Australian protesters held a ”picnic rally” against the logging of native forests while hundreds of Indian policemen swapped guns for spades on Tuesday to highlight World Environment Day. Across Asia, people learned about worm farming and listened to lectures about renewable energy.
An Australian doctor on a trans-Pacific flight was upgraded to first class and given a bottle of vintage champagne after delivering a baby for a Brazilian who didn’t even know she was pregnant, news reports said on Sunday. The mid-air birth was even more remarkable because it brought together an eminent obstetrician with a complex breech birth.
An Australian <i>Star Wars</i> fan has been left regretting his brush with "the Force" after police arrested him for carrying a toy laser. The 32-year-old was walking through central Melbourne on Thursday when the pistol-shaped laser poking out of his backpack sparked a security scare at the city’s Crown Casino.
Bill Johnston, a member of Don Bradman’s 1948 ”Invincibles”, has died at the age of 85, Cricket Australia announced on May 25. Johnston was a versatile left-arm bowler who played 40 Tests for Australia between 1947 and 1955, capturing 160 wickets at an average of 23,91.
Aborigine Jackie Huggins remembers when she was regarded as part of Australia’s native wildlife. As a young girl, Huggins was not counted as part of the Australian population. Back then Aborigines existed only under the country’s flora and fauna laws. On Sunday, Aborigines will celebrate the 40th anniversary of a 1967 vote that extended Australian citizenship to Aborigines.
Australians pay millions of dollars for an apartment overlooking famous Bondi Beach, but only the ”Bondi Caveman” enjoys the panoramic water view for free. Jhyimy Mhiyles has camped rough for the past five years on Bondi’s southern headland.
Australia’s most notorious outlaw Ned Kelly, dead for 126 years, is again eluding authorities. Kelly, who became a folk hero of Australia’s colonial past with his gangs’ daring bank robberies and police shoot-outs, was hanged for his crimes in 1880 and buried in a mass prison grave.
Samoa beat Fiji 8-3 in a low-scoring match in Apia on Sunday to win the opening game of this season’s expanded Pacific Nations Cup. Open-side flanker Alapasa Cordtz scored the only try of the match. His teammate, Gavin Williams, and Fiji fullback Taniela Rawaqa traded penalties.
George Gregan has been sacked as Wallabies captain for the 2007 international season, ending his record run as Australia’s longest-serving Test skipper. The 34-year-old scrumhalf was selected in a 30-man squad for Australia’s seven Tests leading up to this year’s World Cup, but not as captain.
All-rounder Shahid Afridi smashed 73 off just 34 balls to lead Pakistan to a five-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the first of three one-day internationals in Abu Dhabi on Friday. Pakistan, playing for the first time since their disappointing World Cup campaign and the mysterious death of their coach Bob Woolmer, reached their target of 236 with eight overs to spare.
Cricket Australia said on Tuesday its suggestion that a banned tour of Zimbabwe could proceed at a neutral venue was scrapped after the host nation’s top cricket official rejected the idea. ”We can now say definitely that the series will not be happening inside or outside Zimbabwe,” a spokesperson said.
The Australian government says it would be surprised if Zimbabwe accepted an offer to play Australia at a neutral venue after the ”humiliation” of being boycotted. The Australian government ordered the national team to cancel their scheduled three-match tour of Zimbabwe in September to protest against President Robert Mugabe’s regime.
Through wars, disasters and coups, foreign correspondent Kate Webb chronicled the turbulent birth of modern Asia, becoming a media legend who had the eerie experience of reading her own obituary. Webb, who died of cancer on May 13 at 64, covered many of Asia’s seminal events of the last four decades with a keen eye for the real story.
An Australian cricket tour to Zimbabwe would be a propaganda victory for President Robert Mugabe’s regime, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Thursday. Downer said he would try to convince officials that Australia’s cricketers would be providing comfort to a ”pretty barbaric dictatorship”.
Test cricketer Vusi Sibanda has urged Cricket Australia to honour its commitment to Zimbabwe and play its scheduled three-match tour of the troubled Southern African nation in September. The Australian government and Cricket Australia are set to meet on Thursday to discuss the limited-overs tour with Prime Minister John Howard.
New Zealand lock Ali Williams has been dumped from Auckland’s Super 14 squad because off repeated bad behaviour, including drinking alcohol on the night before matches. The Auckland Blues released a statement on Monday announcing Williams had been sent home from South Africa after ”recent late night excursions”.
