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Smart Company has been keeping an eye on Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart, and it predicted last year that she might well end up being the world's richest person someday. If she keeps having weeks like this one, don't count her out. Her wealth doubled from $10 billion to $20 billion, according to the website, thanks to a South Korean company buying a stake in one of her mines.

BAR staff at the Humpty Doo Hotel got a surprise on New Year's Eve when a patron rode a horse into the pub and ordered a beer. Riding bareback and wearing no more than shorts and a pair of thongs, Trevor Yeend steered horse Elvis through the crowd and went straight for the bar. The 48-year-old jockey said it was easier to ride to the bar than walk. "I think people were a bit stunned," he said. "But it was just another night at the Humpty Doo pub I guess." Newsbreaker Dave Grant snapped a photo of Mr Yeend and...

Australia's dollar has blasted through parity against the US dollar after the country raised interest rates a quarter point to 4.75pc to fight inflation. The long-awaited moment of "triple parity" seems imminent. The Swiss franc is already worth more than a greenback, and the Canadian dollar is seemingly poised to break through as well. The surging "Aussie" - widely seen as a play on the China growth story and used by traders as a proxy for the Chinese yuan - captures the shift in the world's economic centre of gravity to the Pacific region. The currency was worth half a...

FAMILIES are being ordered to cover up before attending a public event to avoid offending Muslims during next year's Ramadan. VCAT has approved a ban on uncovered shoulders and thighs for a community event to be held at the Dandenong Oasis, a municipal pool. "Participants aged 10 and over must ensure their bodies are covered from waist to knee and the entire torso extending to the upper arms," a request by Dandenong City Council and the YMCA states in an exemption application to the Equal Opportunities Act. "Participants must not wear transparent clothing." The request has been approved by VCAT...

SYDNEY, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- A military prosecutor says she may pursue charges against several Australian troops in a raid in Afghanistan last year in which five children died. Brig. Lyn McDade, the director of military prosecutions, says she is considering the unprecedented step of charging several Defense Force commandos, a move that has infuriated senior officers, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Thursday. Australia's Chief of Army Lt. Gen. Ken Gillespie and other commanders have expressed concern in writing, the newspaper said. Of about 30 personnel involved in the raid, only a few appear likely to face court martial, including...

A Canadian nuclear scientist who has not been seen for more than a month has simply vanished, leaving "absolutely no trace at all," police say. Lachlan Cranswick, 41, a physicist from the Chalk River Laboratories nuclear facility in Ottawa, was last seen on Jan. 18, when he left his job and boarded a bus to Deep River, his hometown along the Ottawa River with a population of roughly 4,300. Later that day, or possibly the next morning, Cranswick took out the garbage -- and the single man described as a meticulous loner has not been seen since.

TORONTO - There are still no leads in the case of an eastern Ontario scientist who disappeared without a trace last month, leaving his colleagues mystified. Lachlan Cranswick hasn't been seen since Jan. 18, when he left work at the National Research Council's Canadian Neutron Beam Centre in Chalk River, northwest of Ottawa. His nearby Deep River house was reportedly left unlocked and his car was in the garage. His wallet, keys and passport have all been accounted for......

It looks like big bums are the in thing in Australia at the moment, with flat bottomed women buying up padded underwear to enhance their backsides. Jenny Tew, who designs and sells the garments from her lingerie shop in Cabramatta, said the padded undies are doing a brisk sale. “They’re very popular. Everyone who walks past and sees it buys it, especially skinny people and Asian people because most of us have flat bums,” the Daily Telegraph quoted the Kimarie shop owner as saying. “We don’t sell many to European women because they’ve got big bums already,” she stated. Tew,...

Album Available in all Australian gun stores, through Paypal @ www.ilikeguns.com.au, on iTunes & through CD Baby!!!

SYDNEY – Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. Julian Finn and Mark Norman of Museum Victoria in Melbourne observed the odd activity in four of the creatures during a series of dive...

An academic says public education campaigns need a rethink after two girls used Facebook to alert people that they were stuck down a stormwater drain. The 10 and 12-year-old girls updated a Facebook status to say they were lost in an Adelaide drain, and a young friend called for help on their behalf. Glenn Benham from the Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) says it is concerning the girls raised the alert on the social networking site instead of calling 000. "If they were able to access Facebook from their mobile phones they could have called 000, so the point being they...

