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HOME owners could be forced to turn their houses green before they can sell them under a proposal before the State Government. Planning Minister Justin Madden yesterday refused to comment on the proposal. The Master Builders Association wants laws to make it compulsory for owners of all existing homes to meet minimal environmental standards before they are allowed to sell them. The changes will cost each homeowner hundreds of dollars but the MBA says buyers of newly built homes are already being forced to meet five-star standards and they shouldn't be the only ones bearing the burden of helping the...

Sydney has never seen anything like it since the Olympics. Not even that event, however, could match the spectacle of a papal ‘boatacade’ gliding past the bridge and the opera house to deliver Pope Benedict into the cheering embrace of 150,000 young people from around the world. The Pope’s arrival at World Youth Day had a theatrical quality worthy of the media world in which today’s young people live. By contrast, his message to them was delivered in a self-effacing, direct manner, making clear that the Pope refuses to cast himself as a rock star; he is a teacher and...

More than 500 anti-pope activists faced off against happy pilgrims Saturday, shouting their distaste at papal policies as thousands of Catholic youth streamed past on their way to an evening address by Pope Benedict XVI. The NoToPope coalition — some costumed as nuns, devils and priests — lined the edge of a park on the route of the pilgrims' march, tightly ringed by police on foot, bicycles and horseback. "The pope is wrong, put a condom on!" they shouted through megaphones. Some threw red-packaged condoms at the passing pilgrims. But the young Catholics were at first merely curious, then smiled...

Three Bali bombers have exhausted their appeals and will soon be executed by firing squad, according to Indonesia's attorney general.Imam Samudra and the brothers Amrozi and Ali Ghufron have never shown any remorse for the 2002 bombings and have repeatedly said that they embrace death and wish to be martyrs. Indonesia's attorney general Henderman Supanji, in announcing that no further legal avenues are available to the condemned men, said, "the process would not be drawn out". The bombers' lawyer, Fahmi Bachmid, said afterwards: "All of them have repeatedly said they will only ask pardon from God, not the president. This...

SAS signaller Sean McCarthy lived in many places in his 25 years; yesterday, to the sound of military bagpipes, he was buried in his final resting place. Nearly 1000 people attended the funeral, at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church at Crystal Waters on the Gold Coast, of Signaller McCarthy, who was killed last week by a roadside bomb while he was on patrol in southern Afghanistan. Earlier, there had been a private family service for Signaller McCarthy, the sixth Australian soldier to be killed while on active duty in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson attended...

<p>FORMER immigration minister Kevin Andrews instructed his department to lift the intake of Christian refugees from the Middle East in response to what he saw as a pro-Muslim bias created by corrupt local case officers.</p> <p>Opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said yesterday this remains Coalition policy.</p>

The UK has officially ratified the European Union's Lisbon Treaty. The documents were deposited with the Italian foreign affairs ministry in Rome on Wednesday. The move came despite doubts over its future after the "no" vote in the Irish referendum. All EU states must ratify the treaty for it to come into force.

FORMER Victorian Liberal premier Lindsay Thompson, who has died at the age of 84, was praised yesterday for his humility and decency, but most of all for his bravery. Mr Thompson, who held the top job for just nine months in the early 1980s, was chiefly remembered for his heroics in two kidnap dramas while he was education minister in the 1970s. Liberal and Labor politicians also paid tribute yesterday to his integrity, decency and commitment to education. A war veteran who rose from humble beginnings, Mr Thompson served as state education minister from 1967 to 1979, establishing a reputation...

Sydney, Australia (LifeNews.com) -- At the welcoming ceremony for the opening of World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, the pope told tens of thousands of young people that they have a responsibility to protect human life. Pope Benedict XVI told cheering throngs of students and young adults that they need to stand up against abortion. Addressing a crowd estimated at 150,000 people, the Catholic leader said that newfound enthusiasm for protecting the environment must be match by an equal vigor to protect human life. "At the heart of the marvel of creation are you and I, the human family, 'crowned...

