Police Force armourer on the run

Alan Cumberland 38, is a long time employee of the NSW Police Force. His official title is Amourer, an old-fashioned word meaning someone who maintains and repairs guns, similar to a civilian gunsmith, but not as qualified.

Police raided his home on the Central Coast on Thursday and found a cache of guns and ammunition and some of the weapons had been "misappropriated" from the force's Armoury.  His home was one of four raided on Thursday, as part of an ongoing investigation into organized crime.


Firearms and Organized Crime Squad Commander Detective Supeintendent Ken Finch said he didn't show up for work at the Sydney Police Armoury after the raid and hasn't been seen since.


"There is a degree of organization involved, we would allege" Supt Finch said.  "He had access to everything in the course of his work and from the time he came to our notice, we have been focused on his movements." 


He added "I'm not suggesting that he has specifically supplied weapons to criminals but this is part of our investigation that is ongoing and we will make a number of inquiries in regard to that."



Anyone with information to assist investigators should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or use the Crime Stoppers online reporting page: https://www1.police.nsw.gov.au/. 

Edit March 31:  Alan Cumberland handed himself into police yesterday.  He has been charged with a number of firearms offences including aggravated possession of firearms and unauthorised manufacture of firearms. 

Halal Easter Eggs

If you look at your Cadbury chocolate bar wrapper, you will see that it is halal friendly and so are their Easter eggs. We are left wondering why because Islam is a minority religion in Australia.


We know that Muslims and Jews don't eat pork, but Islam has other rules about what not to eat and drink - they don't touch alcohol, eat the flesh of carnivores (animals who eat only animal flesh) or carrion (animals who eat the decaying flesh of dead animals.)


They also can't eat an animal that isn't killed in the correct way, so what is the correct way?

• Allah's (God's) name must be pronounced during the slaughter
• A sharp instrument must be used (knife) to slit the animal's throat 
• The animal must not be unconscious
• The animal must be hung upside down and allowed to bleed dry
• These steps must be accomplished by a Muslim or the People of the Book (Christian or Jew).  Many Muslims find kosher meat acceptable      
• The animal must have been fed a natural diet that did not contain any animal by-products.

There are 340 Australian companies who have paid to have the halal certification, including Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Franklins, Kellog's MasterFoods and Nestle.  It is obviously very important because these companies are prepared to pay a fee to get it.

Cadbury could be accused of bias because they cater to the Islamic religion but not the Jewish faith.   They list 71 halal products, including Dairy Milk chocolate bars, Freddo frogs and Red Tulip chocolates, but they do not carry any kosher-certified products.

The Islamic Co-Ordination Council of Victoria states: "With five office staff, two external food technologists, four sharia advisers, and over 140 registered halal slaughtermen/inspectors, ICCV is the largest and the most respected halal certifier in Australia.  We are ready to serve any company in Australia that is interested in producing halal product (meat and processed food.)

So why should Australian companies bother to get the halal stamp of approval?  A chicken wholesaler went to the trouble of killing his chickens the correct halal way, but when he found out they were still not acceptable and he had to pay for certification, he was furious. Stubborn to the core, he held out for three years and lost $120,000 each year. He got the certification to save his business.

No pressure?  Not much!  Happy Easter.

Hands off our superannuation

Before he was sacked from Cabinet last week over a failed leadership spill, former Minister Simon Crean was a member of the government's inner circle, so he should have a few clues about what they are up to. This week he put the cat among the pigeons by hinting that Julia Gillard intends to raid worker's superannuation to achieve a budget surplus.

The Opposition says our great-grandchildren will be paying off the huge debt that the Gillard government has amassed over two terms, with the costly Gonski school funding scheme and the National Disability Insurance Scheme the latest  promised policy commitments.

Then there's the cost of housing asylum seekers who keep arriving in leaky boats and the mind boggles when we think how much they must be costing.  The word is out that Australia is the land of milk and honey with plenty of benefits and free health care and the government is obliged to pay for every aspect of the daily life of an asylum seeker processed on shore, including their cigarettes. It's ironic really when you think about it, Labor managed to pull off a mammoth victory over the mighty tobacco industry by bringing in plain paper packaging for cigarettes, yet hand over money to asylum seekers to buy them.

Because of Labor's failed border protection policy decisions, it didn't take long for the Detention Centres across the country to fill up, so Ms Gillard turned to the public for help, compensating families to house an asylum seeker in a spare bedroom. 

