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TAXPAYERS will fork out more than $1 million on police, security guards and beach fencing to babysit schoolies on the Gold Coast. That Department of Communities alone will spend $610,000 to fund Schoolies week, which starts tomorrow. The money pays for free entertainment for the teenage revellers, security guards, beach fencing, wristbands, support services and volunteer co-ordination. Hundreds of thousands of dollars more will be spent on police and ambulance services for the almost 30,000 schoolies expected to hit the Gold Coast.

THE RAAF's plan to acquire up to 100 F-35 joint strike fighters faces a further delay until next year as budget pressures continue to bear down on the Rudd government. In a long-awaited decision, cabinet's national security committee was due to sign off on the $16 billion purchase before Christmas. But defence budget pressures and Defence Department concerns about Australia becoming the lead foreign customer for the initial production models of the F-35 fighter are expected to force a postponement until the new year of a government green light for the acquisition. The expected delay in the NSC's consideration of...

The Australian dollar will reach parity with the US dollar in the next six to 12 months and peak at about $US1.02-03, a currency strategist says. State Street Global Advisers head of currency management Collin Crownover says the unit is already overvalued by about 20 per cent and that the figure would stretch out to 30 per cent if it reached the $US1.03 mark. "I think we'll see about a 10 per cent appreciation from where we are now," the London-based Dr Crownover said in Sydney on Friday. "At that point, certain dynamics come into play and that becomes an...

A pilot is being hailed a hero after performing a landing in shark-infested waters and saving a critically-ill woman and four others on board his plane. Dominic James' dramatic landing took place in the waters off Norfolk Island, 1,000 miles north-east of Sydney in the Pacific Ocean. It is being likened to the 'Miracle of the Hudson' when Captain Chesley Sullenberger carried out an emergency ditching of his jet on New York's Hudson River earlier this year. But the landing of the Westwind jet performed by Dominic was in the dark and into a rough sea prowled by man-eating sharks....

Creationists are ‘liars' (?): Geologist Donald Prothero doesn’t like the fact that we don’t agree with his ideas on evolution. I love the attitude some evolutionists have toward professional, scientific debate. Because creationist scientists do not agree with their biased, subjective and unsubstantiated ideas they spit the dummy and call us liars. The latest tirade from geologist Donald Prothero is in an opinion piece in NewScientist entitled ‘Evolution: What missing link?’1 I like that title. His article was picked up by the Telegraph newspaper in the UK which reported, ‘Creationists “peddle lies about the fossil record�.’2 Lies? Are creationists really...

TRISHNA and Krishna are beginning their wonderful new lives as healthy little girls with hopes they will be home for Christmas. Brain scans have given the Bangladeshi orphans a remarkably clean bill of health after their 31 1/2-hour separation surgery this week. Trishna, the larger and stronger of the two, appeared to search for her sister after she was brought out of sedation. Krishna - who will have to make a greater physical adjustment - was being brought out of sedation last night after brain scans showed Royal Children's Hospital surgeons had pulled off a miracle. "The scans look great....

November 19, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Cobbling Together a CrisisEven as the swine-flu epidemic has peaked. By Michael Fumento ‘Swine flu has killed 540 kids, sickened 22 million Americans,� screams USA Today’s page-one headline, with a sub-head proclaiming, “CDC: Cases, Deaths are Unprecedented.� “Swine flu cases in the U.S. are rising at the fastest pace for influenza in four decades,� breathlessly declares the lede of a Bloomberg News article. Another article’s title refers to a “national swine flu spike.� Scary stuff — but it’s phony. It’s actually a desperate effort to distract from an alarmist media world’s greatest nightmare: that...

THE deadly war in Afghanistan was all a bit of a yawn for Victorian MP Fran Bailey as she enjoyed one last free trip on the taxpayer. The serial snoozer was caught napping on the last day of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Edinburgh, where the defence alliance promised "substantially more forces" would be sent into Afghanistan. This photo clearly shows the Member for McEwen sound asleep while representing Australia as a NATO observer. It's not the first time Ms Bailey, 63, has fallen asleep on the job, the Herald Sun reports. Last year in Parliament, Labor MP Anthony Albanese...