Pope Benedict XVI on the Pope-a-boat under Sydney Harbour Bridge Sydney, Jul 17, 2008 / 07:00 am (CNA).- In the midst of jubilant crowds, the Papal “Boat-a-cade” arrived at Barangaroo this afternoon, after sailing around Sydney Harbour, where the Pope waved to tens of thousands people who had lined the foreshore to catch a glimpse of the Pontiff's arrival. “His Holiness stood waving in full-view of the crowd on board the vessel,” said WYD08 spokesman Father Mark Podesta. The Papal Boat carried approximately 530 people including 168 international pilgrims. After thanking the indigenous people of Australia for their warm...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Thursday told a huge gathering of young people that they were inheriting a planet whose resources had been scarred and squandered to fuel insatiable consumption. His latest appeal to save the planet for future generations came in a address to some 150,000 youths in Sydney after he rode through the city's harbor standing on the outdoor deck of a white ferry as dozens of boats blew their horns. "Reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth, erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world's mineral and...

THERE is deepening concern that Australia's intelligence agencies and those of other key US allies could be compromised in the fight against al-Qa'ida and other radical Islamist groups because of a controversial US Supreme Court ruling. The Supreme Court decision last month provided new rights to enemy combatants held at Guantanamo, who include Bali bombing mastermind Hambali. It is dawning on foreign intelligence operatives that it has opened the door to the possibility that the information they share with Washington could be aired in civilian courts. British and European allies are demanding answers from the US security apparatus, according to...

Two lovers had a brush with death after their car plunged 46m down a cliff, while they were having sex in the back seat. According to the police Lin Gu, 25, and lover Lee Shin, 29, suffered broken bones when their car tipped over the edge of the hill in XinDian, Taiwan. "They had parked up close to the edge of the mountain and had left the handbrake off," Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesman, as saying. "When they started having sex the rocking motion started the car moving and it rolled off the hill. They were lucky they were not...

Sydney, July 16 (ANI): A University of New South Wales study has opined that Aussies are more likely to shoot at Muslims, especially if they”re in a good mood. The researchers say that Australians perceive Muslim-style headgear as a threat. The study, published in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, involved 66 students playing a computer game in which different male and female figures appeared on a balcony. Some figures were wearing Muslim-style turbans or hijabs while others were bare headed. Participants were asked to shoot at the targets carrying guns and spare those who were unarmed. Researchers found that...

THE body of SAS signaller Sean McCarthy, killed in Afghanistan last week, was yesterday returned to his family in a solemn ceremony at the RAAF Base Amberley, near Brisbane. A guard and bearer party of soldiers from the Special Air Service Regiment received and carried the casket from the aircraft as Signaller McCarthy's family and friends looked on. Chief of the Army Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie said the sixth Australian to be killed in action in Afghanistan was a brave soldier who made the ultimate sacrifice. "His loss is being heavily felt throughout the army, and we join with his...

THE Pope was to leave his rural retreat by motorcade for central Sydney tonight ahead of his first official appearance tomorrow at World Youth Day (WYD) celebrations. The motorcade carrying Pope Benedict XVI was scheduled to leave the Opus Dei-run retreat at Kenthurst, on Sydney's northwestern outskirts, at 6pm (AEST). The 81-year-old has been resting at the Kenthurst Study Centre since arriving in Sydney from Rome on Sunday. The Pope was to be taken to St Mary's Cathedral House in central Sydney, where he will stay for the remainder of his time in the city. Tomorrow is the Pope's first...

