UK police hunt 'hypnotist' thief

A PICKPOCKET who apparently hypnotised his victim is being hunted by police in the UK.

THE thief took cash from a shopkeeper in north London while his victim "remained motionless and unable to resist the robbery taking place", Scotland Yard said on Friday.

Police have released CCTV footage of the crime showing the thief, who claimed his wife was pregnant and needed water, in action."The victim in this incident said that he was momentarily unaware of what had happened to him," Detective Sergeant Dave Bullock said."The suspect's distraction tactics appeared to have worked as he robbed the victim of cash from his pocket."

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Savile friend found guilty of sex crimes

A DJ friend of Jimmy Savile has been convicted of a catalogue of historical sex offences against young girls in the UK.

EX-RADIO Caroline DJ Ray Teret, 73, used his celebrity status in the Manchester club scene in the 1960s and 1970s to prey on many of his victims.

Teret - known as Ugly Ray - was mentored by Savile in the early days of his career and was described as following him around "like a shadow", Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard.Teret, of Woodlands Road, Altrincham, told the jury he had no interest in underage girls, despite a previous conviction for sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl in 1999, which he continues to deny.He denied 18 rapes, two other serious sexual assaults, one attempted rape, 12 indecent assaults and one count of indecency with a child.After more 60 hours of deliberations, he was convicted of seven rapes and 11 indecent assaults on Friday.Opening the case, prosecutor Tim Evans said: "The Crown say that young teenage girls, far from doing nothing for him, were consistently pursued by him through the 60s and 70s."Many of the victims were starstruck, with DJs treated like "royalty" in that era, said Mr Evans."The basic set-up, the background is the same - a naive girl who has the headlights of fame shone on her, who is taken to a flat and without more, without any understanding of what is going on, has a male many years older, having sex with her," he said.Giving evidence, Teret told the prosecutor he had never been in that situation.He said: "I only make love. Not sex, sir. I only make love with ladies who want to make love with me."

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Facebook creates new privacy guide

FACEBOOK has moved to make its terms and conditions easier to understand by creating a new section of its website that details the data it takes from users and how it uses it.

THE social network has created Privacy Basics, which breaks down all aspects of the site's terms of use, as well as privacy and data policies into questions and bullet points for users to read through.

The site details what other Facebook users see about you when they use the site, as well as how they interact with you.The site also includes guides on how to change various settings, and control how you share content on Facebook, including how to change privacy settings.The move has been welcomed by privacy campaigners, but they warn this should be the first step of many taken to improve the transparency of social networks.Emma Carr, director of privacy rights group Big Brother Watch said: "With many internet companies' privacy policies and terms and conditions being longer than Shakespearean plays and requiring multiple law degrees to understand, users are undoubtedly still in the dark about how their information is accessed and manipulated."Until companies stop bamboozling their users with complicated and lengthy jargon, they simply cannot claim to be transparent."Facebook appear to be trying to do just that, with the California-based firm also confirming that a new version of their terms of service will come into effect on January 1, with notifications being sent to Facebook users alerting them to the change and encouraging them to read the new agreement.The new agreement has also been made shorter, with parts relating to developers and advertisers both significantly cut down or moved to new pages.

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Second stage of Ebola drug trial starts

THE second part of a crucial Ebola drug trial has begun in Oxford, as the death toll from the outbreak reaches 6000.

SCIENTISTS want to discover if a second booster injection would increase the protection of aid workers and health professionals treating those infected with the killer virus in West Africa.

Half of the 60 healthy volunteers who received the experimental Ebola vaccine at the Jenner Institute at Oxford University in November will now receive a follow up vaccine as part of the ongoing trial.It is one of several safety trials across the world of the candidate vaccine developed by Glaxo-Smith-Kline and the US National Institutes of Health that were fast-tracked in response to the Ebola outbreak.Professor Adrian Hill, who is leading the trial at Oxford University's Jenner Institute, said the aim of the trial is to determine the safety of the two vaccines used in combination, and whether the second booster vaccine can increase immune responses further."If a single dose of an Ebola vaccine is sufficient, it makes absolute sense to use that," Prof Hill said."But it also makes sense at this early stage of trials to see if a second booster vaccine can greatly increase the levels of immune responses produced."The experimental vaccine does not contain infectious Ebola virus material and will not cause a person taking part in the trial to be infected.So far, the experiment has triggered promising immune responses from 20 healthy volunteers taking part in a preliminary trial, but it won't be until larger trials in West Africa next year that the effectiveness of the vaccine will be known.Ebola has infected nearly 17,000 people, of whom about 6000 have died, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

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Greste wins journalism award while in jail

JAILED Al Jazeera correspondent Peter Greste has won Australia's Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism award at the Walkleys in Sydney.