THE family of Private Greg Sher, the latest Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan, have described him as a quiet acheiver who always got the job done. Private Greg Sher's family has paid tribute to his committed determination. The Defence Department last night named 30-year-old Private Sher, whose name was initially withheld at the request of his family, after he was killed by Taliban insurgents during a rocket attack on a forward base in Oruzgan province in southeastern Afghanistan on Sunday. The Jewish soldier was a member of the Sydney-based 1st Commando Regiment and at the time of the attack was...

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian teenager who held a wild house party which ended with police calling in air support was Wednesday arrested over the incident, which is beginning to turn him into global cult figure. Sixteen-year-old Corey Delaney had refused to return to his parent's two-storey home in the Melbourne suburb of Narre Warren since the party he advertised on the Internet descended into mayhem on Saturday night. Some 500 people turned up for the event and after neighbours called in the authorities, police cars and neighbours' property were damaged and 30 officers, a helicopter and the dog squad...

SYDNEY (AFP) - Animal lovers in Australia have cried foul over a Sydney golf club's plan to cull native wood ducks living on its course, it was reported Tuesday. The plan by Sydney's Warringah Golf Club to kill the ducks because they are ripping up its greens led to vandalism and threats against the course, local media reported. The club opted to hire a marksman to shoot its duck population after other deterrents, such as cat-like objects and rubber snakes, failed to work. But protesters dug up some of the greens in the dead of night over the weekend and...

As far as she is concerned, Ann Coulter is a middle-of-the-road moderate and the rest of you are crazy. If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans by Ann Coulter published by Crown Forum (October 2, 2007) Hdbk., 288 pgs. ISBN-10: 0307353451 ISBN-13: 978-0307353450 Conservative saleswoman of the year, Ann Coulter, believes that if Democrats had brains, they’d all be Republicans by now. Looking for a laugh? Here are some of my favorite lines (from her book of quotations) you’ll be reciting for years: • 1. My favourite: “Scratch a ‘civil libertarian,’ find a fascist.” – page 4 • 2....

An Australian who went for a drunken dip in the sea got more than he bargained for when he dived into the jaws of a large crocodile. Matt Martin was camping alone near a beach in northern Queensland when he decided to go for a dusk swim, despite having drunk what he later admitted was "half a slab", or 12 cans of beer. When the 35-year-old construction worker dived into a wave, he butted heads with a submerged saltwater crocodile. "I thought I was dead. It was sort of like when you hit rocks but the rocks had give and...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=swLExEmedtw&mode=related&search=Funny !They are on thin ice with teasing Chuck Norris though.

Michael Kamburowski, the Australian immigrant hired as a top official in the California Republican Party, was ordered deported in 2001, jailed three years later for visa violations -- and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to U.S. District Court documents. Kamburowski was named in March to be the chief operating officer of the California GOP. He is responsible for the state party's multimillion-dollar budget and oversees campaign funds and financing for the nation's largest state GOP organization. As the state GOP's new operating officer, the 35-year-old Kamburowski was handpicked for...

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian scientist emerged unscathed Wednesday after spending 12 days in an underwater capsule where he had to create his own oxygen with algae and generate electricity on an exercise bike. Self-confessed "nutcase" Lloyd Godson lived at the bottom of a flooded quarry in a yellow steel capsule measuring just nine square metres to demonstrate how a closed ecological system can work. Godson admitted suffering mild cabin fever during his time in the underwater tank, which used a revolutionary Israeli-developed "Biocoil" system to generate oxygen from algae soaked with the 27-year-old's urine. "It's nice to feel the...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The Australian government's plea for couples to have more children, with "one for mum, one for dad and one for the country," has helped slow the aging of the nation's population, Treasurer Peter Costello said on Monday. But Australia still faced slowing economic growth and a significant budget shortfall in 40 years due to the demographic impact of the aging population, Costello said. "Demographic changes are still working against us," Costello said in an address to the National Press Club as he released a government analysis on the impact of an aging population. He said Australia was...

CANBERRA (AFP) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard fired a broadside at the European Union Tuesday for criticising his climate change policy, saying it should get its own house in order before attacking others. The counter-strike came a day after EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas accused Australia of having a "negative attitude" and refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change for political reasons rather than economic ones. But Howard, who is under intense domestic pressure ahead of elections later this year over what critics claim was a failure by his government to tackle climate change, would have none...