AUSSIES who find themselves under threat are more likely to shoot at Muslims, especially if they're in a good mood, a study claims. Researchers at the University of New South Wales have found that Australians perceive Muslim-style headgear as a threat, even if they don't realise they hold any prejudice. The study, published in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, involved 66 uni students playing a computer game in which different male and female figures appeared on a balcony. Some figures were wearing Muslim-style turbans or hijabs while others were bareheaded. Participants were asked to shoot at the targets carrying...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man convicted of his seventh drink-driving charge was spending about A$1,000 (487 pounds) a week on beer -- enough to buy more than 2,500 small bottles a month, a newspaper said on Tuesday. The heartbroken construction worker began drowning his sorrows after breaking up with his partner five years ago, the Northern Territory News said, quoting his defence lawyer as telling a court in Australia's remote, tropical north. The magistrate declined to jail the father of four, Michael Leary, noting he had quit drinking since his latest arrest, but he banned Leary from buying or...

Australia's iconic Tasmanian devils have started having sex at a younger age since the advent of a deadly disease which threatens to wipe out the species. Data collected before and after the cancer-causing disease appeared showed a 16-fold increase in early sexual behaviour. Scientists fear the disease, which causes facial tumours, could lead to the marsupial carnivore's extinction within 20 to 25 years. "We have found that devils are compensating for the disease by breeding early -- there is a 16-fold increase in the number breeding at the age of one year," The Tasmanian devil is restricted to the island...

More than 30 Indian youths have disappeared in New Zealand, where they were in transit to go to Sydney for World Youth Day, a spokeswoman for the Catholic Church said Monday. Lyndsay Freear told Radio New Zealand that a party of 220 Indian Catholics who arrived in Auckland a week ago were due to fly to Sydney Tuesday, but 32 of them had disappeared. All were billeted with church members in Auckland under a so-called Days in the Diocese programme before going to Australia, where Pope Benedict arrived Sunday for events associated with World Youth Day. Freear said all the...

AUSTRALIANS have a "quite robust" tolerance for battlefield casualties in Afghanistan, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said yesterday as the body of our latest casualty was flown out of the war zone for home. Mr Fitzgibbon said Australians understood the national interest was under direct threat in Afghanistan, and accepted the risks facing the Diggers. "Australians have a long history of involvement in conflict and know the risks involved and understand the risks involved," he said. But Mr Fitzgibbon, who is in the US for meetings with defence suppliers, senior officials of the Bush administration and members of Congress, said he...

The tuna industry says climate change is bringing benefits. The chief executive of the Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Association, Brian Jeffriess, says Port Lincoln crews in South Australia are reporting an excellent quality and size catch. He says it can be partly attributed to the effects of climate change on the waters of the Great Australian Bight. "There's no doubt climate change will bring benefits to the Great Australian Bight ecology in the sense that there's more upwellings therefore more small pelagics as we call them - sardines, mackerel, red bait, other fish - and that will bring tuna so...

A crew of 44 Australian and New Zealand firefighters will leave for the United States today, to supervise teams battling fires there. Most, including firefighters from Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia, will leave from Melbourne airport just before 8:00am (AEST). The nine Victorians come from the Country Fire Authority, the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Parks Victoria and Melbourne Water. DSE state duty officer John Lloyd says the American fire season, which normally runs from mid August to mid September, has come early. "California in particular has had a large number of fire starts, and their current weather...

Safety warnings a new chapter for fairytales By Elissa Lawrence July 13, 2008 12:01am Article from: Sunday Mail (SA) TEACHERS are being urged to give children safety messages after reading them fairytales warning not to copy characters such as Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and Hansel and Gretel. A new child protection curriculum being implemented by the Education Department also requires teachers to refer to children's "sexual parts" and use their correct anatomical names with children as young as three. Child development experts have backed the measures, but critics believe they are an example of political correctness overkill that could...

A CONTINGENT of Australian and New Zealand firefighters is preparing to head for the United States to help battle devastating forest fires. More than 60 blazes are ravaging the US, with about 1.2 million hectares falling victim to fire this year - almost the yearly average in just six months. NSW emergency services minister Nathan Rees today formally farewelled 10 emergency personnel, including five firefighters and five national parks and forest workers. They are among a team of 44 Australians and New Zealanders scheduled to leave for California this weekend. "The US National Interagency Fire Centre formally requested the assistance...