GRESTE was jailed in Egypt in June, together with colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, for between seven and 10 years after being convicted of supporting the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood group and spreading false news.

Judges decided to honour his journalism and his "defiant defence of its universal purpose" to report truthfully to inform the public, the Walkley Foundation says on its website.The Gold Walkley was presented to Fairfax Media's Adele Ferguson, alongside ABC collaborators Deb Masters and Mario Christodoulo, for their expose of financial planning scandals at the Commonwealth Bank and Macquarie Group.The Scoop of the Year went to Michael Brissenden, Ewen MacAskill and Lenore Taylor from ABC News and Guardian Australia for the news that Australia had spied on, or attempted to spy on Indonesia's then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and other members of his inner circle in 2009.The News Photography award went to News Corp Australia's Brendan Beirne for his shot of casino mogul James Packer and his friend David Gyngell grappling in the street, while a photo of the All Blacks performing the Haka to a near-empty stadium in the rain following their 2014 win in the Hong Kong Sevens won Cameron Spencer from Getty Images the Sports Photography prize.Andrew Quilty was awarded Nikon Walkley Press Photographer of the Year and Nikon Walkley Photo of the Year.

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Accused names another man as the killer

A woman who is accused of murdering her ex-boyfriend, has told a SA jury the culprit is another man. Source: AAP

A WOMAN on trial for murdering her ex-lover at an Adelaide car wash has told a jury a burglary victim was the real culprit.

TRISTAN Kaye Castle is accused of luring Adrian Paul MacDonald into a car before he was shot dead by her new lover, Jason Bucca, whom she had been seeing for about a week.

But Castle told the jury Bucca was not at the scene and the killer was Wes Gange who had accused MacDonald of stealing his property before firing three shots at him."He pointed the gun at me and told me to drive," she told the South Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday.Castle, 37, and Bucca, 25, have pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr MacDonald, 39, at the Big Bucket Car Wash in Parafield on the morning of February 3, 2013.Prosecutor Jim Pearce SC has alleged Mr MacDonald was unaware that Bucca was hiding in the boot with a gun when Castle enticed him into the front passenger seat.Questioned by her lawyer, Tim Heffernan, Castle said her ex-lover was shot by Mr Gange."When you arrived at the Big Bucket Car Wash, did you know Wes Gange had a gun on him?" Mr Heffernan asked.Castle replied no, adding she had no intention of harming Mr MacDonald in any way when she went to the car wash.She told the jury Bucca was staying in a room at Mr Gange's house, and Mr MacDonald had been accused of taking property belonging to both men.She said she sent numerous text messages to Mr MacDonald about meeting, telling the jury she wanted to sort out matters such as picking up furniture after their break-up.When she told Mr Gange she was meeting her ex-lover, he said he wanted to accompany her as he wanted to get back his computer and the refrigerator he believed Mr MacDonald had taken.But when Mr MacDonald denied the accusations, Mr Gange became very angry and she heard three shots and saw a gun in his hand."I yelled at Wes after it happened and told him we needed to call the ambulance," she said.But she said he grabbed her phone, pointed the gun at her and later threatened to go to her mother's if she told anybody.The trial is continuing.

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Airlines won't cut fuel surcharges

Qantas and Virgin Australia are sticking with their fuel surcharges despite falls in oil prices. Source: AAP

QANTAS and Virgin Australia have no plans to cut the hefty fuel surcharges slugged on airline tickets despite steep falls in oil prices.

THE airlines argue the 30 per cent slide in oil prices hasn't actually saved them much on their jet fuel bills.

