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I can still see my beautiful Gurshan
THE mother of toddler Gurshan Singh Channa has told how her "beautiful boy" still appears to her. Heartbroken Harpreet Kaur Channa has spoken for the first time about her love for her three-year-old boy, who died last Thursday. Police claim that the toddler was put in a car boot and dumped near Melbourne Airport. "Our son was a beautiful boy and he was very loved and he is still in the front of our eyes," she wrote in a letter to the Herald Sun. "Up to this point our grief has been so bad, so deep, so beyond explanation." An Indian man who shared the same Melbourne house as Gurshan and his parents has been charged with manslaughter due to criminal negligence in connection with the toddler's death.
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Nursing homes back the states on need for funds
AGED care providers are supporting a state push for more federal funding for aged care as a price for supporting Kevin Rudd's health reform plan, saying such a move could get thousands of patients out of clogged public hospitals.
Queensland Health Minister Paul Lucas has demanded better funding of aged care as a price for his government's acquiescence in the reform plan, which would see 30 per cent of GST funding clawed back from the states to pay local hospital networks directly. The federal government has reserved aged care as one of a clutch of key health issues on which it will reveal more specific plans as the next election nears -- sparking criticism from some states and experts who say that makes it all but impossible to evaluate the proposal.
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Farmer `vindicated' after court win against BHP
WHEN Les Alcorn decided he wanted to take the world's largest mining company to court, he knew it wouldn't be easy.
He also knew he and his wife, Margaret, would need the full support of the local community to protect their farm of 37 years from BHP Billiton's exploration plans. Yesterday, Mr Alcorn's worries turned to celebration as the 75-year-old cattle farmer from Quirindi, on the Liverpool Plains in NSW's mid-north, savoured a landmark decision handed down in the Supreme Court on Friday. Judge Monika Schmidt found that BHP's licences to explore for coal on two farms in the region - the Alcorns' and the family farm of Geoff and Sharon Brown --were invalid because the company had not consulted other landholders: the banks. "I feel vindicated,'' Mr Alcorn told The Australian yesterday. "This is a win not just for us but for all farmers around Australia ... it sets precedents and says that mining companies have to smarten up their act and do things by the book.''
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Elephant's plight upsets herd
THE elephant breeding program at Sydney's Taronga Zoo has suffered a setback, with the prenatal death of a calf. The calf's mother, Porntip, who is the matriarch of the herd, showed on March 1 that she was ready to give birth to a 100kg calf, having been artificially inseminated 22 months earlier. But by Sunday night, ultrasound scans made it clear the calf had rotated inside the womb and was lying upside down, making the birth impossible. Taronga Zoo director Cameron Kerr said elephant calves often did not survive labour, half of first deliveries being unsuccessful. ``We had expert teams on hand, working around the clock,'' Mr Kerr said. ``All evidence . . . has established that the calf had presented in a position never before seen, and that this presentation meant that there was never any chance of a successful birth.'' In the wild, both mother and the calf would have certainly died.
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$130m in damage, and flood fight goes on
TINY outback towns along Queensland's surging rivers are operating on a timetable with a single aim: to protect people and property from the floods that have caused more than $130 million worth of damage upstream.
In Dirranbandi, close to the NSW border, locals were last night hoping the recently reinforced levee banks around the town would hold, preventing the biggest flood in its history from inundating the streets and houses. Excavators and bulldozers worked until late yesterday to push sticky black mud higher up the levee banks, in anticipation of a 5.3m peak of the Balonne Minor river today. While the river rose slowly towards its peak, water spread across the floodplain and began to circle Dirranbandi, cutting roads and isolating the town. On the outskirts of the town -- which is surrounded by cattle, wheat and cotton farms, including the nation's largest irrigator, Cubbie Station -- graziers moved stock to safety and cotton growers built barriers around their crops.