AT 6.15am, Private Ray Johnson woke, pushed back his camouflage-print doona and got up. It was already hot, despite the constant, noisy work of the airconditioner above his bed. He showered and, when he got back to the room, woke the other two men sleeping in the bunks beside the door. They went quickly through their morning routine: wash, dress, webbing, weapons, helmet, out. Sharing a space this small with two other blokes, each learned to live without getting on the others' nerves. It was just another day. Another eight hours of guard duty, rotating around different positions at the...

CREWMEN operating the army's new Abrams battle tanks are unable to communicate properly with infantry forces because their radio systems are incompatible. The embarrassing revelation comes at a critical time - the army is considering whether to deploy the tanks to Afghanistan to bolster Australia's 1000-strong contingent in the event the Dutch withdraw heavy armour and artillery from Oruzgan province. SAS signaller Sean McCarthy, 25, was killed in a roadside explosion on Tuesday while on patrol in Oruzgan. News of the communication problems emerged during a day of parliamentary scrutiny of the 2006-07 defence annual report. Under questioning by defence...

A GROUP of glamour lesbians who believe the world was created by an alien civilisation 25,000 years ago have criticised the Catholic Church for being out of touch. The representatives of the Gay Raelian society yesterday staged a demonstration outside Parliament House to protest the Pope's arrival for World Youth Day next week. Raelian spokeswoman Eden Bates said it was an insult that the Pope would be welcomed into Australia when "our gorgeous, fantastic spiritual leader Rael wasn't even given the respect of a visa". "I'm not Catholic, I'm Raelian and I'd like to see police escorts for our beautiful...

Andrew Bolt July 09, 2008 12:00am PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru. Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon". "A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events." (So have Alarmist of the Year...

AUSTRALIAN military forces in Afghanistan will continue to step up their attacks against Taliban insurgents, despite the death this week of the sixth Digger in the six-year conflict. SAS signaller Sean McCarthy, 25, a member of the Perth-based Special Air Service Regiment, was on his second tour of Afghanistan when he was killed in a roadside explosion on Tuesday, becoming the fifth Australian to die in the theatre in nine months and the second this year. The New Zealand-born, Gold Coast-raised Signaller McCarthy became the sixth Australian serviceman to be killed on active duty in Afghanistan since 2002, when his...

THE Australian commando killed by a bomb in Afghanistan overnight has been remembered for his humour, integrity and dedication as a soldier. Signaller Sean McCarthy, 25, a member of the Perth-based Special Air Service Regiment, was killed yesterday when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Kunar province, on the border with Pakistan. Two other commandos were injured in the attack. Signaller McCarthy is the sixth Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2002, and the second this year. Kevin Rudd, who is attending the G8 summit in Japan, described the death as a “terrible loss to his family, the...

THE Australian soldier killed in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan was a "top bloke" who had looked forward to returning for his second combat tour of the country, close friends have said. SAS Signaller Sean McCarthy, a 25-year-old rugby-mad soldier from the Gold Coast, was killed when a bomb exploded near his vehicle, the Defence department has said. Two other Australian special forces soldiers were injured along with a soldier from another country. Personnel who served with Signaller McCarthy have written to NEWS.com.au to pay tribute to him as a "bloody good bloke" and a talented soldier. One Army mate,...

THE former high school of a Gold Coast soldier killed by a roadside bombing in Afghanistan has remembered him as a vibrant young man with a great sense of humour. Signaller Sean McCarthy, 25, was killed yesterday. Signaller McCarthy was born in New Zealand but was raised on the Gold Coast. He attended Trinity Lutheran College, Ashmore, before joining the ADF in 2001. His various postings before joining the SAS last year included a spell in Toowoomba. He is the sixth Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2002 and the second this year. McCarthy's old high school today paid...