When there still wasn't enough room, they moved them into the community and also University campuses.  We had no idea until a Sri Lankan asylum seeker was charged with indecently assaulting a young woman sleeping in student accommodation at Macquarie University in Sydney. Police first thought it was an asylum seeker living in student accommodation at the university, but he wasn't staying there, just visiting a friend and actually lived in a unit in Parramatta. The university said that Campus Living, part of the Transfield Group, provides services for asylum seekers, which includes temporary accommodation under a 2012 agreement with the Red Cross's Asylum Seeker Assistance Scheme.

The mere mention of the possibility that the government could fiddle with our super sends chills down everyone's spine.  The PM has refused to rule out tax increases on super, saying only she wants a sustainable long-term superannuation system.  If there was ever a good reason to stop paying into your super and putting it somewhere else, this is it.

Tony Abbott was quick to jump in and said "I want to assure the hard-working people of Australia that their superannuation will be safe under a Coalition government.  We will make no unexpected adverse changes to superannuation in our first term."

African scammers thrive on Aussie greed

The seven deadly sins are - wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony.  As humans, they are all familiar emotions, but there is one Western Australian man who takes the cake for greed.

One would assume that when a person reaches the ripe old age of 70 and has amassed $700,000, he must have a few clues. Not so when it comes to greed, that's how much he spent to acquire a $26 million inheritance. 

The man, who wants to remain anonymous, rubbed his hands together with glee and readily believed what he was told in an email that turned up out of the blue - a little old lady, who wasn't related to him, and lives on the other side of the world, was going to leave him $26 million. Surely, he must have asked himself the question - why would she do that?

Police suggest that 23 fraud victims in Western Australia were scammed because they live isolated lives in remote country towns. Maybe they were too polite to suggest they were fleeced by crooks in Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone because they saw dollar signs in front of their eyes and were guilty of that second deadly sin - greed.

Definition of greed:  The inordinate desire to possess wealth, goods, or objects of abstract value with the intention to keep it for one's self, far beyond the dictates of basic survival and comfort.

The trees don't know that it's autumn

It's supposed to be autumn in Sydney, yet it's still very hot with unheard of temperatures for March.   This is the time we breath a sigh of relief after the long, hot summer, and delight in the the cool, crisp air of autumn.

As the Northern Hemisphere freezes, we continue to sweat.   The trees don't know that it's autumn and haven't even changed colour yet, let alone started to drop their leaves.  It's quite odd.

Shark hero, Trevor Burns receives bravery award

Brisbane man Trevor Burns was holidaying in Perth with his family in October  2010.  Keen snorkelers, they decided to get up close to some dolphins and joined around 40 other people on a tour, headed by guide Elyse Frankcom.  There were only around 12 snorkelers left in the water, keen to see a baby dolphin who was frolicking with its mother.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a shark attacked Elyse and double bit into her thighs.  Mr Burns grabbed hold of its tail and was tossed around like a rag doll while Ms Frankcom punched it in the head.  Then she started to sink, pulled down by her weight belt, and instead of rushing back to the safety of the tour boat with the others, Mr Burns dove into the bloody water and brought her safely to the surface.  She needed 200 stitches.

Mr Burns' wife and 24 year old daughter were horrified as they looked on from the boat, watching him being thrown around by the shark and thinking the worst.


Yesterday Elyse was reunited with the man who saved her life when he received a bravery award.  "I'm hoping to be back at work and in the water again in about two months, as soon as the doctors give me the all clear" she said.


Trevor Burns, a computer systems consultant accepted Australia's second highest bravery award - the Royal Life Saving Honour "Star of Courage" gold medallion.

"I wouldn't be here without him" she said.  Watch the ABC video.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-25/shark-attack-hero-leads-bravery-award-winners/4591750

A true crime of passion

Armed robber, John Killick is about to be released from prison.  In 1999, his girlfriend, Lucy Dudko, swooped down into the exercise yard of Silverwater jail in a helicopter, picked up her lover, and few away in a hail of bullets.  It if reminds you of something you've seen on the movies, you are right, Dudko got the idea from a video she hired starring Charles Bronson in "Breakout."

Killick

Lucy Dudko hired Tim Joyce for a chartered helicopter joyride and once in the air, she took a sawn-off shotgun out of her handbag, pressed  it to the pilot's throat and said "This is a hijack."

