46 year-old Mr. Wand was being taken to a prison travelling in an old van when he could not stand the roasting heat of 46 celsius and ended up being cooked to death. Mr. Wand had to be transported 225 miles away to jail under a temperature hitting 50 degrees Celsius (122f) in a van with dodgy air conditioning.

The man was arrested for drink driving and put on the van to be transported to jail. This is what Wester Australia Coroner Alastair Hope said about the death by the heat: “It is a disgrace that a prisoner in the 21st century, particularly a prisoner who has not been convicted of any crime, was transported for a long distance in high temperatures in this pod.”

Mr. Wand was eventually taken to the hospital but the hospital staff was unable to cool him down. It was reported that he had a body temperature of 41.7 degrees Celsius opposed to a normal temperature of 37 Degrees Celsius.

SOURCE: liveleak.com

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Yoann Galeran

Lisa Heathcote, Yaonn’s employer, said:

He was swimming out and this crocodile has grabbed him by the head and done a roll. Then he’s just started punching into it and it let him go. Then it came back at him again but he managed to get his hands under its front legs and push it off.

The 29-year-old was rushed to hospital where doctors treated the injuries he suffered in the close encounter. Australia’s saltwater crocodiles can grow up to seven meters. They have been a protected species since the 1970s.

• The Telegraph

The post French Fisherman Survives Saltwater Crocodile Attack in Northern Australia appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

New Zealand

The bill was strongly criticized by Christian lobbies but it was supported by both the country’s conservative Prime Minister John Key and the leader of the oppoition. A recent poll showed that 70% of New Zealanders were in favour of the bill.

New Zealand is the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to legalize gay marriage. The bill changes the country’s marriage act that was approved in 1955.

• BBC

The post New Zealand approves Same-sex Marriage Bill appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

The mad man is thought to have set on fire a train at Dandenong Station, and Detective Senior Constable added: “Officers observed the offender assaulting a male on Foster St.”, he continued talking about the man attacking the officers: “OC foam was applied, a burning capsicum spray, but it had no effect.”

Watch the naked man’s unstoppable rage:

SOURCE: liveleak.com

The post Naked nutter attacks random people and police in Australia (VIDEO) appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Kim Dotcom allowed to sue New Zealand’s spy agency

A New Zealand court has ruled that Kim Dotcom can sue the country’s spy agency for conducting a raid in his house in January 2012. Dotcom, whose real name is Kim Schmidt, is a German national with New Zealand residency meaning it was illegal to spy on him. 

As the BBC reports, the New Zealand court allowed Dotcom to sue the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) because the agency can only spy on those who do not have New Zealand residency.

The Magaupload founder’s mansion was raided at the request of US authorities. Mr Dotcom is suspected by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation of leading a group that has earned $175m since it began selling coyrighted material without authorisation in 2005. 

• BBC

The post Kim Dotcom allowed to sue New Zealand’s Spy Agency appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Julian Assange

Australia will be heading to the polls in September and Assange believes that being elected is his only chance to escape the arrest warrant. As The Daily Mail reports, Britain and America might let him return to Australia to avoid a political stalemate.

“The Senate could vote to evict me, but that would trigger a political row,” Assange told Australian website The Conversation. In order for Assange to run in Australia’s national election, his WikiLeaks political party needs to have at least 500-fee-paying members.

The Australian journalist has been holed up in London’s Ecuadorian embassy since lastAugust. He was granted political asylum by Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa who was re-elected for his second term last week.

• The Daily Mail

The post Julian Assange to run for office in Australia to avoid extradition appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

“We have no information on his condition or where he was found yet, so keep your fingers crossed,” the post read.

Local authorities began a search for the young boy after they thought he had lost himself in the Australian bush after going for a jog, reports The Mirror. The British teenager will now be transferred to a hospital in the town of Longreach.

• The Mirror

The post Samuel Woodhead found alive after three days in the Australian outback appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

As The Telegraph reports, the woman admitted to killing the young boy who had been hospitalized with chest pains on Tuesday. The villagers turned against the woman after the admission. They tied her to a pole, poured fuel all over her and set her on fire.

Police were unable to stop the killing because they were outnumbered but they have charged with murder the people responsible for the torching.

Sorcery is still a common practice in the poor countries of the Pacific region. People turn to sorcery when they can’t find an explantation to natural causes of death.  A local bishop said the PNG government needs to stop the “sorcery and sorcery-related killings”. 

• The Telegraph

The post Mother burned alive in PNG for being a sorceress appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Julian Assange

As The Daily Dot reports, it’s unclear how he will do it given that he’s been in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since last June. Under Australian law, Assange needs 500 votes to form a new party and take part in the country’s election that will be held in September.

If Assange were to be elected and be unable to take up his position in person for over two months, WikiLeaks claims the Australian Constitution allows the Senate to select of another candidate from the same party to serve instead. New South Wales and Victoria seem to be the two Australian states discussed most often in terms of an Assange run.

The Australian journalist was granted political asylum by the Southern American country to escape an extradition request issued by Sweden.  Assange is accussed of rape by two Swedish women. 

• Daily Dot

The post Julian Assange to run for office in this year’s Australian election appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Sydney police found him in a “poor state”, half his bodyweight and partially blind when they rescued him with a helicopter.

Allen, 18, went missing in November and survived Australia’s record heatwave by drinking from a creek that was almost dry.  Detective Acting Inspector Glyn Baker told ABC News: “His family are ecstatic that he’s alive and that he’s well.  He’s been reunited with them and they’ve been to Hornsby Hospital to see him.”

• CNN
• ABC News

The post Missing Australian teen found covered in leeches after two months in the bush appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

• Metro

The post PHOTO Kangaroo Dundee cares for orphaned marsupials in Australian outback appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

His owner Jim Dezarnaulds was supposed to pay a $440 fine after Gary the Goat had been spotted munching on a flower bed outside the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

The magistrate Carolyn Barkell said that no evidence can be provided to state that Gary, who was defended by his own layer, was brought there with the sole purpose of eating flowers.

This is what Mr. Dezarnaulds added: ‘This is actually an abuse of the laws of nature, I mean it was a goat eating grass. I’m a comedian, I can come up with jokes, but it’s pretty hard to compete with cops coming up with this stuff. It’s obviously a joke, but the fact that we’re here it’s gone a bit beyond a joke.’

SOURCE: metro.co.uk

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The note read:  ‘At sea. Would the finder of this bottle kindly forward this note, where found, date, to undermentioned address.’

The note was dated March 17, 1936 and was signed by Herbert Ernest Hillbrick who attached his address in the note.

The note has been found on New Zealand’s Ninety Mile Beach, this is what Mr. Flood said about the discovery: ‘As I picked it up and started looking, I could see it was an old envelope with P&O on it and I thought this might be something special. There was a bit of mad panic to carefully extract it. It is thought Mr Hillbrick was on a P&O cruise when he dropped the bottle into the sea. I carefully cut a couple of bits of wire and quietly wound it up with the bits of wire so we didn’t damage it,’ Mr Flood added. [I thought] Who knows where it’s been. How many times around the world, you just wouldn’t know, would you?’

Flood found out that Herbert Ernest Hillbrick died in the 1940′s but his grandson Peter Hillbrick still live in Australia.

SOURCE: metro.co.uk

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Charlie Parker is the three-year-old son of Greg Parker, the owner of Ballarat Wildlife Park in Victoria, Australia.  He is Australia’s youngest animal wrangler and at three he shows no fear of handling a 2.5m boa constrictor or cradling a North American alligator. He was born into a family of animal lovers but, as his parents told The Daily Mail, they didn’t ecourage him to risk his own life. “Charlie just loves reptiles, Like everybody he’s frightened of some things… others not so much.”

• The Daily Mail

The post PHOTO Fearless 3-year-old is Australia’s youngest animal wrangler appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

The four were rescued after 22 hours with only bites from mosquitos and sand flies. The four were out crab fishing in one of the most remote areas of Australia. The four decided to climb a tree when they spotted a crocodile in the area.

One of the man said: ‘It was a horrible experience. It scared the s*** out of us.’

SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk

The post Tourists hid in a tree for 22 hours after their boat capsized in crocodile infested swamp appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

The post PHOTO Australian library to move Lance Armstrong books to the fiction section appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

As The Guardian notes, Australia recorded the highest average temperature across the nation on January 7 and the new color present on the chart below is being used for 52-54C temperatures. Australia’s highest temperature was recorded in the state of South Australia in 1960.

The record-breaking temperature should be registered on January 14. The highest temperature ever recorded in Australia.  Due to the oppressive heat, firefighters are putting out hundreds of wildfires across 5 states with Tasmania and New South Wales the most affected states.  ”We have been breaking records across all states and territories in Australia over the course of the event so far,” said weather bureau’s climate services manger Aaron-Coutts-Smith.

• YouTube
• The Guardian

The post Heat wave forces Australia to add ‘deep purple’ to temperature chart appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Donna Sim, the toddler’s mother, found the container on Sunday and saw that the eggs had hatched seven eastern brown snakes, the second most venomous snake after the Inland Taipan.

Trish Pondergast of North Queensland Wildlife Care told The Associated Press: “”Their fangs are only a few millimeters long at that age, so they probably couldn’t break the skin, but they’re just as venomous as full-grown snakes”. The 12 to 15 centimeres long snakes have been released into the wild.

The post Australian boy egg collection turns into seven eastern brown snakes appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

The woman, whose identity hasn’t been disclosed, worked for a federal government agency and sent on a work trip in November 2007. She was staying at a motel the agency booked her in and after work she returned to the room with a male friend. As they were having sex a glasslight lamp fitted above the bed came off and fell onto the woman’s face.  She sustained injuries to her nose and mouth and filed a lawsuit against the agency.

The first ruling didn’t go in her favor but the second appeal did. The federal agency then decided to take the case to court’s full bench where they argued that they were not reponsible for her injuries because they ”had not approved her out-of-hours liaison”. The three judges on the panel ruled last week that her “sexual activity” wasn’t misconduct.

The judges said: “If the applicant had been injured while playing a game of cards in her motel room she would be entitled to compensation even though it could not be said that her employer induced or encouraged her to engage in such an activity.”

• The Sydney Morning Herald

The post Australia: Public servant injured during sex ‘while at work’ to receive compensation appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Speaking on a TV show, the two Australian DJs who pranked the nurse at King Edward VII hospital in London who committed suicide on Friday said the call they made wasn’t about “trying to get a scoop”. They said the call was meant to be a joke and there “was no malice” in what they did.

As News points out, the duo is being counselled and at present have no intention to return on air. “There’s bigger, more pressing issues and that’s making sure the family gets through this though time,” DJ Mel Greig told on the Australian TV show A Current Affair.

