Tuesday's news in under 5 minutes

BY MAMAMIA NEWS

1. Michelle Knight speaks

One of three women who was imprisoned by Ariel Castro in Cleveland for a decade has spoken of the ordeal. Michelle Knight said that she was binded with an extension chord and left hanging like an “ornament on the wall.”

“I was tied up like a fish,” Michelle Knight said in an interview with Dr. Phil. Knight, 32, also described how her captor, Ariel Castro, would leave her alone for multi-day stretches in his basement without food or water. Castro was sentenced to life without parole plus 1,000 years in prison, but was found dead in his cell just a month later. The two-part interview starts tonight in the US.

2. Rape Club

New Zealand police are investigating a gang of young males who boasted online about stupefying underage girls as young as 13 with alcohol then having group sex with them.

The group, call themselves Roast Busters. Police say they are taking the issue seriously and have been investigating the gang for almost two years. But they say the case has stalled because victims are too traumatised to give evidence about what they have been through. Late yesterday NZ Police were interviewing two men in relation to the “Roast Busters” Facebook page

3. Balcony murder

The trial continues of Simon Gittany accused of throwing his fiancée, Lisa Harnum off a 15th-floor balcony in Sydney. A secret phone recording of a couple’s fight has been played where a fight erupts when Gittany suggests to Ms Harnum that he wants to spend one day a week with his male friends. The court also heard evidence from a neighbour who said she heard banging on her door and “ a woman’s voice scream ‘please help me, help me, god help me’.”

The trial continues today when Gittany is expected to be the defence’s first witness.

4. Madeleine McCann suspect

The first pictures have emerged of the key suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Euclides Monteiro was a heroin addict who worked in the restaurant at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz but was fired a year before Madeleine vanished on May 3, 2007.

It has been claimed he was caught stealing at the resort. Police identified him as their main suspect after mobile phone records indicated he was around the McCanns’ holiday apartment Maddie disappeared. An investigation is now under way to determine whether Monteiro, who died in a freak tractor accident in 2009 aged 40, took Maddie in revenge for losing his job.

5. Female cadet sues

The female army cadet at the centre of the Skype sex scandal is suing the Department of Defence for compensation.

Two 21-year-old men, Daniel McDonald and Dylan Deblaquiere, were handed 12-month good behaviour bonds in an ACT court in October over their involvement.

But the female cadet has decided to file legal documents with the Human Rights Commission, claiming she’s been through “hell” since the incident in March 2011 and that Defence hadn’t adequately supported her.

6. Same-sex marriage

The High Court will hear the Commonwealth’s constitutional challenge to the legality of the ACT’s same-sex marriage law on December 3 and 4, before any marriages will be able to take place. The court agreed to the federal government’s request for an expedited timeline at a brief directions hearing yesterday.

The law will begin on November 7 but couples must give one month and one day’s notice of their intent to marry, meaning no wedding can be held until December 8, four days after the hearing.

7.  Wombs for rent

With reports that India has become a Mecca for foreigners seeking a surrogate mother to gestate their child there are questions being raised about whether it is really exploitation. India is one of the few countries that allows commercial surrogacy and is popular as the procedural costs are low. Critics say the practice takes advantage of poor women and is akin to “organ sale”.

The Indian surrogates get around US $8000 per baby. New laws in India have banned foreign singles and same sex couples from surrogacy. New laws might also tighten visa controls.

8. Gun war teenage victim

A thirteen-year old girl is the latest victim of Sydney’s gun war. The girl was shot in the back in what police say is a targeted attack at a home in Sydney’s west.

Three men, one armed with a shotgun, arrived at a home at Blacktown about 11pm last night where a brief argument took place and shots were fired hitting the girl. She was taken to Westmead Hospital, where she is in a stable condition.

9. Dad confronts bullies

A TOWNSVILLE father, who followed a school bus and confronted two teens accused of bullying his children, has been given a $750 bond with no convictions recorded.

The father pushed the teenager after months of relentlessly bullying his children. Magistrate Ross Mack said there were better ways to deal with bullying. “I say that in no way condoning the actions of these children,” Mr Mack said.

10. Melbourne Cup

It’s Melbourne Cup day and it seems that the way to pick a winner is different for the sexes. Men tend to look at a horse’s history and overall form in picking up a Melbourne Cup winner, while women tend to be swayed by names and colours. “The most popular horse so far with female punters so far this year is Green Moon,” Sportingbet has said.

However you bet, if you don’t get the big one, you won’t be alone, with a new study showing that only one in five punters are likely to back a winner at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day.

In Brief:

Schapelle Corby’s half-brother is due to face court on cocaine possession charges today.

The trial of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, has been adjourned until 8 January.

Four people have been charged over the siege at the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi, in which at least 67 people were killed.

The Australian Electoral Commission has admitted its incompetence will send almost 2.5 million voters back to the polls.