AN Australian soldier died overnight after a roadside bombing in Afghanistan that also injured two commandos. Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said the dead soldier was Signaller Sean McCarthy, 25, from the Perth-based Special Air Service Regiment (SASR). Signaller McCarthy is the sixth Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan since 2002, and the second this year. Air Chief Marshal Houston said Signaller McCarthy, who was embedded with special forces, died as a result of an improvised explosive device at 3pm (AEST) yesterday. Kevin Rudd, who is en route to the G8 summit in Japan, described the death as a “terrible...

AN Australian Special Forces soldier, who was injured in Afghanistan after his vehicle was hit by an insurgent improvised explosive device (IED) late last month, has returned to Australia, Defence said. Two soldiers were injured in the blast which took place during a Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) patrol returning from a successful clearance operation when the attack occurred. The second soldier was slightly wounded in the explosion. Fellow soldiers provided immediate first aid before both soldiers were flown by helicopter to a nearby International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) medical facility, defence force spokesman Brigadier Brian Dawson said. "The medical...

[snip]. Well, we do have such a power plant and at the moment it is sitting doing not a lot really, in a Gold Coast workshop at Southport. It is a four-cylinder, 2.4 litre engine which has been independently certified as being the world's most efficient petrol engine. In other words, for a given amount of petrol burned this engine will do more work than any other anywhere in the world. During testing, the engine achieved a repeatable Brake Specific Fuel Consumption figure of 212g/kWh or 38.6 per cent efficiency, best figure achieved being 207g/kWh or 39.5 per cent efficiency....

THE Rudd Government will ask the Australia Council to develop a set of protocols to cover the representation of children in art, after a taxpayer-funded magazine put a picture of a nude six-year-old girl on its cover to protest at the Bill Henson dispute. The review, which would consult members of the arts sector and the general community, was confirmed by a government spokesman yesterday, as politicians led by Kevin Rudd heaped condemnation on this month's Art Monthly Australia magazine. The work is a detail of Olympia as Lewis Carroll's Beatrice Hatch before White Cliffs, by the girl's mother, Melbourne...

Wellington - One of the world's rarest birds - the flightless takahe, a native of New Zealand where only about 200 individuals are known to survive - has been killed by a conservation worker by mistake, it was reported on Saturday. The takahe was believed to have been extinct until some were found in the remote Fiordland region of the South Island 60 years ago and although the Conservation Department has since run an intensive breeding programme to ensure their survival, they remain highly endangered. A department spokesman confirmed that a worker killed one last month while shooting a flock...

The climate change debate is often portrayed as a stark choice between two extremes. Do we try to save the economy or do we try to save the environment? Many in established industries argue vociferously that you need to protect the former to save the latter, or that if we act to protect our environment then we might end up killing the economy. Ross Garnaut, in his much awaited draft report, seeks to turn that argument on its head: Australia has much to lose from even the mildest impacts of climate change. If we want to save our economy, then...

EAST Timor's Prime Minister is supporting a new law that would allow civilians to own guns, less than five months after illegally armed rebel soldiers tried to kill him and the President.

Top secret US military plans to test deadly nerve gas by dropping it on soldiers in a remote Queensland rainforest during the Cold War have been uncovered in Australian Government archives. Newly declassified Australian Defence Department and Prime Minister’s office files show that the United States was strongly pushing the Government for tests on Australian soil of two of the most deadly chemical weapons ever developed, VX and GB — better known as Sarin — nerve gas. The plan, which is disclosed for the first time on tomorrow’s SUNDAY program on Nine, called for 200 mainly Australian combat troops to...

WHEN Peter Leahy joined the Australian Army 37 years ago, our soldiers were highly proficient in counterinsurgency warfare. Coming out of the New Guinea campaign in World War II, the army had been engaged continuously in unconventional conflict, including the Malayan emergency in the 1950s and confrontation with Indonesia in the early 1960s, followed by Vietnam. Nearly four decades on, the army is back in the counterinsurgency game in Afghanistan, acquiring new war-fighting skills. Army planners are now writing a new counterinsurgency doctrine that embraces a wholly different battlefield to that experienced in the jungles of South Vietnam. Lieutenant-General Leahy,...

