EAST TIMOR/APEC: Peace Force Row – Australia – Aid – Te Kaha – APEC Editorial – Ansett Strike – Axe Murder – Tauranga Manhunt – Scott Watson Appeal

EAST TIMOR – PEACE FORCE ROW: New Zealand and Australia were last night warned to keep out of East Timor as deep divisions emerged over the shape and leadership of an international peacekeeping force. The head of Indonesia's parliamentary defence commission, Aisyah Amini, said: 'Those without neutrality on the East Timor problem, such as Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and the United States ... do not deserve to be involved. We have to reject them.'

EAST TIMOR – AUSTRALIA: Three decades of painstaking bridge-building between Canberra and Jakarta has collapsed with the pillage of East Timor. As Indonesian students burned crude homemade replicas of the Australian flag, Prime Minister John Howard accepted the inevitable. "We have tried over the years to build a relationship [with Jakarta] and it's very important that we go on doing that," he said in Auckland. "But obviously we can't remain silent or inactive or paralysed when something that is so clearly wrong is going on."

EAST TIMOR - AID: New Zealand aid agencies are ready to help clean up the human carnage in East Timor but are worried their arrival may be delayed by arguments over the terms of the United Nations peacekeeping mission. And independence leader Jose Ramos-Horta said last night that thousands of East Timorese faced starvation if they did not get food in a few days.

EAST TIMOR – TE KAHA: Crew of the New Zealand frigate Te Kaha were horrified to see the glow of the East Timor capital, Dili, burning as they rushed to join the multinational peacekeeping mobilisation. Te Kaha, which arrived in Darwin yesterday for urgently needed supplies before returning to international waters, armed its anti-missile weapon system as it passed to the north of Timor.

EDITORIAL - APEC: The country can take satisfaction from our first truly high-powered international event. Aucklanders did exactly as the organisers asked, avoiding the inner city for the duration. For many it meant altering working schedules, and for retailers it has been a costly couple of days. The Government should let them know their cooperation was appreciated. If there are traffic problems today it will not be the fault of returning commuters, who learned very late that Apec leaders would be here a day longer than organisers supposed.

ANSETT STRIKE: Ansett New Zealand will chop at least 20 flights this week after it locks out pilots on Thursday. But it is not saying who will fly its remaining flights and whether any overseas captains and first officers have been signed on short-term contracts. The airline - hit yesterday by a fourth 24-hour strike in the long-running dispute with pilots over a new contract - last night revealed its initial plans to cope during the lockout.

AXE MURDER: Axe murderer Lachlan Jones told mental health staff he thought about killing someone using a crossbow, gun or poison and one psychiatrist rated him 10 out of 10 for severity of symptoms. Yet when the teenage schizophrenic came to discharge himself from a psychiatric unit only four days later, his caregivers deemed his psychotic symptoms to be "very mild," and either caused by substance abuse or fabricated.

TAURANGA MANHUNT: Police are still hunting for an armed attacker in Tauranga who is missing the end of his nose - and they have the bitten-off tip waiting in a glass jar for its owner. Steven Paul Mapu, aged 33, allegedly shot a 37-year-old Tauranga man at a Kingswood Rd home about 4 pm on Sunday. A small-calibre pistol bullet went through the man's arm and into the side of his chest, but not before the victim managed to bite the end off the gunman's nose.

SCOTT WATSON APPEAL: Scott Watson will appeal against his convictions for murdering Olivia Hope and Ben Smart, says his lawyer Bruce Davidson. Watson was found guilty in the High Court at Wellington on Saturday, the third day of jury deliberation after a three-month trial. When the jury delivered the verdict Watson said: "You're wrong." Mr Davidson said appeal documents would be filed this week.

See... http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ for full text of articles.

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Alastair Thompson

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Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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