Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Tuesday decried the negative ”gun culture” in the United States after the deadly shooting spree at a US university, holding up tough gun laws in his own country as the answer. Howard introduced strict gun ownership laws after the shooting massacre of 35 people in the southern island state of Tasmania in 1996.
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/ 18 November 2006
Protests against a summit of the world’s financial leaders in Melbourne turned violent on Saturday when activists overturned barricades, pelted police with bottles and smashed a police riot truck. Police locked down several blocks of Australia’s second biggest city to stop protesters reaching the meeting of the group of 20 (G20) economic powers.
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/ 1 November 2006
Australia is already feeling the heat from climate change with a five-year drought devastating rural life, severe early season wildfires and record unseasonal temperatures. Every four days, a farmer commits suicide under the stress of failing crops, dying livestock and debt as the worst drought in 100 years bites deep into the nation’s psyche and erodes economic growth.
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/ 19 October 2006
One Australian farmer commits suicide every four days, defeated by the country’s worst drought in 100 years which has left them with dust-bowl paddocks and a mountain of debt, says a national mental health body. As drought rolls into a sixth year, stoic farmers are reduced to tears under the stress of trying to produce a crop and hold on to land.
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/ 5 September 2006
Fatally injured by a stingray, Australian ”Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin pulled its serrated barb out of his chest before losing consciousness and dying, the world-famous naturalist’s manager said on Tuesday. Video footage of the attack shows Irwin swimming above the stingray on the Great Barrier Reef on Monday when it lashed out and speared him in the heart with its barbed tail