'Unimaginable terror' of NSW murder victim

Sean Lee King was on parole for drug and firearm offences when he murdered Jazmin-Jean Ajbschitz. Source: AAP

THE last moments of her life must have been filled with unimaginable terror.

Eighteen-year-old Jazmin-Jean Ajbschitz would have been petrified as she struggled to protect herself from the "vicious, inhuman and unprovoked" attack by her murderous boyfriend, Sean Lee King, Justice Geoffrey Bellew said as he jailed King for at least 25-and-a-half years.

King, 27, beat Ms Ajbschitz to death in a ferocious, drug-fuelled murder - kicking and hitting her with three different objects, dragging her bruised and bloodied around her apartment and stomping on her chest until her heart stopped.

At the time, he was on parole for a drug offence, had been placed on a good behaviour bond for a firearm offence and was facing separate assault charges."

A forensic pathologist who performed thousands of autopsies said she had never witnessed such blunt force trauma injuries - describing Ms Ajbschitz's injuries as similar to a high velocity car accident.

The court heard King and Ms Ajbschitz's relationship was "volatile and violent".

He had assaulted her several times before and her mother and brothers constantly implored her to end the relationship.

"He was a powerful man who had violent tendencies," Justice Bellew said on Friday.

Those tendencies were exacerbated by his regular use of the drug ice and steroids - something King was all too aware of, the judge said.

In the early days of his relationship with Ms Ajbschitz in April 2010, he broke the jaw of a man he claimed had spat at her, before stomping on a woman's head while high on ice.

It was an attack that was "identical" to the murder he would carry out 15 months later.

In April 2011, he was sentenced to a maximum 15 month jail term for drug and firearm offences, but was granted immediate parole due to seven months he had previously spent in custody.

Three months later, he murdered Ms Ajbschitz.

King admitted to killing his girlfriend, but he denied murdering her on the grounds he was high on ice at the time and did not intend to kill her or cause her serious harm.

It took a jury less than two hours to find him guilty of murder.

The court heard how King called Ms Ajbschitz several times on July 10, 2011, telling her, "You don't know what I can do" and "You think I'm joking. I'll kill you and then anybody else that you're with".

King eventually persuaded Ms Ajbschitz to let him into the security building at Ultimo where, in the next 26 minutes, he beat her to death.

Justice Bellew noted "the unimaginable terror which must have overcome (her) in the final moments of her life".

"He intended to kill her," he said.

King, who took the stand and apologised for murdering his "beautiful" Jazy, appeared to be genuinely remorseful, the judge said.

But his prospects of rehabilitation would depend entirely on his ability to stay off drugs.

King made no reaction as the judge set a maximum 33-and-a-half jail term for the murder and two assaults.

His mother yelled, "You've got to live with what you've done" at Ms Ajbschitz's family before storming out of court.

Taking into account time already served, King will be eligible for parole in 2037, when he is aged 51.

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US prison term of disgraced Enron CEO cut

A US judge has cut ten years off the prison sentence of disgraced former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling. Source: AAP

A US judge has cut 10 years off the prison sentence of disgraced former Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling after he spent years fighting his original 24-year jail term for fraud.

But he was also ordered to forfeit $US42 million ($A45.81 million) to be used to compensate victims of the Enron debacle, who include employees who saw their pension savings wiped out.

Skilling, who led the high-flying energy and trading conglomerate before its disastrous collapse in 2001, was resentenced in a federal court in Houston, Texas, the Justice Department said.

The announcement came weeks after a deal to cut Skilling's sentence and end the legal battle over it was reached in May.

"The sentence handed down today ends years of litigation, imposes significant punishment upon the defendant and precludes him from ever challenging his conviction or sentence," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman in a statement.

"With today's court action, victims of Skilling's crimes will finally receive more than $US40 million that he owes them."

Skilling was convicted on multiple counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and making false statements to auditors on May 25, 2006.

But he fought the 24-year sentence, earning appeals court support for his argument that the original judge went too far in setting the punishment, based on the parameters of the law.

In its statement on Friday, the Justice Department reiterated that Skilling had taken part in a scheme to deceive the public and US securities regulators about the problems in Enron's businesses.

"The scheme was designed to make it appear that Enron was growing at a healthy and predictable rate" and artificially push up its share price, the department said.

In fact, the company had deep cash-flow problems and investment losses and collapsed like a house of cards when the US economy turned downward in 2001.

