Duo beat Vic man in street robbery

A Melbourne man has been beaten by two men during a late night street robbery, police say. Source: AAP

A MELBOURNE man has been beaten by two men during a late night street robbery.

The 28-year-old had been walking along Sydney Road in Brunswick when two strangers started talking to him.

Police say one of the men then grabbed him from behind while the other punched and kicked him before fleeing with his phone.

The man is recovering from head injuries sustained during the attack, which happened last Tuesday evening.

The two robbers are described as young men of African appearance with skinny builds.

One of them was wearing a grey beanie, pink long-sleeved top, jeans and brown shoes.

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UK kids most scared of spiders and bugs

A fear of creepy-crawlies is most likely to give children sleepless nights, a British survey shows. Source: AAP

A FEAR of creepy-crawlies is most likely to give children sleepless nights, according to a British survey about what scares them most.

Researchers found one in four children said they were scared by spiders and bugs, with a similar number, or 23 per cent, admitting to a fear of the dark.

Other worries highlighted in the survey of 2000 parents, commissioned by Sky Movies to mark the launch of its TV special Toy Story of Terror, included being bullied (22 per cent), ghosts (20 per cent) and doing badly at school (14 per cent).

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Couple win holiday, then become drug mules

A PERTH couple who believed they had won a holiday to Canada were actually being tricked into becoming unwitting drug mules, federal police have revealed.

The cruel scam was uncovered by the AFP and Australian Customs officials earlier this month, who seized $7 million worth of methamphetamine in rock form.

The alleged elaborate con involved a Canadian-based website targeting elderly Australian couples with the potential to win the all-expenses paid trip.

Authorities on Friday detailed how the WA couple, a man aged 72 and woman, 64, were the "lucky" winners, being handed two tickets to Canada, seven nights accommodation and new luggage.

After the week-long trip, the couple returned to Australia, but on arrival reported to Customs that they had concerns about their bags.

On examination, 3.5kg of the drug was found hidden inside each case.

The AFP will allege their luggage was swapped while in Canada, with the couple having no clue they were then being duped into carrying the drugs home.

The couple were due to be met on arrival, which set AFP officers into an investigation which led to a search warrant of a car and a room in Scarborough, where documents related to the con, more bags similar to the ones seized, and $15,000 in cash were found.

A 38-year-old Canadian man was arrested at Perth airport, and has subsequently been charged with drug importation offences.

He has already appeared in a Perth court, and will appear again later this year.

David Bachi, the AFP's Perth Airport Commander, said the alleged scam was one of the most elaborate federal officers had come across.

"The organisers of this scam went to great lengths to provide a facade of legitimacy. Thankfully the travellers contacted Customs and didn't dismiss their concerns, allowing us to make the arrest," said Mr Bachi.

"We will continue working with local and international law enforcement partners, targeting all elements of this drug syndicate."

Mr Bachi said the scam - through a bogus Canadian tour company called AusCan Tours - appeared to be targeting older Australians.

The Canadian-based website has now been shut down.

"Any persons who have been contacted with similar offers of travel should contact the AFP immediately," Mr Bachi said.

Jan Hill, the Director of Customs' Airport Operations in Perth, warned travellers about carrying luggage on behalf of someone else, no matter what the circumstance.

"If you've been asked to carry something on behalf of another person, make the right choice and alert local authorities," Ms Hill said.

"Do not allow another person to pack your bag and do not carry luggage on behalf of another person."

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TAFE supporters protest in Sydney

TAFE teachers and supporters have gathered in western Sydney to protest against cuts to the sector ahead of a national letterbox drive next month.

The small band of protesters huddled outside NSW Liberal MP Geoff Lee's Parramatta's office on Friday, waving banners and chanting "Wake up Geoff" and "No ifs, no buts, no more TAFE cuts".

NSW Teachers Federation assistant general secretary Maxine Sharkey said the sector was facing up to 800 job losses over the next four years and had already seen more than 100 teachers take voluntary redundancies.

Course times were also being slashed in a bid to cut costs, she said.

"So basically if you went to TAFE for two seven-hour days they are now coming for two six-hour days," she told AAP.

The union is running a national letterbox drive from November 11 where they hope to drop 60,000 leaflets in NSW alone, she says.

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Port of Tauranga expects flat earnings

PORT of Tauranga, New Zealand's biggest export port, expects annual earnings to be broadly in line with a year earlier and has experienced a lag in dairy shipments after the false botulism scare in August.

The company forecasts annual earnings of between $NZ77 million and $NZ80 million ($A67.89 million-$A70.54 million) in the 12 months ending June 30 2014, chief executive Mark Cairns told shareholders at Thursday's annual meeting in Tauranga.

That compares to underlying earnings of $NZ77.2m in 2013.