The Church of Scientology faces the prospect of a police investigation in Australia after being accused of torture and embezzlement and of forcing employees to have abortions. Nick Xenophon, an independent senator, presented letters to the Australian Parliament from seven former Scientologists which he said showed that the secretive church was a front for physical violence, intimidation and blackmail. “I am deeply concerned about this organisation and the devastating impact it can have on its followers,” he told the Australian Senate in Canberra. He called for a Senate inquiry. The State Crime Command of New South Wales police yesterday confirmed...

New Zealand PM will not meet Dalai Lama IANS 18 November 2009, 01:17pm WELLINGTON: New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said on Wednesday that he would not meet the Dalai Lama when he visits the country next month. "The reason simply is I've decided that I wouldn't get a lot out of that particular meeting," he told reporters. "I don't see every religious leader that comes to town. I've seen him in the past, I may see him in the future." Key, who said before he was elected a year ago that he would meet the Dalai Lama on future...

INVESTIGATORS will look at the possibility a single neutron caused a mid-air emergency aboard a Qantas jet last year. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau still does not know why flight QF72 from Singapore to Perth suddenly dropped 300 feet while cruising over Western Australia on October 8. Investigators raised the possibility a neutron hit by cosmic radiation may have been responsible for the computer fault at the centre of the incident. One flight attendant and 11 passengers were seriously injured while many others suffered less serious injuries. The decision to look at cosmic rays comes as the safety bureau continues...

New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland are among the top five least corrupt nations, according to a new survey released by Transparency International. Canada is in the top ten. Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan are the most corrupt. Canada ranks amongst the top ten least corrupt countries in the world while conflict-torn states such as Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq are labelled as nations rife with bribery and corruption, according to a new 2009 corruption perception index revealed Tuesday by Transparency International. New Zealand rates as the least corrupt nation followed by Denmark, Singapore and Sweden. Others on the...

According to Thomas Bouchard, a US psychologist famous for his research on twins raised apart,[1] even scientists with good reason to believe that the majority are wrong can be silenced. The reason is...

TWINS Trishna and Krishna are recovering after marathon surgery of almost 32 hours, described as a "perfect" operation. Royal Children's Hospital head of surgery Leo Donnan emerged from the hospital shortly about 4.30pm today to declare the twins were now recovering in intensive care following the completion of five hours or reconstructive surgery. It came about three-and-a-half hours after he revealed the twins were successfully separated after almost 27 hours of complex surgery, the Herald Sun reports. Mr Donnan said the twins were "in good condition and healthy". "They’re both where we thought they’d be." He said the large team...

Nov 15, 2009 — Biomimetics is the new science of imitating nature – but why not save a step, and just copy the design directly?  That’s what Aussie and British researchers did.  They wanted a self-cleaning surface that could repel moisture and dust, so they made a template of an insect wing.  And why not?  “Insects are incredible nanotechnologists,” reported Science Daily.  Their wings are self-cleaning, frictionless and super-water-repellant. Insect wings have these properties due to their properties at the scale of billionths of a meter.  “For instance, some wings are superhydrophobic, due to a clever combination of natural chemistry...

<p>WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A beverage company has asked a team to drill through Antarctica's ice for a lost cache of some vintage Scotch whiskey that has been on the rocks since a century ago.</p> <p>The drillers will be trying to reach two crates of McKinlay and Co. whiskey that were shipped to the Antarctic by British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton as part of his abandoned 1909 expedition.</p>

MORE than 100 penguin-loving tourists including dozens from Britain are trapped by ice off Antarctica aboard a Russian ice-breaker cruise ship... The Kapitan Khlebnikov is in a bay near Snow Hill island, located off the northeastern end of the Antarctic Peninsula, and cannot leave as the bay is sealed off with ice... Everything is calm aboard the ice-breaker, nothing is threatening the passengers and crew... There were 105 passengers aboard the vessel ...The ship has been at its current location for four days. "To put it plainly, the ship got stuck between an island and an ice massif.''

