Rudd won't challenge: Hawker

POLITICAL consultant Bruce Hawker believes Kevin Rudd won't challenge Prime Minister Julia Gillard despite a slump in Labor's electoral standing.

The latest Nielsen poll released by Fairfax Media on Monday showed Labor dropping four percentage points in the two-party preferred vote to 45 per cent, with the coalition on 55 per cent.

It showed support for Mr Rudd as preferred Labor leader was 61 per cent compared to 35 per cent for Ms Gillard.

Ms Gillard repeatedly declined to comment on the poll.

Mr Hawker, who backed Mr Rudd in the leadership vote won by Ms Gillard 71-31 a year ago, said the polls were "really grim".

He said Mr Rudd had made it pretty clear he would not challenge Ms Gillard.

"I am quite convinced that is going to be the case," Mr Hawker told ABC TV on Monday.

Mr Hawker said it would be tough for the ALP to win the federal election announced by Ms Gillard for September 14.

"It is going to be hard with Julia, or whoever would lead the party, if she somehow fell under a bus or whatever, and wasn't available to lead the party," he said.

Despite Mr Rudd being the most popular figure in the ALP, Labor MPs had to work on the assumption Mr Rudd would not return as leader, Mr Hawker said.

"That ship has sailed," he said.

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Sex videos and pics led to killing: judge

JOSHUA Hickson was so angry that Gregory Elms had distributed nude photos and sex videos of his sister that he wanted to make him pay for it.

In early 2011 Hickson and friend Brendan Gobus visited Mr Elms, 44, at his home in Kewarra Beach, north of Cairns, to give him "a wake-up call".

But Hickson lost control and began stomping or kicking Elms.

Gobus then bound Elms' hands together with duct tape and left him propped up against a bedroom wall.

Mr Elms' severely decomposed body was found in the same position a week later.

In the Queensland Supreme Court in Cairns on Monday, 30-year-old Hickson, who pleaded guilty on day three of his jury trial last week, was sentenced to eight years' jail for manslaughter.

Gobus, 38, was handed a seven-and-a-half-year jail sentence on the same charge.

Owing to a number of factors, including his early guilty plea before trial, Gobus will be eligible for parole in six months.

Both men have been in custody since they were arrested in January 2011.

In sentencing, Justice James Henry said the men made a "grave error" confronting Mr Elms after he distributed nude photos and sex videos of Hickson's sister, who was Mr Elms' ex-girlfriend.

Taking matters into their own hands was similar to having their "own kangaroo court", the judge said.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Elms' parents said they feared the pain of losing their eldest son would never leave them.

"He was happy, and so were we, with the progress he was making in his life," the statement read.

A cause of death is not known but both the defence lawyers and prosecutors agreed Mr Elms most likely died from heart failure.

"It should be said that Hickson and Gobus's conduct was a substantial cause of death," Justice Henry said.

Other possible causes of death included a head injury and positional asphyxia.

Hickson's lawyer, David Feeney, told the court his client had been stunned to hear Mr Elms had died, as he had never meant to kill him.

Gobus' lawyer, Kevin McCreanor, said his client had only wanted to give Elms "a wake-up call ... a slap on the back of the head".

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Melbourne grassfire now under control

RESIDENTS living around the large grassfire that closed the Hume Freeway at Epping in Melbourne's north have been told it is safe to return to their homes.

A Country Fire Authority spokeswoman said residents in the area around Copper St, Epping Road, Steen Avenue and Allumba Way could return home.

The grassfire, now under control, destroyed one home and damaged another.

It burnt almost 2000 hectares on both sides of the busy Hume Freeway around Epping and Campbellfield.

One home in the Epping North area was destroyed but none in housing estates, incident controller John Deering said.

Another home was damaged and several outbuildings or sheds lost.

An emergency warning remained in place on Monday night for the Epping and Campbellfield area.

Motorists have been told to take care on the freeway, with reports of wildlife on the road.

The fire closed the Hume Freeway and created traffic gridlock on nearby major roads.

Some parts of the 31km of fire edge were still active, Mr Deering said.

