Bus, truck and taxi drivers are among the biggest users in the workforce of amphetamines, including "ice", a party drug that causes psychotic episodes. More than a third of amphetamine users reported turning up to work under the influence in the past three months. Use of the drug is also prevalent in the hospitality, agriculture and construction industries. The findings come from the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction at Adelaide's Flinders University. They will be presented today at the Australasian Amphetamine Conference, the first national conference to examine amphetamine use in Australia. [continues 158 words]
LIBERAL leader Ted Baillieu is being urged to introduce drug testing in secondary schools if he wins November's state election. The Liberals' state council meeting this weekend will debate a resolution calling on a Baillieu government to order government schools to conduct "health tests" to detect whether students are using drugs. The South Yarra branch of the party, which will move the resolution, has circulated a supporting statement to delegates which says: "The use of illicit drugs is escalating to the extent that we must do more to detect its early use, because many parents are the last to know their child is rapidly becoming addicted to drugs." The branch says abuse of illicit drugs leads to hundreds of deaths and costs the Federal Government about $6.1 billion a year. It cites federal Health Department research showing that 36 per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds surveyed had used cannabis, "a drug that leads to the use of harder drugs such as ecstasy, speed, LSD, heroin and cocaine". [continues 280 words]
VICTORIA leads the world in the fight against heroin, but is following international trends with an escalation in mental health problems caused by amphetamines. A heroin shortage coupled with innovative drug treatment programs has resulted in Victoria's heroin death toll falling from a peak of 359 in 1999 to nine deaths so far this year. But drug researchers and police warn against complacency. International and Australian drug syndicates are diversifying from heroin production and trafficking into amphetamines. "This is no time for complacency," said Professor Steve Allsop, director of the National Drug Research Institute. "We have to be vigilant about heroin. It is likely to re-emerge at some point and services and governments have to be prepared for that. [continues 298 words]
MELBOURNE is winning the war on heroin with a dramatic decline in overdose deaths that has taken narcotics experts and politicians by surprise. Just nine heroin users have died so far this year, compared with 39 at the same time last year. And the toll is a dramatic turnaround on 1999 when 359 Victorians died from overdoses at a time when Melbourne's CBD was awash with heroin. The chairman of the Premier's Drug Prevention Council, Rob Moodie, said the decline was remarkable. [continues 530 words]
Councillors in Melbourne's western suburbs have joined social workers in attacking a plan by police in the City of Maribyrnong to ban drug users and dealers from their municipality. Today Senior Sergeant David Byrt from Footscray police outlined Project Reduction, a 12-month pilot program whereby police will apply to magistrates for exclusion orders to stop non-resident drug offenders from entering the nine suburbs that make up the City of Maribyrnong. Sergeant Byrt described the plan as an "innovative" and "realistic" move to reduce drug-related crime in Footscray and surrounding suburbs such as Seddon, Braybrook and Maidstone. [continues 499 words]
NEW strains of highly potent cannabis are as dangerous as heroin and cocaine and the drug can no longer be dismissed as soft and relatively harmless, the United Nations has warned. In an implied criticism of Britain's decision to downgrade cannabis, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said countries got the drug problem they deserved if they maintained inadequate policies. His comments indicated deep unhappiness with the British Government decision to reclassify cannabis from a class B drug to class C. Heroin and cocaine are class A, attracting the toughest penalties. [continues 170 words]
OPIUM poppy cultivation has been almost eradicated in Asia's Golden Triangle, the border zone between Burma, Thailand and Laos that was once the world's most prolific supplier of opium, according to a report published by the United Nations. The area of land being used for poppy farming has fallen by 22 per cent worldwide, reflecting declines in the world's three biggest producers of opium: Afghanistan, Burma and Laos. The UN's 2006 World Drug Report said Laos, once the world's third biggest heroin producer, declared itself free of poppy cultivation in February. [continues 83 words]
A BID to achieve "no illicit drugs in school" was an unrealistic goal of the Federal Government that could alienate many young people and drug users, a national conference has heard. A leading drugs researcher described the goal as "a slogan masquerading as an outcome", which detracted from the need to arm students with skills to make responsible decisions about drugs. "Tough slogans are easy but delivering the results is not," said Associate Professor Richard Midford, a keynote speaker at the fifth International Conference on Drugs and Young People, held in Sydney last week. [continues 270 words]
