Inquest reveals drug scene in NSW prisons

MAKESHIFT syringes made from cotton buds, prisoners "stoned" for days and drugs secreted inside inmates' bodies.

This was the drug scene inside NSW's Junee Correctional Centre when Anthony Van Rysewyk died from a heroin overdose in 2011, an inquest has found.

According to correctional officer Steve McMahon, drugs are a problem facing all prisons across the state.

Van Rysewyk was nearing the end of a minimum six years and three months sentence for robbery when he took two shots of heroin at the privately-run facility near Wagga Wagga on May 7, 2011.

In handing down her findings into the 28-year-old's death on Wednesday, Deputy State Coroner Sharon Freund said when Van Rysewyk was put into his cell that evening other minimum security inmates noticed he was slurring his words, was unsteady on his feet and had "pin eyes" - a clear symptom of heroin intoxication.

Correctional service officers reported noticing nothing.

The next morning he was found dead in his cell.

According to inmates who gave evidence at the inquest, legal and illegal drugs - including heroin, marijuana and speed - regularly flowed into the prison.

Inmates regurgitated prescription medications obtained from the centre's pharmacy, while visitors ferried drugs in.

One inmate told the inquest how he had seen a visitor retrieve a parcel "about the size of a golf ball" from her crotch and pass it to a prisoner.

The prisoner then allegedly tried to put it up his anus.

Syringes were constructed from miscellaneous items, including cotton ear-buds as plungers.

"Inmates would be stoned every weekend, every day or Sunday to Tuesday from drugs that were available weekly," Ms Freund said.

Mr McMahon, also the Public Service Association (PSA) chair of prison officers, said drugs were "certainly a problem" in all NSW correctional centres.

"Some prisoners say that they are as easily available in jail as what they are on the streets," he told AAP.

"I don't personally believe that they are that prevalent. (But) there is certainly still a high incidence of drug use in jail."

Mr McMahon said he has found prisoners dead in their cells a number of times over his 20-year career, and pointed to contact visits as the primary way of drugs coming into the centres, with people secreting items into all bodily crevices, including mouths.

He suggested increasing the use of sniffer dogs and improving officers' training to identify drug intoxication.

These were among two of the recommendations also made by Ms Freund.

At the time of Van Rysewyk's death, she said there were only two officers supervising up to 40 inmates at the visitor centre, meaning prisoners were sometimes left unattended for up to five minutes.

There were no CCTV cameras and the dog squad didn't patrol the centre during or after visits.

Improvements at the centre run by GEO Group Australia had been "nominal" since the 28-year-old's death, the court heard.

GEO Group said in a statement it had "already taken steps to address the areas outlined in the recommendations", including conducting a review of officers' training.

Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) Commissioner Peter Severin said it took Van Rysewyk's death "very seriously" and would be looking at the coroner's recommendations.

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No manslaughter charges over Pike River

NO criminal charges will be laid by New Zealand police against individuals involved in the Pike River mine disaster, after an investigation concluded there was not enough evidence to prove manslaughter.

The families of the 29 men killed in the explosion at the Pike River mine on November 19, 2010 were informed of the outcome of the two-and-a-half year police investigation at a meeting in Greymouth on the South Island's west coast on Wednesday night.

Police say there is not enough evidence to link any individuals to specific events leading to the explosion and therefore manslaughter charges had to be ruled out.

Detective Superintendent Peter Read said he knew the families of the victims would be disappointed with the outcome.

"This has been a very difficult decision and not one taken lightly," he said.

He said the investigation had been one of the most complex ever undertaken by New Zealand police, involving interviews with 284 people and 34 million pages of documentation.

Police said there was enough evidence to charge individuals with criminal nuisance, but given the ongoing investigations by Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment(MBIE), those charges would raise double jeopardy issues.

Any penalties arising from police charges would be unlikely to supersede those imposed under MBIE prosecutions, police said.

Police are not ruling out reopening the investigation should access to the mine be gained in the future.

Access would allow a scene examination.

"However, I stress there is no certainty that this would produce any new relevant information," Det Sup Read said.

"Even if new information was identified, there is no guarantee that it would lead to a future prosecution."

Earlier in July, Pike River Coal was ordered to pay $NZ110,000 ($A94,840) to each of the families of the 29 victims killed in the explosion.

The company was also fined $NZ760,000 for nine health and safety charges.

Last month, a judge ruled former Pike River Coal boss Peter Whittall could be tried in Wellington, rather than in Greymouth, on 12 health and safety breaches.

