Third Aussie charged with sex slavery

Third Aussie charged with sex slavery

AUSTRALIA: An unemployed man on Thursday became the third person
charged under Australian laws prohibiting sexual slavery for
allegedly luring three Indonesian women to Sydney and forcing
them into prostitution, police said.

Australian Federal Police said they believe the women were
brought to Sydney with the promise of jobs in public relations
and hospitality but once they arrived were forced to work as
prostitutes.

The 36-year-old man, from the inner-Sydney suburb of Ultimo,
was charged with three counts of deceiving a person into sexual
servitude and one count of possessing a prohibited drug.

Two of his alleged accomplices were charged on Wednesday over
the scheme. They were the first persons charged under 1999
federal legislation relating to sexual servitude, authorities
said. --AFP

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ATW-US-Arms-missile
Sea-based missile defense fails test
JP/11/ATW

Sea-based missile defense fails test

UNITED STATES: An interceptor missile fired from a U.S. Navy
cruiser on Wednesday missed its target, a mock warhead, over the
Pacific Ocean, the military said.

The failed test, the first miss in four attempts to shoot down
an incoming short-range missile using the sea-based Aegis weapons
system, was a setback for the Pentagon's largest weapons
development program.

Five out of eight tests of a companion ground-based missile
interceptor have successfully hit their targets in what critics
have called unrealistically controlled conditions.

In December, President Bush ordered activation by Sept. 30,
2004, of anti-missile capabilities that could guard against a
strike from North Korea, which the CIA says probably already has
one or two nuclear weapons. --Reuters

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ATW-security-Canada
Sikh, Sunni groups added to 'terrorist' list
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Sikh, Sunni groups added to 'terrorist' list

CANADA: Canada banned three Sikh militant groups as "terrorist"
organizations on Wednesday, including one allegedly linked to the
1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182.

Federal Solicitor General Wayne Easter said Ottawa had
determined that Babbar Khalsa, Babbar Khalsa International and
the International Sikh Youth Federation "knowingly engaged in
terrorist activity."

It also banned two Pakistan-based Sunni militant groups,
Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, bringing the number of
groups on Canada's prohibited list to 31.

The three Sikh groups support the creation of an independent
Sikh homeland in India's Punjab. --Reuters