Concerned by misinformation about the effects of the drug, the Australian National Council on Drugs (NACD) today released a booklet aimed at educating the 1.8 million Australians who have used cannabis in the past year. The NACD said 5.5 million people had tried the drug at some time, while 295,200 were using it every single day. Council executive director Gino Vumbaca said the 20-29 years age group were the heaviest users and users came from a range of socio-economic groups. [continues 100 words]
Prisoners who stay on methadone treatment programs for eight months or more are less likely than other heroin-addicted inmates to return to jail, at least in the short-term, Australian researchers say. A four-year study of almost 400 heroin users in NSW jails has prompted the researchers to call for an expansion of methadone programs in Australian prisons. They said broadening the programs to include more prisoners would substantially save taxpayers' money. The researchers found the risk for released prisoners to end up back in jail decreased the longer they stayed on methadone treatment. [continues 265 words]
VICTORIAN Premier Steve Bracks has spoken out strongly against the death penalty in a meeting with Singapore's Prime Minister, four months after the execution of Melbourne drug smuggler Nguyen Tuong Van. Before the meeting, Mr Bracks made it clear that the State Government would make no apologies for describing Singapore's decision to hang Nguyen as a "barbaric" act. In a closed meeting with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last night, Mr Bracks said Victoria still held the strong view that clemency ought to have been granted to Nguyen, 24, who was hanged after being caught trying to smuggle heroin.. [continues 427 words]
Former drug users may be allowed into the military under a plan flagged by Defence Minister Brendan Nelson and backed by defence groups. Dr Nelson has proposed relaxing rules governing entry to the defence forces which would allow former users of recreational drugs such as cannabis to join-up. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) fell short of its recruitment target last year and on current trends the military could shrink over coming years. A spokesman for Dr Nelson said about 40 per cent of people in the general community admitted to using drugs at some time in their lives. [continues 381 words]
Parties needed more time. Mr Gray said his court had done everything it could to reduce delays, including fast-tracking committal hearings in major criminal trials. Chief Justice Warren said she was surprised by Mr Overland's claims, as the Supreme Court had given high priority to major criminal trials, allocating eight judges to them over the past 18 months. She said Mr Overland's views did not reflect the true picture of the major criminal trials in the Supreme Court. [continues 431 words]
THE conviction of missing drug importer Tony Mokbel was highly unusual and his imminent sentencing undesirable, the Criminal Bar Association said yesterday. Association's secretary Gregory Lyon, SC, said sentencing should be adjourned until Mokbel reappeared so that all the circumstances and relevant sentencing principles could be taken into account. Mokbel will be sentenced in the Supreme Court today after a jury found him guilty of being knowingly concerned in the importation of two kilograms of pure cocaine from Mexico in late 2000. [continues 157 words]
Melbourne lawyers have hit back at calls for pre-trial short cuts for some high-profile criminal cases and police suggestions some lawyers have become silent partners in crime. Assistant Commissioner for Crime Simon Overland said today Victoria's justice system was struggling with delays in bringing major criminal cases to court, including those of gangland-related murders and the drugs trial of Tony Mokbel. But Victorian Criminal Bar Association chairman Lex Lasry, QC, said resources were needed to support the judicial process and police should focus on the "corrupt relationship" between some police and criminals. [continues 579 words]
The judge who today sentenced Tony Mokbel to 12 years' jail has described the fugitive drug dealer as "the brains" behind a plot to import cocaine into Australia in 2000. The 40-year-old millionaire businessman, whose full name is Antonios Sajih Mokbel, was this week found guilty by a Supreme Court jury after a seven-week trial of being knowingly concerned in the importation of almost three kilograms of cocaine despite being absent from court since skipping bail last Sunday. [continues 331 words]
VICTORIA'S highest ranking detective has the backing of the Ombudsman for a debate on scrapping committal hearings in serious criminal cases, but lawyers fiercely oppose the idea. Assistant Commissioner Simon Overland said Magistrates Court committal hearings were obsolete and unnecessarily delayed big jury trials. His call for reform came a day after millionaire drug dealer Tony Mokbel was convicted over a cocaine importation. Mokbel, who had been on bail for more than three years, disappeared last week days before the jury retired to consider its verdict. [continues 421 words]