Small crowd at Aussie Iraq war protests SYDNEY, March 17 (UPI) -- About 300 Australians marched down Sydney's George Street Saturday to protest the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq. A similar number turned out in Melbourne at an anti-war rally on the steps of the State Library. Both crowds waved banners reading "Troops out now" and "Free David Hicks" -- a reference to the Australian held in Guantanamo Bay after being captured in Afghanistan while fighting for the Taliban. In Sydney, Greens Party Sen. Kerry Nettle urged protesters to vote against Australian Prime Minister John Howard in the...

FIREBRAND cleric Sheik Feiz Mohamed's defence of his comments on a DVD calling children to jihad has been undermined by revelations, the video also urges Muslims to kill the enemies of Islam and praises martyrs with a violent interpretation of jihad. In the DVD, which runs for almost four hours, Sheik Feiz describes inmates of Guantanamo Bay as better Muslims than those in Australia, who would would not forsake their lifestyles for martyrdom. "The brothers in Cuba are better than us," he said. "They are being examined through the best examination (a reference to God's judgment) and the like of...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Size really does count, just ask Australian underwear maker AussieBum which has just launched the "Wonderjock" for men who want to look bigger. Since the launch seven days ago, AussieBum says it has sold 50,000 pairs of "Wonderjock", mostly on its Web site www.aussiebum.com and a handful of stores around the world. "The design of the underwear separates and lifts. The fabric cup protrudes everything out in front instead of down towards the ground," said "Wonderjock" designer Sean Ashby. "There is no padding, rings or strings," said Ashby, a co-founder of the Internet-based AussieBum firm. Ashby said...

But I freaking LOVE IT. And you will, too. The singer is Aussie star Beccy Cole and the song is in response to some of her (former) fans who have, as moonbats often do, taken extreme exception to her support of the Australian troops who are fighting in the Iraq war. Thanks to the readers who sent along the link, which was first posted at Blackfive.

Seawitch sends this awesome video of Aussie lass Beccy Cole who is singing "Poster Girl" in response to some of her fans who disagree with her supporting the Diggers, the Australian soldiers fighting in The Long War. Simply put, it is amazing...turn it up:

IT’S a yellow flag with three red stripes. But an attempt to ban the South Vietnamese flag from flying over memorials to Australians killed and injured during the Vietnam war has upset veterans and the Australian Vietnamese community. And it forced the third — but largely unseen — back flip by the Federal Government in as many days. Backbench revolts over plans to send all boat people to islands for asylum processing and a ban on therapeutic cloning for stem cell research dominated the news. Behind the scenes, a quieter rebellion was brewing. Veterans’ associations in Queens-land, Victoria and South...

An attack on a Sydney synagogue may have been fueled by anger over the Middle East conflict and the spiraling civilian death toll in Lebanon, a rabbi said Monday. Rabbi Wernick, who cited religious reasons in declining to give his first name, and his young family were inside a house attached to a synagogue in suburban Parramatta when it was attacked Sunday evening. Concrete blocks smashed the windows of two cars, and other projectiles were hurled at the synagogue roof. Shortly after the incident, witnesses told police they saw a group of about 10 Middle Eastern men laughing and running...

(SYDNEY, Australia) -- The thin man is back behind bars. Police in Sydney, Australia, report recapturing an inmate who went on crash diet to escape from custody. Authorities charge Robert Cole dropped more than 30 pounds and squeezed through a hole in a wall just six inches wide. Cole escaped from a hospital Wednesday, but he wasn't on the street very long. Officers captured him over the weekend. They say Cole tried to disguise himself by drawing a beard on his face in pen. He's now in maximum security. No word, though, if guards are trying to fatten up Cole.

Tell gangs you're an Aussie: Iemma By Jonathan Porter 15-12-2005 From: The Australian   NSW Premier Morris Iemma has called on people not to renounce their Australian identity in the face of intimidation by Lebanese gangs - even if it means being bashed. His advice came after victims of rioting in Sydney told how they were asked if they were Australian before being attacked by large groups of Middle Eastern men. Mr Iemma said that if approached, people should say: "I'm Australian and this is Australia and this is a country that is here to be shared by all. "(We...

