Australia/Antarctica News

DILI (AFP) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd jetted into East Timor Friday to lend support to the fledgling nation's efforts to stabilise and rebuild after violence last year.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The death toll from a democracy crackdown ordered by Myanmar's ruling junta was much greater than U.N. estimates and scores of people were still missing, activists just back from the reclusive country said on Friday.

DILI (Reuters) - Australia's prime minister and the United Nations chief on Friday pledged continued support for East Timor to ensure peace and stability in the tiny nation.

DILI (AFP) - Australia's newly-elected prime minister Kevin Rudd pledged Friday during a five-hour stop in East Timor to support the fledgling nation's ongoing security needs.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's newly-elected government risks damaging political and trade ties with Tokyo if it uses the military to monitor Japanese whaling in Antarctic, the opposition said Friday.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Three people celebrating a 40th birthday with a joyflight had a miraculous escape after their pilot was forced to crash-land his plane on a quiet Australian road, despite losing the aircraft's wings on the way down.

ADELAIDE, Australia - Australian police applied Thursday for a court order to limit the movements of an al-Qaida supporter after his release from prison this month, an official said.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Police in six countries have smashed a major international drug ring, arresting 40 people and seizing large quantities of cocaine, ice and ecstasy, Australian police said Thursday.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australian police on Thursday ruled out a widespread operation to stamp out child sexual assault in Aboriginal townships despite the gang rape of a 10-year-old girl in a remote community that shocked the nation.

SYDNEY (AFP) - A passenger jet has made a historic landing on a new blue ice runway in Australia's Antarctic territory and regular flights are expected to start within a week, officials said Wednesday.

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian prosecutor who described nine males who gang-raped a 10-year-old Aboriginal girl as "naughty" was suspended from duty as outrage grew Wednesday over the fact they were not jailed.

SYDNEY, Australia - In a Dec. 10 story about the failure of the welfare system in the sexual assault of a young girl in an Aboriginal community, The Associated Press misstated the year of the girl's rape. It was 2006, not 2005.

SYDNEY, Australia - Officials conceded Tuesday that Australia's welfare system failed a girl who was removed from a remote Aboriginal community after being sexually abused at age 7, then gang raped at age 10 when she was returned to live in the town.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto said Tuesday that it had asked Britain's Takeover Panel to set a deadline for a formal takeover offer from the world largest miner BHP Billiton.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard took charge of government on Tuesday in the absence of the prime minister, becoming the first woman to run the country in its 106 years as an independent nation.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's new government, making its second big policy shift in just a week in power, began Monday to scrap a controversial scheme which sent refugees to remote foreign islands for processing.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard will strike a blow against Australia's macho culture Tuesday when she becomes the first "Sheila" to take over the top job.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australians overwhelmingly like American culture, arts and freedoms, but have growing concerns about the country's lack of gun control and social equality, a survey released on Monday said.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia on Monday accepted seven asylum seekers from Myanmar as refugees as the country's new Labor government began unwinding tough immigration laws which force boatpeople into detention on Pacific island nations.

SYDNEY (AFP) - The decision of Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to apologise to indigenous Aborigines for past injustices could lead to claims for financial compensation, the opposition warned in a report Monday.

SYDNEY (AFP) - The Australian government on Sunday denied reports that it has made a commitment to keep Australian troops in Afghanistan until 2010.

SYDNEY, Australia - Explosions ripped through a fireworks factory in eastern Australia, destroying 20 buildings in the complex and jeopardizing New Year's Eve displays in three state capitals, officials said Sunday.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian police said Friday they had smashed an international cocaine smuggling ring spanning three continents and operating out of the Netherlands, Thailand and Canada.

BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) - Australian conman Peter Foster, once linked to the "Cheriegate" scandal involving the wife of former prime minister Tony Blair, was jailed for money laundering Friday.

SYDNEY (AFP) - China's largest steel company Baosteel called Friday on the Australian government to intervene to prevent BHP Billiton from taking over rival miner Rio Tinto.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia will deport 16 Indonesians who sought asylum as economic refugees after being picked up from a leaking fishing boat last month, the government said Friday.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian conman Peter Foster, once a confidante to Britian's Cherie Blair, was sentenced on Friday to four and a half years in jail after pleading guilty to fraud in a South Pacific island nation.

SYDNEY (AFP) - The 33-year parliamentary career of Australia's former prime minister John Howard has ended with neither a bang nor a whimper, just a strange case of a disappearing politician.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand - A New Zealand judge sentenced two Chinese students to 18 1/2 years in prison Thursday for the ransom kidnapping and slaying of a fellow student, saying the two fell into "cyber sloth" and greed during their studies abroad.