The Northern Territory news Wed 2 Feb 2011
NT news
The Northern Territory news; NewspaperNT
2011-02-02
This publication contains may contain links to external sites. These external sites may no longer be active.
English
Community newspapers -- Northern Territory -- Darwin; Australian newspapers -- Northern Territory -- Darwin
Nationwide News Pty. Limited
Darwin
Copyright. Made available by the publisher under licence.
Nationwide News Pty. Limited
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00042
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/230685
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/670702
www.ntnews.com.au Wednesday, February 2, 2011. NT NEWS. 11 P U B : N T N E W S D A T E : 2 -F E B -2 0 1 1 P A G E : 1 1 C O L O R : C M Y K ntnews.com.aul l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l NATION Burglary attempt a bit crusty MELBOURNE: A hapless burglar has handed himself into police after being captured on video trying to escape from a locked bakery storeroom. The 19-yearold broke into the Crusty Loaf bakery in Frankston through a skylight, but found himself trapped in the storeroom. Hemade several bungled attempts to escape before succeeding. Theman alsomade a number of calls on his mobile phone, and police believe hewas contacting friends for help. Defence project pulled CANBERRA: The Federal Government is pulling the plug on a $40million defence project to build six landing craft that proved unsuitable for their intended purpose. The project was launched in 1997. The great tragedy of this project is that when the watercraft were produced, theywere not in a position to be utilised by Australian defence forces, DefenceMinister Stephen Smith said yesterday. Mozzie infections take off ADELAIDE: Risingwater in the River Murray has caused a surge inmosquito-borne infections in South Australia. There have been 351 cases of Ross River virus (RRV) and Barmah Forest virus (BFV) across SA this year so far, compared to only 16 at the same time last year, SA Healths chief public health officer Stephen Christley says. The symptomsmay vary in severity from person to person and can include joint pain, rash, fever, fatigue or muscle pain. M G 3 2 0 3 0 1 / 11 Heat fuels flood chaos By XAVIER La CANNA Mopping-up mayhem for Victorian towns Everyone is doing the best they can under pretty hard circumstances MELBOURNE: Flood-hit parts of northern Victoria have sweltered in heat above 40 degrees while residents toiled to protect their towns from rising waters. Locals in Swan Hill roasted in 41 degree heat as they stacked sandbags and built levees to safeguard the Murray River town. A State Emergency Service spokeswoman said while the flood headwaters flowing from the Loddon and Campaspe Rivers had passed Swan Hill, waters at the town were expected to continue rising until Friday. Everyone is doing the best they can under pretty hard circumstances, the spokeswoman said. The SES yesterday was focusing on protecting the nearby towns of Mystic Park, Lake Charm, Lake Boga, Kerang, Benjeroop, Murrabit, Murrabit West, Pental Island and Tyntynder Flats. Assistant manager at the Comfort Inn Campbell motel in Swan Hill, Sally Smith, said while the weather was typical for this time of year in Swan Hill, it was putting pressure on those battling the floodwaters. It puts pressure on the people on the front line trying to sandbag with the heat happening this week, Ms Smith said of the situation. I guess it is not making the contaminated water smell too flash, either. She said that she hoped the intense heat would evaporate some of the water still lying on the ground. Although weather forecasters are expecting conditions to cool a little in the region, there is an expected top of 37 in Swan Hill today. Walpepup in Victorias north-west recorded the states highest temperature of 42.3 degrees yesterday. Melbourne reached a top of 40 degrees at around 2.30pm, but Port Fairy on the southwest coast had a high of only 23 degrees. The heat and high winds also fanned two large fires in Victoria yesterday. At Inverloch, 150km southeast of Melbourne, a blaze that began at a pine plantation spread to grassland but had been contained, said Hugo Zoller from the Country Fire Authority (CFA). Another fire, at nearby McLoughlins Beach, burned 800ha before it was contained by a firebreak. Battle to keep cool as heatwave hits state Ana Dapieve from Brazil takes a shower to cool off at North Bondi Picture: MARK EVANS By MILES GODFREY SYDNEY: High temperatures have rocked NSW causing a spate of bushfires and smashing the states all-time energy record as air conditioners were cranked up full blast. The mercury hit a scorching 42.5C near Newcastle yesterday afternoon, while at least half a dozen Sydney suburbs recorded temperatures into the 40s. The mercury is expected to hover in the late 30s and early 40s for much of the week. The states energy consumption peaked at 14,337 megawatts as sweltering householders turned on fans and cranked up the air-conditioner. It comfortably beat the states previous record peak of 14,274 megawatts set at 6pm on July 28, 2008. An EnergyAustralia spokes man said the grid handled the whopping usage with relative ease, with no heat-related power outages. The extreme temperatures also kept the Rural Fire Service busy with bushfires threatening homes in northwest Sydney. Firefighters were monitoring blazes near several properties on Sackville Road in rural Ebenezer, in the Hawkesbury area, with more than 13 water tankers at the scene. Another blaze was contained at Pitt Town Road at Maraylya, in Sydneys northwest, with no residences damaged. Firefighters were also working on another fire at North Ryde, NSW Fire and Rescue said. A total fire ban was in place yesterday in many parts of NSW including Sydney, the Hunter, the Illawarra and the Blue Mountains. Assange calls for PMs protection SYDNEY: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to put her foot down and offer him protection from the US Government. The whistleblower made the comments as he prepared to face a London court next week for the start of legal proceedings to have him extradited to Sweden on possible sexual assault charges. Supporters claim the charges have been trumped up to silence him. Gillard needs to declare publicly that this is not an acceptable treatment of an Australian organisation, Mr Assange said. WikiLeaks is regis tered in Australia. Nor, he continued, is it acceptable treatment of an Australian. The US Government is looking at whether the whistleblower can also be charged over the release of classified documents on his WikiLeaks website. Mr Assange said he wanted to return home to Australia with a guarantee he would not be handed over to the US Government. I would have returned to Australia in November, but our view and our intelligence was that it was not safe in Australia, he said. Mr Assange described WikiLeaks as a source protection agency.