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A contingent of 52 Canadian firefighters will fly home over the next few days after more than a month helping tired Australian crews fight huge blazes across Victoria. The Canadians worked throughout Gippsland and Victoria's north-east as fires threatened a number of townships over summer. They also backed up crews in Melbourne's Emergency Coordination Centre. Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) chief fire officer Ewan Waller said the Canadians had made an invaluable contribution through their skill and dedication. "They have helped protect Victorian communities and assets, working alongside DSE and CFA crews," Mr Waller said. Bruce Young, of the...

The Indonesian Government says Australian company CSL should have sought its permission to develop a bird flu vaccine using the Indonesian strain of the H5N1 virus. The death told from bird flu in Indonesia stands at 62 and authorities are preparing to enforce strict controls on people raising poultry. Sweeps begin across Jakarta today to capture and kill any backyard birds not already handed over to authorities. But news this week that the Australian pharmaceuticals company CSL had developed a vaccine against the H5N1 bird flu virus was met with alarm by Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari. He says...

The New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister has taken a swipe at critics of Australia and the United States. Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand's media has turned Australian and American-bashing into a national sport. Mr Peters says New Zealanders who continually take "cheap shots" at Australians and Americans fail to appreciate the valuable work they do in the Pacific. Not for the first time, he pointed the finger of blame squarely at the media. "It's the kind of thing that you see in too many commentators and particularly some papers allowing all sorts of outrageous cartoons which are an insult,...

The Western Australian Security Investigation Group will work with the Australian Federal Police and ASIO to investigate a drive-by shooting at a mosque in northern Perth. Up to 400 people were observing the holy month of Ramadan in the mosque last night when a shot was fired through a window on the upper level, narrowly missing women and children. A witness has told police he saw a flash of light come from a green Jeep, which was parked across the road from the building. Ahdielah Edries was praying in the mosque at the time and says she felt the bullet...

FIVE years ago tomorrow, two numbers - 9/11 - were seared into global consciousness as synonyms for blind hatred and horror when al-Qaeda launched its attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. A year later, 88 Australians were murdered by Jemaah Islamiyah, al-Qaeda's south-east Asian franchise. Two days ago, Aljazeera television, the terrorists' network of choice, broadcast a video showing some of the aircraft hijackers in training in the presence of their leader, Osama bin Laden. This will not surprise most Australians because they have long accepted bin Laden's claim that his group was responsible for the treacherous...

FANS of the Crocodile Hunter have rushed to express shock and sorrow at his death - but one famous Australian doesn't feel the same pain. In an article for The Guardian, feminist and activist Germaine Greer announces: "The animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin." She criticises Irwin for teaching "a whole generation of kids in shorts seven sizes too small" to "shout in the ears of animals with hearing 10 times more acute than theirs".

When a beautiful young woman from Somalia wrote a screenplay entitled Submission, about the treatment of women in Muslim culture, and a Dutch artist, Theo van Gogh, then made the film, Muslim fundamentalists in Holland delivered a famously spectacular review. Van Gogh was shot eight times and his killer was apprehended while attempting to decapitate the body, just in case the message had been too subtle. As for the screenwriter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she was taken into police protection and moved from house to house. The van Gogh murder, committed in 2004, lives on in Europe as an emblem and...

THE latest Middle East conflagration has flushed out a new class of dual nationality super-snivellers who believe mere possession of an Australian passport guarantees them security in their “other” homeland. A number of Lebanese-Australians are berating the Australian Government for not doing enough to get them out of Lebanon. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, up to 25,000 Australians - who also hold Lebanese passports - live permanently or semi-permanently in Lebanon. Of these, some 6000 are registered with the Australian Embassy, presumably because they expected they might need assistance that Lebanon was unable to provide. Preposterously, they have...

A MELBOURNE man has been jailed for three months for bashing his partner's dog. Ibrahim Moussa, 25, of Widford Street, Glenroy, was sentenced in the Broadmeadows Magistrates Court last week to a total of three years' jail over a range of offences including burglary, theft and breach of an intervention order. The three years included two three-month sentences for beating a dog and causing unnecessary pain to the animal, to be served concurrently. The animal cruelty charges relate to incidents in July and August last year involving Zarah, a pit bull-cross puppy that was four months old when the RSPCA...

Tzvi Fleischer, in The Review, on left-wing radical Noam Chomsky's camaraderie with terror group Hezbollah FOR anyone who doubts that there is a growing international alliance between the far Left and radical Islamists (the "red-green" alliance), leftist icon Noam Chomsky has provided categorical proof. He has just given a great big bear-hug to Hezbollah. Chomsky travelled to southern Lebanon in mid-May and met Hezbollah secretary general Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah. He appeared repeatedly on Al-Manar TV, Hezbollah's blatantly anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist TV propaganda arm, being shown around by Hezbollah minders. He toured their "hall of martyrs" and announced "that the victory...