Mel Greig and Michael Christian of 2Day FM said they were devasted when they heard the news of Jacintha Saldanha’s suicide. ‘If we played any involvement in her death then we’re very sorry for that. We couldn’t foresee what was going on to happen in the future,” said Greig.

• YouTube

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At first, her friends thought Tara was tricking them but soon found out the crocodile was for real and about to make the Aussie girl its meal.

“It was April Fools’ Day, and for a moment I thought Tara was winding us up,” recalls her 35-year-old friend Al Satori. “However, soon I saw the crocodile on top of her. I jumped into the water and onto its back and stuck my thumbs into its eyes until I felt it start to slacken off.”  Hawkes was left with huge scars on her left thigh. She was airlifted to a hospital where doctors did there best to repair the girl’s tissue. The Aussue girl said “I thought I had a chance of losing my leg at that stage.”

The post Australian girl recalls surviving crocodile attack appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Analysts believe the much needed write-down was announced sooner than expected but the news was well received among investors that send the groups stocks soaring in tradings on Wednesday. The stocks on Wednesday earned 6.3%, closing at $36.46.

The LA Times reports:

About 6,200 of the layoffs will come from Citi’s consumer banking operations in the U.S. and around the world as the company focuses on 150 cities with the “highest growth potential,” the bank said. Other cuts include 1,900 jobs in its group serving institutional clients. The cuts include closures of 44 U.S. consumer banking branches.

Still, cutting as many as 11,000 workplaces could be the beginning of a financial ‘earthquake’ set to shake the banks down to its very foundations before the company’s annual meeting on April 16th. “While clearly a portion of these moves must have already been in the works, the moves today create a tome that the new CEO will not take half-measures,” banking analyst Mike Mayo told the LA Times.

• LA Times

The post Citigroup’s announcement to cut 11,000 job cuts could trigger financial earthquake appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Police officers said they are searching for the boy but are pessimistic about the outcome of the search. It’s the second crocodile attack in less than two weeks in Australia’s Northern Territory. A 7-year-old girl was snatched by a crocodile two weeks ago while swimming in a waterhole.

• Huffington Post

The post Australia: 9-year-old swimming in a river snatched by crocodile appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Australia will tomorrow become the first country in the world to sell cigarette packets with no branding and just graphic health warnings. The brand’s name will be written underneath the graphic images that will cover most of the packaging. The new measure was passed amid fierce criticism from the world’s biggest tobacco industries that threatened to sue the Australian government over the bill. Under the new law, all cigarette brands will be written in a “small simple text.” 

• The Daily Mail

The post Photo Australia set to sell cigaratte packets with graphic health warnings appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Betty Harris died at the age of 95 and left her entire estate to Beatrice Gray, her next-door neighbour. Before her death Harris said she wanted to leave her money to Mrs. Gray and her husband because they were good people who helped her and they were not expecting such decision, she also added she did not want to leave money to her relatives.

These were her words: ‘The Grays would be surprised, while my family are waiting for me to die. I am determined that my relatives, after what they have put me through, will not get one cent.’

Now a bitter legal dispute, still to be solved, is open and Mrs Harris’ family challenged in court.

SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk

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A survey published by the country’s Ministry for the Environment showed that more than half of the country’s waterways are contaminated by fecal matter.  Dairy farming is one of the country’s main economic sources but the animal’s do is putting people who swim in the contaminated waters at risk of contracting illnesses like giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis and campylobacteriosis.

In New Zealand, more than 30,000 people contract waterborne diseases.

• The New York Times

The post New Zealand not 100% pure: waterways highly contaminated appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Two hundred kilos

• BBC

The post Decomposed body found on boat carrying A$116m worth of cocaine appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Many US voters were threatening to move to Canada if their candidate’s opponent won. But Eighteen-year-old Kristen Neel of Georgia tweeted she would rather move to Australia than live in the United States following Barack Obama’s re-election. She tweeted that Australia was the right country for her because “their president is a Christian and actually supports what he says.” Aussies didn’t waste too much time in pointing out that their country is ruled by an atheist female prime minister. Neel deleted her Twitter account and may be granted political asylum in New Zealand.

The post Georgia teen shamed by Australia after Obama’s re-election appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

• News.com

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New Zealand is minting Hobbit coins ahead of the ‘Hobbit’ premiere. The movie premiere is on November 28 and the Hobbit coins are an attempt to get people talking about the trilogy before it’s out. Salon.com reports:

The 99.99 percent gold coins retail for NZ$3,695 ($3,027 U.S.), but are worth just NZ$10 at face value. It looks pretty much like a gold coin but with a rim inscribed, in both English and Dwarvish, with the words ‘Middle-earth – New Zealand.’

The coins can be pre-ordered and the cheapest one, a NZ $1 that can be yours for less than NZ$30, features Bilbo Baggins.

• Salon

The post PICTURE New Zealand minting golden Bilbo Baggins coins to promote ‘The Hobbit’ appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

The post Western Australia announces plan to kill sharks appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

According to sources three Australians lost their lives in a “green-on-blue” attack. A man in an Afghan army uniform reportedly opened fire on five Australian soldiers, killing three and wounding two, while relaxing at a base late Wednesday night. The man in the Afghan uniform manged to scale a fence and leave the base without being hit by gunfire. In an unrelated helicopter crash that occurred early Thursday morning, two Australian soldiers died after their helicopter rolled over while landing in Helmand province. A crew member on board was also wounded.

“In a war of so many losses, this is our single worst day in Afghanistan,” Prime Minister Gillard said. “Indeed, I believe this is the most losses in combat since the days of the Vietnam War and the Battle of Long Tan. This is news so truly shocking that it’s going to feel for many Australians like a physical blow.”

The post Afghanistan: five Australian soldiers killed in unrelated attacks appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

The site informs: “The animal was then lifted in and made itself comfortable on deck. Once over the shock the canoeists said they put the animal on an embankment at the local golf club where other koalas are known to live in the gum trees. Wildlife experts believe the koala may have become stranded on the bank of the tidal creek and decided a canoe was its best mode of transport”.

Julie Elliot said to Australia’s Channel 9: “It took a sip of water and then saw us and obviously decided to come straight over. Then it started clawing at the boat and we didn’t know what to do. “We were thinking it was going to drown so my mate behind me just grabbed him and put him straight in the boat. “I’ve been paddling along that particular creek for the best part of 10 years and never seen anything like a swimming koala before.”

The post Swimmig koala picked up in Australia appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

“We got talking about skulls and the next day he turned up with this skull. He said it was Ned Kelly’s skull, and told me to ‘put it in the bottom of your bag and wrap it up’.” Hoffman said she had cared for the remains – one of more than 20 skulls in her collection. “I have treated it with respect, I haven’t lit candles in it or drunk red wine out of it or anything bohemian like that.”

Kelly is Australia’s most famous criminal and was hanged in 1880. His bones were exhumed last year from Melbourne’s Pentridge Prison site.

The post New Zelands woman claims to have Ned Kelly’s skull appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Tim Oscar, the Royal Australian Navy Lieutenant defined it: “the weirdest thing I have seen in 18 years at sea” and he added: “The lookout reported a shadow on the ocean ahead of us so I ordered the ship’s spotlight to be trained on the area. As far ahead as I could observe was a raft of pumice moving up and down with the swell. The rock looked to be sitting two feet above the surface of the waves, and lit up a brilliant white colour in the spotlight. It looked exactly like the edge of an ice shelf. I knew the pumice was lightweight and posed no danger to the ship. None the less it was quite daunting to be moving toward it at 14 knots. It took about 3 – 4 minutes to travel through the raft of pumice and as predicted there was no damage. As we moved through the raft of pumice we used the spotlights to try and find the edge – but it extended as far as we could see.”

The post VIDEO: New Zealand Defence Force finds 7500sq miles of pumice from underwater volcano appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

From NY Daily News:

While he waited, Kahan says he did some work, surfed the net, and managed to finish some light reading: that is, over 200 pages of Max Bazerman and Don Moore’s 7th edition of “Judgment in Managerial Decision Making.” Suffice it to say, the man eventually just hung up.

Mr Kahn – an Adelaide resident – got through to Qantas customer service the following day and found out that he hadn’t been booked on the flight. Australia’s flagship company told the local press that the customers who called the customer service on that day waited on average between one and 17 minutes.

The Adelaide resident did manage to get through to customer service when he called back later on Thursday. He said he was told that due to a booking code error, he hadn’t even been placed on the flight in the first place. Kahn characterized the Qantas call as “just about the worst customer service any customer could ever receive.”

For their part, Qantas told the Herald they had no record of a call lasting 15 hours and 40 minutes. ”In fact, our average contact centre [sic] wait time during that period was under a minute and the longest wait time was 17 minutes,” a spokesperson told the paper.

The airline is reportedly looking into the cause of the booking error and apologizes for any inconvenience.

The post Qantas customer service leaves Australian man on hold for 15 hours appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

“We’re talking about a significant quantity of two separate types of substances which generally have different source countries,” Deputy Commissioner Andrew Colvin told reporters.

The haul coming from Thailand was found following a tip-off from US authorities. Police have arrested those involved in the illicit drug import but the investiagtion is ongoing and further arrests are possible.

• The Guardian

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The injured man drove himself to hospital. Doctors treated his burns and told him he would be flown to Adelaide where a team of specialists will look after him. A hint that the burns he suffered are extremely painful. ”What must of seemed to be a great idea at the time has backfired, resulting in the male receiving quite severe and very painful burns to his cheeks, back and private bits,” said Senior Sergeant Garry Smith.

The man also risks a $282 fine for setting off fireworks. In Darwin, authorities allow fireworks to bet set off only on Territory Day on July 1.

• NZ Herald

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In Queensland town there was a casting to look for a policeman role in a movie called Mystery Road, the producers of the film said that the whole crew was very shocked when they saw Stenberg including Hugo Weaving, Hack Thompson and the famous True Blood star Ryan Kwanten.

The film’s assistant director Mark Ingram said: ‘We’re all still a little shaken by it, it was just totally bizarre.’

Jonathon Stenberg killed his neighbour Edward Kelly and left a hat in place of where his head should have been, the police after the arrest managed to get a extradition order to make him go back to Sydney where he will be charged.

The post Wanted in Australia for murder, man shows up at casting for policeman role in a thriller appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Ms. Gillard’s salary now stands at A$495, 430, that’s 25% more than US President Barack Obama’s pay and double that of UK premier David Cameron.

Australian MPs will also benefit from the pay review approved Wednesday. Under the new deal, Australia’s members of parliament will get a $106 a week pay raise. That’s A$1,000 a week more if the raise is coupled with the one lawmakers approved in March.

