Two prisoners escape from Vic jail

Police are searching for two prisoners who escaped from a minimum security jail in Victoria's north. Source: AAP

A MANHUNT has been launched for two prisoners who have escaped from a minimum-security Victorian jail.

Police believe that Stephen Standage and Patrick Honeysett left the grounds of Dhurringile Prison, near Murchison in Victoria's north, some time after 5pm (AEDT) on Tuesday.

Police say Standage, 46, is 175cm tall with a medium build, black hair with grey flicks, brown eyes and of Aboriginal/Caucasian appearance. He has a moustache.

Honeysett, 38, is 175cm tall with a medium build, brown hair in a crew-cut style and is also of Aboriginal/Caucasian appearance. He has tattoos on his right upper arm and on his lower leg.

Investigators believe they may have discarded their prison garb and are now wearing street clothes.

Dhurringile Prison is a minimum security prison for low-risk offenders.

Police say the pair are in jail for burglary and handling stolen goods related charges and advise anyone who comes in contact with them to call triple zero.

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Woman, 80, cleared of murder, not bombings

A German octogenarian has been cleared of murder charges over a fatal 1975 attack on an OPEC office. Source: AAP

A GERMAN octogenarian has been cleared of murder charges in relation to a fatal 1975 attack outside the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, but still faces jail for involvement in a series of leftist bombings during the 1970s.

Sonja Suder, 80, had originally been accused of recruiting one of the assailants in an attack that left three dead outside the offices of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

However, prosecutors had confessed during the course of the trial, which began in September 2012, that it was impossible to prove her ties to the attack.

Instead, she was found guilty in several bombings in southern Germany during the late 1970s that resulted in damage, but no injuries or death. The former radical was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Her partner, Christian Gauger, had originally been charged in the bombings, but eventually had his case separated from Suder's. It was later suspended because of his health problems.

Suder, wearing sunglasses, showed no reaction as the verdict was read. However, she did wave at supporters who had gathered in the Frankfurt courtroom.

Both Gauger and Suder have been linked to the left-wing Revolutionary Cells, a group that followed similar aims to the more violent and better-known Baader-Meinhof gang.

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Snowden a criminal: Richardson

DEFENCE Department secretary Dennis Richardson says fugitive US defence contractor Edward Snowden should be regarded as a common criminal, not a whistleblower.

Mr Richardson, the former head of the Australian Security intelligence Organisation (ASIO), said he became irritated every time he saw a reference to Snowden's disclosure of US intelligence information as whistleblowing.

"I thought whistleblowers revealed things that were illegal," he told an Australian Strategic Policy Institute dinner in Canberra on Tuesday.

"As far as I am concerned Snowden is probably nothing more than a garden-variety criminal."

Mr Snowden, a former US defence contractor, revealed details of secret US surveillance programs that were later published worldwide. He's currently in hiding in Russia, where he has been granted asylum for a year.

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Iran, IAEA sign 'roadmap for co-operation'

Diplomats say a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program is close, despite clinching one in Geneva. Source: AAP

IRAN and the UN nuclear watchdog have agreed on a "roadmap for co-operation" over Tehran's controversial atomic drive, as the US accused Iran of scuttling latest efforts to end the deadlock.

The announcement of the breakthrough came on Monday during a visit to Tehran by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano. No details of the accord were immediately released.

"The joint statement that was signed today details a roadmap for cooperation that determines mutual steps to resolve remaining issues," Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said at a joint news conference with Amano, which was closed to Western media in Tehran.

Amano hailed the deal as "an important step" but added "much more must be done", in remarks were carried by the ISNA news agency.

The IAEA chief's visit is aimed at resolving technical issues linked to the IAEA's role of monitoring Iran's nuclear activities.

Broader questions of how to ensure the Islamic republic's nuclear program is not being used to mask a drive for atomic weapons are being discussed in rounds of negotiations between Iran and P5+1 powers - Britain, France, the United States, Russia and China plus Germany.

In the latest talks, a marathon session in Geneva which ended inconclusively on Sunday, hopes for a deal had soared after top diplomats rushed to join the talks.

But they faded as cracks began to appear among world powers when France raised concerns over a heavy water reactor being built at Arak.

Addressing the issue on Monday in Abu Dhabi, US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Iran of being responsible for the failure of the talks.

"The P5+1 was unified on Saturday when we presented our proposal to the Iranians... But Iran couldn't take it, at that particular moment they weren't able to accept," said Kerry, who is on a regional tour to address thorny issues such as the Middle East peace process, Iran's nuclear program and the Syrian conflict.

In the remarks he made to reporters during a visit to the United Arab Emirates capital, Kerry reassured Israel that the deal will better protect it.

"What we are doing will protect Israel more effectively," he said, as the United States and Israel were locked in an escalating war of words over the negotiations.

The P5+1 group and Iran will reconvene again in Geneva on November 20 to try to iron out differences.