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Confusion reigns on health ID
SOFTWARE makers, doctors, consumer groups and lawyers remain perplexed by the design and context of the Healthcare Identifiers Bill being accorded a rushed Senate inquiry this week. Despite a seven-day deadline, 39 submissions on the controversial bill were lodged by Friday, with the community affairs committee set to hold eight hours of hearings this week before reporting to parliament on Monday. The Australian Medical Association, Consumers Health Forum and Medical Software Industry Association support, in principle, a national scheme of unique healthcare identifiers for patients, but doctors, allied providers and healthcare organisations say the lack of detail makes risk assessment difficult.
``We would be concerned if the sharing of electronic information had the unintended consequence of compromising the doctor-patient relationship because patients felt there was insufficient protection for their information,'' AMA president Andrew Pesce said.
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End of the road for Neal
LABOR heavies in NSW are hoping dumped federal member Belinda Neal will ``go quietly'', out of consideration for her husband, John Della Bosca.
Mr Della Bosca, former NSW health minister, has an ongoing political career in the state. ``How can she leave the ALP when her husband's an elected member of state parliament?'' a senior party source said yesterday, responding to suggestions Ms Neal could recontest her marginal NSW central coast seat of Robertson, as an independent. ``He was party general secretary for 10 years; every person in his life is connected with the party,'' the source said. In a ballot of 165 local branch members on Saturday, Ms Neal was defeated for preselection by academic Deborah O'Neill, 49.
It is the first time in 15 years a sitting federal Labor MP in NSW has been dumped by local members during their first term.
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Souths new boy gets the picture
NOT everyone needs to read Russell Crowe's Book of Feuds to understand the enmity that exists between South Sydney and the Sydney Roosters.
Take Dave Taylor for example. The Rabbitohs recruit admits he had no idea how deep the hatred ran between the foundation clubs until he arrived in Sydney. Now he can't escape it. Wherever he goes -- even when he's fishing on Botany Bay -- Taylor invariably bumps into South Sydney supporters.
Their message is always the same: we need to beat the Roosters. ``The fans, they must love this game because I have had a fair share of them come up to me and tell me about it all,'' Taylor said. ``It's been an eye-opener being down here and having such passionate fans come up to me. It's like State of Origin with the Queensland fans, seeing how passionate the Souths fans are. It's quite similar.''
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It's a dog's life in jail but puppy love helps
THEY are cute and cuddly but next week these little trainee assistance dogs will be living in a place that is certainly not either -- prison. For only the second time, prisoners will train these little labrador pups to help people with disabilities be more independent. Run through Assistance Dogs Australia, the dogs will live at the medium to high security Borallon Correctional Centre near Ipswich, Queensland, for 14 months. The dogs will be socialised, learn how to fetch everyday objects and even open doors. Prison may seem a strange place to send the puppies, but Assistance Dogs Australia's CEO Richard Lord said the program benefited the prisoners and helped address the critical shortage of the speciality service dogs. ``It is good for us as we get more dog trainers. There is such a huge demand for these dogs, there is always about 50 people on the waiting list,'' Mr Lord said. ``We just can't find enough people in the community to be puppy raisers.
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Sass & Bide are back in fashion
WHAT a difference a year makes -- especially in the fashion world.
A year ago designers Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke of label Sass & Bide were in financial strife and had to bring in two investors, David Briskin and Daniel Besen, who injected capital into the business.
Middleton and Clarke were yesterday feted as the Australian winners of the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Awards. ``It's a huge honour and truly humbling, considering the other candidates,'' says Middleton, the Bide half of the label. ``We are so lucky to be doing what we love to do so much.''
Clarke, who had delayed plans to go on a holiday in Queensland, says she hopes the award will inspire other designers to follow their dreams. A year ago the label was under financial pressure because of overseas expansion, and was forced to bring in Briskin and Besen. Briskin, now Sass & Bide's chief executive, sold out of the fashion accessory company Mimco in 2008 to Gresham, the private equity arm of Wesfarmers.
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Newspix - Now representing Tim Clayton
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