Tonight, no end yet to the wool crisis.
The superpowers prepare for the summit.
And an amazing trek by an amazing man and his dog.
Good evening, thanks for joining us on the National Late Edition.
High level talks in Melbourne have failed to reach an agreement over the crisis in Australia's
wool industry.
The Australian Wool Corporation and the Federal Minister for Primary Industries are still
at loggerheads over the best way to market the mounting wool stockpile.
Mr. Caron says no resolution was reached over the future of the floor price.
Despite the uncertainty in the wool market, sales will continue next week as planned.
Recent speculation has caused a loss of buyer confidence in the wool floor price, and many
industry leaders have called for the sales to be suspended until the issue is resolved.
The new Chief Executive of Elders IXL, Peter Bartels, is already on his way to England
to check over the group's business interests.
Mr. Bartels left Melbourne almost immediately after taking over from John Elliott, the man
who built Elders into one of the country's biggest corporate empires.
His decision to step down came sooner than expected.
However, he will remain as a non-executive chairman.
His announcement came after the close of trading on the stock exchange today, where Elders
shares finished down two cents.
The overall market indicated a drop more than three points, while the Australian dollar was
steady.
Another high flyer is on his way down.
Kevin Parry, who financed the unsuccessful defence of the America's Cup in 1987, has
been ordered to pay the State Bank of Victoria more than nine million dollars.
It's been a long, hard road for Kevin Parry since the heady days of the 1987 America's
Cup challenge.
At the time, he was on a roll, beating Alan Bond for the right to defend the Cup and at
the helm of a fast-expanding business empire.
Things came undone a year later.
Languishing under growing debts, his flagship company, the Parry Corporation, fell prey
to Hong Kong-based predators.
The Hang Lung Development Company ousted Mr. Parry in a bitter boardroom coup.
Today, after a six-week hearing, Mr. Parry was ordered to pay more than nine million
dollars to the State Bank of Victoria.
The court ruled that Kevin Parry personally guaranteed the State Bank loan and was personally
responsible for the debt.
It rejected his claim that he'd acted as an agent for the Parry Corporation and the company
should indemnify him.
American and Philippine officials have agreed to further negotiations on the future of US
bases in the Philippines.
The agreement was announced after five days of talks in Manila on extending the lease
on the bases beyond September of next year.
No date was set for the next round of negotiations.
A light passenger plane has crashed into a suburb of Manila, killing 25 people.
The twin-engine Beechcraft with 21 people aboard came down three minutes after takeoff
on a domestic flight.
There were no survivors.
The pilot had radioed the control tower asking for permission to return, but never made it.
The plane nosediving into the house of a Japanese businessman.
The aircraft exploded on impact, breaking in two and killing the sleeping family of
four.
The plane crashed into the third plane crash in Manila in three weeks.
The prime minister of the rebel republic of Lithuania has finally got to talk with Mikhail
Gorbachev.
She flew to Moscow not knowing whether the Soviet president would see her or not.
She came to Moscow seeking talks to end 10 weeks of stalemate.
Prime Minister Prunskynia wanted a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev.
She was delivering a new package of concessions.
Lithuania would suspend all laws passed since its March 11th Declaration of Independence.
It would not, however, revoke the declaration itself.
Gorbachev had been talking tough, earlier telling reporters the declaration must be
repealed and denouncing Lithuania for what he called adventurism.
But he did agree to a meeting.
And after a two-hour session, Mrs. Prunskynia said while he suggested Lithuania revoke its
independence declaration, Gorbachev did not insist.
He clearly pleased, Prime Minister said, Gorbachev agreed that formal talks could begin as soon
as Lithuania's parliament approved her package of concessions.
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker will raise the Baltic crisis in his talks with the Soviet
leader, which have just got underway.
He's already spoken to other Soviet officials on a range of subjects.
So Baltics is just one of many internal problems in the Soviet Union upon which the Bush administration
has been expressing itself.
Freedom of religion is another.
In an attempt to quiet U.S. criticism, Shevardnadze today invited Baker to take a brief tour.
They visited the historical seat of the Russian Orthodox Church at Zagorsk, just outside of
Moscow.
This spectacular showplace of the church was intended to show Baker there is new tolerance
for religion in the Soviet Union.