Chilling call to arms via SMS December 19, 2005TEXT messages on seized mobile phones have revealed calls for Arabs to unite in a war against "rednecks" and to "take Sydney from Cronulla to The Rocks".Police yesterday used new powers to confiscate mobile phones, to check for SMS messages calling for violence. Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said his officers were yesterday specially instructed to target mobile phones, after text messages were used to urge race violence at Cronulla. One officer was photographed scrolling through the contents of at least six phones. Five men of Middle Eastern descent were yesterday arrested in...

In Australia this week amidst anger over an Islamic man’s rape conviction and the bashing of two Aussie life savers, working-class locals erupted in a rampage of anger and brawling in some of the worst racial riots in decades. But there is more to the story than is being repeated in the American mainstream media.... Four days after he set foot in Australia, the rape spree began. And during his sexual assault trial in a New South Wales courtroom, the Pakistani man began to berate one of his tearful 14-year-old victims because she had the temerity to shake her head...

NSW Premier Morris Iemma has called on people not to renounce their Australian identity in the face of intimidation by Lebanese gangs - even if it means being bashed. His advice came after victims of rioting in Sydney told how they were asked if they were Australian before being attacked by large groups of Middle Eastern men. Mr Iemma said that if approached, people should say: "I'm Australian and this is Australia and this is a country that is here to be shared by all. "(We are) Australian and proud of it and they're not going to - with baseball...

POLICE prepared to impose a virtual blockade on Sutherland Shire last night, erecting checkpoints on every main access road to prevent a repeat of the race riots at Cronulla. And State Parliament will be recalled tomorrow to give police emergency powers to lock down parts of Sydney, ban the sale of alcohol, conduct random searches and confiscate vehicles. An extra 450 police took to the streets in expectation of a third night of racial tension. Officers restricted in-bound traffic to Cronulla to one lane and checked every car passing a checkpoint on Kingsway, at the corner of Wilbar Avenue, from...

A man tries to hit police with a beer bottle at Cronulla Beach in Sydney, Australia, Sunday, Dec. 11, 2005, after ethnic tensions erupted into running battles between police and a mob of thousands of youths, many chanting racial slurs. At least six people were arrested and several injured in alcohol-fueled fights at the beach. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith)

Bali, Tampa, 9/11: a potpourri of causes THE flashpoint for the race riot came when a teenager of so-called "Middle Eastern appearance" made his way defiantly through the car park heading for Cronulla beach. According to one witness, when the mob jeered him, the 17-year-old yelled back: it was his beach, too, and he had every right to swim there. The mob, freshly fuelled up on a cocktail of booze and racist propaganda from the Australia First movement, thought otherwise. A mob gave chase, screaming racial obscenities, hurling beer bottles and turning on police who tried to stop them. "They...

THE US no longer expects Australia to automatically support it in a conflict with China over the flashpoint of Taiwan, Bush administration officials have told Australian MPs. The message was delivered by US military, Pentagon and State Department officials to a delegation of visiting MPs, before John Howard delivered one of his strongest speeches in New York last week distinguishing Australia's approach to China from that of the US. Under the ANZUS treaty there has been an expectation that Australia would support the US in a conflict over Taiwan. But Foreign Minister Alexander Downer shocked the region with a speech...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building. Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woollen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together. When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria on Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet. "It sounded almost like a firecracker", Clewer told Australian...

The sweat-stained felt hats worn by Australian cowboys, as much a part of the Outback as kangaroos and sun-baked soil, may be heading for the history books. They fail modern industrial safety standards. It all stems from the death of a cowboy, who suffered massive head injuries after being trampled in a fall from a horse while mustering bulls in July 2001. His sole protection was the tattered hat provided him for shading from the sun. The New South Wales state government brought charges against the ranch owner, who employed 23-year-old Daniel Croker, convicting and fining the company $72,000 last...

Prime Minister John Howard's election victory would boost the confidence of US President George W Bush and his Republican Party, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said. Mr Downer agreed Mr Bush, currently embroiled in a hard-fought campaign for re-election on November 2, had probably taken heart from Mr Howard's victory. But he said it was hard to believe the Australian election result would resonate in the US for more than a day or two. "I suppose it's much more a question just of a confidence boost for them," Mr Downer told the Nine network. "If the Australian government had lost the...