Lucy Dudko

They landed in a park, tied up the pilot with radio cables and fled.  After 45 days of freedom, they were caught at a Sydney motel.

Killick was in custody after robbing a bank in Bowral and shooting at an off-duty police officer.  He pleaded guilty and was being held on remand, waiting for sentence, when the daring escape took place. Killick had been to prison many times for armed holdups - 1966, 1972, 1981 and 1985.

Model prisoner Dudko

Before meeting Killick, the married mother of one had it all.  She emigrated to Australia from Russia in 1993 with her scientist husband, Alex Dudko and they had a beautiful baby daughter.  She was studying for a doctorate in history at Macquarie University.  But she threw it all away for a middle-aged womanizer who, because he had a chronic gambling addiction, was always broke.  She was a model prisoner and spent seven years in jail and was released in 2006.

After 14 years in jail, Killick is about to be released but the moment he steps outside the prison gates, detectives will extradite him to Queensland where he is expected to face outstanding charges and more jail time.

Now 71 years old, Killick says he's finally kicked his gambling habit after several intensive anti-gambling courses. "Maybe it's my age, but the urge is gone" he said.

His parole was challenged by Barrister Lester Fernandez who pointed out that while Killick claims he hasn't gambled since 2007, he had still been actively betting "on anything" inside jail in the seven years before that, admitting he telephoned family to place bets for him.  Mr Fernandez argued that Killick's long history of pathological gambling presented "acute risk factors" to the public and recommended he stay in jail.

The case has been held over until May 3.

Flying fox kills third victim

It's a tragic story.  Out of the blue, a little 8 year old boy complains of severe abdominal pain and starts convulsing and then loses consciousness.  His frantic parents rush him to hospital where he is ventilated, but doctors can't find a reason for his dire condition. Ten days later, medical specialists detect bat-borne levels of lyssavirus.  But it was too late for treatment and he eventually fell into a coma and died on 22 February 2013.  He is the third Queenslander to die from the deadly virus.

A snorkler's paradise in the Whitsundays

But the tragedy is that the little boy was bitten by a flying fox while holidaying in the Whitsundays three weeks earlier, and didn't bother to tell his parents.

We've been living with flying foxes in the city and the country for years without a problem.  If you walk around the block on hot summer nights and look up, you will see them out and about, but when daylight comes, they disappear.  

So why don't we just get rid of them?  Because they are protected and it's a criminal offence to kill them.

There has been a huge colony of flying foxes living in the Sydney Botanical Gardens for years and they've tried everything legal to get rid of them.  I once saw huge blow up dancing figures dotted throughout the gardens and loud noise was blasted through loud speakers.  But whatever they are doing, it's working because the latest report says that there are no longer any grey-headed flying foxes roosting in the gardens and on-going deterrents continue every day to make sure they don't come back.

Bob Catter, a Queensland politician, wants them culled and their legal protection status removed.  The Greens were appalled that he could even think of removing protection from these vulnerable animals, but as usual, The Greens and the general public don't always agree.

Health authorities have issued a serious warning to everyone that we need to pass on.  Although it's highly unlikely you will ever come in contact with a flying fox, if you do find one lying on the ground injured, don't be a Good Samaritan and pick it up, don't touch it.

And tell your family and everyone you know.

Gerard Bayden Clay to stand trial

Yesterday, Magistrate Brendan Butler announced that there was enough evidence to send Gerard Bayden-Clay to trial for the murder of his wife Allison, the mother of his three daughters.

After sitting out of sight in a corner of the courtroom for six days, the judge asked him to stand up and move forward so everyone could see him.  When asked if he had anything to say in answer to the charges laid against him, he said "I am innocent, your Honour."

When the accused was asked about his injuries, he said the gouges on his face were caused by shaving with a blunt razor, the marks on his neck were caused when he scratched a caterpillar, the marks on his chest were caused by scratching an itch, and the injury to his hand happened when he changed a light bulb.

Gerard's mistress was Property Manager at his Real Estate office, Toni McHugh.  She told the court their relationship ended in September 2011 but was rekindled again in December, before Allison disappeared on 20 April 2012.  Gerard told her he "couldn't afford a divorce" but promised to end his marriage "by the end of the year."  Ms McHugh was distraught when she discovered in the months after Allison's disappearance, that she wasn't his only mistress.