"The fire is not advancing or spreading any further at this stage," he told ABC radio.

"However, there may be still active fire within that fire edge."

Crews would remain on scene all night, he said.

Meanwhile, two large bushfires in the Grampians in Victoria's southwest have merged to form one out-of-control bushfire about 3260 hectares in size.

The Grampians fire had come out of bushland and into private land, Fire Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley said.

A wind change due on Monday night would put a lot of pressure on the fire, he said.

"We have a lot of resources in place but certainly it is a very dry area and certainly we will see significant fire move through Victoria Valley," Mr Lapsley told ABC television.

Farming communities in the area have been on alert for two days, with emergency warnings issued at various times on Sunday and Monday.

The latest, for the Victoria Valley area, has been downgraded to a watch and act alert.

The fire, started by lightning on Thursday, has been creating spot fires 1km ahead of it.

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Qld health cuts spark blame game

A FEDERAL funding shortfall has been blamed for a decision to axe more than 200 health jobs in the Cairns region.

But the federal government says Queensland Premier Campbell Newman is behind cuts to individual health services.

Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service announced on Monday that 234 staff would be axed.

Local health board chairman Bob Norman says up to 190 permanent staff will be offered redundancies as part of an administrative restructure.

Another 44 temporary workers will also go.

He told ABC Radio that frontline staff won't be affected, although a Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service spokeswoman later told AAP that 41 nursing staff would be axed.

Mr Norman says a $6 million shortfall in federal funding is largely to blame.

However, Federal Minister for Health Tanya Plibersek says health funding in Queensland will increase by 21 per cent, or $600 million, over the next four years.

"Any reduction in funding to individual health services is a decision of the Newman government," she said.

It was the state government, not the commonwealth, which distributed money to local hospitals, Ms Plibersek said.

Queensland Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said every state health minister agreed that the federal government had cut health funding.

He said the Queensland government had increased health funding to the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service by $40 million in the 2012-13 budget.

Cape York Hospital has also invited staff to apply for voluntary redundancies.

While chief executive officer Susan Turner could not pinpoint how many positions would go, she said no frontline services would be affected.

However, Ms Turner said a federal funding cut of $851,000 equalled the loss of about seven full-time positions.

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Vic bushfire downgraded but still a risk

THE Country Fire Authority (CFA) has downgraded the bushfire threatening the community of Mirranatwa in Victoria's west to Watch and Act but warns the rating could change with the conditions.

The large, fast-moving fire, about 30km north of Dunkeld, is travelling in a southwesterly direction.

It's expected to impact Mirranatwa any time in the next two to six hours.

The CFA says with fire behaviour being very unpredictable, communities may see the advice on this fire move between 'Emergency Warning' and 'Watch and Act' during the night.

It says residents in Mirranatwa need to keep aware of the fire situation through local radio and the CFA website.

Surrounding communities, like Dunkeld, need to remain aware of the fire activity in the southern Grampians area but there's no threat to these communities at this time.

A relief centre has been established at the Senior Citizens Hall in Lonsdale Street, Hamilton.

More than 200 firefighters from the CFA, the Department of Environment and Sustainability and Parks Victoria have been working on the fire, which was started by lightning on Thursday night.

Fourteen aircraft, including the Elvis Skycrane, have also been involved.

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Attackers hack hand off Tanzanian child

ATTACKERS collecting body parts of albinos for witchcraft have hacked off the hand of a seven-year old boy in Tanzania, in the latest in a series of bloody assaults, officials say.

"The boy was attacked on Saturday by three people as he walked home with his four school friends," said Apolinary Macheta, the local government leader in Tanzania's southwestern Milepa district.

The boy, Mwigulu Magessa, is recovering in hospital, Macheta added.

The attack came just days after an albino mother of four had her arm chopped off by machete-wielding men. Police on Saturday said they had arrested five men after discovering the decomposing limb hidden in a field.

In Tanzania, albinos are killed and dismembered due to a widespread belief that charms made from their body parts bring good fortune and prosperity.