HOMES in Sydney's southwest are under threat from a bushfire which has broken out as the city swelters in hot conditions, as authorities warn it's too late to leave. The Rural Fire Service has issued an emergency warning for residents in West Hoxton, telling them to stay at home as it is too late to flee the blaze. About 50 homes on McIver Avenue and Bonney Street are expected to come under threat this afternoon, the RFS said. Residents are being advised to prepare for impact. "We are asking residents in that area to remain with their homes, it is...

A PYGMY hippopotamus has been shot dead during a pig hunting expedition in the Territory. The hippo is normally native to the swamps of west Africa, in particular Liberia. The Northern Territory News reports, Nico Courtney, 27, was out spotlighting for pigs with his mate Rusty on a station in the Douglas Daly district 200km south of Darwin on Saturday night. "It was about 1am and running away from us - from the tail end it just looked like a big pig," Mr Courtney said. "We got out, had a look at it, and thought 'that's not a pig, it's...

A new drug billed as a mix between cocaine and ecstasy is being sold to Australians online, despite health authorities warning "human guinea pigs" to stay away because its long-term effects are not yet known. The substance mephedrone is known in drug circles as MM-Cat, Plant Food Meow and 4-MMC and is being pedalled through websites like Facebook, the Sunday Telegraph reports. But authorities are believed to be powerless to stop anyone buying it or importing it into Australia because its legal status has not yet been defined. NSW Police told the Sunday Telegraph they were aware of mephedrone and...

FOUR junior lifesavers have told of their brave efforts to save a drowning woman's life after they spotted her gasping for breath at the end of Henley jetty. Jack Mather, 9, Daniel Hogan, Lachlan Frances and Jake Butterfield, all 10, were paddling their nipper boards or about to enter the water shortly before 1pm when they saw the woman go under. The woman, in her mid-30s, had gone for a swim when she suffered a severe asthma attack. Jack said he and his friends paddled over to see if the woman needed help. "My friends Jake, Daniel and Lachlan were...

FOURTEEN months after Sabi, an army black labrador, went missing, in the same Afghan firefight in which SAS Trooper Mark Donaldson was awarded his Victoria Cross, the much-loved veteran explosive-sniffer dog has returned to barracks. Sabi was declared missing in action in September last year after a fierce gun battle involving Australian, US and Afghan special forces pitted against well-armed Taliban insurgents. Nine Australian soldiers, including Sabi's handler, were wounded during the engagement, Defence spokesman Brigadier Brian Dawson said yesterday. With hopes of recovering the labrador alive virtually lost, against all odds, Sabi was located by a US soldier last...

AN Australian wrongly spent more than two years in jail for child rape after the Australian Federal Police and the federal prosecutor denied the existence of crucial documents that would have exonerated him. Pilot Frederic Arthur Martens, 60, is threatening to sue the two agencies for millions of dollars after his conviction was quashed and his 5 1/2-year jail sentence was set aside by Queensland's Court of Appeal yesterday. The court slammed prosecutors and police over their mishandling of the case. In a scathing judgment, judge Richard Chesterman was critical of the AFP and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions...

I can't find an online news story on this or I would post it. Back in January, Australia awarded its first Victoria Cross - Australia and the Commonwealth of Nation's as a whole, highest award for valour in the face of the enemy - to Trooper Mark Donaldson of the Special Air Service. He was decorated by Her Excellency Quentin Bryce AC, Governor General of Australia, appointed by the Queen on the advice of Australia's Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the first woman to hold the role as Australia's de facto Head of State as the Queen's representative. She...

