Fed: The news of the week at a glance

AAP General News (Australia)
12-31-2009
Fed: The news of the week at a glance

MILESTONES:

REVEALED - That a Nigerian man who attempted to blow up a US airliner was a student
at Australia's University of Wollongong campus in Dubai just months ago.

DECLARED - Parts of northern NSW as natural disaster zones, following flooding caused
by heavy rain.

DESTROYED - 38 properties by bushfires in the south of Western Australia.

WON - Line honours in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race by New Zealand maxi Alfa Romeo.

TOPPED - The list of most successful Test cricket captains by Australia's Ricky Ponting,
who has the most wins as captain and has also been involved in the most wins as a player,
following Australia's win over Pakistan in the first Test at the MCG.

QUOTES:

- "It's all I have. The car, the dog and the cat. I had to leave everything in it.

All those photos of my daughter when she was a baby, of my mother - she died last July
... the beautiful garden. They're the things you can't replace." - Toodyay resident 58-year-old
Beverley Phillips on her escape from Western Australia's bushfires.

- "If you live in an area with a catastrophic fire danger rating you should put your
survival first and leave early. That is hours before a fire starts. Under no circumstances
will it be safe to stay and defend your home." - A statement issued by the Fire and Emergency
Services Authority of Western Australia.

- "If it was any other normal part of the state, this amount of water would have definitely
caused major flooding. So it was a bit of a saving grace that it was sort of drought-stricken
because the ground absorbed 75 per cent of that water." - SES spokesman Terry Pappas on
flooding in northern NSW.

- "We've got the best crew in the world. The Rolex Sydney to Hobart is the ultimate.

To win that is a good one to have in your resume." - Alfa Romeo skipper Neville Crichton
following his Sydney to Hobart win.

- "It's no different to any sport. You can't always win and it's good for the sport
that someone else does win every now and then and we gave it our best shot. You've got
to be a good winner as well as a good loser. Well done to Alfa Romeo, they did a fantastic
job." - Wild Oats XI skipper Mark Richards.

- "They're things I'm very proud of, hopefully there are a lot more wins around the
corner and if we play the cricket that we've played over this five days then we will definitely
win a lot more games." - Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting on his new mantle as
the most successful captain in Test history.

- "Everyone knew there were two deceased in the vehicle, two young children at the
time, ... even the bystanders there that actually pulled people out of the vehicles."

- Ambulance Service of NSW Shoalhaven district manager Wayne Dunlop on the petrol tanker
crash and explosion that killed three people.

- "The state government has refused to accept responsibility for this road ... (it)
refused for 15 years to put funding into the Princes Highway that it deserves given the
growth in the region. And that is ultimately playing a Russian Roulette with people's
lives." - NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell.

- "If you're one of these fools that can't handle their grog and likes to go out and
ruin other people's nights, make yourself a new year's resolution to grow up and behave
yourself and start practising that tomorrow night, on New Year's Eve." - NSW Police Minister
Michael Daley.

- "He was a normal student, a student that was passing his subjects. We had no background
on any of his activities outside the university." - University of Wollongong vice-chancellor
Gerard Sutton on accused Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who studied at the
university's Dubai campus.

- "It's all very well getting Indonesians to intercept boats, but what happens to the
people on them? Mr Rudd needs to tell us exactly what he said to President Yudhoyono,
because plainly the Indonesians now think these people are our responsibilities, not theirs."

- Federal Opposition leader Tony Abbott.

ODDITIES:

+ New Yorkers and tourists seeking a fresh start in the new year have gathered in Times
Square to put the bad memories of 2009 behind them, and into a shredder.

Participants in the third annual Good Riddance Day lined up, pitching their bad memories
into an industrial-sized shredder.

A dumpster and a sledgehammer were provided for items that couldn't be shredded, which
included an old computer and a tin of fattening snacks.

The winner of the prize for most creative item shredded was 12-year-old Alissa Yankelevits
of Los Angeles, who shredded the memory of a counsellor on a school trip who was later
featured on the television show America's Most Wanted.

+ A Southern California man was hospitalised with head injuries after riding a Christmas
tree dragged behind a sport utility that slammed into a parked car.

The 18-year-old and another teenager were Christmas tree "surfing", says Orange County
sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.

The vehicle was travelling at 40km/h when the female driver took a corner and the tree crashed.

The driver fled the scene and the injured man was hospitalised with moderate head injuries.

+ A Florida man who called police claiming he had been beaten and shot at, was actually
looking for a ride to another bar, authorities say.

Gregory Oras, 37, is facing charges of misusing the emergency call system and battery
of a law enforcement officer.

He had called police three times before his arrest in Oldsmar, telling dispatchers
he had a broken nose and bleeding ears and claiming that people were shooting at him.

Authorities say he was actually looking for a ride to another bar.

Oras kicked a Pinellas County sheriff's deputy in the knees and a Taser was used to
subdue him before he was arrested.

AAP bm/mo

KEYWORD: THE WEEK

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