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Taiwan has offered a message of thanks to Australia in the wake of Peter Dutton’s stern warning to China not to invade the small island nation or risk destabilising the entire region. Taiwan has also asked for closer relations with Canberra in an attempt to strengthen ties. In an interview with The Australian, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said he was thankful for the Australian government’s escalating concerns and said the comments were helping to de-escalate conflict in the region. He told the newspaper that while his country was capable of defending itself, Australia’s support for Taiwan was helping to preserve...

Defence Minister Peter Dutton has warned that all Australian major cities are within range of Chinese missiles and claims the conquest of Taiwan will be the first domino to fall in a campaign by Beijing to dominate the Indo-Pacific region. In the most aggressive anti-China speech by an Australian minister in decades, Mr Dutton said on Friday the world could not repeat the mistakes of the 1930s when Western powers ignored the rapid militarisation of Japan and Germany.

Just as the ALP franking credits disaster played a huge role in delivering the prime ministership to Scott Morrison in 2018, Donald Trump has a similar weapon to use against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – the so called “AB5” threat. And while “AB5” is not currently among the frontline Trump campaign issues like law and order, it has the potential to devastate Biden and Harris. AB5 refers to a Californian law championed by Harris. It was designed as a way to get rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft to classify all their contract drivers as employees. To do this,...

US energy prices just one-third of those in Australia, along with a robust manufacturing sector stoked by President Donald Trump's policies, have prompted a $1 billion expansion of an Ohio steel mill by BlueScope. BlueScope chief executive Mr Vassella said the $1 billion expansion of the North Star mill, to be fully up and running by 2023, was the largest capital investment the steelmaker would likely ever make, and would deliver annual returns of 15 per cent-plus. He said the company had intimate knowledge of the mill because it helped build it in the first place in the mid-1990s in...

BARACK Obama won an Olympic gold medal for schmoozing in Brisbane last weekend. Along the way, the US president exposed the opponents of coal seam gas in Queensland as utter hypocrites. With China, the US is of course the worst polluter on the planet. Yet the shale boom sweeping across America is unlocking oceans of underground gas, a cleaner energy gradually replacing coal in US power stations. Obama knows gas is good. Gas drives his emissions reduction pact with China. However, the Greenies who swooned over Obama for his environmental crusade are the same snarling, left-of-centre bigots backing sinister groups...

THE United States embassy in Canberra advised President Barack Obama not to make the provocative, anti-Abbott speech on climate change which he made at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. That the President acted against the advice of his own embassy reveals a deeply divided and in part dysfunctional Obama administration, unable to reconcile its foreign policy objectives and its domestic imperatives. The speech was not only damaging for Tony Abbott, as it will be used by all his opponents on climate change up until the next election, it was a disaster for US foreign policy, because the gratuitous climate...

Experts not involved in the study were skeptical, with one accusing the French scientists of going on a "statistical fishing trip" and others describing its methods as well below standard. The animals on the genetically modified (GM) diet suffered mammary tumors, as well as severe liver and kidney damage, according to the peer-reviewed study which was published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology and presented at a news conference in London. The researchers said 50 percent of male and 70 percent of female rats died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group.

EXCLUSIVE: PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd reduced a young female RAAF cabin attendant to tears with a tirade of abuse over his missing "special" meal during a VIP flight. Mr Rudd's bully-like behaviour appalled a number of senior government officials who witnessed the dressing down on the flight from Port Moresby to Canberra in late January. The Advertiser can reveal that an official report was filed by the Commander of 84 Wing and the VIP fleet, Group Captain Peter Wood, detailing the behaviour of VIP Number 1(Mr Rudd). The Prime Minister's tirade over an in-flight meal reduces a young woman to...

Democrat Budget Committee Member Doesn't Know the Difference between Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chairman.

WASHINGTON - Crucial Arctic sea ice this summer shrank to its second lowest level on record, continuing an alarming trend, scientists said Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT The ice covered 1.74 million square miles on Friday, marking a low point for this summer, according to NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. Last summer, the sea ice covered only 1.59 million square miles, the lowest since record-keeping began in 1979. Arctic sea ice, which floats on the ocean, expands in winter and retreats in summer. In recent years it hasn't been as thick in winter. Sea ice is...