Mr Cairns said first-quarter net profit was about the same as a year earlier, as a 13 per cent increase in log exports and a six per cent gain in trade was offset by a 13 per cent drop in containers, "largely due to the lag in dairy exports associated with the botulism scare and also the loss of the import container service".

The Kotahi freight alliance between Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms told the port it anticipates a significant increase in export volumes in the coming months, he said.

Port of Tauranga posted a record annual profit in 2013 as it readies for a dredging project to prepare for larger ships.

The port is pushing for supremacy in the port sector with dredging expected to start next year, and after investing in its MetroPort facilities in Auckland and taking a 50 per cent stake in PrimePort Timaru.

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Crews on edge as NSW blaze flares up

FIRE crews remain on edge after a flare-up of a bushfire burning out of control at Springwood in the Blue Mountains.

An air crane is being sent to the fire, one of three blazes currently at "watch and act level" in the mountains west of Sydney along with fires at Lithgow and Mt Victoria.

"It's starting to flare up around Linksview (Road Fire) again," the Rural Fire Service's Ben Shepherd told reporters, adding that RFS officials were assessing whether to lift the alert for the fire to "emergency".

Deputy Fire Commissioner Rob Rogers said while Thursday's conditions in the Blue Mountains were much more favourable than Wednesday, there was still work to be done.

"The immediate high risk danger has passed, but by no means has the danger passed completely," he told reporters in Faulconbridge.

Mr Rogers said emergency crews were also on the way to the NSW Shoalhaven area after a fixed-wing aircraft contracted to the RFS crashed while a fighting a fire near Ulladulla.

Grave concerns are held for plane's pilot, the aircraft's sole occupant.

The accident highlighted the dangers of fire fighting, Mr Rogers said.

"Firefighting is an inherently dangerous task, whether you're on the ground or flying through the air," he said.

"You've got something that can't be controlled, limited visibility, multiple aircraft working in the area, there's always danger."

Meanwhile, the RFS has been at pains not to apportion blame after a report found the State Mine Fire burning at Lithgow was caused by a defence explosives training exercise on army land at Marrangaroo.

Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said whatever defence did to start the fire was clearly unintentional.

"It wasn't deliberate. It was a side effect of a routine activity ... and clearly there was not intention to see fire start up and run as a result of that activity," he told reporters at RFS headquarters on Thursday.

Mr Rogers said it would be "prejudging" to suggest negligence was a factor.

"When fires start, where there's human intervention, there's carelessness and then there's just simply accidents happening," he said.

A watch and act warning remains in place for a fire at Gateshead, southwest of Newcastle.

A fire at Minmi, also in the Newcastle area, has been downgraded, but remains uncontained and is causing spotting along the M1.

The RFS said a fire burning in the Hawkesbury near Colo had also flared up and was headed east towards isolated communities in Upper Macdonald and Perrys Crossing.

"They will be able to see this thing and it will look like it's bearing down on them," RFS spokesman Ben Shepherd told reporters.

It was not near many homes, he said.

Premier Barry O'Farrell praised the "superb team effort" from everyone involved in responding to the fires.

"It will take literally weeks of work from firefighters and hopefully heavy rain to ensure this situation is brought under control and those fires extinguished," he told parliament.

"Attention is now turning to the rebuilding task, which is clearly both heartbreaking and daunting."

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Qld CSG water to be used for drinking

BRISBANE Oct 23 - Queensland deputy premier Jeff Seeney says water created as a by-product of coal seam gas exploration is a "resource" that could be used for drinking and irrigating farmland.

He was in Chinchilla in the state's south west on Wednesday for the official opening of the Kenya Water Treatment Plant.

The plant, built for gas company QGC, will desalinate millions of litres of salt water released as a byproduct from coal seam gas extraction every day.

The water is to be used via a 20km pipeline as drinking water for Chinchilla and to irrigate 6000 hectares of farmland in the area.

Mr Seeney says it is a vital resource for agriculture and local communities in drought-racked areas in south east Queensland and Australia.

"There is a huge resource, a huge potential for the replication of this sort of investment," he told reporters.

In a speech at the opening, said a lot of regional communities' concerns about CSG centred on the water issue and it was "always imperative" to find a way to deal with the huge amounts of water produced in the industry.

Ninety seven per cent of the water from the plant is to be reused, QGC says, and 20 farmers have signed up to receive the water.

It is the other three per cent of the water that has environmentalists concerned.

QGC is proposing to evaporate the remaining water and store millions of tonnes of salt crystal in landfill, but is also looking at commercial applications for the salt.

Australian Greens Senator Larissa Waters said if the salt ends up in landfill it could be disastrous for downstream communities, particularly in flood-prone areas within the Murray Darling basin.

Lock The Gate Alliance president Drew Hutton said the long-term effects were unknown.

"It is basically an uncontrolled experiment on the Queensland landscape with a product (salt) that we have known for a hundred years is an anathema to the landscape," he said.

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