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The death of a Danish backpacker who drank a brew of tea made from poppies has prompted a warning from a Tasmanian coroner about the dangers. Jonas Havskov Pedersen died on his 26th birthday in February 2014 as a result of morphine intoxication after drinking poppy tea. He was on a working holiday at the time he climbed a poppy field fence somewhere between Jericho and Oatlands and took some poppy heads. Mr Pedersen began to vomit several hours after drinking the tea and his travelling companion said he looked "scared" and did not "look right". Both men eventually went...

Full Title: Where did the green 'alien eggs' come from? Scientists baffled by UFOs (unidentified floating objects) that washed up on a Sydney beach Visitors from outer space or a natural phenomena? Surfers and early morning walkers were stunned to find thousands of 'alien eggs' on a Sydney beach this weekend. Locals in Dee Why, on the city's North Shore, reported seeing a large number of the strange objects which had washed ashore overnight. But rather than the green spheres being something from another planet, scientists explained they were a type of sponge-like seaweed that forms egg shapes possibly to...

Never before have I felt so naked. Now more than ever, I wish I was armed. And I’m not alone. Any and all home-grown Islamic terrorism should be able, if need be, to be met by a well-armed civilian militia. The United Kingdom has had two beheadings of members of the public in the last two years, with neither police nor civilians able to prevent it. It has prohibitive gun laws. With news of the ISIS plot to randomly abduct members of the Australian public and behead them, Australian sentiment on guns is dramatically shifting. It appears Australians are finally...

This photograph was taken off Cape Otway 20 minutes before pilot Frederick Valentich went missing. Picture: Supplied INVESTIGATORS have shed new light on one of ­Australia’s greatest aviation mysteries. Almost 36 years to the month that Victorian pilot Fred Valentich vanished without a trace, an independent researcher says there is evidence suggesting the 20-year-old’s Cessna was spotted in the sky over South Australia — attached to a UFO.The Victorian UFO ­Action group wants help to identify a farmer near Adelaide who reportedly ­witnessed the 30m craft hovering over his property the morning after Mr Valentich went missing.It is claimed...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Thursday that Iraq will need more help from the United States as it seeks to push back a violent Islamic insurgency that has captured two key cities and threatens to press toward Bagdad. Obama did not specify what type of assistance the U.S. would be willing to provide but said he had not ruled out any options. "We do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria, for that matter," Obama said during an Oval Office meeting with Australian Prime Minister...

SYDNEY -- Baseball fans and Dodgers fans have been listening to the musical, knowing voice of Vin Scully for 65 years. If anyone's an authority on the game, it's him. So hearing Scully rave about the entire experience of the Opening Series is a good clue that the first regular-season Major League Baseball action Down Under, and the week-long celebration of Australian culture that surrounded it, amounted to one smashing success. "Everybody talks about the long trip from Los Angeles to Sydney -- 14, 15 hours, whatever it is, and another 14 to 15 back -- but I will tell...

Cameron says he plans to complete principal shooting on the three movies at one time, perhaps over a period of about nine months.

A shocking case of a family of ~40 in rural Australia, the “Colts” (it’s a pseudonym), which has engaged in several generations of first degree incest has surfaced. You can read the summary in the press. But the Australian government has released a report on the case. I haven’t read most of it because the snippets I have stumbled upon are very disturbing. But, I was curious as to the characterization of the 12 children who were removed by social services. In particular, only one, Cindy, had parents who were unrelated. Note how different she is: Cindy Colt (5), Rhonda...

In fact, Australian law now recognises polygamous unions contracted in other jurisdictions for many purposes. “The social institution of marriage differs from country to country. It is not now possible (if it ever was) to confine attention to jurisdictions whose law of marriage provides only for unions between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. Marriage law is and must be recognised now to be more complex. Some jurisdictions outside Australia permit polygamy. Some jurisdictions outside Australia, in a variety of constitutional settings, now permit marriage between same sex couples. “These...

Melbourne priest Greg Reynolds has not only been defrocked, but also excommunicated by the Catholic Church over his support for women priests and homosexuals. The order came directly from Vatican under the authority of Pope Francis, who just recently said that the Church focuses too much on gays and abortion. Fr. Greg Reynolds, inclusive congregation, and dog Mr Reynolds resigned as a parish priest in 2011, and has founded Inclusive Catholics in 2012. He said that although he was expecting to be laicised or defrocked for his views on ordination of women and homosexuality, he didn't know he was to...