Allison

Gerard Bayden-Clay is the great grandson of Lord Bayden-Powell, founder of the world-wide Scout Movement.

A jury will now decide his fate.

Letter to George W Bush from Iraq veteran

Tomas Young

March 19, 2013

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunger and finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans - my fellow veterans - whose future you stole.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness. 

Media Reform Bill fiasco

Kevin Rudd is enjoying himself.  How sweet it must be for him to see Julia Gillard, the woman who replaced him as leader, now struggling in the polls.  Rudd has always beaten Gillard in the popularity stakes, the people love him. Afterall, he was the man who brought the Labor Party out of the wilderness and into power, yet union heavyweights and other power brokers decided he had to go.  Now they realize their terrible mistake - they got rid of the only man who could have kept them safely in power.

As Labor MPs start to get anxious about losing their seats in the upcoming general election in September, panic is setting in.  Bringing back Rudd as leader won't make any difference, it's too late.  The Obeid affair proved that the Labor brand is on the nose and even though it involved mainly NSW Labor MPs, the tentacles of corruption spread all the way to Canberra.


There is talk of bringing back Simon Crean to end the Gillard versus Rudd leadership fiasco, but he's been leader of the Labor Party before, he wasn't popular then and he's not the answer now.


Out of the blue last week, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy arrogantly announced that controversial media reform packages had to be rushed through by Thursday (tomorrow). 

Stephen Conroy

The bottom line of the Bill is that a single government-appointed regulator would deem what is okay to print and what isn't, with no appeal.  Naturally, the media and the electorate went ballistic and accused the PM of trying to gag the media.  


The proposed legislation is so unpopular that for the first time, the Independents have said they will vote with the Opposition to kill it off. The British press has been caught out tapping phones and bribing people for an exclusive story and there was a real need for media reform in the UK, but not here in Australia, we haven't sunk to their level yet.


Julia Gillard, quick to realize her mistake, by-passed her Minister Conroy and personally took over negotiations with the Independents and she's come up with a compromise - an independent panel - and at least one of the Independents, Tony Windsor, is showing signs of warming to the idea. 

So the battle isn't over yet.

Edit 22.03.2013:  Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy's draconian media laws, which would have seen a government-appointed regulator of the press and sanctions that could shut down newspaper reporting, had to be dumped by the government yesterday.

Cyprus bailout takes bank deposits by force

The tiny island nation of Cyprus is in crisis.  The President said a bank levy on private bank accounts was the "least painful" option to keep the country afloat.  As a condition for a 10 billion euro bailout, fellow Eurozone countries and world-wide creditors imposed a levy on all bank deposits.

It will hit the wealthy, who can afford it, including many Russians who have put vast sums into Cyprus banks in recent years, to those who can't afford it  - retirees and ordinary workers.  Those with more than 100,000 euros in the bank will pay a 9.9 per cent levy and those with less, will pay 6.75 per cent.

Wealthy nations like Germany and The Netherlands have decided that from now on, when a bank or country fails, it will be bond investors and bank deposit holders who will pick up a big part of the bill.

The European Central Bank said that the bailout will go ahead on the condition that the bill goes through Sunday or Monday, before financial markets open in Europe.  A bank holiday was declared on Monday to stop a run on the banks and now they will remain closed on Tuesday and possibly even Wednesday.

It's likely there will be a run on all European banks as the threat of governments taking private savings by force becomes a reality.

"Why should I leave all my money in Cyprus?" one investment banker said yesterday.  "I have already instructed my bank to send my entire savings to London when the banks open on Tuesday. A precedent has been set - what is to stop them doing this again?"

Crime gangs now own Sydney streets

There was another shooting in Sydney last night but this time, it wasn't about warning shots to the legs, but several shots to the head, killing 25 year old Khaled Kahwaji while he sat in his Mazda on Wilbur Road, Greenacre. He was a well known gang member who had been previously charged with murder.  And it happened in broad daylight - 6.30 pm last night.  His cousins, one of them dressed in an Islamic Brotherhood hoodie, kept watch outside the house for much of the night.


The body was found lying next to his car which had bullet holes in the driver's door and windscreen.  The street was blocked off and locals returning from work were not allowed to enter their homes until police had finished their investigations.