Underworld godfather Tony Mokbel would have lost his liberty this week - - but he is not around to serve his jail term. John Silvester profiles the small man who wanted big things. It was just a little stumble that spilt the tin that caused the fire that led to the explosion that brought the firemen who called the police who found the amphetamine laboratory that Tony built. The lab, in a quiet residential street in Brunswick, had proved to be a virtual goldmine, pumping out speed until the day Paul Edward Howden kicked over a bucket of solvents that ignited and burnt the house down in February 1997. Police didn't have far to look for the main suspect. They found Howden at The Alfred hospital being treated for severe burns to 30 per cent of his body. [continues 2937 words]
Victoria's highest-ranking detective, Assistant Commissioner Simon Overland, says the criminal justice system is failing to cope with sophisticated organised crime and requires immediate reform to avoid permanent gridlock. Mr Overland says police, witnesses and prosecutors are frustrated that cases are taking years to come to trial. Highlighting "chronic" problems in the justice system, Mr Overland has told The Age: Nine underworld murder victims were on court-approved bail when they were shot dead. Four hitmen are suspected of carrying out murders while on bail over serious charges. [continues 756 words]
An Italian prosecutor tells Nick McKenzie it is time Australian police woke up to the Mafia menace in their midst. MANY of the towns scattered across the picturesque region of Calabria in southern Italy seem frozen in time. Local dialects spill from ancient shopfronts and, while cars have mostly replaced carts, the streets are still lined with cobblestones. Another tradition is that the Calabrian Mafia, known as the " 'Ndrangheta" or "Honoured Society", frustrates the authorities and the Government. So it was something of a coup when, about four years ago, an undercover operative infiltrated the Mancuso family, as part of an investigation codenamed Operation Decollo. As the evidence grew, so did the belief of Italian investigators that they stood a good chance of crushing one of Calabria's leading crime syndicates. [continues 1970 words]
A SECRET intelligence file stolen from Victoria Police tipped off Melbourne's underworld about a federal police investigation into a number of men suspected of conspiring with the Calabrian Mafia to ship huge amounts of cocaine into Australia. Information about the AFP investigation was contained in the highly protected file that was compiled in 2002 and stolen from police offices. A corruption probe last year headed by Tony Fitzgerald, QC, found the file was most likely stolen by a police officer and leaked to several underworld crime figures after it was stolen in September 2003. The timing of the theft means that the file may have been circulating in the underworld three months before the AFP raided the homes of suspects in the cocaine conspiracy in early 2004 while the investigation was at a highly sensitive stage. [continues 441 words]
Prevention, Education and Treatment Are the Way to Tackle Cannabis. What is the real dope on cannabis? Over the past year, the Prime Minister and other federal ministers have been calling for a tougher criminal approach to cannabis. The PM talks of "tolerant and absurdly compromised" attitudes towards marijuana use, saying marijuana had "caused a rise in mental illness and was a classic case of chickens coming home to roost". The South Australian cannabis laws, using civil rather than criminal penalties, were an issue in the weekend's state election, with the Opposition reported as saying it will re-criminalise the growing or possessing of cannabis for personal use. [continues 812 words]
How Sociology And A Lack Of Prints Helped A North Korean Crew Get Off, Despite Offloading Victoria's Biggest Heroin Haul TWO men drop over the side of the North Korean freighter Pong Su. It is early morning, April 16, 2003. The ship is near the coast of southern Victoria, and it has a precious cargo. Carefully sealed in blue plastic bags, 150 kilograms of high-grade heroin are transferred from the ship to a rubber dinghy. In treacherous conditions near Boggaley Creek, about 100 kilometres from Geelong, the dinghy's outboard motor is started. [continues 855 words]
SCHAPELLE Corby's flamboyant Jakarta lawyer has abandoned her case just days after Indonesia's highest court threw out her appeal against her drug-smuggling conviction. Hotman Paris Hutapea said he had been volunteering his time to defend the 28-year-old Gold Coast woman but now wanted to devote his energy to cases that would make him money. "I want to buy the new model Ferrari, so I have to make more money now," said the self-proclaimed playboy, renowned for his designer suits. [continues 76 words]