The broad outline of the agreement is said to include a freeze of part or all of Tehran's nuclear program in return for the easing of sanctions.

France said Monday that world powers and Iran were close to an agreement despite the failure of the Geneva talks.

"We are not far from an agreement with the Iranians but we are not there yet," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Europe 1 radio.

Responding to criticism that Paris was behind the failure in Geneva because of its reservations about parts of the deal on the table, he retorted: "France is neither isolated nor a country that follows the herd. It is independent and works for peace."

Iran's nuclear chief Salehi said on Monday that as a gesture of goodwill, IAEA inspectors would be allowed to visit the heavy water production plant in Arak as well as the Gachin uranium mine in the south.

At least a year from being completed, the Arak reactor is a major source of concern for Western powers who fear the plutonium it will produce as a by-product could provide Iran with a second route for making fissile material for an atom bomb.

Iran has long been adamant it solely wants to produce isotopes for medical and agricultural purposes at the Arak plant.

Iran denies seeking or ever having sought nuclear weapons, and says such claims are based on faulty intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and Israel's Mossad.

The IAEA in particular wants to visit the Parchin military base, southeast of Tehran, where intelligence evidence suggests Iran may have carried out weaponisation research.

Salehi and Amano did not mention Parchin as being part of the deal they struck, although details of the agreement are yet to be publicised.

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Life for brothers in Russia airport attack

THREE men have been sentenced to life in prison and a fourth to 10 years for their roles in the 2011 suicide bombing of a Moscow airport, which killed 37 people.

Bashir Khamkhoyev and brothers Islam and Ilez Yandiyev were given life sentences on Monday by a court in Krasnogorsk, a city on the north-western outskirts of Moscow. Akhmed Yevloyev, a brother of the purported bomber, was given 10 years, the court said.

The court earlier on Monday had convicted the four men on terrorism charges.

The bombing in January 2011 was carried out by a man who walked into the arrivals hall of Domodedovo International Airport, Russia's largest airport, and blew himself up. The explosion injured 172 people.

Investigators identified the bomber as Magomed Yevloyev, a native of the North Caucasus region of Ingushetia. The also have charged local Islamist insurgency leader Doku Umarov with recruiting and training Magomed Yevloyev for the attack.

The Yandiyev brothers were accused of driving Magomed Yevloyev to Domodedovo while the other defendants were found guilty of helping him in Ingushetia, the Russian Investigative Committee said.

Islam Yandiyev had asked for a pardon while the three remaining defendants denied guilt, Russian news reports said.

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Queen leads Remembrance events

THE Queen has honoured members of Britain's Armed Forces killed in conflict as Remembrance Sunday services took place around the UK.

The monarch laid the first wreath at the Cenotaph on Whitehall to commemorate all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the decades since the First World War, bowing her head after paying her respects.

Senior royals, including Second World War veteran the Duke of Edinburgh, Afghanistan soldier Prince Harry and the Duke of Cambridge - with wife Kate watching from a nearby balcony - joined the monarch and politicians, military leaders, veterans and serving personnel in laying wreaths of poppies at the monument.

Prince Harry was laying the wreath on behalf of his father Prince Charles, who is currently abroad on an official tour of India with the Duchess of Cornwall, and was marking the occasion there.

Troops in Afghanistan were joined by Prince Andrew, who laid a wreath during a service held at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province to mark Remembrance Sunday. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond also flew to Afghanistan last night to join servicemen and women.

Millions across the UK fell silent in tribute to those lost in war, joining the crowds gathered in central London who stood in a moment of quiet contemplation as Big Ben struck 11am.

During the two-minute silence, only the distant sounds of traffic and the rustling of leaves could be heard, despite the fact that police said Whitehall was at capacity.

The beginning and end of the silence was marked with the firing of a round by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery, using a 13-pounder First World War gun.

In cold but bright weather, the royals and dignitaries then laid their wreaths at the Cenotaph.

Prime Minister David Cameron was first after the royals to do so, followed by Labour leader Ed Miliband and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

Former prime ministers Sir John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and London Mayor Boris Johnson also took part in the ceremony.

The Duchess of Cambridge was accompanied on the Foreign Office balcony by the Countess of Wessex and Vice Admiral Tim Laurence.

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New trial sought for executed US 14yo

GEORGE Stinney has been dead since 1944, when as a 14-year-old black boy he became the youngest person executed in the United States in the past century, for killing two white girls. Now his supporters are taking the unheard-of step of asking for a new trial.

Stinney's case brings together two of the longest-running disputes in the American legal system - the death penalty and race.

Stinney was convicted on a shaky confession in a segregated society that wanted revenge for the beating deaths of two girls, aged 11 and 7, according to a lawsuit filed last month on Stinney's behalf in South Carolina.

He was electrocuted just 84 days after the girls were killed. Newspaper stories reported that witnesses said the straps to keep him in the electric chair didn't fit around his small frame.