The salary increase risks causing some public backlash and some lawmakers are trying to avert any uproars with calls for “an overhaul of the system for determining politician’s pay,” reports The Wall Street Journal.  A supporter of Ms. Gillard’s government, Nick Xenophon, believes the pay rise will only fuel anger at politicians “a week after the parlimentary paralysis in relation to asylum seekers.”

The post Australian lawmakers bump up their pay despite global economic downturn appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

Gillard told Parliament that most if not all the people on board had been rescued.

Two merchant ships collected survivors initially, and Gillard told Parliament that two Australian warships and a military aircraft that can drop life rafts on the sea joined the search by late Wednesday.

“There is reason to believe that there are around 123 to 133 people on board,” she said. “My best advice is that 123 people have been rescued.”

Imprecise numbers for the boat’s occupants mean they could not say if anyone was missing, she added.

The area is 200 kilometers (120 miles) north of Australia’s Christmas Island and 185 kilometers (115 kilometers) south of the main Indonesian island of Java. The boat capsized in Indonesia’s search and rescue zone but Australian authorities had raised the alarm, Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Jo Meehan said.

The first merchant ship reached the scene more than four hours later, she said. Last Thursday, 110 people were rescued when a boat carrying more than 200 mostly Afghan asylum seekers capsized in the same area. Only 17 bodies were recovered.

The survivors’ refugee applications were being assessed at Christmas Island, where Australia runs an immigration detention center.

Australia is a common destination for boats carrying asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and other poor or war-torn countries.

Last week’s disaster rekindled debate in Parliament on how Australia should deter asylum seekers from risking the hazardous sea journey. The government wants to send new boat arrivals to Malaysia in exchange for accepting U.N.-recognized refugees living there.

The opposition won’t support the legislation because Malaysia has not signed the Refugee Convention.

The post Australia rescues all asylum seekers on board capsized boat appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

A crowd of 200 people shouted angrily at the handcuffed men, accusing them of bringing bad publicity to an area that depends on tourism.

Surasak Suwannachote showed how he allegedly jumped off a slowly moving motorcycle and wielded a replica knife as he re-enacted the attack. The suspected driver of the motorcycle, Surin Tabthong, told reporters he “made a mistake” and “things got carried away.”

The post Thai duo admits ‘pocketbook strap’ killing appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

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Four Indonesian and Australian warships, four merchant ships and five Australian government aircraft were searching in 2-meter (7-foot) swells, Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Jo Meehan said. All on board were male and about 90 were missing since Thursday’s accident.

An Australian navy patrol boat and three cargo ships had rescued 109 survivors, including a 13-year-old boy, and delivered them to the Australian territory of Christmas Island 200 kilometers (120 miles) to the south, officials said.

The government lowered from 110 the number of survivors rescued, without explaining the revision. Three bodies also were recovered Thursday.

Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said most of the men were from Afghanistan.

The growing number of asylum seekers trying to reach Australia by boat often originate from it and other war-torn or impoverished nations.

Surveillance aircraft saw more bodies Friday but no survivors. “I think we need to brace ourselves for more bad news,” Clare told Sky News television.

Searchers still could find more survivors but rougher seas were making the situation “increasingly grim,” Clare said.

About 40 survivors were found clinging to the upturned hull, while others were gripping debris up to 6 kilometers (4 miles) from the scene, Clare said.

The boat called Australian rescuers late Tuesday to report it was in distress but did not give its location, Clare said. The crew made another call Wednesday and said the boat was 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of the main Indonesian island of Java.

Australian authorities advised the crew to return to Indonesia and told Indonesian authorities of the boat’s situation, he said.

But an Australian surveillance plane crew saw it Wednesday afternoon continuing south toward Christmas Island and showing “no visual signs of distress,” Clare said. Authorities there began preparing to respond, he said.

On Thursday afternoon, a surveillance plane crew found the boat had capsized halfway between Christmas Island and Java, still within Indonesia’s zone of search and rescue responsibility.

He said the boat had made several calls Thursday morning that “raised concerns about the safety of the vessel,” but he did not have details of those calls.

Speaking of Australian rescue authorities’ response, Clare said that “it looks like they took proactive steps.”

“All of the advice I have is that the work between Australian agencies and Indonesian agencies was very good,” he added.

People smugglers often call Australian rescue authorities once they’ve reached Australian waters to tell them where their human cargo can be picked up. They then disable the boats so they cannot be forced to retreat.

Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean is closer to Indonesia than to the Australian mainland and is a popular target for the overcrowded boats carrying asylum seekers from Indonesia ? sometimes with deadly consequences.

Gagah Prakoso, a spokesman for Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency, said the capsized boat was reportedly carrying 206 people.

“We have done the best we can for the rescue effort,” he said Friday, adding that he did not know whether the Indonesian fishing boat had been crewed by Indonesians.

Western Australian police were being sent to Christmas Island to attempt to identify bodies. The U.N. refugee agency said the tragedy underscored the danger of such journeys by asylum seekers and the need to find alternatives.

“It also reinforces the need for renewed international solidarity and cooperation to find protection options for people,” the statement said.

In December 2010, an estimated 48 people died when an asylum seeker boat broke up against Christmas Island’s rocky coast. Last December, about 200 asylum seekers were feared drowned after their overcrowded ship sank off Indonesia’s main island of Java.
___

Associated Press Writer Ali Kotarumalos in Jakarta contributed to this report.

The post More than 90 still missing off Indonesia coast appeared first on 4unews - News for you.

The News Ltd. takeover offer would give Murdoch’s global media empire control of a large slice of Australia’s pay television industry. The move was supported by James Packer, whose Consolidated Press Holdings owns a controlling stake in Consolidated Media.

News has offered $3.50 Australian dollars for each Consolidated Media share, valuing the company at AU$1.97 billion ($2 billion). The offer remains subject to approval from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Foreign Investment Review Board.

The News Corp. board must also approve the deal.

News Ltd., which owns 70 percent of Australia’s newspapers, also announced a major restructure to centralize its Australian operations and reduce duplication.

News chief executive Ken Williams told staff that there would be redundancies, but he did not say how many.

The organization would be reduced from 19 operating divisions to five, including three covering the Australian east coast where News Ltd. earns 80 percent of its revenue.

Williams said the company and advertisers continued to value printed newspapers. News Ltd. sells around 11 million newspapers a week to Australia’s population of 23 million.

“We believe in print and are committed to print,” he said in a video address to staff.

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Rinehart, a mining magnate whom Forbes magazine estimated in March was worth $18 billion, is a vocal critic of the center-left government’s plan to impose a 30 percent tax on the burgeoning profits of iron ore and coal miners from July 1.

She is also opposed to a 23 Australian dollar ($23) tax that Australia’s worst industrial polluters will have to pay for every metric ton of carbon dioxide they emit from July 1.

Rinehart last week increased her stake in struggling Fairfax Media, Australia’s second biggest publishing company, from 12.6 percent to 18.7 percent.

Fairfax newspapers reported on Tuesday that Rinehart, Fairfax’s largest shareholder, wants three seats on the Fairfax board of directors including the deputy chairman’s role plus the right to make significant editorial decisions.

Her reported demands are in conflict with traditional Fairfax board protocol that directors not interfere with editorial decisions and a charter of editorial independence that has been honored since 1992.

Rinehart could not be immediately contacted for comment on Tuesday. But her friend John Singleton, a former Fairfax board member, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. that “editorial interference would have the made the papers more readable in the past.”

Acting Prime Minister Wayne Swan said it was clear that Rinehart and Singleton “reserve the right to impose their political views upon that particular newspaper chain.”

“That has very big implications for our democracy. I think we should all be very concerned at this turn of events,” he told reporters.

“She certainly has a commercial right to do what she has done, but it appears to be that she will go a step further, not respect the charter of independence and reserve her right to direct journalists with instruction that follow her commercial imperatives,” Swan said.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said while Rinehart was entitled to board representation, she was not entitled to “trash the brand” by turning Fairfax newspapers into a “Mining Gazette.”

Fairfax announced Monday it will shed 1,900 jobs over three years and erect pay walls for two flagship newspapers as readers increasingly move online. The company owns more than 300 newspapers, 50 websites and 15 radio stations in Australia and New Zealand.

But Fairfax shares lost more than 8 percent to 59.5 Australian cents on Tuesday after a 7 percent jump on Monday after the restructuring announcement. The Australian stock market closed slightly lower with the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index down 0.3 percent at 4,123.3 points.

Market analyst Peter Esho said he thought Fairfax’s retreat was partly linked to the fact that Rinehart might stop increasing her stake.

Rinehart would have to launch a formal takeover offer if her holding went above 19.9 percent. Esho said he was not convinced Rinehart intended to make a takeover bid.

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The dating of one of the thousands of images in the Northern Territory rock shelter known as Nawarla Gabarnmang will be published in the next edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science. University of Southern Queensland archaeologist Bryce Barker said Monday that found the rock in June last year but only recently had it dated at New Zealand’s University of Waikato radiocarbon laboratory.

He said the rock art was made with charcoal, so radiocarbon dating could be used to determine its age. Most rock art is made with mineral paint, so its age cannot be accurately measured.

“It’s the oldest unequivocally dated rock art in Australia” and among the oldest in the world, Barker said.

The oldest known rock art is in Spain, where hand stencils and red disks made by blowing paint on to the wall in El Castillo cave were at least 40,800 years old, according to scientists using a technique known as uranium-thorium dating.

Australian National University archaeologist Sally May, who is not involved with Barker’s research, described his find as “incredibly significant.”

“I don’t think it will surprise anyone that rock art is that old in Australia because we know people have been here a lot longer than that and there’s no reason to believe they weren’t producing art,” she added.

Barker said he found evidence that the cave where he found the rock art had been occupied for 45,000 years.

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“Playing against the Lions is definitely a goal,” he said. Australia’s medical team expect McCalman will be available for August’s opening match of the inaugural Rugby Championship against Argentina, South Africa, New Zealand and South Africa.

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Australian Weightlifting Federation chief Michael Keelan has accused Daniel Koum of demanding to be paid $5,000 just 40 minutes before he was due to compete at the Oceania Championships in Samoa, knowing Australia’s chance of having a competitor at the London Games would be wrecked if he withdrew.

The AOC said it has received correspondence from Koum’s lawyers denying any wrongdoing, and has urged the AWF provide Koum an opportunity to respond to the allegations through an independent body.

“The AOC encourages the continued independent consideration of this matter,” the AOC said in a statement issued Friday, adding Koum’s nomination to the Olympic team would not be considered until “the AWF has concluded its independent investigation and dealt with this matter.”

Australia had to finish among the top six teams at the Oceania Championships to gain a single place in the men’s competition at London. Koum’s withdrawal would have made that impossible, because scores were tallied on the cumulative performance of all lifters.