"The fraud scheme eventually unravelled and Enron filed for bankruptcy in December 2001, making its stock virtually worthless," it said.

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Singapore haze hits critical 400 level

SINGAPORE'S smog index has hit the critical 400 level, making it potentially life-threatening to the ill and elderly people, according to a government monitoring site.

The level was reached at 11am (1300 AEST) on Friday, after a rapid rise in the Pollutant Standards Index, which measures the haze crisis caused by Indonesian forest fires.

Indonesian and Singaporean officials have been holding emergency talks on how to extinguish the fires on farms and plantations on Sumatra island, which are also affecting Malaysia.

According to Singapore government guidelines, sustained PSI average levels above 400 on a 24-hour basis "may be life-threatening to ill and elderly persons".

General practitioner Philip Koh said he had seen a 20 per cent spike in consultations in the past week, and estimated that about 80 per cent of all his patients are suffering from haze-related ailments.

"My patients are telling me they are worried about how long this is going to last and how much higher this is going to go. It is already high at 400 now, how much higher will it go?" he told AFP.

Koh also said many were turning to his clinic to buy protective masks, as supplies are low at retailers.

"Our supplies are running low here too," he said.

If the 400 index average is sustained over a 24-hour period, the government advises all children, elderly people and persons with existing diseases to stay indoors, keep windows closed and avoid physical exertion as much as possible.

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A million Brazilians protest in cities

About 300,000 have rallied in Rio de Janeiro, bemoaning massive spending to stage the World Cup. Source: AAP

BRAZILIAN President Dilma Rousseff has called an emergency cabinet meeting after at least a million people rallied for better public services and against the high cost of staging the World Cup.

Sources quoted by the daily O Estado de Sao Paulo said authorities were "frightened" by protesters' attempts to break into the foreign ministry building in Brasilia. The presidential office would not comment on the reports.

The mounting pressure on Rousseff's government in the face of the biggest street protests the South American country has seen in 20 years prompted her to cancel a trip to Japan planned for next week and call the emergency meeting for Friday.

Late on Thursday, security forces struggled to maintain order in several cities, firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse groups of rowdy protesters who hurled stones and lit fires.

Police fired tear gas in Rio de Janeiro, scene of the biggest protest where 300,000 people demonstrated near City Hall, while in the capital Brasilia, security forces blocked protesters trying to break into the foreign ministry and throwing burning objects.

Police and experts quoted by Brazilian media said at least one million marched in more than 100 cities across the country of 194 million people, an intensification of a movement sparked two weeks ago by public anger about a hike in public transport fares.

The protests have spiralled into a wider call for an end to government corruption in the world's seventh largest economy, a call fuelled by resentment over the $US15 billion ($A16.36 billion) cost of hosting the Confederations Cup and the World Cup.

In Rio, police fired tear gas to disperse a small group of stone-throwing protesters. At least one person was hurt in the clashes, which sparked panic in the crowd.

Demonstrators also set ablaze a vehicle owned by the SBT television station.

A protester died after a motorist hit him and two other demonstrators in the southeastern city of Ribeirao Preto, police said.

In the northeastern city of Salvador, one of the host cities for the Confederations Cup, police fired tear gas against some of the 20,000 protesters massed two kilometres from the stadium where Uruguay defeated Nigeria 2-1.

Vehicles used by world football's governing body FIFA were stoned in the Bahia state capital and riot police had to intervene.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, meanwhile, called for an investigation into the possible use of "excessive force" on demonstrators and journalists during protests last week.

On Wednesday, protesters had scored a major victory when authorities in Rio and Sao Paulo, Brazil's two biggest cities, cancelled the controversial transit fare hikes, but that was not enough to placate the demonstrators.

In Sao Paulo, an estimated 110,000 people flooded the main Paulista Avenue to celebrate the fare rollback and keep the pressure on Rousseff's leftist government to increase social spending.

Several protesters called for Rousseff, Sao Paulo State Governor Geraldo Alckmin and Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad to be impeached.

The protest was largely peaceful except for clashes between a group of ultra-leftists marching behind their red banners and a majority of demonstrators who objected to the presence of political parties.

"This is a social movement, not a political movement. This has nothing to do with ideology," 28-year-old protester Maria Vidal told AFP. "We don't want parties in the demonstration."

Protesters say they want higher funding for education, health and housing. They are also railing against what they view as rampant corruption within the political class.