Oil prices have slumped from around $US107 a barrel in July to around $US70 a barrel amid an oversupply in the market.But Qantas says the price falls have shaved only $20 million off its $4.5 billion annual fuel bill.Geoff Trotter, from monitoring group FuelTrac isn't buying it."The fuel surcharge should be at least 20 per cent lower based on the movement since July this year," he said."They are buying the fuel now really cheap, but their passengers are paying the same surcharge they paid when oil was $US112 a barrel."Fuel price surcharges, which were introduced in 2004 amid a spike in oil prices, are a bigger deal for passengers than you might think.Qantas customers booking a return economy trip the US are hit with a $680 surcharge, which is roughly a third of the cost of the ticket.It also slugs passengers travelling to Europe, parts of Asia, and the Middle East, with the amounts depending on whether the ticket is for economy, premium economy, business or first class seats.But the airline says the surcharges don't even cover its fuel bill."Fuel prices have more than doubled over the past decade and Qantas's current surcharges do not come anywhere close to recovering the cost of fuel to our bottom line," a spokesman said.The airline says fuel prices will need to say low for a lot longer before it would consider cutting its surcharge."There would need to be a much more sustained and significant benefit before we would be in a position to revisit our surcharges," the spokesman said.But Mr Trotter said the airline had lifted its fuel surcharge for US flights fourfold since 2004, while crude oil prices were only 33 per cent higher than a decade ago.Virgin Australia imposes surcharges on flights to the US, Europe and the Middle East.It says it works the fuel cost into the price of tickets on domestic routes, though it also says it has no savings to pass on to passengers from the lower oil price."Virgin Australia continually reviews its surcharges; however we have no changes to announce at present," the airline said in a statement to AAP."We look for a sustained trend in fuel price movements to increase or decrease our surcharges."

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Sailors describe trauma of boat mission

SAILORS engaged in border protection operations have described the trauma of recovering bodies of asylum seekers and being told to wait to board vessels which subsequently sank.

ONE former sailor named only as Michael said his patrol boat was instructed to defer intercepting an unseaworthy vessel, returning later to find a long line of bodies in the sea.

"We fished them out for as long as we could, 'til we were full. And that wasn't uncommon," he told ABC television.Another, Troy Norris, described the difficult process of recovering bodies which had been in the water for some time."Sometimes you'd go to pull these people in the boat and all you'd end up with is a handful of flesh. It'd just strip to the bone," he said.Another, identified as Greg, described boarding an over-crowded vessel."You jump on and you can smell three days' worth of human faeces, you can smell vomit, you can smell diesel fuel, you can smell rotting wood, you can smell people, there are children screaming," he said.Greg said he saw deeply disturbing behaviour by some asylum seekers, including an adult snatching a cup of water from a child. He intervened to stop the attempted rape of a boy by a man claiming to be his uncle."I became painfully aware that that child was only with him for the purpose of his own pleasure," he said.All the sailors now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and have left the navy, saying they were not properly treated.Their experience covered the peak period of asylum seeker arrivals under former Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.In a statement to the ABC, Defence said that since 2011 it had implemented mental health screening for personnel assigned to border protection, with most dealing well with the pressures of this operation.Reported rates of mental health-related symptoms were low, it said."Within the time available Defence is not able to report how many of those referred for follow-up went on to be diagnosed with a mental health condition," Defence said.Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said there should be an independent judicial inquiry."Co-ordinated delays in rescuing boats, political interference that endangered lives and an unhealthy obsession with secrecy are destroying Australian sailors," she said in a statement."These are serious accusations from defence personnel and the government can't investigate itself on this one."

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Home DNA kit goes on sale in UK

A PERSONAL DNA testing kit that gives users an insight into their genetic make up has gone on sale in the UK.

THE 23andMe Personal Genome Service (PGS) costs STG125 ($A228) and claims to offer access to more than 100 pieces of information about a person's health, ancestry and family traits.

Users spit in a tube, seal it and send it off to be analysed in a laboratory.After four to six weeks they can log in online to see a detailed report of their results.The kit, which has been part-funded by Google, said the tool is not "diagnostic" but includes results of tests for genes associated with inherited conditions such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anaemia.It also tests for genes that may reveal risk factors for diseases or conditions such as blood clotting, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.In addition to findings about their health, the firm says users can explore the genetics behind why they may be a more frequent smoker, how they metabolise caffeine and their body's response to diet and exercise.They can see information about the genetic basis of traits such as hair colour, freckling, height and hair loss.The service also includes a "full genetic ancestry report" allowing people to trace their family's genetic roots and "potentially discover and communicate with new relatives", according to 23andMe.The firm says on its website that it is "committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your personal information" and has put in place security measures to help protect against the "loss, misuse or alteration of information under our control".About 10,000 UK-based customers have already paid extra to have the kit delivered from the US.