“He’s made a demand, he wants $5,000 or we can kiss our Olympic Games men’s team goodbye,” Keelan said Wednesday. “And as far as I’m concerned that’s blackmail and extortion.”

Koum immediately denied the claims, calling them shocking and disappointing.

Koum, one of three Cameroon weightlifters who remained in Australia after the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, said he spent thousands of dollars funding his own competition costs since he became a member of the Australia team.

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With the expansion announced Thursday, Australia will protect 3.1 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) of ocean. The reserves will encompass a third of the island continent’s territorial waters, which sustain more than 4,000 species of fish.

Australia is surrounded by the world’s third-largest ocean territory, which provides important habitat to threatened species of whales, sharks and turtles as well as spectacular corals.

Previously only 800,000 square kilometers (310,000 square miles) of Australian waters were protected. According to the Protect Planet Ocean website, only 2.85 million square kilometers (1.1 million square miles) of oceans worldwide were within marine protection areas before.

Environmental group WWF welcomed the 2.3 million-square-kilometer expansion as a “major advance in marine conservation” that hopefully will inspire other countries at the United Nations’ Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, which is under way in Rio de Janeiro.

Environment Minister Tony Burke said the government expects to pay an estimated 100 million Australian dollars ($100 million) to the fishing industry in compensation for new restrictions on their operations that will take effect late this year, with only a minor impact on most types of fishing.

While the public will be invited to lodge complaints before the new marine sanctuaries are enshrined in law, the center-left government faces no hurdles in imposing the new restrictions under existing environmental laws.

But the conservative opposition has vowed to review the boundaries if it wins government at elections next year, an outcome that opinion polls agree is likely.

“I am instinctively against anything that damages the rights of recreational fishing … and anything that will further damage the commercial fishing industry and tourism industry,” opposition leader Tony Abbott said.

The number of marine reserves off the Australian coast will rise from 27 to 60.

Highly protected areas such as the Coral Sea off Australia’s northeastern coast and the adjoining World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef also will be protected from oil and gas exploration.

Both areas, which cover a total 1.3 million square kilometers (500,000 square miles), have shallow reefs that support tropical ecosystems with sharks, coral, sponges and many fish species.

Burke said he wanted the reserves to set a benchmark for the world in environmental protection and food security, the access to and consistent availability of food. The plan aims to guarantee future fish stocks by preventing overfishing.

“We have an incredible opportunity to turn the tide on protection of the oceans and Australia can lead the world in marine protection,” he said.

Don Henry, chief executive of the environmental group Australian Conservation Foundation, said the plan will make Australia a global leader in ocean protection.

But he warned that the remote northwest region where an offshore oil and gas industry is already established had been left vulnerable to the threats of further energy exploration.

Rachel Siewert, a senator for the environmentally focused Greens party, which supports the Labor Party minority government, described the plan as a “cave-in to the oil and gas industry.”

She said allowing exploratory drilling beside some of the most highly protected zones off northwest Australia leaves critical habitats for threatened species, including humpback whales, whale sharks, flatback turtles and dolphins, vulnerable to contamination from oil spills.

Judy Lynne, chief executive of the recreational anglers’ group Sunfish Queensland, said the ban on commercial operations in the most environmentally sensitive areas would result in more foreign trawlers fishing illegally.

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A nation that was once bitterly divided on whether baby Azaria Chamberlain had been dragged away by a wild dog or murdered by her mother now largely agrees that the parents deserve the vindication a coroner’s court provided Tuesday.

A day after Azaria Chamberlain would have turned 32, a coroner found that a dingo had taken her as a 9-week-old baby from a tent near Ayers Rock, the red monolith in the Australian desert now known by its Aboriginal name Uluru. That is what her parents had maintained from the beginning.

The eyes of Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton and her ex-husband, Michael Chamberlain, welled with tears as the findings of the fourth inquest into their daughter’s disappearance were broadcast from a courtroom in the northern city of Darwin to televisions around Australia.

The first inquest in 1981 had also blamed a dingo. But a second inquest a year later charged Chamberlain-Creighton with murder and her husband with being an accessory after the fact. She was convicted and served more than three years in prison before that decision was overturned.

A third inquest in 1995 left the cause of death open.

The case became famous internationally through the 1988 Meryl Streep movie “A Cry in the Dark.”

Many Australians initially did not believe that a dingo was strong enough to take away the baby. Public opinion swayed harshly against the couple; some even spat on Chamberlain-Creighton and howled like dingoes outside her house.

No similar dingo attack had been documented at the time, but in recent years the wild dogs have been blamed for three fatal attacks on children. Few doubt the couple’s story today, but the latest inquest, which the family had fought to get, made it official that Azaria was killed in a dingo attack.

The news was welcomed by many around the country.

Yvonne Cain, one of the 12 jurors in the 1982 trial that convicted a then-pregnant Lindy Chamberlain of murder, was thrilled that a dingo is now on the record as the culprit.

“The dingo has done it. I’m absolutely thrilled to bits,” Cain said. “I’d always had my doubts and have become certain she’s innocent.”

Cain said while she still encounters people who doubt the Chamberlains’ innocence, but they inevitably misunderstand what evidence there was against them.

“When people say she’s guilty, I say: ‘You have no idea what they’re talking about, I was there,’” she said.

An expert on dingo behavior, Brad Purcell said he was not surprised that a dingo would enter a tent and take a baby while older siblings slept.

Purcell suspects that many people blamed Chamberlain-Creighton for leaving the baby in a tent where a dingo could have been attracted by her crying. “She was almost being condemned because she wasn’t acting as a responsible parent,” Purcell told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

But not all Australians accept the latest ruling.

A policeman who was at Uluru the night Azaria disappeared said he still believes the first coroner’s finding that there was some human intervention.

Frank Morris, who has since retired from the police force, said while he was not trying to blame the parents, he thought someone played a part in moving clothing Azaria wore that night.

“We don’t know who. That is the $64,000 question,” Morris said. “If you go to court enough times, you are bound to get a win sooner or later,” Morris added of the parents’ victory Tuesday.

Azaria’s parents and her three siblings, including 29-year-old sister Kahlia who was born in prison, on Tuesday collected her new death certificate.

“We’re relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga,” a tearful but smiling Chamberlain-Creighton told reporters outside the court.

Coroner Elizabeth Morris said she was “satisfied that the evidence is sufficiently adequate, clear, cogent and exact and that the evidence excludes all other reasonable possibilities.”

The findings mirror those of the first coroner’s inquest in 1981. But that inquest found that somebody had later interfered with Azaria’s clothing, which was later found relatively unscathed in the desert.

A second coroner’s inquest triggered a Northern Territory Supreme Court trial that resulted in Chamberlain-Creighton being found guilty of slashing her daughter’s throat and making it look like a dingo attack.

She was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to life in prison with hard labor.

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The two 21-year old students, Alec Brown and Erica Klintworth, are both students from University of Wisconsin Stevens Point who are studying abroad.

But authorities say heavy rains and a snowstorm prevented the couple from being able to cross a river and return.

They met up with members of a search team on Sunday after making their way back out of the wilderness, famished but otherwise in good shape.

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His great-uncle, Ivan Milat, killed and buried the bodies of seven young backpackers in shallow graves there between 1989 and 1992. He is serving a life sentence. Acting Justice Jane Mathews ordered the younger Milat to serve at least 30 years of his 43-year sentence. Milat, who was 17 at the time of the killing, was also ordered moved from juvenile to adult prison. She rejected his claims of remorse and said poems he wrote in prison glorified his crime. “This was a thrill kill,” she said, taking the life of an “innocent young man who was unfortunate enough to be his friend.”

Court documents said Milat lured his victim with the promise of marijuana and then accused him of spreading rumors that Milat had stolen money. An accomplice was sentenced to 32 years in prison. Cohen Klein used his cellphone to record the last 15 minutes of Auchterlonie’s life, including his pleas for mercy and groans of pain.

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Al McGlashan is a fishing columnist for the Daily Telegraph and he was off the coast of New South Wales, Australia, when he saw the deep sea monster floating around. He tried to lift the squid to his boat but it was too heavy.

The video below shows the moment a shark arrives and starts eating chuncks out of the squid.

• YouTube

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The Reserve Bank of Australia’s board said it lowered the rate by a quarter percentage point to 3.5 percent.

The central bank last month cut the rate by a larger-than-expected half point amid a slump in the housing market and lackluster growth in the nation’s economy outside the booming mining sector.

Treasurer Wayne Swan said he remained confident that Chinese growth would be strong enough to realize Australia’s growth forecasts.

A boom in the Australian mining industry is forecast to lift economic growth from 3 percent in the current fiscal year ending June 30 to 3.25 percent next year.

“Ultimately we’re not completely immune from events in Europe, but we are in the best part of the world at the right time,” he said.

Australia’s benchmark lending rate was slashed to 3 percent in 2009 as the economy weathered the global financial crisis without sinking into recession thanks to Chinese demand for raw materials such as iron ore and coal. The rate was then increased, reaching 4.75 percent in November 2010 before volatile global conditions again began weighing on the Australian economy.

Commonwealth Bank chief economist Michael Blythe said the central bank’s decision to cut the rate by a quarter point rather than the half point that markets had expected suggested it was “keeping its powder dry” in case the European situation worsened.

“If something really does go wrong in Europe, then you want the ability to move very aggressively, like we did a few years ago,” he said.

Swan said the central bank’s decision reflected his government’s commitment detailed in May to return Australia’s budget to surplus in the new fiscal year.

Continuing to run a deficit would stimulate the economy, possibly limiting the central bank’s ability to lower interest rates without sparking higher inflation.

Australia’s net debt is forecast to peak in the current fiscal year at 142.5 billion Australian dollars ($139.4 billion) or about 9.6 percent of GDP, which is a fraction of the debt levels of most developed countries.

“The announcement today from the Reserve Bank gives Australians confidence that the Reserve Bank has further room to move and a big part of that flexibility is the return of our budget to surplus,” Swan said.

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• YouTube

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Police found the bodies of 31-year-old tourist Dagmar Pytlickova and 43-year-old Jason Frandi on Sunday in a remote forest. An autopsy Wednesday showed Pytlickova suffered neck injuries and Frandi self-inflicted wrist injuries.

According to Inspector Greg Williams, Pytlickova had been touring the country since January and had recently been working at a vineyard in the town of Cromwell. He said she left Cromwell Saturday afternoon planning to hitchhike to Timaru and was picked up by Frandi, who drove her to the forest before killing her.

Frandi previously served a three-and-a-half jail sentence for abducting a woman.

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Existing slavery laws mainly protect Asian women from being brought to Australia to work as sex slaves in brothels. The proposed amendments would create a new offense of forced labor to address a growing number of men and women who are exploited in other industries.