Cold snap decimates rice crop (14-02-2008) Peanut and soybean crops in North also devastated. Farmers in Ha Tay Province’s Xuan Mai Township grow rice seedlings under plastic in order to protect them from the cold. The month-long cold spell has devastated most of northern Viet Nam’s winter-spring rice crop. — VNA/VNS Photo Hong Hoa HA NOI — The record month-long cold spell had damaged most of northern Viet Nam’s major winter-spring rice crop, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Cao Duc Phat said yesterday. The minister instructed local officials to warn farmers not to sow crops in temperatures of less than...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Influenza viruses coat themselves in fatty material that hardens and protects them in colder temperatures -- a finding that could explain why winter is the flu season, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday. This butter-like coating melts in the respiratory tract, allowing the virus to infect cells, the team at the National Institutes of Health found. "Like an M&M in your mouth, the protective covering melts when it enters the respiratory tract," said Joshua Zimmerberg of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), who led the study. The NICHD is one of the National

Venice high and dry Source: Manuel Silvestri, Reuters Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 9:10 AEDT A boat lies immobile on mud in a Venice canal after sea levels plunged to a 14-year low on February 19, 2008. The Centro Maree, whose forecasts are vital for organising transport in Venice, said a high-pressure system set off a 'Code White' alert that signals low sea levels. Canals slipped on Monday to 80 centimetres below average sea level, the lowest since 1994.

Botulism case said tied to carrot juice TAMPA, Fla. - Investigators believe botulism toxin from bottled carrot juice paralyzed a woman, the fourth person thought to be poisoned by bacteria in the drink. The unidentified woman is unresponsive and has been hospitalized since mid-September, said Jylmarie Kintz, epidemiologist for the Hillsborough County Health Department. Three people in Georgia experienced respiratory failure and remain hospitalized on ventilators since drinking the bottled carrot juice a month ago, according to federal officials. The trio were from Washington County, Ga., and shared a meal Sept. 7 that included carrot juice made by Bolthouse Farms,...

2 women plead guilty in UW ecoterrorism By CURT WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Wed Oct 4, 5:48 PM ET TACOMA, Wash. - Two women pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy, arson and bomb charges in the 2001 firebombing of the University of Washington's horticulture center, one of the Northwest's most notorious acts of ecoterrorism. Jennifer Kolar, 33, and Lacey Phillabaum, 31, were released without bail after entering the pleas in U.S. District Court in Tacoma. Authorities said the two turned themselves in and have cooperated with ongoing investigations. Under their plea agreements, prosecutors will ask U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess to...

CBS 5 - San Francisco Bay Area's source for news, weather, traffic and sports: 2 Bags Of Tainted Spinach Traced To Calif. PlantSearch Sep 25, 2006 8:47 pm US/Pacific 2 Bags Of Tainted Spinach Traced To Calif. Plant (AP) SAN JUAN BAUTISTA Two bags of Dole baby spinach that tested positive for the E. coli strain that's sickened 175 people nationwide were packaged at the same plant on the same day, California health officials said Monday. That information has helped investigators tracing the source of the tainted greens narrow their search at nine farms in three California counties, said Dr....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spinach company faces unwelcome scrutiny By JORDAN ROBERTSON, Associated Press Writer SAN JUAN BAUTISTA, Calif. - Earthbound Farm, the country's largest grower of organic produce, is facing unwelcome scrutiny after federal officials linked a nationwide E. coli outbreak to its bagged spinach. The company, also known by its legal name Natural Selection Foods LLC, recalled and stopped shipping all its spinach products after E. coli outbreaks killed one person and sickened more than 100 others in 19 states. Earthbound officials were working with state and federal health inspectors to pinpoint the source of the contamination, spokeswoman Samantha Cabaluna said...

Tainted spinach traced to California By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 43 minutes ago WASHINGTON - A California natural foods company was linked Friday to a nationwide E. coli outbreak that has killed one person and sickened nearly 100 others. Supermarkets across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the leafy green. Food and Drug Administration officials said that they had received reports of illness in 19 states. Twenty-nine people have been hospitalized, 14 of them with kidney failure. The outbreak was traced to Natural Selection Foods, a holding company based in San Juan Bautista,...

Monday September 11, 07:14 PM Gore's climate change movie dismissed Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane has dismissed Al Gore's climate change documentary, saying he would not be taking advice from an unsuccessful presidential candidate. The former US vice-president, who narrowly lost the 2000 election to George W Bush in controversial circumstances, is in Australia to promote his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. The film documents the dangers of global warming and Australia is singled out twice as lagging behind the rest of the world on climate change. Mr Gore has urged Prime Minister John Howard to join the fight against the growing...

Tuesday May 23, 04:43 PM Aussie-US ties puzzling: US activist The mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq says she is puzzled by Prime Minister John Howard's alignment with US President George W Bush, whose policies she describes as "devastating the world". Prominent anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan made international headlines when she camped outside Mr Bush's Texas ranch after her son Casey was killed in 2004. Visiting Australia as a guest of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Ms Sheehan said she couldn't understand Mr Howard's continuing close relations with the US president. "It disappoints me but...