Albinism is a genetic condition characterised by a deficiency of melanin pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes which protects from the sun's ultraviolet rays.

People suffering from the condition are discriminated against and persecuted in many African countries.

Albino body parts are sold for thousands of dollars.

Last month an albino child died in Tanzania's Tabora region after attackers hacked off his arm with a machete.

Kijo Bisimba, of Tanzania's Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) described the rise in attacks as "alarming" and said there was a renewed spate of assaults after months of calm.

Such ritual killings have also occurred in neighbouring Burundi and some of the attackers are suspected to be from Tanzania.

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Seven foreigners kidnapped in Nigeria

POLICE in northern Nigeria say gunmen have kidnapped seven foreign workers from a construction company.

The attack happened in Bauchi state overnight Saturday.

Police spokesman Hassan Muhammed said attackers first targeted a prison in the area.

Muhammed said on Sunday the attackers then went to the construction company STRAECO, where they killed a guard and kidnapped the foreign workers.

The nationalities of the workers were not immediately known.

Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north has been under attack by the radical Islamic sect known as Boko Haram in the last 18 months.

The country's weak central government has been unable to stop the group's bloody guerrilla campaign of shootings and bombings.

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Myanmar boat sinks on way to Australia

A BOATLOAD of Myanmar nationals rescued from a sinking wooden vessel off Sri Lanka's east coast after two months at sea had been trying to reach Australia, local police say.

The boat people, plucked to safety by Sri Lanka's navy on Saturday, were taken to the southern port of Galle where they were rushed to hospital to be treated for dehydration and starvation, police said in a statement on Sunday.

It said 32 people were rescued, although initial reports from naval units had suggested there were 38.

A spokesman for Myanmar's embassy in Colombo said they were waiting to speak with the boat people before deciding on a course of action.

"We have been told of 32 people rescued and we are waiting to speak to them," embassy spokesman Aung Soe Moe told AFP.

Sri Lankan police said the rescued boat people claimed they were in a group of 130 who set out in three boats just over two months ago with the intention of reaching Australia.

The fate of the others was not known.

Saturday's rescue was the second in less than two weeks.

On February 3, the navy rescued 138 Bangladeshi and Myanmar nationals from a sinking boat. One passenger was found dead.

Local police officials said it was unclear if those identified as Myanmar nationals were Rohingya - members of a stateless Muslim minority described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted groups - who had fled the country.

An explosion of tensions between Buddhist and Muslim communities in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine since June 2012 has triggered a seaborne exodus of Rohingya.

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WA facing day of fire danger

LARGE sections of Western Australia are facing a day of serious fire danger on Sunday.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) has declared a severe fire danger rating for the Gascoyne, Goldfields, Great Southern, Central West, Central Wheatbelt and the Goldfields Midlands regions.

The DFES expects hot, dry and windy conditions which could lead to a bush or grass fire taking hold and spreading quickly.

A catastrophic fire rating is in place for the Eucla.

A total fire ban is in place for the Goldfields Midlands, with offenders facing a fine of up to $25,000 or a 12-month jail term.

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'Climate change hurting economy'

THE president of the World Bank warned that global warming is a real risk to the planet and already affecting the world economy in unprecedented ways.

Addressing the G20 finance ministers at their meeting in Moscow, Jim Yong Kim called on the world powers to "tackle the serious challenges presented by climate change."

"These are not just risks. They represent real consequences," said Mr Kim, calling the lack of attention to the issue by finance ministers and central bank chiefs "a mistake".

He said failing to tackle the challenges of climate change risked having "serious consequences for the economic outlook".

"Damages and losses from natural disasters have more than tripled over the past 30 years," said Mr Kim, giving as examples the $45 billion of losses from the 2011 floods in Thailand, whose effects "spread across borders disrupting international supply chains."

"Years of development efforts are often wiped out in days or even minutes," Kim said, asking the G20 to "face climate change, which is a very real and present danger."

The G20 finance ministers' agenda in Moscow is dominated by concerns about competitive currency devaluations and a new drive by EU powers to force big business to pay a fair share of tax.

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