MUSLIM parents have told how their children were also victims of abuse and bullying from other students as they fasted during the daylight hours of Ramadan. The families said yesterday some "Christian" children provoked Muslim students by thrusting food or drinks in their faces during observance of the sacred religious month. They were responding to a couple's claims that their son Antonios Grigorious, 11, was bullied by Muslim students because he ate a salami sandwich during Ramadan at Punchbowl Public School in Sydney's southwest. A Muslim mother-of-two, Lourenz Mahmoud, said yesterday she had complained to teachers at Punchbowl Public about...

The California Milk Advisory Board may have shot itself in the hoof. The board, which promotes the state's dairy farmers and is overseen by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, is again preparing to film commercials touting California milk from California cows -- in New Zealand. In January, it plans to shoot part of its new series of 10 California "Happy Cows" TV commercials in Auckland, taking advantage of that country's low production costs. It comes just after California began offering film tax incentives this summer to reverse so-called runaway production that has caused the loss of thousands of...

AN Indian student was racially vilified and assaulted by a pair of construction workers while working part-time as a cab driver - but both will walk free. Dean James Cooper, 20, and Robert Lee Kleyn, 26, pleaded guilty in a Brisbane District Court charged with assault occasioning bodily harm in company and stealing. The court was told the pair had been drinking heavily at a building industry function in June 2008 when they hailed a taxi driven by an Indian national living in Australia on a student visa. Once in the cab they began hurling racist abuse at the man,...

Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry and Trooper Mark Donaldson, holders of the Victoria Cross, attend a service to honour the First World War generation After the two minutes’ silence, the prayers and the sermon remembering lives sacrificed and innocence lost, two soldiers whose bravery entitles them to wear the Victoria Cross walked along the nave of Westminster Abbey. Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry and Trooper Mark Donaldson, two of the nine living servicemen to have been decorated with the highest award for valour, carried a wreath the size of a lorry wheel from the High Altar to the Tomb of the Unknown...

A SCHOOLBOY claims he was attacked by a mob of angry Muslim students because he ate a salami sandwich during Ramadan. Antonios Grigoriou, 11, says he was chased and assaulted after a confrontation over the contents of his lunch. Antonios, a Year 5 student of Greek-Australian background at a Sydney primary school, said he and a friend were locked inside a library for safety after being chased by a group of Muslim boys offended by his choice of food while they were fasting. The Grigoriou family said Antonios was threatened after the following exchange: Muslim student to Antonios: "Why are...

SYDNEY - A bomb-sniffing dog that disappeared during a fierce battle in Afghanistan between Australian troops and militant fighters has been found and returned to its unit after more than a year. And Sabi the black labrador is getting a celebrity welcome home. Sabi was with a joint Australian-Afghan army patrol ambushed in restive Uruzgan province in September 2008, triggering a gunfight that wounded nine troops and earned one Australian soldier the country's highest bravery medal.

An Australian special forces explosive detection dog has been found after going missing in action in Afghanistan 14 months ago. Sabi, a four-year-old black Labrador, was returned to the Australian base at Tarin Kowt after she had been found by an American soldier wandering in a remote area of the southern province of Oruzgan last week. The US soldier, named only as John, knew his Australian counterparts had lost their favourite canine companion during a gun battle involving Australian, US and Afghan special forces fighting against Taleban insurgents in southeastern Afghanistan last September. Nine Australian soldiers, including Sabi’s handler, were...

AN Australian Army bomb dog survived almost 14 months in the Afghan desert after being declared missing in action during a bloody battle with the Taliban. Sabi, a bomb detection dog, was reported MIA after she fled from the same battle in which SAS Trooper Mark Donaldson won his Victoria Cross for risking his life to save an Afghan interpreter in September last year. Nine soldiers, including Sabi's handler, were wounded in the ferocious firefight that ensured after the Australian, US and Afghan army convoy was ambushed by the enemy. The black labrador fled from the chaos and was feared...