“A common factor of contemporary slavery and trafficking, from forced labor and forced marriage to organ trafficking, is the misuse and abuse of power,” Attorney General Nicola Roxon told Parliament. “Such an abuse has no place here.”

Australian authorities have detected only one case of trafficking for organ transplant. An elderly Sydney woman with kidney disease flew a younger woman from the Philippines with the intention of transplanting her kidney.

Police intervened before the transplant took place, alleging that the younger woman had not fully consented to the plan, which was discovered during routine hospital screening interviews.

Roxon said that while such conduct was already illegal under exploitation laws, the new organ trafficking offense clarified the circumstances of a crime and increased police powers to investigate. Organ trafficking would be punishable by a 25-year prison sentence under the legislation.

Forced labor would be punishable by 12 years in prison. Using coercion, force or deception to persuade someone to marry would be punishable by a seven-year term.

Roxon said she did not believe that banning forced marriages would drive the problem underground because it is already hidden. She added that while slavery and trafficking were not common in Australia, the effect on victims is traumatic and could have lifelong consequences.

No date has been set for Parliament to vote on the bill.

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Charge d’Affaires Jawdat Ali, the most senior Syrian diplomat in Australia, and another diplomat from the Syrian Embassy were ordered to leave the country within 72 hours, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr told reporters. Carr said he expected other countries to do the same later Tuesday.

“This is the most effective way we’ve got of sending a message of revulsion of what has happened in Syria,” Carr said.

Friday’s massacre in Houla, a collection of farming villages in Homs province, was one of the deadliest single events in the 15-month-old uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule. The United Nations said 49 children and 34 women were among the 108 people killed.

In a statement, Carr called the killings a “hideous and brutal crime” and said Australia would not engage with the Syrian government unless it abides by a U.N. cease-fire plan.

The U.N. estimates 9,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011.

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New South Wales state police said Monday that the men, armed with a club and a knife, struck the home of the 17-year-old’s mother in the country town of Bundanoon on Thursday night, but were told the daughter no longer lived there.

The bandits searched the house and took a small amount of cash as well as other property before leaving. No one was injured.

Police said that earlier Thursday, the girl had posted a picture on her Facebook page of a “large sum of cash” she had helped count at her 72-year-old grandmother’s home in Sydney, 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Bundanoon.

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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, has rated countries on categories such as housing, jobs and education. It does not intend to give a country an edge over the other but overall ratings put Australia on top of countries like Norway and the United States.

Australia is witnessing an economic boom thanks to its mining industry and its strong currency has given Australians firepower when travelling overseas. The unemployment rate is low, 4.9% in April, and Autralians’ satifaction with life is high.

According to the survey, Australia has the highest satisfaction rate with 7.4. The OECD average is 6.7.

Still, the tourism industry is going through some hard times and the country’s high cost of living remains high, writes The Wall Street Journal.

• The Wall Street Journal

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Prosecutors allege anesthesiologist James Latham Peters knew he carried the liver-destroying virus when he used pre-filled syringes to give anesthetics to himself then injected the remainder in his patients.

Melbourne Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg ruled Wednesday that sufficient evidence had been presented to convict the doctor of all 168 charges that include endangering life. Peters pleaded not guilty.

The women were patients at a Melbourne clinic providing abortions. They were allegedly infected over 18 months in 2008 and 2009. It’s not clear what potential sentence Peters faces if convicted. A trial date has not been set.

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Officials say the pact, concluded after 11 rounds of talks, will allow duty free entry for all Malaysian goods into Australia and nearly 98 percent of Australian exports to Malaysia from January.

Australia’s Trade Minister Craig Emerson says it will allow Australian companies to have 100 percent ownership of Malaysian telecommunication and higher education companies and up to 70 percent stakes in insurance and investment banking companies.

He said Tuesday he hoped the pact would boost Australia’s free trade talks with other Asian partners including China, South Korea and Japan.

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Speaker Peter Slipper has stood aside over his former media adviser James Ashby’s suit lodged in the Federal Court last month that alleges Slipper pressured him for gay sex. Slipper has denied the allegations.

On Thursday, Ashby’s lawyers lodged complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission alleging discrimination by Foreign Minister Bob Carr and Nationals party Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce over their comments in the public debate over the Slipper accusations.

The commission investigates allegations of breaches of anti-discrimination laws, including discrimination based on sexual orientation. A commission hearing can result in orders for an apology and compensation.

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SYDNEY, Australia – This pic was taken in the city centre of Sydney, Australia, on Friday. The snap shows a naked couple having sex on the edge of a balcony of a clock tower opposite a busy shopping center.

Source:

• Mirror

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Scrumhalf T.J. Perenara was also outstanding, repeatedly taxing the Blues defense before scoring the Hurricanes’ fourth bonus-point try in the 68th. The Hurricanes inflicted the Blues’ ninth loss in 10 matches this season and their sixth in succession, keeping New Zealand’s largest and richest franchise anchored at the bottom of the Super 15 standings.

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“It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic,”Palmer said in the statement, and it “will have state-of-the-art 21st-century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems.”

The ship should be ready by 2016.

The announcement comes just weeks after the comemoration of the ill-fated Titanic which sank a century ago after it hit an iceberg on its way to New York.  In 1912 more than 1,500 people died. The Titanic was the world’s largest and most luxurious ocean liner at the time.

The Titanic II is the first of four luxury cruise ships Palmer has commissioned CSC Jinling Shipyard to build. The diesel-powered ship will have four smoke stacks like the coal-powered original, but they will be purely decorative.

Source:

• BBC

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NAB said the need for change at Clydesdale Bank was precipitated by a weakening economy and declining real estate prices in the U.K. as well as higher funding costs.

The Australian bank said in a statement that some 1,400 jobs will be eliminated by the end of the 2015 fiscal year. That includes 205 positions eliminated in the half-year to March 2012.

The company said it expects to save 74 million U.K. pounds ($120 million) per year once the restructuring is finished. The plan remains subject to regulatory approval in both the U.K. and Australia.

NAB said a loss from its U.K. business in the six months to March 31 contributed to a 15.6 percent fall in the group’s net profit for the same period.

“Downsizing the U.K. franchise, bringing it back to its more traditional business model and reducing its risk appetite, is the option that best serves the interests of shareholders,” NAB said.

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From News.com:

Samaan was in a coma for six months and was left with spastic quadriplegia with severe brain damage after falling ill. During the trial her father told the court that he and his wife and son also required hospitalisation after sharing her Twister

Last Friday the judge for the case ruled that KFC was reponsible for Samaan’s condition saying KFC had ‘breached its duty of care to the girl.’ KFC denied all responsabilities and said it would appeal the ruling.

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Police officers were called to the Franklin Zoo near Auckland on Wednesday afternoon after an incident between the elephant and the keeper, a New Zealand Police statement said. It said more information would not be released until the woman’s family had been informed.

Wednesday was a public holiday in New Zealand, but the zoo was open, like many tourist attractions.

It was not immediately clear whether any visitors saw the events unfold. A woman who answered the zoo’s telephone late Wednesday said the zoo had no comment.

Jumbo, also known as Mila, is the sole elephant at the Franklin Zoo, according to its website. The 39-year-old elephant arrived four years ago after performing in circuses for three decades. The zoo built a new enclosure for her in 2010.

African elephants are the world’s largest land creatures. According to the National Geographic magazine, they can live for up to 70 years, tend to sleep very little, and eat up to 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of food every day.

The zoo is located in Tuakau, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Auckland.

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House of Representatives Speaker Peter Slipper stepped aside Sunday while police investigate allegations leveled by a former staffer that Slipper misused taxi payment vouchers while traveling by limousine in Sydney this year.

The staffer, James Ashby, 33, is also suing Slipper in the Federal Court for sexual harassment, alleging that Slipper only employed him as a media adviser in pursuit of sex. Slipper, 62, who is married with two adult children from a previous relationship, denies all the allegations.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott has said both the criminal investigation and the civil case should be resolved before Slipper returns to the speaker’s chair.

Gillard “is essentially making light of sexual harassment” by arguing that Slipper could serve as speaker while facing the civil charges, Abbott said Monday.

Gillard responded Tuesday in Singapore, telling reporters, “That’s a disgraceful allegation and it’s exactly what we expect from Mr. Abbott: continued negativity.”

The government argues that while senior officials should stand aside while facing criminal charges, there was no precedent for them to do so in the face of civil suits.

Government figures hope Slipper will be quickly cleared by police of the fraud allegations so that he can return to the chair before Parliament resumes on May 8. The opposition wants a no-confidence vote against Slipper, but would need support from several independents to win.

Slipper defected from the conservative opposition in November last year to accept the prestigious 324,000 Australian dollar ($426,000) -a-year job, which has limited voting rights.

While he is sidelined, a member of the ruling center-left Labor Party will take the seat, effectively depriving the government of a vote in the closely balanced Parliament.

Slipper is an unwelcome distraction for Gillard’s government, which has long trailed the opposition in opinion polls. Many commentators say the government faces a crushing defeat at elections due next year.

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The opposition has called on independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott to bring down the minority government with a no-confidence vote in response to the scandal enveloping the government’s choice of House of Representatives speaker, Peter Slipper.

Slipper stepped aside Sunday while police investigate allegations leveled by a former staffer last week that Slipper misused taxi payment vouchers while traveling by limousine in Sydney on three occasions this year.

The same staffer, James Ashby, 33, is also suing Slipper in the Federal Court for sexual harassment, alleging that Slipper only employed him as a media adviser in pursuit of gay sex. Slipper, 62, who is married with two adult children from a previous relationship, denies all allegations.

Oakeshott described the scandal as the “darkest days” of the Parliament since it was elected in 2010. But he said it did not affect his pledge to support Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s minority Labor Party government.

“I still hope we live in a country where people are innocent until proven guilty even if they are high-profile members of Parliament holding the highest office in the Australian Parliament,” Oakeshott told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Windsor said his agreement with Gillard to support her government had not been breached.

“I haven’t seen anything that would breach the agreement,” Windsor said. “If there’s corrupt activity (within government) or maladministration, let’s see it.”

The Greens party, which supplies a third lawmaker to support the government, issued a statement maintaining support and warning against Parliament acting like a court.

The opposition needs at least two of these three lawmakers to defect to bring down the government with a vote of no confidence when Parliament next sits on May 8. Such a motion would need at least 76 votes in the 150-seat House of Representatives.

Slipper defected from the opposition in November last year to take the speaker’s job in a move that effectively gave Gillard’s minority government an additional vote, 76 in the chamber.

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McConnell admitted that she drowned them in the tub at the family home in Millet, Alberta, in February 2010. But the defense argued McConnell’s mind was so clouded by booze, sleeping pills and severe depression that she couldn’t have formed the intent required to convict her of murder. The prosecution suggested she killed the boys as revenge against her husband. The couple was in the process of divorcing. McConnell testified during her trial that she remembered little about the weekend her sons died.