Drunken police raid US students LUKE MORFESSE - CRIME REPORTER A group of drunken off-duty police officers forced American students to kneel on the ground at their Fremantle dormitory while taunting and humiliating them about the United States involvement in Iraq. The incident is one of several being investigated by police internal affairs after a wild night in two of the port city's popular night spots involving seven WA police and two NSW officers. Some of the worst behaviour was inflicted on patrons at the Orient Hotel, where one of the officers vomited across the bar after the drunken group...

British-born man admits bomb plot By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 29/05/2004) A British-born Muslim convert was convicted yesterday of plotting to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra. Convicted: Jack Roche Jack Roche, 50, who discussed the plot with Osama bin Laden at a camp in Afghanistan, had originally pleaded not guilty at Perth district court. But halfway through the trial his lawyers asked for the charge to be read out again and he replied: "Guilty". Roche, who was arrested in November 2002, is the first Australian citizen to be convicted of a terrorist offence and faces a maximum 25...

AN Australian trained with Spanish al-Qa'ida militants in a camp in war-torn Poso, central Sulawesi, according to intelligence reports. Security expert Ken Conboy told The Australian the terrorist training camp was set up in an abandoned Christian village about 10km east of Poso. There was some al-Qa'ida funding for the camp, he said, but he was unsure whether it was for food, transport or buildings. At least one photo exists of militants in the Poso camp. Mr Conboy said the Spanish militants abandoned the camp late in 2001. He speculated that the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US had...

<p>SYDNEY -- The makers of Kazaa, the peer-to-peer file sharing software, failed to quash a court order Thursday that allowed the music industry to raid its Sydney-based offices, prompting a furious response from its chief executive.</p> <p>In February, the music industry was granted an Anton Piller order, which grants copyright holders the rights of search and seizure, allowing it to raid 12 sites across Australia to seize documents and data. Sites raided included the offices of Sharman Networks, the home of its chief executive, several universities and other companies that were believed to be holding information relating to Kazaa.</p>

Qantas is resisting pressure to install new systems to defend its fleet against terrorist missile attacks, throwing the responsibility for protecting its aircraft back onto government. The airline's CEO, Geoff Dixon, rejected suggestions that it deploy expensive decoy systems against surface-to-air missiles, saying these would would cost nearly $700 million to protect the international fleet alone. Mr Dixon also questioned the effectiveness of the systems and said the best way to deal with the missile threat would be for governments in Australia and the region to identify potential launch sites near airports. His comments came after the Prime Minister, John...

The ANZ Bank has been approached to join a coalition of the willing to establish war-battered Iraq's first international bank. Leading the coalition is prominent US banking house JP Morgan, which has also put out feelers to other banks from the US, Britain, Spain and Poland. All these countries sent troops to fight alongside the US in the Iraq war, strongly suggesting the bank licence – should ANZ enlist – will represent the first spoils of the war for Australia. Banks from Germany, France and Russia have not been invited to join the venture. These countries were vocal opponents of...

Australia creates anti-terror force By Red Harrison BBC correspondent in Sydney Australia is to establish a special unit of military reserve forces to deal with what the government says is the growing threat of international terrorism. Training for the new force is expected to begin immediately. Units of the new special reserve force will be on guard around Australia within the next two weeks. Their tasks will range from anti-terrorist operations to protection duty at significant public events and at essential installations such as power stations, oil refineries, roads, bridges and important buildings like the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the...

<p>Global warming may increase deaths and injuries due to flooding in Australia by as much as 240 percent by 2020, and cause a huge jump in the number of Pacific islanders whose homes could be washed away, a new report said.</p>

Australia's relations with United Nations human rights committees have plummeted to new lows because of government recalcitrance on international law, according to a new report. A study by the left-wing think-tank, the Australia Institute, said the government's hard line on asylum seekers during the 2001 Tampa standoff had seen relations with UN human rights committees reach unprecedented lows. The Pacific Solution to process asylum seekers offshore in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, and failings with indigenous affairs, were damaging Australia's international reputation, the report said. "The government has had a stunning public relations success in side-lining human rights by exploiting...

Prime Minister John Howard was a good friend and "a man of steel" and ties between the US and Australia were at an all time high, US President George W Bush said. After a 20-hour stay by Mr Howard and his wife Janette at the Bush ranch in central Texas, the president described the prime minister as a good friend, a source of advice and a good Texan. Referring to Mr Howard's steadfast support for the US-led war in Iraq, Mr Bush said Mr Howard had exhibited behaviour that proved he was not only "a man of steel, but a...