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21 Indian children dead from school meal

Eight children died and 80 were hospitalised after eating lunch served at their school in India. Source: AAP

TWENTY-ONE children have died after eating a free lunch feared to contain poisonous chemicals at a school in eastern India, as angry protests erupted over the tragedy.

Thirty more children remain ill in hospital after consuming lunch cooked at a village primary school in the impoverished state of Bihar, state education minister P K Shahi said.

"The death toll has risen to 21," local government official Amarjeet Sinha told reporters, as suspicion focused on the possible presence of insecticide in the food.

There were emotional scenes as children, their limbs dangling and heads lolling to one side, were brought to a hospital in the Bihar city of Chhapra.

Other children, lying listless on stretchers, were placed on intravenous drips amid chaotic scenes at the hospital. Outside, inconsolable relatives wept.

"My children had gone to school to study. They came back home crying, and said it hurts," one distraught father told the NDTV network.

"I took them into my arms, but they kept crying, saying their stomach hurt very badly."

Running to the school to find out what had happened, the father said he saw "many bodies of children lying on the ground".

Bihar education minister P K Shahi said the midday meal "appears to be poisonous".

The children, all aged under 10, were buried near the school in the village of Masrakh on Wednesday morning as angry residents armed with poles and sticks took to the streets of Chhapra.

The mob smashed windows of police buses and other vehicles and turned over a police booth in Chhapra, the main city of Saran district where the school is located.

"Hundreds of angry people staged a protest in Saran since late Tuesday night, demanding stern action against government officials responsible for this shocking incident," said district government official S K Mall.

A preliminary investigation has shown the meal may have contained traces of phosphate from insecticide in the vegetables, Sinha from the local government told AFP.

He said doctors were treating victims with atropine, which is effective against organophosphate poisoning.

Media reports quoted villagers as saying the use of contaminated, foul-smelling mustard oil for cooking at the school could also have caused the deaths.

"Investigators are examining midday meal samples and samples of victims' vomit. Only the final report of inquiry will reveal the real cause," Sinha said.

State chief minister Nitish Kumar has announced compensation of 200,000 rupees ($A3670) for bereaved families.

Free lunches are offered to impoverished students in state-run schools as part of government welfare measures in many of India's 29 states.

Bihar is one of the country's poorest and most densely-populated states.

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Aust woman hurt in Pamplona bull run

A 23-YEAR-OLD Australian woman is among five people injured when they were gored by bulls on the final day of the Pamplona fiesta in Spain.

The festival ran for nine days and landed a total of 50 daredevils in hospital.

Nearly half of those were seriously hurt on Saturday when the run in the northern Spanish town resulted in a bloody human pile-up that got trampled by the half-tonne bulls, sending 23 revellers to hospital.

As on each of the last eight mornings, a firework set off Sunday's mad dash through Pamplona's cobbled streets of six bulls and six steers as well as hundreds of thrill-seekers, many dressed in traditional white with a red neckerchief.

The animals will be killed by matadors in the final bullfight of the nine-day San Fermin festival.

The early morning bull runs are the highlight of the fiesta, which was immortalised in Ernest Hemingway's classic 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises and now draws hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.

The regional government said five runners were hospitalised on Sunday including the young Australian woman with a gore wound.

During Friday's run, bulls gored three men including a 20-year-old American.

Each year, hundreds of people are treated by medics and the Red Cross at the scene for cuts and scrapes without being hospitalised.

Fifteen people have been killed in the bull runs since records began in 1911. The most recent death was four years ago when a bull gored a 27-year-old Spaniard in the neck, heart and lungs.

The Associated Press reports that the Australian woman was struck in the chest by a massive Miura bull as she clung to wooden barriers outside the bull ring entrance. Other runners got tossed by the bulls or fell as they ran.

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Vic can't afford paramedic pay claim: govt

PARAMEDICS' wage claims, totalling $1.3 billion over four years, would have a significant impact on Victoria's budget, Health Minister David Davis says.

But the paramedics' union disputes the $1.3 billion figure quoted by Mr Davis, calling on him to provide the full detail of the costings for scrutiny.

Mr Davis told reporters on Sunday the 30 per cent salary increase sought by paramedics totalled $1.3 billion over four years, and would lead to less money for ambulances and ambulance stations.

He said the wage claim was significant and not well thought out.

"These are tough times. It's not easy for governments to fund significant new expenditures," Mr Davis said.

But Ambulance Association Australia state secretary Steve McGhie said the figures were "highly inflated".

