Sydney

Prime Minister John Howard has denied misleading the Australian public over whether the country’s involvement in the Iraq invasion increased the risk of terrorist attacks in Australia. The government has admitted knowing of a British intelligence document contradicting Howard’s position in the lead-up to the war.

South Africa has warned Australia against using ”megaphone diplomacy” on Zimbabwe as a row escalated over allowing Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to attend this year’s Commonwealth summit in Nigeria.

The hot pursuit of a Uruguayan trawler caught poaching Patagonian toothfish in Australia’s Antarctic fishing zone broke the record for the longest maritime chase in Australia’s history on Tuesday.

Australian cricket legend Shane Warne was under pressure on Monday to prove he has nothing to hide in the latest episode in his stormy sporting celebrity career.

An Australian company said on Friday it was preparing for human trials of a hi-tech gel that had been 100 percent effective in preventing HIV infection in monkeys.

A furore over plans to illegally sell up to 200 Solomon Islands dolphins to Mexico intensified on Monday when local security clashed with media trying to photograph the penned animals.

Australia’s states and territories approved a plan on Wednesday to set up a national register of child sex offenders, despite fears the listing could spark vigilante attacks on suspected paedophiles.

Sydney’s six Anglican bishops issued a scathing denunciation on Monday of the appointment of gay priests to senior church positions in Britain and the US and told worshippers who supported such moves they were no longer welcome in their diocese.

A man who allegedly crushed 12 wombats in an Australian national park by repeatedly running over them in his car has been charged with cruelty, police said on Friday.

Every Australian household from this week will receive a government-sponsored anti-terrorism kit designed to help citizens identify terrorists, under a scheme launched on Monday.

Obliging Italian restaurants abroad to seek licences from Rome was at best a marketing wheeze and at worst a case of gastronomic correctness, Australian business luminaries said Thursday.

Millions of computers worldwide have been infected this week by a fast-replicating virus called Bugbear and security experts warned on Friday that the threat was still accelerating.

Office workers in Sydney were terrified on Thursday when they saw what appeared to be a large airliner shadowed by a military jet bank over city skyscrapers.

The head of a Commonwealth committee that suspended Zimbabwe in March, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, warned on Tuesday that Commonwealth countries may impose sanctions on Zimbabwe.

More than 70 000 Australians identified their religion as Jedi Knight on last year’s national census, officials said on Tuesday.

Australia’s Roman Catholic Church took out newspaper
advertisements in major cities on Saturday to apologise to victims of sexual abuse.

Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are under attack from a major infestation of coral-eating starfish that are endangering the world’s largest living organism, environmental protection officials said on Wednesday.

If it is built, Australia’s kilometre-tall solar tower project will be the biggest single generator of green energy in the world.

An Australian banker had his testicles examined more than 300 times by mostly female doctors to help him deal with severe depression, a court in Brisbane was told Friday.

Police in Australia are to interview a man who lopped off his penis, scrotum and left hand in front of his wife, police and ambulance officers in the driveway of his suburban Sydney home.

More than 100 asylum seekers at Australia’s Woomera detention centre are on the second day of a hunger strike they hoped would prompt the government to give them visas they have been denied.

They keep getting washed up on Australian beaches: giant squid up to 12 metres long that seem to have died of old age.