Sydney residents who happen to live in the same street as criminal gang members are fed up with the almost daily shootings, but police have no idea how to stop it.  They were expecting trouble after the aunt of Supermax inmate Bassam Hamzy was shot in the legs last week, when she opened the front door of her unit in Auburn.


There have been 35 shootings this year, more than three a week, and 10 so far this month.  If ever there was a case for sacking the top Sydney cop, this is it, they are embarrassing themselves with their ineptitude.  Crime gangs now own the streets of Sydney.

The new humble Pope

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was a 30/1 outsider, not a member of the high flyer boys club, but a Jesuit intellectual who travels by bus.  

He urged the Argentinian people not to come to Rome to celebrate his victory, but to give the money to the poor instead.  He refused to live in the grand Cardinal's residence in Buenos Aires, preferring a small apartment and also refused the offer of a chauffeur-driven car.

For the ride back to the conclave lodgings after the election, Francis shunned the papal limousine with the "Vatican City State One" number plates and boarded a minibus with the other Cardinals.

The new Pontiff is an early riser and wakes at 4.30 every morning and unlike most Argentines who eat at 11pm, he goes to bed at 9pm. Although he seems to be in good health at 76, he underwent surgery in his teens to remove an infected lung.

He is the son of Italian parents, raised in Argentina and becomes the first Latin American Pope.

Chinese love hunters

New York Times journalist Brook Larmer wrote an article about Yang Ying, one of China's love hunters.  Her job is to find a suitable wife who meets all the requirements of rich Chinese businessmen.

She works for the Beijing branch of Diamond Love and is always on the lookout for likely candidates - in the street, shopping centres and in every public place.  The love hunter who finds the perfect match receives a bonus of $30,000 which is five times the average salary in this line of work.

Diamond Love has four million wealthy men on their books who are prepared to pay well for a suitable wife.  She will have a pretty face, perfect skin, and must be a virgin.  Once a candidate is found, she will undergo a series of tests to prove she is truthful, honest and not after her future husband's money.  If she passes, she will learn how to be a better wife, the importance of sexual relations, how to manage a rich man's household and how to read her husband's moods.  The $16,000 fee for two 14-day courses is then paid by the prospective husband.


Finding a suitable wife in China today is not easy, especially if you are poor.  Mothers of sons who don't own a house or apartment and are in low-paid work find it very hard.  Traditionally, people relied on matchmakers and family to find a suitable spouse but as the family structure breaks down and disintegrates, those customs have now disappeared, leaving young people confused and not knowing where to turn.


But there is one dreaded custom in China that hasn't disintegrated and still puts enormous pressure on women.  If a woman isn't married before the age of 28, she becomes one of the "leftover women."


A long history of son preference has led to female infanticide and easy access to abortion, courtesy of the government's one-child policy, has led to widespread abortion of female fetuses.  As a result, 30 million more men than women will reach adulthood and enter China's mating market by 2020.

Dennis Rodman meets Kim Jong Un

North Korea has threatened to attack the US with a nuclear bomb and has just scrapped its 60 year old ceasefire with South Korea in a fit of temper after the UN issued new sanctions to punish the regime for its recent nuclear test.  But the new unofficial US Ambassador, Dennis Rodman, says Kim Jong Un has a message for President Obama.  Call me.

The dictator's love of basketball is the reason Dennis Rodman paid a visit to North Korea last week.  Touring with the Harlem Globetrotters, the former Chicago Bulls star is the highest profile American to meet Kim since he took power in December 2011.

Last Thursday, an exhibition match was held with two American players on each team of North Koreans.  The match ended in a convenient 110-110 tie and after the game, Kim threw an "epic feast" for the Americans.

Rodman says Kim has a message for President Obama "Call me, he doesn't want to do war."  So does Rodman know who he is dealing with - a tyrant who allows his own people to starve to death and refuses to acknowledge human rights?

When Rodman was asked to explain why he thinks Kim is "an awesome guy", he said "I don't condone that, he's not his father and he's not his grandfather."

He told Kim that "President Obama loves basketball, so let's start from there."  But the State Department was not impressed and said North Korea was "wining and dining" Rodman while its people go hungry.

Rodman plans to return in August to go on holiday with Kim and "to find out more about what's really going on."