"There figures are nowhere near right and if he thinks they are let him provide the full detail so they can be scrutinised."

Mr Davis said paramedics are well remunerated, with the most common category of paramedic earning an average $93,000 a year, including overtime.

However, Mr McGhie said a six-year paramedic who worked shift penalties - which all were expected to do - would earn $71,000.

"To earn $93,000 means they have to work $22,000 of overtime per year on average.

"If there were paramedics earning that - and if they didn't do it - then the ambulance service couldn't put paramedics on ambulances."

Mr Davis again called on the union to enter voluntary conciliation with Ambulance Victoria through independent umpire Fair Work Australia, saying it would lead to a fair wage deal.

But Mr McGhie said the union would attend conciliation until Ambulance Victoria responds to its paper detailing the productivity paramedics have delivered over the past three years.

The government has offered paramedics a 2.5 per cent annual pay rise, with any further increases offset by productivity gains.

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Egypt prosecutors quiz Morsi

INVESTIGATORS have begun questioning Egypt's ousted president Mohamed Morsi and members of his Muslim Brotherhood over their involvement in a 2011 prison break, judicial sources say.

The inquiry follows allegations that Morsi and senior Brotherhood members escaped from Wadi Natrun prison during the uprising that ended former president Hosni Mubarak's three-decade rule.

Investigators are examining whether foreign groups such as Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah were involved in the jailbreak.

State Security prosecution service investigators interviewed Morsi at an undisclosed location, the judicial sources told AFP.

It came hours after the public prosecutor received complaints against Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders, accusing them of spying, inciting violence and damaging the economy.

Morsi, who was overthrown by Egypt's powerful army on July 3, is being held in a "safe place", interim leaders have said.

His supporters accuse the military of violating democratic principles by removing an elected leader from office, and have vowed to keep fighting for his reinstatement.

The interim authorities are working to an army-drafted roadmap, and Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi is closer to forming a cabinet.

Parliamentary and presidential elections are expected next year.

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Snowden to meet rights activists in Moscow

The Deputy Secretary of State says the US is "very disappointed" how China handled the Snowden case. Source: AAP

FUGITIVE US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is set to meet with leading Russian rights activists and lawyers at the airport in Moscow where he has been stuck in transit for nearly three weeks.

Several campaigners have told AFP they will attend the 2300 AEST meeting on Friday after receiving an invitation from Snowden, in what will be the former government contractor's first publicised encounter since he arrived on a flight from Hong Kong.

According to the purported invitation from Snowden posted on social media by one activist, the fugitive wants to discuss his "next steps" forward.

He also rails against the "unlawful campaign" against him by Washington which is seeking his extradition after he leaked details of pervasive US intelligence surveillance

Those invited included representatives of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Transparency International as well as several prominent lawyers working in Moscow.

"I can confirm that Mr Snowden will hold a meeting with rights representatives on the territory of the airport," Sheremetyevo spokeswoman Anna Zakharenkova told AFP.

"We will provide access and premises," she added, declining to provide further details.

Snowden has made no public appearances since arriving at the state-controlled airport in the Russian capital on June 23. According to officials, he has spent the whole time in the airport transit zone.

Sergei Nikitin of the Moscow branch of Amnesty International told AFP he received an email inviting his group and said "we are planning to go".

Elena Panfilova of Transparency International said the "somewhat unexpected" invitation was being discussed. She said the email had come from an apparently secure email address in Snowden's name.

Tatyana Lokshina of Human Rights Watch in Moscow said on her Facebook page that she had also received an invitation from Snowden although she could not yet confirm "it was real".

She quoted the email as saying Snowden wanted to have the meeting for "a brief statement and discussion regarding the next steps forward in my situation".

Kristinn Hraffnson, spokesman for the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website which is supporting Snowden, told AFP that he could not confirm that the meeting was planned.

The email thanked Latin American states for considering an application for asylum but denounced "an unlawful campaign by officials in the US government to deny my right to seek and enjoy this asylum".

Leftist Latin American states are seen as the most likely destination for Snowden, who has applied for asylum in 27 countries.

Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua have all expressed readiness to consider giving Snowden asylum.

Prominent Moscow lawyer Genrikh Padva confirmed to AFP that he had received an invitation for a meeting at the airport on Friday afternoon local time, but did not believe he would have time to attend.

Olga Kostina, a rights activist who is a member of Russia's public chamber advisory body, told the state ITAR-TASS news agency that she would attend "if just out of curiosity".