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HIV drug 'can slow prostate cancer spread'

A DRUG used to treat HIV infection can slow the deadly spread of prostate cancer, new research suggests.

SCIENTISTS hope the compound, or others like it, may help men with the disease live longer.

Early studies have demonstrated the antiretroviral drug maraviroc can dramatically curb the lethal spread of prostate cancer in mice with the disease.Prostate cancer most commonly travels to the bones, leading to severe pain, disability and eventual death.But treatment with maraviroc reduced the spread, or metastasis, of prostate tumours to the bones, brain and other organs by 60 per cent in mice.US lead scientist Dr Richard Pestell, from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, said: "Because this work shows we can dramatically reduce metastasis in pre-clinical models, and because the drug is already... approved for HIV treatment, we may be able to test soon whether this drug can block metastasis in patients with prostate cancer."The drug targets a protein molecule on the surface of cells called the CCR5 receptor which the AIDS virus HIV uses to invade white blood cells.Previous research by the same team in 2012 showed CCR5 was implicated in the spread of aggressive forms of breast cancer to the lungs.A genetic analysis of metastasised bone and brain tumours also showed evidence of CCR5 driving the spread of prostate cancer.To investigate further, the scientists used maraviroc to block CCR5 in mice with metastatic prostate cancer.They found that compared with sick mice not given the drug, overall cancer spread was cut by 60 per cent.Genetic data from patients with prostate cancer revealed CCR5 was more active in prostate cancer than in normal tissue and made an even bigger impact in metastasised tumours.Co-author Dr Xuanmau Jiao, also from Thomas Jefferson University, said: "In fact, we noticed that patients who had a lower expression of the CCR5-pathway genes had a longer survival times, whereas high expression of these CCR5 genes was associated with a shorter overall survival."The study is published online in the journal Cancer Research.

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Airline gets deadline for MH370 court case

A MALAYSIAN court has given Malaysia Airlines and the government until December 15 to reply to a negligence case filed against them over the disappearance of flight MH370.

THE negligence case was filed in October by two sons of businessman Jee Jing Hang, one of the 239 people on board the missing jetliner.

It is the first suit against the airline and the government relating to MH370, which disappeared without a trace on March 8 en route to China an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.The plaintiffs allege that Malaysia Airlines was negligent and failed to take all due safety measures, and that the government did not try to establish contact within reasonable time after the flight disappeared from radar.They also alleged that the immigration department failed in its duties by allowing passengers with fake identities onto the plane.

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US court mulls free speech on social media

THE US Supreme Court is considering the free-speech rights of people who use violent or threatening language on social media.

THE justices will hear arguments on Monday in the case of a man who was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for posting graphically violent rap lyrics on Facebook about killing his estranged wife, shooting up a class of young children and attacking an FBI agent.

Anthony Elonis says he was just venting his anger over a broken marriage and never meant to threaten anyone.But his wife didn't see it that way, and neither did federal prosecutors.A jury convicted Elonis of violating a federal law that makes it a crime to threaten another person.A federal appeals court rejected his claim that his comments were protected by the First Amendment.Lawyers for Elonis argue that the government must prove he actually intended his comments to threaten others.The government says it doesn't matter what Elonis intended and that the true test of a threat is whether his words make a reasonable person feel threatened.One post about his wife said, "There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts."The case has drawn widespread attention from free-speech advocates who say comments on Facebook, Twitter and other social media can be hasty, impulsive and easily misinterpreted.They point out that a message on Facebook intended for a small group could be taken out of context when viewed by a wider audience."A statute that proscribes speech without regard to the speaker's intended meaning runs the risk of punishing protected First Amendment expression simply because it is crudely or zealously expressed," said a brief from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups.So far, most lower courts have rejected that view, ruling that a "true threat" depends on how an objective person perceives the message.For more than four decades, the Supreme Court has said that "true threats" to harm another person are not protected speech under the First Amendment.But the court has been careful to distinguish threats from protected speech such as "political hyperbole" or "unpleasantly sharp attacks".Elonis argues that his online posts under the pseudonym "Tone Dougie" were simply a crude and spontaneous form of expression that should not be considered threatening if he didn't really mean it.His lawyers say the posts were heavily influenced by rap star Eminem, who has also fantasised in songs about killing his ex-wife.But Elonis' wife testified that the comments made her fear for her life.After his wife obtained a protective order against him, Elonis wrote a lengthy post mocking court proceedings: "Did you know that it's illegal for me to say I want to kill my wife?"A female FBI agent later visited Elonis at home to ask him about the postings.Elonis took to Facebook again: "Little agent lady stood so close, took all the strength I had not to turn the bitch ghost. Pull my knife, flick my wrist and slit her throat."The US administration says requiring proof that a speaker intended to be threatening would undermine the law's protective purpose.In its brief to the court, the Justice Department argues that no matter what someone believes about his comments, it doesn't lessen the fear and anxiety they might cause for other people.

