Sydney, Australia | AFP | Cardinal George Pell, one of the most powerful figures in the Vatican and Australia’s most senior Catholic, was Thursday charged with historical child sex offences, which he “strenuously denied”. Pell, the Vatican’s finance chief and the highest-ranking Catholic cleric to face such charges, had been …
Read More »CLAPPER: Watergate pales in comparison to Trump scandals
Sydney, Australia | AFP | Watergate pales in comparison to the scandals engulfing Donald Trump and the Russia connection, former top US intelligence official James Clapper said Wednesday ahead of a key Senate hearing in Washington. Clapper, who has worked in intelligence under every US leader from John F. Kennedy …
Read More »Australia declares game-up for ‘fake refugees’
Sydney, Australia | AFP | Australia Sunday gave 7,500 boatpeople until October to prove they are genuine refugees or be kicked out, declaring the “game is up” for illegal arrivals ripping off taxpayers. Before the conservatives took power and adopted a tough line on the issue in 2013, an estimated …
Read More »Federer wins Nadal thriller to clinch record 18th Slam
Melbourne, Australia | AFP | Roger Federer defied age and his Grand Slam nemesis Rafael Nadal to win a record 18th Grand Slam title in a thrilling, five-set final at the Australian Open on Sunday. Federer, 35, won a classic encounter 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 to become the oldest …
Read More »MH370 plane search to end in two weeks
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | AFP | The hunt for missing flight MH370 will end in two weeks, Malaysia’s transport minister said on Friday, as relatives of passengers demanded authorities push on with the search. “We’re at the final lap within these two weeks,” the minister, Liow Tiong Lai told reporters. …
Read More »Australia kicks off global New Year party
Sydney, Australia | AFP | Australia rang in the new year Sunday with a spectacular fireworks display in Sydney, sending rainbow-coloured showers into the night sky and defying the global terror attacks that cast a pall over 2016. Around 1.5 million people packed Australia’s biggest city to watch as the …
Read More »Australia kicks off global New Year party defying terror threat
Sydney, Australia | AFP | Global terror attacks have cast a pall over 2016 but Australia was Saturday set to defy the threats and ring in the New Year with bumper crowds gathering to watch a firework extravaganza on Sydney’s glittering harbour. 2016 has seen repeated bloodshed, most recently a …
Read More »Rare death from snake bite in Australian home
Sydney, Australia | AFP | A man has died a week after being bitten by one of the world’s deadliest snakes in his living room in Australia’s tropical northeast, officials said Tuesday. The 77-year-old, named in local media as David Pitt, was at his home in Cairns when he was …
Read More »Australia strikes deal on ‘backpacker tax’
Sydney, Australia | AFP | Foreigners in Australia on working holidays face paying a 15 percent levy on every dollar they earn after the government Monday compromised on a controversial “backpacker tax”, dumping plans for a higher rate. Canberra had initially sought a revenue-raising 32.5 percent tax for seasonal workers …
Read More »Kidnapped Australian doctor becomes Burkina Faso citizen
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso | AFP | An Australian surgeon kidnapped by jihadists nearly two years ago whose whereabouts remain unknown has been declared a citizen of the west African nation, an official decree announced Wednesday. “Arthur Kenneth Elliott, born 11 November 1934 in Perth, in Australia…. a surgeon” has been …
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