in a road accident and had put her, either dead of dying, into his Land Rover.

The trial continues.

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Three Boston bombing suspects arrested

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was reportedly refused entry to Saudi Arabia in 2001. Picture: AP/Julia Malakie Source: AP

US police announced that they had arrested three more suspects as part of their investigation into a bomb attack on the Boston marathon that left three dead and more than 260 wounded.

"Three additional suspects taken into custody in Marathon bombing case. Details to follow," the Boston Police Department said, having previously suggested that two brothers identified as suspects had worked alone.

CNN is reporting a Department of Homeland Security source as saying that the three are students.  Two are from New Bedford, Massachusetts, while a third is a US citizen.

The report cited a Boston police tweet which advised that "there is no threat to the public."

The news of more arrests came after it emerged Saudi Arabia reportedly sent a written warning to the US about Boston Marathon suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev last year and refused him entry to the country over security concerns.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wrote to the US Department of Homeland Security about the older Tsarnaev brother in 2012, a senior Saudi official says.

How did Boston terror suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev - whose mother was also on a terror database - slip through the cracks, despite warning signs?

The official told the Daily Mail the warning was based on intelligence from Yemen and was separate to concerns raised by Russian intelligence.

He also revealed Tamerlan was refused an entry visa into Saudi Arabia for the Mecca pilgrimage in December 2011.

Russian agents placed the older suspect under surveillance during a six-month visit to southern Russia last year, then scrambled to find him when he suddenly disappeared after police killed a Canadian jihadist, a security official said.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26 and his younger brother Dzhokhar are accused of carrying out the April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon, which killed three and wounded more than 264 at one of the world's premier sporting events.

The Saudi official said the warning, which was also shared with the UK Government, was "very specific" and warned "something was going to happen in a major US city".

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and TamerlanTsarnaev pictured at the Boston Marathon. (AP Photo/FBI)

The "government-to-government" letter "did name Tamerlan specifically", the official told the Daily Mail.

An official from Homeland Security denied the department had received any such warning from Saudi Arabia.

"DHS has no knowledge of any communication from the Saudi government regarding information on the suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing prior to the attack," an unnamed offical told the Daily Mail.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout with police as he tried to flee the Boston area three days after the bombing.

Dzhokhar was wounded and captured, and now faces terror charges carrying a possible death sentence.

Katherine Russell, the American wife of marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, leaves the house where he lived in Cambridge, the day after Tsarnaev, was killed in a shootout with police. Picture: Austral via William Farrington / Polaris

The Saudi official said the letter was sent by the Saudi Ministry of Interior in part so the US could inspect packages being sent to Tamerlan in the post.

"With Saudi Arabia it's always code red," he said.

"There's no code orange, or code yellow. Always red."

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's relatives will claim his body now that his wife has agreed to release it, an uncle said.

Tsarnaev, 26, has been at the medical examiner's office in Massachusetts since he died after a gunfight with authorities more than a week ago.

The mother of the two Boston bombing suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, left, speaking at a news conference in Makhachkala, the southern Russian province of Dagestan.

Amato DeLuca, the Rhode Island attorney for his widow, Katherine Russell, said on Tuesday that his client had just learned that the medical examiner was ready to release Tsarnaev's body and that she wants it released to his side of the family.

Police said Tsarnaev ran out of ammunition before his 19-year-old brother dragged his body under a vehicle while fleeing the scene. His cause of death has been determined but will not be made public until his remains are claimed.

"Of course, family members will take possession of the body," uncle Ruslan Tsarni of Maryland told The Associated Press on Tuesday night. "We'll do it. We will do it. A family is a family."

He would not elaborate. Tsarnaev's parents are still in Russia, but he has other relatives on his side of the family in the U.S., including Tsarni.

Tsarnaev's father, Anzor, announced plans last week to travel to the US in the hope of burying his elder son, but he said on Wednesday that those plans are off because he is suffering from bad headaches and high blood pressure. The 46-year-old Tsarnaev said he still hopes to go when he is feeling better.

Reports came as it was revealed the Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance - a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to housing from 2002 to 2012.

The state has handed over more than 500 documents to the 11-member House Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which Monday met for the first time and plans to call in officials from the Department of Transitional Assistance to testify.

"I can assure members of the public that this committee will actively review every single piece of information we can find because clearly the public has a substantial right to know what benefits, if any, this family or individuals accused of some horrific crimes were receiving,'' said state Rep. David Linsky, D-Natick, the committee's chairman.

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