Daily News Roundup

THURSDAY,  November 28

An international manhunt has been launched for the husband of a woman whose body was found stuffed in a freezer in the couple’s Sydney apartment.

The man, Haoling Luo, a Chinese national, flew out of Sydney International Airport on Tuesday, the day before police made the grisly discovery.

He was accompanied by his two sons aged four and six.

The dead woman had been in the freezer for several days,

 She was also a Chinese national but the children were born in Australia.

Australian authorities are making urgent enquiries with officials in China as to the man’s whereabouts.

Police were called to a block of apartments on Bobbin Head Road at Pymble yesterday after a family friend called triple-0 with concerns for the woman’s welfare.

In the kitchen they found the woman, believed to be in her late thirties, inside a recently purchased freezer.

Neighbours said they heard yelling, screaming and what sounded like furniture being thrown around inside the couple’s apartment on Sunday night.

NSW Police are now working with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to try and establish contact with their counterparts in China.

###

Clive James, one of Australia’s most acclaimed cultural exports, has died at his home in Cambridge in England aged 80.

He had been diagnosed with leukaemia and emphysema in 2010 and since then, had been telling the world of his impending death.

A statement on his website confirmed he died on Sunday (local time) and a funeral was held on Wednesday.

The ‘Kid from Kogarah’, a prolific wordsmith with an acerbic intellect, colossal vocabulary and passion for poetry, always retained a fondness for his Australian heritage, despite five decades of British residency.

Australia’s High Commissioner to the UK, George Brandis, paid tribute to “an intellectual giant”.

“He was unquestionably the greatest Australian poet of his time; as well as being a witty and incisive critic and a hugely gifted man of letters,” Mr Brandis said in a statement.

“He combined a true scholar’s erudition with a good-natured scepticism that was very Australian.

“Mr James was a good friend of Australia House and he will be missed by Australians and British people alike.”

James was known worldwide for his his newspaper columns and multiple radio and television programs.

In a career spanning 50 years, James also published poems and essays, memoirs, literature and song lyrics.

###

The Bureau of Meteorology has a hot tip for Australians.

It says it expects this summer to have above-average temperatures for most of the country  and dry conditions are expected to remain for drought-affected areas in the east.

But there is some hope of eventual relief, even if it is late in the season .

Andrew Watkins, head of long-range forecasts at the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), said the overall outlook for summer is generally warmer than normal conditions over much of the country, with particularly dry conditions for the east.

“The highest chances of it being drier than normal, unfortunately, are in those drought areas through central New South Wales, southern Queensland and eastern Victoria,” he said.

For the rest of the country he said central Australia is a bit more towards average rainfall, and there is a possibility of some wetter-than-normal conditions for parts of the western coastline.

Daytime temperatures are highly likely to be above average for most of the country but Tasmania, parts of south-west Victoria and south-east South Australia could avoid above-average nights.

According to Dr Watkins it’s probably going to come in as one of the driest springs on record for Australia as a whole. The official result won’t be official until the data from the last few days of November comes through.

It hasn’t just been dry in the drought regions of New South Wales and Queensland.

“We know that around 90 per cent of our streams and rivers are low at the moment, we know that many of our water catchments are below 50 per cent now,” he said.

Even without the numbers, the dryness has been evident in the fires and the dust storms.

“We are entering summer in a difficult position.”

The climate conditions that led to the dry spring and the dangerous fire conditions of the last few weeks are set to continue into the start of summer.