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But the former Wallabies captain was in critical condition in a Brisbane hospital Friday after being admitted complaining of headaches and blurred vision while he was dining with friends on Monday.

Lynagh recently arrived back in his hometown of Brisbane from London, where he lives after having forged a successful post-rugby career in marketing consulting and as a television analyst.

Lynagh’s doctor, neurologist Rob Henderson, said in a statement released Friday that Lynagh was in the hospital’s intensive care unit and had suffered a cerebellar and occipital lobe stroke that affected his vision, coordination and balance.

“This significant stroke is a rare event for someone of Michael’s age,” he said. “The next few days are critical because of swelling in the region of the brainstem, but current signs are positive.”

Lynagh’s father Ian thanked the public, family and friends for their support.

“It has been a difficult few days and it is reassuring to know that there are so many people who care,” Ian Lynagh told Australian Associated Press. “The Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital staff continue to do an excellent job and we know he is in the very best of hands.”

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Natasha Harris, a 30-year-old, stay-at-home mother of eight from Invercargill, died of a heart attack in February 2010.

Fairfax Media reported that a pathologist, Dr. Dan Mornin, testified at an inquest Thursday that she probably suffered from hypokalemia, or low potassium, which he thinks was caused by her excessive consumption of Coke and overall poor nutrition.

Symptoms of hypokalemia can include abnormal heart rhythms, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Mornin said that toxic levels of caffeine, a stimulant found in Coke, also may have contributed to her death, according to Fairfax.

Harris’ partner, Chris Hodgkinson, testified that Harris drank between 8 and 10 liters (2.1 and 2.6 gallons) of regular Coke every day.

“The first thing she would do in the morning was to have a drink of Coke beside her bed and the last thing she would do at night was have a drink of Coke,” Hodgkinson said in a deposition. “She was addicted to Coke.”

Hodgkinson also said Harris ate little and smoked about 30 cigarettes a day. In the months before her death, he said, Harris experienced blood pressure problems and lacked energy. He said that on the morning of her death, Harris helped get her children ready for school before slumping against a wall. He called emergency services and tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but couldn’t revive her.

Another pathologist, Dr. Martin Sage, said in a deposition that “it is certainly well demonstrated that excessive long or short term cola ingestion can be dramatically symptomatic, and there are strong hypothetical grounds for this becoming fatal in individual cases.”

Inquests such as this are sometimes held for unusual or unexplained deaths in New Zealand, and can help shape future health policies. With the evidence in the case now complete, the coroner’s office will compile and issue a final report into the death.

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The two sides faced off in an Australian courtroom this week over the country’s strict new plain-packaging laws. The laws ban tobacco companies from displaying their distinctive colors and logos on cigarette packs in a bid to make smoking less attractive.

The hearing concluded Thursday with no immediate ruling.

The tobacco companies argue that the law violates intellectual property rights and devalues their trademarks. The government says the law is simply a product standard and has nothing to do with acquiring intellectual property.

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The 45-year-old was allegedly involved in a string of bank robberies in his country.

Estipona said Australian authorities had sought Maston’s arrest. The immigration bureau issued a deportation warrant and after receiving information of his whereabouts, arrested him Friday. Estipona says Maston was earlier reported to be armed, but he did not resist arrest and no guns were immediately found in his possession.

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The snake popped its head out from behind the instrument panel several times, Blennerhassett said, and then the ordeal worsened when the animal crawled across his leg during the approach to the airport.

“I’ve seen it on a movie once, but never in an airplane,” Blennerhassett told Australian Broadcasting Corp., referring to the 2006 movie “Snakes on a Plane,” in which deadly snakes are deliberately released in an airliner as part of a murder plot.

The 26-year-old Air Frontier pilot was alone in a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron G58 and had just left Darwin airport on a cargo run to a remote Outback Aboriginal settlement when he saw the snake on Tuesday. Air Frontier director Geoff Hunt described Blennerhassett as a “cool character” who radioed air traffic control to report: “I’m going to have to return to Darwin. I’ve got a snake on board the plane.”

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The Federal Court on Tuesday overturned a judge’s ruling from September last year that Google was not responsible for advertisers’ breaches of Australia’s Trade Practices Act.

Google says it’s disappointed by the decision and is considering its options, which include a High Court appeal.

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The iconic artist died at his home in the city of Dubbo, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Sydney, after a long struggle with diabetes, kidney problems and a heart condition, his family said in a statement.

Little was one of the first indigenous artists to win mainstream success in Australia, playing everything from country to reggae across a nearly 60-year career.

“He was a true pioneer,” said his manager, Graham “Buzz” Bidstrup, recalling the days in the late 1950s and early 1960s when Little was often forced by nightclub owners to use the back door of a venue because of his dark skin. Very often, Bidstrup said, the white musicians would stand up for Little and refuse to play until he was allowed through the front door.

“All the way through his life, he was always looking for a way to unite people without preaching at them ? he just did it in a beautiful, soft way,” Bidstrup said. “I don’t think I’ll ever meet anybody else like him.”

Little strongly supported Aboriginal education and served as a mentor for many indigenous children. The Jimmy Little Foundation works to combat high rates of kidney disease and diabetes in Aboriginal communities.

Little’s family said his love for music never wavered, and that he began taking piano lessons at age 75.

A public vote dubbed him a National Living Treasure in 2004. Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin called Little a role model for Aboriginal youth, and a “tireless advocate” for improvements to indigenous health.

Little is survived by his daughter, Frances Claire Peters-Little, and his grandson, James Henry Little.

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Businessman Peter Kurmann, 33, and his brother Gian Kurmann, 34, were diving from a boat off Stratham Beach, about 230 kilometers (140 miles) south of Perth, the Western Australia state capital, when the younger brother was attacked midmorning, state police spokeswoman Sgt. Naomi Smith said.

She said the victim, from the town of Vasse near the bay where the attack took place, was apparently killed instantly. His brother was unharmed.

The Fisheries Department has launched an investigation, which will include an examination of bite marks on the victim’s body to determine the shark species.

Department manager Tony Cappelluti said Gian Kurmann reported seeing “a four-meter (13-foot) dark, shark-like shape” in the water. Authorities won’t speculate on the species.

The body was recovered by his brother helped by the crew of a nearby boat and taken south to the town of Busselton, Cappelluti said.

An airplane surveillance team had later spotted a shark in the area and a government boat equipped with shark capture gear was en route to the scene, Cappelluti said.

Experts have been unable to explain the spate of attacks in Australia’s southwest, but agree that different sharks are likely responsible for each fatality.

The last fatal attack in Australia was American George Thomas Wainwright, 32, who was taken on Oct. 22 by a 3-meter (10-foot) great white while diving solo off a boat near Rottnest Island, 18 kilometers (11 miles) west of Perth.

A great white of the same size is believed to have taken 64-year-old Australian swimmer Bryn Martin off Perth’s premier Cottesloe Beach on Oct. 10.

The attacks followed the Sept. 4 death of bodyboarder Kyle Burden, 21, who was killed by a shark described as 4.5 meters (15 feet) long at a beach south of Perth. Witnesses were unsure of the type of shark.

Australia averages little more than one fatal attack a year along an expansive 35,000-kilometer (22,000-mile) coast, although attacks have become more common in recent decades as more people take part in ocean recreation.

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Hundreds of landmarks around the world including Washington’s National Cathedral, London’s Clock Tower, the Great Wall of China and Tokyo Tower will be dimmed at 8:30 p.m. local time.

The central Sydney icons have been taking part in the annual event since Earth Hour began as a Sydney-only event in 2007. Australia is among the first countries to hit the light switches each year.

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Swaths of purple and black material formed a bright bow running from the countryside to the cities of the Pacific nation as people mourned.

That so many people took the care to adorn their homes and businesses is testament to the reverence people here give the idea of the monarchy, even after Tupou ceded many powers in 2008 to usher in a new era of democracy.

He died earlier this month and was succeeded by his brother, Tupou VI.

The centerpiece of the funeral was the procession carrying the pagoda. The men marched through about 5,000 children in the capital, Nuku’alofa.

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The communist Khmer Rouge are blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians while the regime was in power in the 1970s. The tribunal has convicted the Khmer Rouge’s chief jailer and is currently trying three senior leaders for crimes against humanity and other charges. Further trials are in doubt because of funding issues and resistance within Cambodia to prosecuting more Khmer Rouge figures.

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O’Leary swam to shore and gave a thumbs up signal to television cameras as paramedics treated his lacerated left leg on the beach. Lifeguard Warren Young told the website the culprit was probably a bull shark lured close to shore by baitfish. Young says O’Leary was in good spirits when he was taken by ambulance to a hospital.

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The prime minister said the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Tupouto’a Lavaka, was at the king’s side when he died at the Hong Kong hospital. The prime minister declared that the royal family and entire nation was in mourning, ending his address with a Tongan expression meaning “The sun has set,” according to Fonua. The king had a liver transplant last year and suffered other health problems, according to Tongan media reports. Tupou had reigned over the island nation of 106,000 since Sept. 2006, after the death of his father, King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV. Tupou, who studied at King’s College in Auckland, New Zealand, and in Britain, is credited with championing a more open system of government, advocating technological improvements and introducing a more open economy in the kingdom. He will be remembered by many for his throwback fashion choices, which included wearing, at times, a top hat and even a monocle. New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key released a statement Monday saying that his thoughts were with the people of Tonga. “I would like to acknowledge the very valuable contribution the king has made in steering Tonga towards democracy and hope this work will continue,” Key said.

“He believed that the monarchy was an instrument of change and can truly be seen as the architect of evolving democracy in Tonga. This will be his enduring legacy.” Fonua said the king gave up most of his executive powers when he came to the throne, accepting the need for a more democratic system. Fonua said the king also championed technologies such as mobile phones and the Internet, and made some enemies among conservative Tongans for his efforts to make the economy more market-driven.

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Gillard defeated Kevin Rudd, her former foreign minister, 71 votes to 31 in a ballot of Labor Party lawmakers, ending Rudd’s attempt to recapture the job Gillard took from him in an internal party coup in 2010. But she remains unpopular with voters, and unless that changes she could lead Labor to huge losses in elections slated for next year.

Though Rudd said he will not challenge Gillard again, his supporters predicted that party power brokers will simply nominate someone else to do so within months.

“If Julia Gillard wins today and we end up in the same position as we are now, in terms of the polls, in several months’ time, then my view is the same people who installed Julia Gillard will be looking for a candidate to replace Julia Gillard,” Sen. Doug Cameron, a Rudd supporter, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. before Monday’s vote.