The request for a new trial is largely symbolic, but Stinney's supporters say they would prefer exoneration to a pardon - which they've asked for as well.

The judge may refuse to hear the request for a new trial, since the punishment has already been carried out.

The two girls were last seen looking for wildflowers in the racially divided mill town of Alcolu. Stinney's sister, who was 7 at the time, says in her new affidavit for the lawsuit that she and her brother were letting their cow graze when the girls asked them where they could find flowers called maypops. The sister, Amie Ruffner, said her brother told them he didn't know, and the girls left.

"It was strange to see them in our area, because white people stayed on their side of Alcolu and we knew our place," Ruffner wrote.

The girls never came home. They were found the next morning in a water-filled ditch, their heads beaten with a hard object, likely a railroad spike.

The request for a new trial includes sworn statements from two of Stinney's siblings who say he was with them the entire day the girls were killed.

Notes from Stinney's confession and most other information used to convict him in a one-day trial have disappeared, along with any transcript of the proceedings. Only a few pages of cryptic, hand-written notes remain, according to the motion.

"Why was George Stinney electrocuted? The state can't produce any paperwork to justify why he was," said George Frierson, a local school board member who grew up in Stinney's hometown hearing stories about the case and decided six years ago to start studying it and pushing for exoneration.

The request for a new trial points out that at just 43 kilograms it's unlikely Stinney could have killed the girls and dragged them to the ditch.

The motion also hints at community rumours of a deathbed confession from a white man several years ago and the possibility Stinney confessed because his family was threatened.

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Four charged with severing US man's penis

FOUR people are accused of torturing a California marijuana dispensary owner with a blowtorch and cutting off his penis in an attempt to force him to reveal where he had buried piles of cash in the desert.

Ryan Anthony Kevorkian, 34, and his wife Naomi Josette Kevorkian, 33, were arrested on Friday in Fresno, a day after the FBI arrested 34-year-old Hossein Nayeri in Prague in the Czech Republic.

Another man, Kyle Shirakawa Handley, 34, was arrested in October 2012.

The four have been charged with kidnapping for ransom, aggravated mayhem, torture, burglary and a sentencing enhancement for inflicting great bodily injury.

Prosecutors said the victim was a prosperous medical marijuana dispensary owner who took some of his pot suppliers - including Handley - to Las Vegas last year for an extravagant weekend.

Authorities allege that after the trip, Handley told some friends that the dispensary owner was extremely wealthy and they came up with a plan to kidnap and rob him.

Orange County authorities contend that on October 2, 2012, Handley, Nayeri and Ryan Kevorkian went to the man's Newport Beach home, stole cash, bound and beat him and kidnapped him along with his room-mate's girlfriend, then drove them out to a desert spot in a van.

Throughout the drive, they allegedly burned the dispensary owner with a blowtorch.

At the spot where the men believed the victim had hidden money, they cut off his penis, poured bleach on him in an effort to destroy any DNA evidence and dumped him and the woman on the side of the road, authorities allege.

It is alleged the three men then drove away with the penis so it couldn't be reattached.

The man survived his injuries.

Handley pleaded not guilty to the charges last month.

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Syrian rebels launch counteroffensive

SYRIAN rebels have launched a counteroffensive in the northern city of Aleppo, recapturing a base near its international airport hours after the army had advanced into the area, activists say.

Saturday's fighting came as the main Western-backed opposition group was to begin a two-day meeting in Istanbul to decide whether they will attend a proposed peace conference the US and Russia are trying to convene in Geneva.

The Syrian National Coalition has demanded that President Bashar Assad step down in any transitional Syrian government as a condition for its going to Geneva. Syrian officials say Assad will stay in his post at least until his terms ends in 2014 and that he may run for re-election.

In Cairo, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby told reporters upon arrival from Geneva that the UN-Arab League's top envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, will hold a new meeting in early December with concerned parties to decide on a new date and the attendees of the Geneva conference.

"We were saddened and depressed because of the failure of the latest meetings to decide on a date and participants for the conference," Elaraby said, referring to a meeting in Geneva earlier this week that many had hoped would call for holding the talks later this month.

The League had wanted the peace conference to lead to a ceasefire and secure means to deliver humanitarian aid to Syrians, Elaraby added.

In Aleppo, rebels were able to fully recapture the military base of "Brigade 80" after government troops seized parts of it early on Friday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Aleppo Media Centre said.

The main job of "Brigade 80" was to protect the government-held Aleppo International Airport, which has been closed due to fighting for almost a year.

Rebels captured the base in February and now government troops are trying to get it back.

The Observatory said 40 rebels and more than 20 troops were killed in the latest fighting, which began Friday and continued early Saturday.

Syria's state-run news agency SANA said a rocket fired by opposition fighters hit near a health centre in Aleppo's Ashrafieh neighbourhood, killing six children and wounding six others.

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