VICTORIA Police will continue to use sniffer dogs in its bid to combat "prolific" drug use at dance parties, after 35 people were caught with drugs at the New Year's Day Summadayze festival. Superintendent Mick Williams said most of the 23,000 people at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl behaved very well, but he believed the numbers caught with drugs would have been higher if police had used more sniffer dogs outside the venue. "Whilst we had about 30 police deployed to accompany the dogs, I'm confident in saying that if we had 60 police there, we probably would have double the number of arrests," he said. [continues 162 words]
WITH the execution of young Australian citizen Nguyen Tuong Van now a fait accompli, commentators have sought to draw lessons from the human tragedy of a legally sanctioned death in another country. Some see the episode as merely a timely reminder to Australians of the dangers of trafficking in illicit drugs in countries ready and willing to impose draconian penalties on offenders. Others see capital punishment as barbaric. They point to the need for Australia to adopt a more consistent approach in the international arena to the use of capital punishment by so many of our neighbours, major trading partners and political allies. [continues 462 words]
THE scientists who introduced ecstasy to the world in the 1970s fears its notoriety is destroying any chance that it might be used to treat the mentally ill. "Its very excellent potential for being used as medicine has been badly jeopardised," lamented Alexander Shulgin. The tall Californian, widely known as "Dr Ecstasy", said it had gone out of control. A psychopharmacological researcher who once had a licence from the US government to develop any illegal drug, Dr Shulgin, 80, believes strongly in the power of psychedelic drugs to unlock the human mind. [continues 286 words]
In Aceh, boredom and hopelessness are rife. TEENAGE tsunami survivors in Indonesia's stricken Aceh province are turning to marijuana to escape the trauma and despair. "Marijuana use has become much more prevalent since the tsunami," says David Gordon, director of Yakita, Indonesia's largest drug rehabilitation agency. "Kids are starting to use ganja from a younger age and on a more regular basis." Aceh, where an estimated 170,000 people were killed and 500,000 made homeless by the Boxing Day tsunami, is Indonesia's most religiously conservative state, with alcohol prohibited and social conduct governed by Islam's sharia law. [continues 443 words]
IT WAS news they had received before, but that didn't make it any easier to hear: the Singapore Government sees no further grounds to review Nguyen Tuong Van's death sentence. After a hastily arranged meeting with senior minister Ho Peng Kee in Singapore yesterday, Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls had lunch with Nguyen's mother Kim and twin brother Khoa. But he was unable to deliver them much hope. Mr Hulls said it was one of the toughest meetings he'd had, "talking to a mother who knows in all likelihood her son is going to be executed in just over a week". [continues 390 words]
GOUGH Whitlam has hit out at the "Chinese rogue port city" that will execute Nguyen Tuong Van, saying John Howard should raise the case and capital punishment at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta. His comments came as another former Labor PM, Bob Hawke, yesterday made a private appeal to Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, to spare the Melbourne man's life. Earlier, Mr Howard said he would not lobby other Commonwealth countries to pressure Singapore. He indicated he would not use CHOGM to pursue the issue, believing nothing more could be done. [continues 561 words]
New research suggests Australian children are experimenting with drugs at alarmingly early ages. The result, according to doctors, can be a lifetime of problems. By Carol Nader. IT WAS when her daughter turned 15 that Barbara noticed the dramatic change. The teenager was frequently distressed. Her eyes were red and swollen from constant crying. She became withdrawn, sullen, depressed. She could not sleep, and spent more and more time out, only returning home for meals. Then came other, more disturbing signs. She would pass out on the couch and could not be roused. Then started the anxiety and paranoia, followed by the early signs of psychosis. [continues 2148 words]
AUSTRALIAN children as young as 11 are experimenting with drugs. Among 12-to-15-year-olds who have taken drugs, the average age when they first used pain-killers -- for recreational rather than medical reasons -- is 11 years and five months. An analysis of the 2004 National Drug Strategy Household Survey also reveals that some children in that age group are first trying steroids, inhalants, heroin and cocaine -- all before they turn 13. Most of the teenagers obtained their first cigarette from a friend or acquaintance, while more than one in five said they had obtained their first cigarette by theft. [continues 330 words]
THE mother and brother of the Melbourne man condemned to hang have flown to Singapore to see him one last time as hopes of a reprieve fade. As last-minute political and legal manoeuvres to save the life of Nguyen Tuong Van were explored, Kim Nguyen and her son Khoa, Nguyen's twin brother, silently braved the media pack waiting at Melbourne Airport. A fragile Kim Nguyen, flanked by her son's friends, Kelly Nguyen and Bronwyn Lew, and lawyers Lex Lasry, QC, and Julian McMahon, had to be supported as she made her way to board the 7 1/2 hour Qantas flight. Khoa was stoic and silent. [continues 811 words]