Interfax said Russia's human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin had been invited and he told the agency he was ready to attend the meeting.

A source had told Interfax the day earlier that the United States and Russia were now in "wait-and-see" mode over Snowden, indicating that a rapid solution to his presence may not be in sight.

President Vladimir Putin has vowed that Moscow will not extradite Snowden but also indicated the Kremlin is keen to see the back of a man who has added an additional problem to already strained relations with Washington.

The meeting comes after the United States on Thursday told China it was upset it did not hand over Snowden after he fled to Hong Kong, saying that the decision had undermined relations.

President Barack Obama, meeting senior Chinese officials who were in Washington for annual talks, "expressed his disappointment and concern" over the Snowden case, the White House said.

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No deal on school reforms: Qld premier

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman says his government needs more time to consider school reforms. Source: AAP

THE Queensland government hasn't signed up to the federal government's education reforms but has left the door open.

Premier Campbell Newman says no deal has been reached yet after meeting with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, federal Education Minister Bill Shorten and state Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek on Friday afternoon.

He says the Sunday deadline has been pushed back a few weeks so Queensland and the federal government can possibly iron out outstanding issues.

Mr Newman praised Mr Rudd for having a positive meeting with him, unlike previous prime minister Julia Gillard, he said.

"We've talked about it for a considerable period of time, I cannot give you anything other than saying it was a productive discussion," Mr Newman told reporters.

"It was again a discussion that was not afforded to us by the previous prime minister.

"I thank the prime minister for that.

"It was very productive and we now know what we have to do to try to reach an agreement."

Mr Shorten said the federal government had agreed to a request from the Queensland to extend the deadline for deal by seven to 14 days.

The minister conceded there were still significant issues to resolve, but said the government would respect a set principles during the negotiations.

These include that the federal government would make sure taxpayers' money was spent in the best possible way on education and the Queensland government was allowed autonomy in running the state's schools.

"The question is can we marry those two principles in the best interests of school children in Queensland," Mr Shorten said.

"It was a very constructive dialogue."

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Six teens arrested for stealing cars in NT

A 14-year-old boy has been charged with stealing and crashing a taxi in the Northern Territory. Source: AAP

IT was a week for teenage joyrides in the Northern Territory as a 14-year-old Darwin boy was charged with stealing and crashing a taxi and five teens were arrested after stealing a car and driving it 1200km south.

The Darwin boy allegedly stole the taxi from a depot at about 1.20am (CST) on Friday, police say.

Police spotted him driving the cab along Mueller Road, but the boy took off.

At about 6am the taxi was found, crashed through the front fence of a home in Bellamack, with the left door ripped off and the front left tyre hanging by its axel.

Police arrested a 14-year-old boy shortly afterwards and charged him with half a dozen offences, including stealing, speeding, and aggravated unlawful use of a motor vehicle.

He will appear in Darwin Youth Justice Court at a later date.

Police are still looking for three accomplices.

Meanwhile, five other teens have been arrested in Alice Springs for allegedly stealing a car in Palmerston.

Four males aged 18, 16, and two aged 14, along with a 16-year-old girl are expected to be charged shortly with various offences including unlawful entry, stealing, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, unlawful damage, driving without a licence, and failing to stop for police.

Detective Superintendent Brent Warren said the group allegedly stole a Daewoo Nubira from a residence in Driver on Wednesday.

Supt Warren said they drove the vehicle to Tennant Creek where they stole around $50 worth of petrol from a service station before heading south to Alice Springs.

Police are searching for a 16-year-old boy who fled from police when the other five were arrested.

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Greek unions call July 16 general strike

GREECE'S main unions will hold a general strike on July 16 to oppose a new round of civil service job cuts announced by the government to secure EU-IMF loans.

"An emergency meeting of the executive committee has decided to call a 24-hour general strike on July 16" in reaction to a government bill enshrining the layoffs, leading union GSEE said in a statement on Wednesday.

The conservative-led Greek government on Tuesday submitted to parliament a bill detailing the redeployment of civil servants, which has sparked widespread protests.

Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras has reportedly said parliament must approve the bill by July 19 in order for the heavily indebted country to receive the first instalment of rescue funds from its EU-IMF bailout.

Affecting thousands of teachers, school wardens and municipal staff, the latest cuts have caused fresh outrage in a country undergoing a fourth year of austerity and record unemployment.

Greece has committed to carrying out the reforms in exchange for about 6.8 billion euros ($A9.54 billion) in fresh bailout funds from the troika of international creditors - the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

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