Social media networks have been key to the organisation of the mass protests, with demonstrators using the slogan "It's more than just 20 cents" - a reference to the bus fare hikes - to rally people to their cause.

The movement has no political colouration and no clearly identified leadership.

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PM dividing Australia like Hanson: Abbott

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has likened Julia Gillard to Pauline Hanson, the anti-immigrant founder of One Nation.

Mr Abbott on Thursday told parliament the prime minister of Australia should be a leader for all Australians.

But he said Ms Gillard would use class, gender, and now country of birth, to score political points.

Speaking in the increasingly rancorous debate on Labor's plan to tighten up 457 visas for temporary foreign workers, Mr Abbott referred to a former member of parliament who set out to divide Australia about 15 years ago.

"We saw a member of this parliament set out to make perfectly decent Australians feel like strangers in their own country," he said.

Mr Abbott said he never thought he would see the day when it was not just be an independent member of parliament but the prime minister setting out to deliberately divide Australian from Australian to serve a political purpose.

"It is an embarrassment," he said.

In her first speech to parliament in 1998, Ms Hanson, a disendorsed Liberal candidate, warned that Australia risked being swamped with Asian immigrants.

The government claims there has been widespread rorting of the 457 visa scheme.

Its legislation will require employers to conduct market testing and only hire foreign workers if no Australian is available.

Mr Abbott said the government should be tackling the real problem of illegal boat arrivals.

"Instead they have decided to raise a false problem," he said.

"They can't get tough on illegal arrivals by boat, so they have decided to get tough on legal arrivals by plane."

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Qld hospital concealed fatal death: union

THE Queensland Nurses Union is calling for an independent investigation into the Wesley Hospital manager who did not disclose a previous legionnaires' disease death at the facility.

The Brisbane hospital is dealing with a deadly outbreak of legionnaires', which killed one patient and put another in intensive care this month.

Its management has previously told reporters there were no past cases.

However, Queensland Health this week told reporters it is now including a 2011 legionnaires' death at the private hospital in its investigation.

UnitingCare Health executive director Richard Royle on Wednesday admitted he knew of the 2011 death; a fortnight ago he denied any knowledge of past cases.

The Queensland Nurses Union's acting secretary, Des Elder, says withholding information and making false statements are serious offences.

"There absolutely has been a cover-up," Mr Elder said.

"I don't think there's any question that the hospital management has tried to conceal that there had in fact been a previous occurrence of legionella previous years ago when they made statements to the press quite openly that there had not been."

He said had the Wesley been a public hospital, Mr Royle would be held accountable for making false statements.

"It would be a breach of the code of conduct in Queensland Health for a CEO to lie," he said.

Mr Elder suggested a public hospital chief executive would face disciplinary action under the same circumstances, but declined to say whether he believed Mr Royle should be sacked.

However, he called for an independent investigation into the false statement and the delay in passing relevant information to Queensland Health.

"For too long the private sector has been treated with kid gloves by both the state and federal governments, and this crosses party political lines," he said.

"There's a reluctance to take strong action to ensure that accountability that everyone requires of a public health system is there in the private health system."

Premier Campbell Newman told reporters earlier on Thursday he was disturbed to hear the 2011 death was never made public.

"I believe the hospital had the duty back then to reveal what went on, but of course Queensland Health had a duty to reveal," he said.

"It's not clear to me why the previous government failed to tell Queenslanders what was going on."

He said private hospitals were required to comply with the same accountability standards as the public sector.

The Wesley withheld information about the 2011 death from media, but it was reported to health authorities at the time.

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WorleyParsons shares rise on Nigeria deal

SHARES in mining engineer WorleyParsons are up three per cent after a South Korean shipbuilding giant awarded it a $US100 million ($A105.97 million) offshore oil and gas contract in Nigeria.

The news comes a month after a profit downgrade saw its shares plunge to a four-year low.

Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) awarded WorleyParsons a design and engineering contract for a floating production, storage and offloading vessel, which will operate at an offshore deepwater oil field in Nigeria.

WorleyParsons chief executive Andrew Wood said the contract to design topside process modules for the floating vessel was significant and represented "a strong development of our ability to locally support the offshore oil and gas business in West Africa".

WorleyParsons shares rose by 3.2 per cent, or 62 cents, to $19.92 on Tuesday.

They hit a four-year low of $19.50 on May 17, after the company blamed a slowdown in the West Australian mining industry for a profit downgrade.

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