Victoria is continuing its roadside random drug testing beyond its 12-month trial period and is set to increase penalties for offenders. The 12-month trial of saliva drug testing was to end on December 13 but Victorian Premier Steve Bracks today said random testing of drivers would continue. He also said the government was considering increasing penalties for those caught driving with illicit drugs in their system. During the trial period those who returned a positive laboratory result incurred a $307 fine and lost three licence points. [continues 293 words]
SINGAPORE carries out its executions like clockwork. Death by hanging happens at Changi prison on Fridays at dawn. Singapore says it uses the gallows "sparingly and only for the most heinous crimes". The facts say otherwise. Singapore has executed at least 400 offenders in the past 15 years, one of the highest per capita rates of capital punishment anywhere in the world. Mostly, the condemned have been small-time drug traffickers, many of them foreigners. In 10 days, Singapore intends to hang 25-year-old Melbourne man Nguyen Tuong Van after he was convicted for possessing a commercial quantity of heroin. Justifiably, many Australians are appalled. [continues 758 words]
Despite A Global Move Towards Abolition Of The Death Penalty, The Issue Barely Rates A Mention In Most Of South-East Asia. Connie Levett Reports. THAILAND likes to parade its villains. This week, Thai television aired taxi driver Narong Panyee's confession that he had robbed and raped more female passengers than he could remember since his release from prison two years ago. During the report, the news ticker began to roll across bottom of the screen, streaming the anger of viewers via SMS: "He should be castrated; He should die; We should kill him". [continues 1322 words]
HUMAN rights group Amnesty International may have strengthened its campaign to save a Melbourne man from the gallows, but Prime Minister John Howard appears to have given up hope. Asked yesterday if he would be making a personal plea to Singapore's Prime Minister to save 25-year-old salesman Nguyen Tuong Van from hanging, Mr Howard said he had done everything he could. Nguyen was caught at Changi airport in 2002 with 396 grams of heroin strapped to his body and in his hand luggage. He is expected to hang within four weeks. [continues 448 words]
SCHAPELLE Corby will attempt to overturn her 20-year drug smuggling sentence with another appeal, this time to Indonesia's Supreme Court, despite a controversial court ruling that reduced her sentence to 15 years. An angry Corby has condemned the ruling, demanding the Australian Government be blamed for her plight. Her family is insisting she should be freed. In a deal apparently made between Corby's lawyers and some of the judges hearing her first appeal, Corby's conviction for smuggling four kilograms of marijuana was upheld, but her term cut by five years. [continues 111 words]
The Colombian government plans to spray the country's national parks with herbicide to rid them of the raw material for cocaine despite protests from environmental groups. Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt said spraying the parks would save them from destruction at the hands of drug smugglers, who the government says damage the environment with chemicals used to make cocaine, such as sulfuric acid. "The government's duty is not to allow our nature reserves to be wiped out by these ecological criminals," Pretelt told reporters. [continues 400 words]
Denpasar -- "IT'S like jumping into the lion's den and everybody trying to take a piece of you," says model Michelle Leslie to Norah Cullen, amid a legal and physical nightmare in a Bali police cell. Ms Cullen, as much mother as friend, flew to Denpasar the day after Leslie was arrested for carrying two ecstasy tablets. The Lebanese-born Sydney businesswoman was confronted too by the media circus that has enveloped her friend in the past fortnight. She found Leslie jammed into a cockroach-infested cell little more than two metres square with 12 women. [continues 594 words]
A LEADING Victorian drug health expert has accused the State Government of discriminating against rural areas most in need, claiming drug program funding is being determined by political motives. "Major programs are funded in politically sensitive electorates - Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong - where there are marginal seats," says Rodger Brough, director of South West Healthcare. Areas such as Gippsland, the Western District, Mildura and Horsham were ignored and suffered a dearth of services, said Dr Brough, who is also on the management committee of the Western Region Alcohol and Drug Centre. [continues 831 words]
From One Tree Hill, Bendigo is a charmer, particularly on a crisp winter morning under an early sun. It placidly fills the valley below, only the jutting spires of the stately Sacred Heart Cathedral drawing the eye to the centre of town. Bendigo has been called "Vienna in the bush" and it gives every appearance of being an orderly and upstanding centre where good citizenship manifests itself as an absence of litter and graffiti, and grand old buildings impose themselves as a vision of a golden yesteryear. [continues 2822 words]