That message turned into a minor embarrassment for Shevardnadze when he was showing Baker
a nearby village.
The two were accosted by a 76-year-old woman who complained that authorities would not
allow her village church to open.
It had been closed since World War II.
She also complained that she had to sell her cow because times were so rough and she didn't
have enough money to make ends meet.
While Baker remained silent, an uncomfortable Shevardnadze promised the church would be
opened and the old woman's pension increased.
Electioneering in Romania has ended in violence in Timisoara, birthplace of the country's
revolution against the iron fist of Nicolae Ceausescu.
Several thousand supporters of the National Salvation Front gathered in the city's opera
square.
Their rally was disrupted by a few hundred opponents of the front who claim its leaders
remain communists.
One stormed the podium and pulled down flags.
Police and troops in the square did not intervene.
The Romanians go to the polls for the first time in decades on Sunday.
Actor Marlon Brando's son Christian has been arrested over the killing of a Tahitian who
was his sister's boyfriend.
Police believe the boyfriend beat up Cheyenne Brando who is pregnant.
Police didn't know what to expect when they responded to a call to 911 made by Marlon
Brando himself.
What they discovered was the body of 26 year old Dag Drulli of Tahiti, shot once in the
head.
Brando's son Christian was arrested shortly thereafter and booked for murder.
Police say he and the victim got into a heated and deadly argument.
There was an allegation of some mistreatment of Cheyenne Brando, Mr. Brando's 20 year old
daughter by the victim.
Exactly what that treatment may have involved.
I'm not sure at this point in time.
But apparently Christian Brando took exception to that and some sort of dispute ensued resulting
in the shooting.
The Japanese businessman who bought a van Gogh for a record $130 million earlier this
week has reportedly snapped up another masterpiece.
Renoir's painting of an outdoor Parisian dance in the 1870s was auctioned in New York.
The winning bidder apparently was the emeritus chairman of the Disho paper company.
And that's a mere $100 million Australian making the Renoir the second most expensive
painting in the world.
And now the weather for the start of the weekend, rather cold over southeastern Australia with
showers in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart.
Some showers also for Darwin but fine in the other capital cities.
And that's just about it for later edition.
We'll say farewell this week with a story about an amazing American who's hiking 3000
kilometers along the Appalachian Mountains.
So do have a good weekend.
That's of course a safe one from me until Monday.
Good night.
A poet said these mountains are kissed by the morning mist.
A natural haze inspires names like the great smokies and the blue ridge.
But Bill Irwin cannot see any of this.
He is totally blind.
Still with his seeing eye dog, he intends to walk the full length of the trail over
terrain that hikers who can see find difficult.
It's just a wonderful spiritual experience for me.
Forty nine years old, Irwin has been blind for more than 20 years from an eye disease.
He says God wanted him to walk the trail to inspire others and to show his faith.
Good boy.
Orient, the seeing eye dog, had to be retrained.
In the city, the dog stops at objects more than two inches high.
Now he's been taught to lead Bill over rocks and fallen trees, along narrow foot bridges
where a misstep could be disastrous, and to follow the scent of other hikers to stay on
course.
He knows by the way I walk whether I'm stumbling or comfortable or whatever.
And he adjusts the walking speed to that.
And he knows about what will trip me up.
Bill Irwin and his dog have to leave the trail every week or so for supplies.
Local residents or hikers direct them to stores, help with the shopping, and then direct them
back to the trail.
Most days end with a cup of tea with fellow hikers, followed by a simple meal of rice
or pasta before sleep in preparation for another day on the trail.
Bill's heightened senses of smell, touch, and presence make these scenes real.
You've got to look at being out here in God's world as being a guest in someone else's home
that you have to blend in with it rather than trying to get it to blend in with what you
want to do.
What Bill Irwin wants to do is to arrive in Maine, the end of the trail, before the end
of summer.
Sunday rugby this week has something for everyone.
With the French arriving, we go back to the famous test of 1968 at the SCG against Australia.
Also, we join 50,000 fans at Twickenham for the Pilkington Cup final between champions
Bath and Gloucester.
And David Campisi, Mark Eller, and their Ramwick teammates show us how they won the Centenary
Sevens at Melrose in Scotland.
Sunday rugby at five, only on ABC.