Gillard described her win as “overwhelming” after months of “ugly” infighting within the ranks of the center-left party. She said that if the infighting ends and the party is united, Labor could “absolutely win the next election” against the conservative opposition.

Rudd, who warned during his brief leadership campaign that Gillard would lead Labor to certain defeat next year, called on Labor to unite behind her. “I bear no one any malice and if I’ve done wrong to anyone with what I’ve said and what I’ve done, I apologize,” he told reporters.

Rudd said it was time the “wounds were healed” within the party.

Rudd has never forgiven Gillard since she deposed him as prime minister two years ago. The Labor Party had been in turmoil for months with talk that he would challenge Gillard, and he resigned as foreign minister shortly before she called the leadership vote last week.

Rudd’s resignation means Gillard must reshape her Cabinet, and the changes could go well beyond one post. At least five other members of the Cabinet backed Rudd, including Resources Minister Martin Ferguson and Emergency Management Minister Robert McClelland, who both publicly claimed their government was doomed at the next elections under Gillard’s leadership.

Gillard declined to comment on the fate of the Cabinet ministers who publicly supported Rudd. After the vote one of her own supporters, Sen. Mark Arbib, said he would quit as sports minister and as a senator.

Arbib, a party power broker who helped orchestrate Gillard’s 2010 coup, said he was resigning in the interest of restoring government unity. An increasing number of lawmakers say the coup was a mistake and blame the continuing turmoil on Arbib.

“I’m resigning because I want to give the party a chance to heal. I want to be able to mend some of the conflict that has happened in the past,” he told reporters.

Nick Economou, a Monash University political scientist, said Gillard’s leadership was “terminal.” He said he expects Rudd or another lawmaker will make a second challenge before elections are due next year.

Australian National University political scientist Michael McKinley said Gillard had six months to lift Labor’s and her own standing in the polls.

“If she does not improve in six months, she’s going to be very, very sick politically,” McKinley said. But he said he thinks Rudd is the only Labor politician who could pose a credible challenge.

Pollster Martin O’Shannessy, chief executive of the respected market researcher Newspoll, said he believes Gillard could improve her standing among voters in time for the next election. He said other governments of other recent prime ministers ended up getting re-elected despite extended periods of high voter dissatisfaction.

“If they think you’re a good manager, they’ll vote for you even if they don’t like you,” O’Shannessy said.

Opinion polls show Rudd to be significantly more popular than Gillard among voters, but many lawmakers were dissatisfied with his performance as prime minister, and there were concerns that Labor’s fragile ruling coalition could crumble, forcing early elections, if Rudd were to take over.

Rudd vowed that if he lost the ballot, he would remain in politics at least until elections due next year, which would help Labor preserve its coalition. But he said he would not challenge her leadership again.

Gillard was deputy prime minister two years ago when she made a snap challenge to Rudd’s leadership. When Rudd discovered how few lawmakers were prepared to support him at the time, he did not contest the ballot and Gillard became prime minister without a vote.

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The airline said its profit before tax for the six months ending Dec. 2011 was down more than two-thirds to 33 million New Zealand dollars ($27.5 million). In a statement, the airline blamed a weak global economy and the high cost of jet fuel for the result, but said it’s overall position remains strong and it will keep paying shareholders a dividend. The company’s chief executive, Rob Fyfe, announced last month he will retire effective December to pursue other opportunities.

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Circuit Judge Tommy Nail issued his ruling before the defense had even presented its case in the two-week-long trial and before jurors were given the case to deliberate. Prosecutor Don Valeska, head of the violent crimes division for the state attorney general’s office, said he never before had a trial end in a judge’s acquittal in 41 years of trying cases. Gabe Watson, 34, had faced life in prison without parole if convicted of murdering his wife, Tina Thomas Watson, in 2003. He already served 18 months in an Australian prison after pleading guilty there to a manslaughter charge involving negligence. Nail agreed with defense arguments that prosecutors failed to show Watson intentionally killed the woman. Prosecutors claimed he drowned her for insurance money, but the only eyewitness testified he thought Watson was trying to save the woman. The state’s evidence was “sorely lacking” and did not prove Watson had any financial motive. “I don’t think anyone knows for sure what happened in the water down there,” Nail said. He repeatedly clashed with prosecutors during both the trial and earlier hearings. Defense attorneys had argued that Watson didn’t stand to gain anything monetarily because Tina Watson’s father was the beneficiary of her life insurance policy. They contended her death was an accident. Gabe Watson’s father, David, hugged his son in the courtroom after the judge made his ruling.

He said every court that had looked at the case determined Gabe did not intentionally kill his wife. “I’m just so relieved. Hopefully he can put his life back together,” David Watson said. “I hope everyone can begin to heal. The rest of his life will determine his legacy. Gabe is a good kid.” Gabe Watson left the courtroom hand-in-hand with his second wife without commenting to reporters. Tina Watson’s father, Tommy Thomas, had testified earlier in the day. He described how his family’s grief and shock over Tina Watson’s death turned to suspicion of Gabe Watson. Valeska, the prosecutor, walked with his arm around Tommy Thomas, who appeared to be in shock and stunned by the judge’s decision. “It should have gone to the jury for them to decide,” Thomas said of the judge’s decision.

Thomas had testified earlier that shortly after the death, his wife, Cindy, was worried about Gabe Watson’s condition. However, evidence showed relations between Watson and his wife’s family frayed quickly as the Thomases began having doubts about what happened and Gabe Watson began asking for Tina Watson’s belongings. Gabe Watson’s father called to tell them about the woman’s death more than 15 hours after she drowned, Thomas said, and Tina Watson’s family never heard from Gabe Watson until they attempted to contact him through the U.S. consulate in Australia. Thomas said that in a phone call from Australia, Watson claimed his wife gave him a thumbs up underwater, indicating she wanted to go back to the surface. Watson said he was leading her back to a rope when she panicked, knocked off his mask and air hose, and began sinking, according to Thomas. But during a later talk at a lawyer’s office, Thomas said, Watson changed his story and said the woman indicated she wanted to go back to the rope leading to the top rather than go directly to the surface. Staring directly at Watson from the witness stand, Thomas said he asked his former son-in-law at that time: “When Tina gave him the thumbs up sign to go to the surface, why didn’t he just take her to the surface?” The judge blocked Thomas from testifying about Watson’s alleged desire to increase the woman’s life insurance policy, a blow for prosecutors who earlier had been barred from presenting other evidence about Watson’s actions after the death.

Montre Carodine, a law professor at the University of Alabama, said the judge’s decision to end the trial without the defense even presenting evidence was a “serious indictment” of the prosecution’s case, particularly considering it was a capital trial. “It means the evidence was weak,” she said.

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The vote by party lawmakers, scheduled for Monday, is an effort by Gillard to knock down a power struggle that has been percolating for weeks, and that spilled over onto the world stage Wednesday when Rudd resigned as foreign minister during an official trip to the U.S. The fight could lead to the collapse of the government and early elections.

In Washington, Rudd would not say whether he will challenge Gillard in the leadership ballot, telling reporters Wednesday night he would announce that decision when he returns to Australia on Friday. But he said he believes the Labor Party will lose national elections scheduled for next year if Gillard remains its leader.

Gillard said she will abandon her leadership ambitions if Labor lawmakers choose Rudd over her Monday, and she called on Rudd to do the same if he loses. “We need a leadership ballot to settle this question once and for all,” she told reporters in Canberra, the capital.

Analysts expect that Gillard has enough support in the House of Representatives to remain in power for now, but she and her government are unpopular among voters. And Rudd supporters said that even if he lost Monday, he would simply build support and try again later.

A Rudd supporter, Sen. Doug Cameron, said a Monday poll would be unfair because Rudd would not have time to canvass support.

“It’s clear that some senior ministers are intent on putting a stake through Kevin Rudd’s heart and I don’t think that’s justified,” Cameron told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television.

For weeks, Rudd denied widespread rumors that he was planning a run for Gillard’s job. Before Rudd announced his resignation, Gillard had refused to comment on media reports that she intended to fire him as foreign minister for disloyalty.

Rudd accused Gillard of showing disloyalty to him by failing to silence senior ministers who accused him of being dysfunctional and of secretly undermining the Australian government while he served as its top international envoy.

As Rudd turned from Cabinet member to rival, Gillard criticized his performance as prime minister, and her supporters have been warning about his notorious temper.

Nick Economou, a political scientist at Monarch University, said Rudd’s resignation caught Gillard wrong-footed.

“Everyone can figure out the thing to do is to jump before you’re pushed. That way you’ve got the high moral ground instead of being sent to the back bench as the product of the prime minister’s authority,” Economou said.

He called Rudd’s resignation “an absolute strategic disaster” for Gillard that made the Australian government appear dysfunctional in the capital city of the United States, Australia’s most important security partner.

The political crisis may already have had broader effects: Some economists blame it for a slump in the Australian dollar, which fell to its lowest level in a month Thursday.

“I think markets are worried about a potential leadership change, what it means for any policy measures they have for Australia and the uncertainty it provides,” Kathy Lien, director of currency research at brokerage GFT Forex, said from New York.

The government could fall if Rudd wins because Labor’s single-seat majority in the House depends on a coalition with two independent lawmakers and one from the Greens Party. Early elections would be held if neither Labor nor the conservative opposition coalition can muster a majority.

One of the independents in the Labor coalition, Tony Windsor, warned that he could bolt if Rudd returns to power.

“If that was the scenario, maybe it’s time the people had their say in terms of who can govern,” Windsor told ABC.

Rudd said his supporters regard him as the best prospect to lead the ruling party to victory in the next elections and “to save the country from the ravages of an Abbott government,” referring to the current opposition leader, Tony Abbott.

Gillard ousted Rudd as prime minister in June 2010 in an internal coup, and their center-left Labor Party scraped through elections later that year to lead a minority government.

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Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd announced his resignation during an early morning news conference Wednesday in Washington, where he is visiting on official business. His decision comes amid relentless speculation that he planned to seize power from Gillard.

Gillard came to power in an internal coup within her Labor Party that ousted Rudd as prime minister in June 2010. She became only the third prime minister since World War II to gain power in this way.

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The court had denied an earlier appeal by Dotcom for bail, making Wednesday’s ruling a surprise. Dotcom had been held in custody since his arrest Jan. 20. U.S. authorities claim Megaupload facilitated millions of illegal downloads. They are trying to extradite Dotcom and three of his colleagues on racketeering charges. Dotcom’s colleagues had earlier been granted bail by New Zealand courts. The Ministry of Justice did not immediately have available the conditions of Dotcom’s release.

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The couples will use the dinner in the national capital of Canberra to lobby the prime minister to allow gay marriage.