<p>A DEFIANT Paul Hogan had a typically plain-spoken and blunt message for the Australian Taxation Office yesterday: "Come and get me, you miserable bastards."</p> <p>As the ATO enlisted the help of the Internal Revenue Service in the US to pursue the actor for allegedly undisclosed tax liabilities, a bemused Hogan insisted he had paid more than enough tax - a figure he estimated to be in excess of $100million - in Australia.</p>

It all boils down to one simple question: will cows be taxed for burping and farting?The complex debate about the introduction of an emissions trading scheme to tackle climate change is causing panic among farmers. The release of the Garnaut report yesterday only served to increase their fears. Ross Garnaut's report acknowledges the initial difficulties of measuring gas emissions on Australia's 155,000 farms, but says a broad-based scheme should include agriculture at some stage. The only question now is whether it will be included in the initial 2010 version of the scheme or introduced at a later date. Every major...

Gay groups say police are unnecessarily scrutinising them over activities planned for Sydney's World Youth Day, as civil libertarians rile at new police powers for this month's week-long event. Lapsed Catholic Luke Roberts is a homosexual activist and performer who goes by the stage name Pope Alice, a character best described as a celestial being of indeterminate gender. Along with Pope Benedict, Pope Alice will also be in Sydney during World Youth Day, hosting a "kiss-in" along Oxford Street in Darlinghurst. "I want to see Pope Alice express herself as a focal point for anybody - gays, lesbians, transgender, queers,...

AS if following the fashion and food fads of Uncle Sam was not enough, young Australians are increasingly adopting a US twang in their everyday speech. University of Queensland linguistics expert Roly Sussex said that as the most impressionable group in society, teenagers were very susceptible to imitating what they saw as being "snazzy or powerful". "It's called the prestige model," Professor Sussex said. "Prestige is a very powerful motive and they (teenagers) will go with the pronunciation that belongs to the most impressive context. "At the moment and this has been the case for some time now, that's American...

FORGET Iraq. The politics of petrol will dominate the coming presidential election in the US. As much as one hates to upset the lofty foreign policy sensibilities of the Left, you need only set foot in the US for a nanosecond to see that the campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain are consumed by grassroots concerns over the rising cost of fuel. Just as in Australia, it is clear that the hip pocket nerve of working families may haunt the next US president, confounding efforts to address climate change. And the advocates of climate change are largely to blame....

MISTAKES? Alexander Downer admits he's made a few, but he rings down the curtain on his quarter of a century in federal parliament without regrets. The man who stepped aside from the Liberal leadership to allow John Howard to regain it, and then became Australia's longest-serving foreign minister, has finally ended the speculation about his future. In an exclusive interview with The Australian's Janet Albrechtsen, Mr Downer says he will leave politics this week to take up a UN role and to work as a business consultant in his home town of Adelaide. He has taken a parting shot at...

A Briton living in Australia has agreed a bid of more than £192,000 after putting his "entire life" up for sale following a split from his wife. Ian Usher, 44, who left Darlington six years ago, included his house, car, job and friends in the online eBay auction, in an effort to make a fresh start. The lot attracted a peak offer of 399,300 Australian dollars (£192,276) when bids closed early on Sunday. Despite expecting higher bids, Mr Usher said he had "no regrets". At one point offers on the "life lot" rocketed to over two million Australian dollars (£1m)...

HIGH school teachers will be issued with emergency phones and new teachers will be trained to handle problem students under new school security measures. Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith told a Parliamentary Estimates hearing today it was part of the Government's $10 million plan, funded from 2007, to manage students' behaviour. Under the initiatives announced today: MOBILE phones will be provided to secondary teachers on yard duty so staff or police can be called immediately in the event of a security incident. THE Anti-Bullying Coalition will advise Government and non-government schools on the use of technology including mobile phones in violent...