Driver charged over 'skitching' accident - Ninemsn

A young driver has been charged after a skateboarding accident in Sydney's west that left his mate with serious head injuries.

The 18-year-old was allegedly towing four skaters behind his car - a practice known as skitching - in Olympic Park on Monday night.

They fell over on Grand Parade, with one hitting his head hard on the ground and suffering serious injures.

He remains at Westmead Hospital in a serious condition.

The other three skaters suffered cuts and bruises.

The driver, from Bayview, north of Sydney, was charged on Wednesday with three counts of drive furiously in a motor vehicle and cause bodily harm, along with several other driving offences.

He's due to appear at Ryde Local Court on May 15.

Police warned skaters about the dangers of skitching after the accident.

In January, a 17-year-old boy died while skitching in a street in Wagga Wagga, in southwest NSW.

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Carr warns of Afghan slaughter if we quit - Ninemsn

Foreign Minister Bob Carr has warned of a slaughter of innocent people in Afghanistan if Australia and other nations withdraw too soon.

Senator Carr said the time was approaching when the Afghans would be able to take over responsibility for their own security.

He said Australia was working in absolute coordination with the US, the UK and other partners in providing support and gradually moving people to civilian, advisory, training and mentoring roles.

"There will be a slaughter of innocent people if we pull out prematurely and the Taliban does what totalitarian Islamists have done in Afghanistan in the past," he told Sky News.

"But there is even a hope that they can be brought into a negotiated outcome."

Senator Carr said recent events including the burning of copies of the Koran by US troops and the murder of 16 Afghan civilians by a rogue US soldier were serious and could not be dismissed.

He said the burning of the Koran was a shocking message to the whole Islamic world, tilting towards those who believed in a clash of civilisations between the Christian and Islamic worlds.

"That's an awful prospect for the planet," he said.

"We want a co-existence. We want an overlap. We want cooperation between civilisations."

Senator Carr said the murder of the Afghan civilians was an atrocity which could only be understood in terms of a 10-year war which has seen exhaustion all round.

He said Afghanistan had shown gains. In 2001, there might have been one million youngsters and virtually no women at school. Now there are four million boys at school, along with two million girls.

"These are gains even under the Karzai government that are occurring because our friends are there trying to nurture them and lead them to a position post-2014 when they can do all the protection, all the fighting themselves," he said.

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