Indian prosecutor vows ‘maximum speed’ extradition in Toyah murder; plus other news briefs
NEWS IN BRIEF
Welcome to Newsport’s News in Brief, where you can absorb stories from this week in just 60 seconds.
Fast extradition
An Indian prosecutor has promised a fast extradition process to Australia of Rajwinder Singh, the man arrested in India for the alleged murder of Toyah Cordingley.
Indian government prosecuting counsel Ajay Digpaul said a short time ago: “It’s a heinous offence. We will seek to ensure this case proceeds with maximum speed.”
Driver remains critical
A 65-year-old truck driver remains in a critical condition in Cairns Hospital after a truck carrying 25,000 litres of molasses rolled off the Captain Cook highway south of the Cooyah Beach turnoff earlier this week.
Police have again appealed for information or possible dashcam footage from any witnesses to the accident, which occurred during heavy rain.
Rain arrives
As forecast just a few days ago, the rain has arrived in Douglas, with close to 60 millimetres recorded in 48 hours.
The Bureau of meteorology told Newsport earlier in the week that the area would receive light to moderate rainfall around mid-week, with the possibility of heavier showers towards the weekend.
Sergeant Damian Meadows, officer in charge at Port Douglas police, said: “With the current weather conditions, it’s a timely reminder for people to ramp up the cyclone drain preparedness and drive to suit the road conditions,” he said. “Take 10 off.”
‘Ulterior motive’ denied
Local public transport campaigner David Haratsis has laughed off suggestions from a poster on his Facebook page Public TransPORT, that he is setting himself up to run for Council at the next local government elections.
Mr Haratsis said he has no ‘ulterior motive’ or intention of running as a councillor, and started the page only to focus on highlighting the need for a regular public bus service with the area and from Douglas to Cairns.
Reef ‘in danger’?
Federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek has responded to a recommendation by a UN delegation that the Great Barrier Reef be added to the World Heritage 'in danger' list.
“We'll clearly make the point to UNESCO that there is no need to single the Great Barrier Reef out in this way,” Ms Plibersek said. “The reason that UNESCO in the past has singled out a place as ‘at risk’ is because they wanted to see greater government investment or greater government action and since the change of government, both of those things have happened.”
Power outage
About 110 customers of Ergon Energy in the Daintree Village area were affected by a power outage on Wednesday.
Details were scant about the cause of the outage, which lasted for about an hour around midday, other than a brief on the Ergon map saying there had been a fault in equipment.