Middle Eastern crime gang Brothers 4 Life

The owner of a Bankstown restaurant told police he was terrified when two men paid him a visit and wanted $50,000 in exchange for "protection."  Then they told him about the Brothers 4 Life.

The gang was founded by Bassam Hamzy who was jailed for life in 2002 for the murder of Kris Toumazis and conspiring to kill a witness. The groups insignia, two crossed AK47 machine guns, is turning up at crime scenes across Sydney.

In December 2012, Bachir Aria was shot 8 times on the front lawn of his mother's house.  In October Yehya Amoud was shot dead as he and his friend Bassam Hijazi sat in an expensive Mercedes bearing the number plate "B F L".  In August, a 16 year old boy was shot in the leg in a driveway scrawled with the words "Brothers 4 Life."  Youths wearing "B4L" T-shirts were involved in the violent protest in Martin Place last September and held up signs which read "Behead those who insult the prophet."

Bassam Hamzy

In 2008, police discovered that Hamzy had been making 400 calls a day from his Lithgow prison to co-ordinate the gang and run his $250,000-a-week drug ring. He is now in Goulburn Supermax. 

Yesterday afternoon, Hamzy's aunt, whose son is a member of Brothers 4 Life, was shot four times in the legs as she opened the front door of her Auburn unit. Twenty minutes later, also in Auburn, shots were fired at the house next door  to convicted drug dealer Hakan Goktas 39.

Police are angry that a senior member of the Brothers 4 Life gang was granted bail last week over a knee-capping at Bass Hill last month and the 24 year old victim had to go into hiding under police protection. When police are trying hard to encourage the Muslim community to come forward and testify against violence and intimidation, the system lets the perpetrators out.

Sydney used to be a quiet, peace-loving city until the Middle Eastern crime gangs moved in or did they just evolve?  As everyday shootings become more common place, our beautiful city is being ruined by a small group of thugs who think they own the streets.  And police seem incapable of doing anything about it.

One brave cop

One brave cop stands his ground while being confronted by a crazed gunman yesterday in a busy shopping mall in Brisbane.  And he wasn't wearing a bullet proof vest.

It all started when two plain clothes detectives confronted a man in the mall who responded by pulling out a pistol.  When police screamed at him to lie down on the ground, he refused and started walking around. This went on for about an hour.

It came to an end soon after the gunman pointed the gun to his own neck, and screamed "shoot me, shoot me." Then he turned the gun towards three elderly people sitting on a bench, who froze in fear. Thats when police fired three non-lethal shots using a bean bag gun. It was enough to make him drop the gun and he was quickly overwhelmed.

It was a bizarre scene, one crazy man with a pistol caused complete mayhem.  Heavily armed police from the Special Emergency Response Team (SERT) arrived in their armoured truck, ready for world war three.

 Then it was all over, and everyone went back to work.

Saudi Princess does a moonlight flit in Paris

Lawyers for the Shangri-La hotel in Paris have won a legal battle to have all of Saudi Princess, Maha Al-Sudain's assets in France seized.

King Abdullah warned his family about squandering money and laid down a new set of rules.  The King confined her to a palace in 2009 after she left a trail of unpaid bills across Europe, but she escaped and took an entourage of 60 friends and servants with her to Paris for a spending spree.

She took over an entire 41 room floor at the Shangri-La Hotel in Paris for six months, racking up a bill of $7.5 million but the King refused to pay it.  Shocked, she decided the best thing to do was sneak out in the middle of the night and was caught red handed at 3.30 am in June last year, loading mountains of shopping and suitcases into a fleet of limos. When police arrived to arrest her, she claimed diplomatic immunity and simply moved into the nearby five star Royal Monceau Hotel, owned by a friend of the family.

The Princess bought three units in Paris where she has stored some of the goods from her shopping sprees, including expensive artworks, jewellery and clothing.  A spokesman for the Shangra-La said "Her belongings will need to be valued and then sold at auction, and even then, we may need to take international legal action against the princess before we see any cash."

All members of the Al Saud family receive a generous monthly stipend. It starts with the lowliest member of the most remote branch of the family and goes all the way up to the surviving sons of Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia.  Grandchildren and great-grandchildren also receive staggering amounts and bonus payments are also available for marriage and palace building.  The stipends encourage the family to keep on having children, as it begins at birth.


The princess's rich credentials meant that her IOU notes to shopkeepers which read "payment to follow" were usually accepted.  But not anymore.