The 12-year-old son of one of the women, Matthew Miller, will present Gillard with flowers and two letters explaining why he and his brother Dylan, aged 9, would like their biological mother Sandy Miller, 40, to marry the other woman whom they call their mother, Louise Bucke, 36. But the Sydney-based boys won’t stay for dinner.

“Since they’re not allowed to get married, they’re basically being called not normal and we’re not known as a proper family,” Matthew Miller told The Associated Press at a function at Parliament House before the dinner.

Other guests are Brisbane academic Sharon Dane, 54, who married her wife Elaine Crump, 53, in Canada in a ceremony that is not recognized in Australia. Gay couple Steve Russell, 51, and John Dini, 29, decided against marrying overseas because it would carry no weight in Australia. While they could have a civil union recognized under state law in their hometown of Melbourne, they don’t regard that as equivalent to marriage.

The activist group GetUp! paid 31,000 Australian dollars ($33,270) for the dinner when they won a bidding war against a Christian lobby group at the Press Gallery of Australia annual charity ball in June last year.

Gillard’s Labor Party in December lifted its long-standing opposition to gay marriage, and three separate bills have been introduced to Parliament that would change the law which states that only a man and woman can marry.

But Gillard remains opposed to gay marriage, and it is unclear whether any bill would attract sufficient support to enable same-sex couples to marry. No date has been set for a vote in Parliament on gay marriage.

Polls show that most Australians support gay marriage, but the conservative opposition coalition and many government lawmakers remain opposed.

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The Brisbane-based international and domestic airline, formerly known as Strategic Airlines, said all flights had been canceled and the airline would not be accepting new bookings because it could no longer pay its bills.

Voluntary administration in Australia is similar to bankruptcy protection in the U.S., and can buy a company time to trade out of its financial problems.

“It currently appears that there are no funds available to meet operational expenses so flights will be suspended immediately,” the airline said in a statement. Passengers who bought tickets with credit cards or had travel insurance may be given a refund, the airline said.

Around 4,000 passengers were overseas with Air Australia round-trip tickets, voluntary administrator Mark Korda said. Some of those affected were stranded in Honolulu and Phuket, Thailand.

“Overnight, the company was unable to refuel its planes in Phuket,” Korda told Australia’s Fairfax Radio. “The directors appointed us at 1:30 this morning and the boys have been working throughout the night to deal with what’s a very difficult situation.”

Stranded in Honolulu, Priya Sinh was forced to postpone her 18th birthday party on Saturday at her home on Australia’s Gold Coast. She used her iPad to log onto Facebook to tell her 70 guests not to come because she wouldn’t be back in time.

“We tried to laugh about it, but it wasn’t funny,” she said while her family called hotels looking for a room. Her mother managed to reserve the last four seats on a Jetstar flight to Sydney leaving Saturday.

Australian airline Qantas and Jetstar, its budget subsidiary, were considering adding services to help stranded passengers get to their destinations, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said.

He said the airline will sell stranded passengers tickets for the same price they paid for their Air Australia tickets, giving them a chance to recover the full price from their travel agencies or credit card companies.

Air Australia’s fleet consists of five Airbus A330-200 and A320-200 aircraft, and regularly flies to Bali, Phuket, Honolulu and cities within Australia. Korda said in a statement that Air Australia’s administrators were calling for immediate expressions of interest in the sale of the business.

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The two bills, sponsored by lawmakers from the Labor and the Greens parties, highlight tensions between the minority government partners that undermine the chances of gay marriage being endorsed by Parliament.

The bills are essentially the same. Both place same-sex couples on the same footing as heterosexuals, while allowing religious ministers the freedom to refuse to solemnize any marriages that are inconsistent with their beliefs. No timetable has been set for a vote on either bill.

The Greens party has long called for legal recognition of gay marriage in Australia, while the major political parties have opposed it.

In introducing his party’s legislation first on Monday, Greens lawmaker Adam Bandt told Parliament he was disappointed that Labor lawmakers had refused to cooperate on gay marriage.

“We know that as things stand, if either of these bills is put to a vote now, we know it will fail,” Bandt said.

Jones said his bill “follows an international trend to end discrimination when it comes to marriage,” noting that around 10 countries and several U.S. states allow same-sex marriage. He also said that gay marriage law reform is a human rights issue, and that it is supported by most Australians.

Despite being proposed by a Labor lawmaker, Jones’ bill is not considered to be government legislation. Therefore, it is not guaranteed the support of Labor lawmakers.

At their annual national conference in December, Labor delegates voted to overturn the party’s long-standing opposition to same-sex marriage. But crucially, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who opposes gay marriage, has decided not to bind Labor lawmakers to that party line.

Instead, she will allow Labor lawmakers to make a rare “conscience vote” on any bill that would legalize gay marriage. That means legislators can vote on the issue according to their personal beliefs. Usually lawmakers must vote according to the party’s official position or risk expulsion from the party.

The Liberal Party-led opposition coalition remains opposed to gay marriage.

In 2004, the conservative coalition government amended federal law with the support of the Labor opposition to make clear that only a union between a man and a woman can be legally recognized as a marriage in Australia.

Liberal lawmaker Alex Hawke, a gay marriage opponent, said Monday that the issue is not about human rights, since same-sex couples face little if any discrimination under federal law.

“We’re talking about a radical proposal to undermine a fundamental social institution that has been the basis of our society for thousands of years,” Hawke told Parliament.

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The MV Rabaul Queen sank Thursday in rough seas, and big waves and strong winds continued to make rescue efforts difficult Friday. But Capt. Nurur Rahman, rescue coordinator for Papua New Guinea’s National Maritime Safety Authority, said he had not given up hope of finding more survivors.

“I do not presume them to be dead yet,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. There were no reports of any more survivors by late Friday, and no bodies have been found.

Rony Naigu, a National Maritime Safety Authority official, told ABC about 100 people are thought to have been trapped inside when the ship was hit by three large waves and sank.

“The sea was really rough, windy, big waves. The boat tilted once, then twice, then three times and it went over,” said Alice Kakamara, who was recovering in a Lea hospital Friday after inhaling toxins during the sinking. “There was oil everywhere,” she said.

The ferry’s owners, Papua New Guinea-based Rabaul Shipping Company, said there had been 350 passengers and 12 crew aboard the 22-year-old Japanese-built ferry when it went down Thursday morning while traveling from Kimbe on the island of New Britain to the coastal city of Lae on the main island. A police official said most of those aboard were students.

“We are stunned and utterly devastated by what has happened,” managing director Peter Sharp said in a statement.

The company said the cause of the disaster remained unclear, but National Weather Service chief Sam Maiha told Papua New Guinea’s Post-Courier newspaper that shipping agencies had been warned to keep ships moored this week because of strong winds.

By nightfall Thursday, 246 survivors had been rescued by merchant ships battling 16-foot (5-meter) swells and 45 mph (75 kph) winds at the disaster scene 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Lae and 10 miles (16 kilometers) from shore, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said.

Capt. Rahman said the sea temperature was above 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), warm enough for people to survive for an extended period. He said most of those rescued had been wearing life jackets. He said the 155-foot (47-meter) ferry sank in 3,300-foot (one-kilometer) deep water, making it difficult to determine whether bodies were trapped inside.

The survivors were delivered to Lae, the South Pacific country’s second-largest city, by five ships early Friday, said the AMSA, which is assisting Papua New Guinea authorities with the rescue.

“None of them had sustained any real injuries. They were pretty cold and miserable,” Lae Chamber of Commerce president Alan McLay told Sky News television. The search continued at first light Friday with three ships, two airplanes and two helicopters, AMSA said.

An angry crowd threw stones at the Kimbe office of Rabaul Shipping Company on Thursday night, outraged at a lack of information, police said.

“There were a lot of people crying and then they wanted to know the fate of their loved ones, the people actually who were on board,” Kimbe Police Inspector Samson Siguyaru told ABC. “I had to send in the police to rescue (staff and), get them out of the office to a location where it is safe,” he added.

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An airplane from Australia, three helicopters and eight ships were scouring the search area after the MV Rabaul Queen went down while traveling from Kimbe on the island of New Britain to coastal town of Lae on the main island, Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a statement.

The ferry sank 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Lae and 10 miles (16 kilometers) from shore, the statement said. Australian Broadcasting Corp. quoted police in Kimbe, where the ferry sailed from, as saying most of the passengers were students and trainee teachers.

The authority’s dedicated search and rescue airplane based in the northern Australian city of Cairns had reached the scene by afternoon and another two Australian airplanes were on the way. All three carried life rafts that could be dropped to survivors in the water. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard called the incident a “major tragedy.”

“Given the likely very high loss of life here, I think when this news comes to the attention of Australians around the country they will be thinking about the people of PNG as they respond to this tragedy,” she added.

The Australian maritime agency initially detected the ferry’s distress beacon and alerted the PNG Maritime Rescue Coordination Center, which is coordinating the rescue effort. The Australian statement said 219 survivors had been recovered by five ships by late Thursday.

“I cannot confirm or deny the 350 missing number. It is hearsay,” Rahman said. “I have not seen the manifest as yet, but it is likely around 300.” Rahman said he was being fed information from an NMSA agent on board one of the ships. “The dynamics of this thing are changing all the time, minute by minute,” he said. Ship operator Star Ships could not be immediately contacted for comment.

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The 1,800 staff at Melbourne-based Grenda Corp. have received bonuses averaging more than AU$8,300 and as much as AU$30,000 after the Grenda family sold the 66-year-old business for AU$400 million, the Herald Sun newspaper reported.

“We sat down and thought: ‘how can we thank the people that have got us to where we’re going to end up?’ and it was a fairly easy decision for us,” Grenda told Nine Network television, referring to his father Ken and brother Scott.

“We’ve had lots of loyal people over our 66-year journey and this was our way of rewarding the ones that are still with us,” he added.

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“I’ve got no troubles at all with peaceful protests. … What I utterly condemn is when protests turn violent the way we saw the violence yesterday, and particularly to disrupt an event which was to honor some extraordinary Australians,” she said.

Protest leaders denied doing anything wrong, accused the police of manhandling protesters and said they planned to lodge a complaint against the officers involved. ”The Australian Federal Police came at us with force and we did not retaliate with force,” protest spokeswoman Selina Daveys-Newry told reporters Friday. “We see straight through that little puppet play.”

About 200 indigenous-rights supporters marched on the nation’s Parliament House on Friday, burning an Australian flag in front of a wall of police and carrying signs with messages such as “All cops are bastards.” No one was hurt and the protesters left minutes later.

Abbott was the focus of much of the protesters’ rage. The Tent Embassy celebrated its 40th anniversary on Thursday, and Abbott had earlier angered activists by saying it was time the embassy “moved on.” Abbott said Friday that his comment had been misinterpreted, and that he never meant to imply the embassy should be torn down.

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