JOHN Howard will act to block the move in the nation's capital to allow gays and lesbians to celebrate civil unions, on the grounds it is an attack on the institution of marriage. The Prime Minister confirmed yesterday that federal cabinet had agreed to overturn the ACT legislation that for the first time grants same-sex couples the right to celebrate civil unions. It was not clear last night whether couples would still be able to celebrate civil unions before the legislation is disallowed on August 1. "The legislation by its own admission is an attempt to equate civil unions with...

IT'S the designer top for every patriotic pooch, but so far Rosie the staffordshire terrier is the only dog in Australia to have her own Socceroo shirt. The $60 strip was especially made for her to wear when Australia takes the field at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Her soccer-mad owner, Sarah Russell, 20, of Loganlea, thinks her pet looks a picture in green and gold. "I always wear my Australia top whenever the Socceroos play and I thought Rosie would like to show her support too. I think she looks great – who doesn't look good in an...

DUTCH pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations from 16 to 12 and the legalisation of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage. The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its web site it would be officially registered tomorrow, proclaiming: "We are going to shake The Hague awake!" The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether. "A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told...

THE kumbaya crowd which pressed for East Timor's independence must shoulder much of the blame for the failure of its dysfunctional Government. But while the collective of liberation theologists and civil rights lawyers cheered Fretilin's Portugese-educated Marxist guerrilla leaders, the same candle-wavers protested against the toppling of the mass murdering Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Yet East Timor, with a population estimated at about one million, whose independence was internationally recognised on May 20, 2002, is now arguably in proportionately worse shape than Iraq, population 26 million, where the first election under its new constitution took place just last December. The...

Winter came early to Cronulla and its chill is spreading, writes Paul Sheehan. About 100 teenagers were at a house in Clump Place, Green Valley, on Saturday night last week. Several adults kept an eye on proceedings. At 9 o'clock came the beginning of the nightmare dreaded by anyone who holds a big party - several carloads of uninvited young men arrived and wanted in. Most of the guests assembled at the front of the house to watch the verbal confrontation unfold. The unwanted visitors, described by numerous witnesses as appearing to be Lebanese, withdrew but certain things were said...

A US-BASED pressure group has warned Australia that its invited military intervention in East Timor to quell unrest did not entitle it to interfere in the country's government. The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network said it was concerned about the situation in East Timor, where the government, with the stated support of rebel leaders, requested the deployment of foreign forces to stem escalating violence. "Timor-Leste must find ways, with respectful support from the international community, to deal with problems in a manner that will not require troops," ETAN said. "Statements by Australian government leaders that providing security assistance entitles...

FIRST there were labradoodles and Maltese Shih Tzu. Then came cockapoos, spanoodles and pugaliers. Now make way for the latest designer dog, the roodle – a cross between a rottweiler and a poodle. Demand for the roodle – fluffy like a poodle, but stocky like the rottweiler – has been heavy, with orders from as far as Hawaii, where one fan paid $2150 for a blended dog. Breeder Fred Freeman, who believes he is the first to create the roodle, said the cross-breed took 10 years to produce. He says they combine the low-allergenic, non-moulting, non-smelling advantages of the poodle...

LONDON: A sex theme park, which has exhibits designed to enhance visitors' lovemaking skills, will open in London's West End later this year. The pound stg. 7 million ($17.3 million) facility, named Amora - The Academy of Sex and Relationships, will have seven sectors, including the pleasure and orgasm areas. Visitors would be able to build their ideal partner from a series of body parts, said Sarah Brewer, director of exhibits. Males and females will also have the chance to learn how to kiss best and ways to talk more sexily, Dr Brewer said.

CINDY Sheehan, pin-up girl for the loopy Left, global terrorists, and the anti-US, anti-Howard, anti-Iraq war push, is entertaining her addled fans in Sydney tonight. It should be enlightening – not. Using her soldier son Casey's coffin as a soapbox, Sheehan has become a counter-culture celebrity in the US, best-known for camping outside President George W. Bush's ranch and the White House and making herself available to the liberal media 24/7. Expect to see her interviewed at length in the Fairfax Press and by the ABC's numerous competing news and current affairs programs. Don't expect however to see any of...

AN Aboriginal elder who claimed customary law gave him the right to bash and have anal intercourse with a 14-year-old schoolgirl promised to him as a wife has lost a High Court bid to overturn his three-year jail sentence. The 55-year-old man was originally sentenced to just one month's jail by Northern Territory Chief Justice Brian Martin last August, after the judge accepted the defendant had believed tribal law meant he was entitled to teach the girl to obey him. In December, the sentence for the crime of sexual intercourse with a child younger than 16 was increased to three...