A salamander allegedly “18 million years old” is the latest fossil to produce astonishingly well preserved soft tissue. This time, it’s muscle tissue, and it is supposedly the most pristine example yet. Background—the “dinosaur connection”...

A father probably killed his son with a steak knife, uttered Allah's name and dropped the three-year-old down a disused mine shaft, the South Australian Supreme Court has been told Prosecutors in the case involving Aliya Zilic said that he had taken the boy, Imran, 3½, from his mother's Perth home a few days earlier. Mr Zilic is on trial accused of murdering his only son during an access visit in April 2008. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental incompetence. Horrific details of the youngster's final moments emerged in the court, with prosecutor Jim Pearce saying it...

AUSTRALIA'S first Victoria Cross winner in almost 40 years has had a private meeting with The Queen. As Australian soldier Mark Donaldson walked calmly out the gates of Windsor Castle yesterday, he looked like any one of a number of the uniformed troops on duty protecting the Queen's official residence. But an observant British local among a small throng outside the gates noticed the distinctive Victoria Cross among other medals pinned to his chest and exclaimed loudly in a Cockney accent, "'e's got-a full deck 'e 'as", and warm applause instantly broke out for the unassuming 30-year-old Digger known to...

A court has heard that a Sydney man accused of sending abusive letters to families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan is a peace activist. Man Monis, also known as Sheik Haron amongst other names, is charged with seven counts of using a postal service to harass, menace or cause offence. The 45-year-old was arrested by counter-terrorism police at his Croydon Park home in Sydney's inner west last month. If convicted he could face a jail term of two years. Police say he sent letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, accusing some of the soldiers of...

New figures have revealed that sea levels along the coast of Western Australia are rising at a rate double that of the world average. Statistics from Australia's National Tidal Centre show levels have increased by 8.6mm a year off the coast of the state capital Perth. That compares to a global average of just over 3mm. Scientists have said that man-made climate change has played a significant role in the rise. Climatologists have said that a combination of natural variability and man-made pollution have caused sea levels to rise around the world. Double trouble For much of the past century...

THE first thing a journalist - I mean a real journalist - would do is tell you what actually happened. Like this: an American officer shot dead 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas on Friday. Then the second thing a journalist - a real one - would do is to try to explain why. You know, to help you make sense of this, and to help stop such a terrible thing from happening again. So this real journalist would be keen to pass on to you these following clues. The Fort Hood killer, army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, was a...

I HAD no idea I was a corrupt, reckless, arrogant, dangerous and gutless conspirator who'd rather put my children in danger than help the Prime Minister stop global warming. But so Kevin Rudd has told the nation, naming me as one of just four Australians who've joined a global cabal plotting to stop him from saving you. Never have I heard such a mad speech from a prime minister as the one Rudd gave on Friday at the Lowy Institute, when he exposed an alleged "legion of climate change sceptics" who were "active across the world" and had "tentacles" deep...

THE Federal Government must stop counting trees and start counting koalas as the animals suffer dramatic declines, it was claimed yesterday. Scientists will meet today in Canberra to debate whether koalas should be made a threatened species under federal laws. The Australian Koala Foundation yesterday released figures which it claimed showed falls in koala numbers across NSW and Australia were so dramatic it was vital they were granted federal government protection. And the conservation group said it feared Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett would refuse to list koalas as endangered because there was supposedly enough bush for them.

One of Australia's most prestigious university colleges has been urged to launch an investigation into student behaviour after it emerged that some had set up a "pro-rape" page on the social networking website Facebook. The group, which was named "Define Statutory", described its members as "anti-consent" and was listed in the sports and recreation section of the site. Created by male students from the St Paul's College at the University of Sydney, the page could be accessed from any of its members profiles. It was shut down at the end of last month, but had been live on Facebook since...