The Australian government signalled on Friday that it is likely to call on the country’s world champion cricketers to cancel a planned tour of Zimbabwe this year. Prime Minister John Howard, a strong critic of the regime of President Robert Mugabe, said the government would pay fines of up to ,6-million, which could be imposed by the International Cricket Council.
A young Australian diplomat was mauled by lions at a wildlife park in Zimbabwe, but survived because her boyfriend scared the animals away, a report said on Sunday. Gemma Huggins (27) was visiting the lion and cheetah park outside Harare when a lion grabbed her by the head and shook her, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
Crematoriums in Australia are installing super-size furnaces to deal with the super-size coffins needed to contain super-size corpses, news reports said on Sunday. More than half of all Australian men are overweight or obese and almost half of all women.
It’s close to midday on one of the busiest streets in Sydney’s centre and Juan Mann is getting nervous. Known to millions as the ”free hugs guy”, he is worried about the lunchtime rush. Ever since a video of Mann appeared on the YouTube website last September, he has become something of a celebrity in his home town.
The Waikato Chiefs beat the New South Waratahs 28-23 in Sydney on Friday to stay in the hunt for a place in the Super 14 semifinals. A late try by replacement Tane Tu’ipulotou sealed victory for the New Zealand side, who climbed to third in the standings with one game left.
The Hurricanes held off New Zealand rivals the Highlanders 22-21 in Wellington on Friday to keep alive their faint hopes of reaching the Super 14 semifinals. The teams scored two tries apiece, the last of which was by the Highlanders’ Toby Morland in the dying seconds, but flyhalf Nick Evans missed the conversion that would have given his side victory.
Rapper Snoop Dogg has been refused entry into Australia because of his extensive criminal record, the immigration minister said on Thursday. It is the second time this year the troubled rapper has been barred from entering another country. Snoop Dogg was due to fly into Sydney this week to co-host the MTV Australia Video Music Awards.
A blind British pilot landed his microlight aircraft in the northern Australian city of Darwin on Monday as he neared the end of a London to Sydney charity flight. Miles Hilton-Barber (55) flew his aircraft into Darwin International Airport after strong headwinds had forced him to make an unplanned landing in Kununurra in a remote part of Western Australia on Sunday.
The Otago Highlanders kept their faint Super 14 semifinal hopes alive when they just held off a fast-finishing New South Wales Waratahs 26-25 on Saturday. Trailing by 20 points with 13 minutes remaining, the Waratahs launched a spirited counterattack and scored three tries to almost steal an unlikely win.
The Crusaders held off a determined challenge from New Zealand rivals the Hurricanes to win a bruising Super 14 match 23-13 in Christchurch on Friday. The defending champions and competition leaders led 17-13 at half-time following tries by forwards Corey Flynn and Ross Filipo.
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.
The New South Wales Waratahs defeated arch-rivals the Queensland Reds 26-13 here on Saturday in a battle between the worst two teams in the Super 14 rugby competition. The Waratahs scored two tries to one to outlast the visiting Queenslanders and almost certainly consign the Reds to the wooden spoon for the second year in a row.
The Waikato Chiefs ran in nine tries to beat the Western Force 64-36 in a highly entertaining Super 14 match in Hamilton, New Zealand on Saturday. Winger Roy Kinikinilau and replacement scrumhalf Brendon Leonard claimed hat tricks to help keep the Chiefs’ semifinal hopes alive and hit the Perth-based team’s chances of reaching the playoffs.
Australia’s top rugby executive Gary Flowers announced his resignation on Friday, paving the way for the possible return of his predecessor John O’Neill after this year’s World Cup. Flowers, who has been criticised for a lack of leadership, said he will leave when his contract expires on December 31 2007.
Extreme drought, ferocious bushfires and urban development are killing Australia’s koalas and could push the species towards extinction within a decade, environmentalists are warning. Alarms about the demise of the iconic and peculiar animal, which sleeps about 20 hours per day and eats only the leaves of the eucalyptus tree, have been raised before.
Rising carbon dioxide emissions are making the world’s oceans more acidic, particularly closer to the poles, heralding disaster for marine life, a major United Nations report on climate change impacts says. The report, released in Brussels on Friday, carries the toughest UN warning yet about the impacts of global warming.