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UN climate talks resume in Peru

NEGOTIATORS from more than 190 countries are meeting in Lima for the last main stop of the UN climate negotiations on the road to a planned global warming deal in Paris next year.

THE slow-moving talks have gained momentum in the past two months with pledges from the world's top carbon emitters - China, the US and the European Union - to limit their emissions in the next 10-15 years.

"This sends an important signal for the rest of the world to come forward as early as possible with their own contributions," EU negotiator Elina Bardram said on Sunday in Lima."We have 12 months and the clock is ticking."India, Japan, Russia and Australia are among the major emitters that have not yet presented pledges for the new deal.By getting pledges on the table well ahead of next year's climate conference in Paris, governments hope to pave the way for the landmark climate agreement they failed to reach five years ago in Copenhagen.The goal is to slash the greenhouse gas emissions - primarily from the burning of fossil fuels - that scientists say are warming the planet.The challenge is to find a way to share the burden between rich industrialised countries and emerging economies such as China and India, while helping the poorest and most vulnerable countries protect themselves against rising seas, droughts and other impacts of global warming.The previous emissions treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, covered only industrialised countries, but emissions today are rising mainly in the developing world."It is urgent that we create the greatest alliance in history against climate change," Peruvian President Ollanta Humala said.A key issue in Lima will be to define what information countries should provide when they present their formal pledges early next year, so that they can be compared against each other.The overall goal of the talks is to keep global warming below 2C compared to pre-industrial times.The Peruvian government said more than 12,000 police would protect the conference, which will be held in a tent city on the grounds of the military headquarters.

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Ethiopia tests thousands for HIV

ETHIOPIAN officials say more than 3300 people were tested for HIV Sunday in the rural region of Gambella.

THE massive turnout exceeded expectations among AIDS campaigners, who had hoped to test 2000 people.

Rahel Gettu, an official with the UN Aids agency in Ethiopia, said they believed they broke the world record for the number of HIV tests carried out in one day.She said their claim was yet to be verified and confirmed by Guinness World Records.She said 3383 people were tested for HIV within eight hours in a single event ahead of World Aids Day.Eighty-two of them received positive results.About 6.5 per cent of Gambella residents have HIV or AIDS, a rate higher than the national average of 1.5 per cent.Officials hope that voluntary AIDS testing in this region that borders South Sudan can lead to a reduction in the number of new infections.

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Harry reveals secret for AIDS day

PRINCE Harry has confessed a personal secret as part of a campaign to mark World AIDS Day - he gets "incredibly nervous" before giving a speech or entering a room full of people.

THE 30-year-old may be known for his outgoing and irreverent personality but, like many in the public eye, he suffers from a bout of nerves just before addressing an audience.

He said he is so on edge before walking into a room to meet people that he would describe himself as "anxious".Harry spoke about his anxieties in a video message in support of his charity Sentebale's #FeelNoShame campaign for World AIDS Day on Monday.The campaign aims to raise awareness of how eradicating shame and stigma can save the lives of HIV sufferers, empowering them to seek medical support and education about their condition, and preventing the virus from spreading.In his video message, the Prince said: "First of all I would like to thank everybody for getting involved in the #FeelNoShame campaign, a part of Sentebale."On today, World AIDS Day, my secret is, believe it or not, I get incredibly nervous before public speaking, no matter how big the crowd or the audience."And despite the fact that I laugh and joke all the time, I get incredibly nervous, if not anxious actually, before going into rooms full of people when I'm wearing a suit."

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