The Bali nine have been told they'll probably face trial within weeks on drug charges that carry the death penalty. Indonesian police have completed their investigation and their defence lawyers expect evidence files will be handed to Denpasar prosecutors on Monday, clearing the way for a series of seven trials to start, probably in early next month. Haposan Sihombing, the lawyer for Wollongong man Martin Stephens, 29, and Newcastle woman Renae Lawrence, 27, broke the news to his clients in Bali's Kerobokan Prison today. [continues 395 words]
Unfortunately, the AFL had little choice but to back down in the face of intense government pressure, accept the authoritarian rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency and just say "No" to dope. AFL clubs have learned over the years that you can't fight City Hall, which has ways of forcing recalcitrant clubs into line. Yesterday, the AFL administration discovered it was as helpless as Fitzroy, circa 1996, in the face of intense government pressure. You know the Government is wielding a serious stick when the Prime Minister contacts the president of the Melbourne Football Club as part of the lobbying effort. The league was faced with losing nearly $2 million annually, plus the millions it hopes to secure in the coming years. [continues 497 words]
The AFL plans to continue its 44-week out-of-competition testing for illicit drugs, regardless of an accommodation with the World Anti-Doping Agency. The AFL today meets the Federal Sport Minister, Rod Kemp, in a bid to find a compromise over the issue of illicit drugs that could cost football millions of dollars in government funding. While it is the penalties for positive tests for illicit drugs, especially marijuana, that has caused the AFL to fall out of step with the WADA, chief executive Andrew Demetriou said last night that the league believed in its 44 weeks of testing. [continues 265 words]
A fiery debate erupted on a popular US TV talkshow today when a panel of celebrities, including veteran journalist Barbara Walters, discussed the Schapelle Corby drug case. One panellist, Joy Behar, branded Bali's drug laws "crazy" and supported the campaign to boycott Bali as a tourist destination. "So the Australians are right," Behar told an audience of several million viewers. "Don't travel to Bali because their laws are crazy." The heated discussion came today on one of America's top-rating morning television talkshows, The View. [continues 322 words]
A letter sent by the Howard Government to prosecutors in the Schapelle Corby case, detailing accusations of drug smuggling against Australian baggage handlers, will have no bearing on the verdict after the chief judge in the case dismissed it as irrelevant. The letter has also annoyed the prosecutors and Corby's Indonesian lawyers, who see it as too little too late. Chief prosecutor Ida Bagus Wiswantanu said the letter, revealed by Prime Minister John Howard yesterday, had no legal standing and should be ignored. [continues 472 words]
Canada has become the first country to approve a cannabis-based pain-killer for multiple sclerosis patients. Sufferers and proponents of medical uses for marijuana have applauded the move. Health Canada, the federal agency, has approved the prescription pain-killer Sativex, made from parts of the cannabis plant that ease pain. British drug company GW Pharmaceuticals, which developed the drug, said Canada was the first country to grant regulatory approval for Sativex. Bayer HealthCare will market Sativex in Canada. The drug could be in pharmacies by the northern summer. [continues 206 words]
Baggage handlers could have put marijuana into the luggage of an Australian woman on trial for importing marijuana into Indonesia, it has been suggested. Callers to ABC youth network Triple J's Hack program, who included drug traffickers, drug users and baggage handlers, said they believed Gold Coast woman Schapelle Corby, 27, was innocent. One person who emailed the show initially raised the theory, which then received a flood of talkback calls backing up the suggestion. Several people who worked as baggage handlers told the program that trafficking drugs between states was widespread among their colleagues. [continues 366 words]
The case against young Australian Schapelle Corby in Bali raises more questions than answers. Philip Cornford examines the evidence. There is a moment in Schapelle Corby's life, before it plunged into chaos, when the world seemed wonderful, an exciting adventure. It is a moment when what was to come was just not conceivable, beyond the imagination of any traveller. It is a moment caught in a photograph, and it was the last time a camera was kind to her. The photograph was taken by her mother, Ros, after Corby, 27, and her three companions had been cleared to board QF50, the first of two flights that would take them from a crisp, mid-spring Brisbane dawn to the sultry humidity of Bali. [continues 2247 words]