The Adelaide Archdiocese under Archbishop Philip Wilson, former President of the Australian Bishops Conference, is a strange, ultra-liberal place. A place, apparently, where parishes are not even allowed to publicise pro-life activities such as the upcoming 40 Days for Life campaign, lest anyone be offended at being told that abortion is murder. Death of a diocese Adelaide is one of those dioceses where Catholicism looks like being snuffed out sooner rather than later. The number of priests continues to fall catastrophically (in 1990 there were nominally a hundred diocesan priests; in 2000, 91; by 2012 it was down to 74),...

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has held a dinner meeting with Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-European Union UK Independence Party, prompting critics to accuse him of using his clout to interfere in Britain's debate about the European Union. Prime Minister David Cameron promised to try to renegotiate Britain's membership of the EU and to hold a referendum on staying in or leaving by the end of 2017, a pledge which fuelled public debate between supporters and opponents. A spokesman for UKIP, which favours Britain leaving the EU, said the dinner took place at Murdoch's London flat on Tuesday. He declined...

POLICE are trying to find a home invader who was badly hurt when he tried to force his way past an 83-year-old black belt home owner last night. The home invader, a muscular man in his thirties who may be linked to other burglaries, broke into the high-set home in Gilruth Rd, Kenmore at about 8.30pm. Inside were Edwin Dowdy, 83, and his wife Jutta, 76, who have in the property in the quiet Kenmore street since 1966. When the couple - who both have black belts in the Japanese art of Aikido - realised there was an intruder in...

(GunAuction) -- John Lott, writing on this personal blog johnrlott.blogspot.com, commented that there has been a lot of discussion about Australia's gun control laws. He cites a piece at the Huffington Post. A decade-long examination of the program in the journal "Injury Prevention" concluded that "chances of gun death in Australia dropped twice as steeply" after the program was implemented. A study by Harvard University in the Spring of 2011 suggested that the program helped reduce, either causally or directly, firearm deaths, gun-related suicides and accidental shootings. The Washington Post, summarizing many of the studies, concluded that there was "strong...

Australia shooter Russell Mark arrived in Britain an angry man after being told he won't be allowed to sleep with his wife during the London Olympics. Mark and his wife Lauryn, a fellow competitor who is also on the Australian shooting team, have been told to room separately during the Games. The 48-year-old Mark, competing at his sixth Olympics, said Australian officials had enforced the ban as a result of Lauryn's contentious appearance in 'lads magazine' Zoo, where she has been photographed holding a shotgun over her back dressed only in a green and gold bikini. Mark said he and...

IN a bizarre set of circumstances, a rare but dead albino possum is believed to have caused a log truck roll-over on the Princes Highway just south of Narooma. The accident occurred just after 1pm when witnesses said a local from Wallaga Lake stopped to look at the road-kill possum that had been lying on the roadside at the entrance to the Island View Beach Resort. A series of cars backed up behind the stopped vehicle in the southbound lane. Another Narooma local who was last in the line of stopped cars looked in his rear-vision mirror only to see...

One of the nice things about debating about the cons and cons of gun control: the real world is full of real-world examples of why gun grabbing is beyond foolish. I’ve already connected the dots between gun control and the destruction of press freedom, drawing on the lessons provided by Mexico. Today’s case-in-point hails from the land down under. smh.com.au reports . . . THE police have launched an audacious effort to get thousands of illegal guns off Sydney’s streets, urging people to be more courageous and simply pick up the phone to tell them where weapons are in order...

A MAN was killed and another wounded by a single shot from a 100-year-old pistol during a fight in a Gold Coast McDonald's restaurant car park. The Supreme Court in Brisbane heard Samuel Mark Friedman went to the car park at Burleigh Heads to meet Ben Matthews early in the morning of August 15, 2009. However, Friedman, who was a passenger in a car, was "surprised" when Matthews was joined by a second man, Richard Doherty, and they began punching him through the window. The court heard a gun was discharged and the bullet passed through Matthews's left arm tricep...

Obama snaps up crocodile insurance Down Under... (and Michelle gets £30,000 if he's eaten) By Emily Allen U.S. President Barack Obama snapped up an unusual gift on a visit to Australia this week - £30,000 worth of crocodile insurance. The official gift, worth about A$10 or just over £6, was given to mark his stopover in Australia's tropical north, home to some of the world's biggest and deadliest crocodiles. If he had been attacked and eaten during the visit his wife Michelle would have received a £30,000 pay-out. Mr Obama told about 2,000 U.S. Marines and Australian troops at the...

George Robert Lazenby was born on September 5, 1939 in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, Australia.