A SELF-STYLED Muslim Sheik has chained himself to the steps of a Sydney courthouse in a bid to convey his message of peace. Sheik Haron appeared at the Downing Centre Local Court today charged with sending harassing letters to the families of dead Australian soldiers. As the Daily Telegraph revealed last month, Sheik Haron - whose real name is Man Monis - allegedly sent the letters over two years, devastating the families of seven Diggers who died in Afghanistan. One letter was addressed to a widow, care of a funeral home and he apparently accused some of the dead Australian...

A QANTAS plane was just 400 feet off the runway at Melbourne Airport when the pilot was forced to abort a landing this morning, because of congestion. The 747 jumbo from Los Angeles was carrying 300 passengers when it had to pull out of the landing at the last minute. The pilot was forced to circle the airport until the runway was cleared.

Australians Want PM to Be Tougher on Boat People By REUTERS Published: November 8, 2009 CANBERRA (Reuters) - New opinion polls added pressure on Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Monday to take a tougher stand against asylum-seekers and end a standoff involving 78 boat-people picked up by an Australian ship off Indonesia. The stream of boats arriving in Australia this year has reignited a divisive political debate over illegal immigration and forced Rudd to defend his border-security policy, which critics say has been softened and is attracting more arrivals. A poll published in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald dailies...

A GIRL, 12 who fell pregnant to her 15-year-old live-in boyfriend has given birth to a baby boy. Earlier this year, the NSW Department of Community Services (DoCS) was forced to apologise when it was revealed the girl's father had warned them his daughter was sleeping with her boyfriend at her mother's house. The girl's father told Woman's Day he didn't think his daughter was up to the task of being a mother. "She is only a baby herself and now she's got a baby," he said. "She has no maternal instincts at all. She never even played with dolls...

A staff member of the right-wing NSW Liberal MP David Clarke has stood aside after being linked to a spoof You Tube video involving Adolph Hitler. Charles Perrottet is the second Liberal Party staffer to stand down over the video clip. In the clip, the Hitler biopic Downfall has been re-subtitled to portray the Federal MP Alex Hawke as an enraged Adolph Hitler, making reference to a factional stoush inside the state Liberal Party. A link to the video has been sent to a number of news outlets including the ABC. The war in the Liberal Party's right-wing has been...

SRI Lankans are using civil war as an excuse to seek asylum abroad, the country's high commissioner to Australia says. Senaka Walgampaya said many Sri Lankan asylum seekers were actually "economic refugees" wanting a better life in Australia. "As far as we can see, all the people who are seeking asylum in Australia are seeking to come here for a better life," he told Channel 10. "Also, most of them have their friends and relatives here ... they are coming here to join up with them." Mr Walgampaya said the Sri Lankan civil war was being used by nationals as...

The graves lie ready. All have been dug to identical dimensions, all laid out in perfect rows so that the headstones will face south to catch the sun, while the visitor looks north across the battlefield. ..... In a week when Britain has lost another lionheart of bomb disposal and six first-class troops in Afghanistan, tomorrow's Remembrance services up and down the land will have even greater poignancy. With 93 deaths in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, 2009 is now the bloodiest year for the British Forces since the 1982 Falklands War - and we still have another nine weeks...

SEA levels on Australia's eastern seaboard are rising at less than a third of the rate that the NSW government is predicting as it overhauls the state's planning laws and bans thousands of landowners from developing coastal sites. The Rees government this week warned that coastal waters would rise 40cm on 1990 levels by 2050, with potentially disastrous effects. Even yesterday Kevin Rudd warned in a speech to the Lowy Institute that 700,000 homes and businesses, valued at up to $150 billion, were at risk from the surging tide. However, if current sea-level rises continue, it would not be until...

MELBOURNE'S firefighters should be paid extra for turning up to work sober, according to a log of claims by their union. The Victorian branch of the United Firefighters Union is also calling for a "global warming allowance" for the city's 1600 firefighters, "in recognition of the increased work and risk to firefighters as a result of global warming".. It is also demanding extra pay for firefighters if they have to work when a pandemic is declared. The controversial claims have stunned the Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board (MFB), which says they are unprecedented. "I am not aware of any...