Wow Australia

CDC says few people in U.S. over 50 hit by new flu

The new H1N1 flu virus appears to be fairly widespread in the United States and seems to be hitting mostly younger people, with very few cases reported in people over 50, U.S. health officials said on Sunday. "We think very few of the cases we have confirmed are in people over 50," the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Dr Anne Schuchat told reporters in a telephone briefing. "Whether this will pan out over the weeks ahead we don't know." The CDC reported 2...

Australian girl, 4, thrown from bridge

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - A four-year-old Australian girl died on Thursday after she was thrown off a bridge in Melbourne and landed in the Yarra River, 58 meters (174 feet) below, police said. A man stopped his 4WD car on the West Gate Bridge during peak hour, stepped out of the car carrying the girl and dropped her over the edge, a police spokesman told local media. "The child suffered fairly extensive injuries and the paramedics spent some time trying to resuscitate the child," said ambulance sp...

Asbestos victim wins fight with Ford Australia

ANTONINO Lo Presti had just been admitted to hospital on Christmas Eve when he learned he had finally won his landmark six-year asbestos compensation battle with the Ford Motor Company. From his bed in Perth's Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, the former mechanic found out Ford had dropped its appeal against the $840,000 payout he won in February. The father of three had made legal history when the Supreme Court ruled he developed the asbestosis that now cripples him while he worked for Ford,...

Fiji move unhelpful: Australia

Australia’s Government has branded as unhelpful and destructive a decision by Fiji's interim Government to expel Canberra's South Pacific Defence Adviser. The unnamed official had been in Suva on a visitor visa awaiting a decision by the interim Government on his long-term visa status. Australian Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon told The Australian newspaper: "The interim (Fiji) Government has indicated that no visa will be granted. "This is an important position, not only in relati...

Shark horror: snorkeller dead, kayakers menaced

THIS is the horrifying moment when a giant shark menaced kayakers off Sydney yesterday. White pointers caused terror on opposite sides of Australia yesterday, with snorkeller Brian Guest killed as he swam with his son at a beach near Perth. Sydney paddlers Justin Stanger and Steve Kulscar were lucky to survive, with Mr Kulscar falling from his craft as the four-metre white pointer circled them about a kilometre off Long Reef. Fisherman Glenn Morgan was in a runabout nearby when he saw ...

Aussies advised to avoid riot-hit Athens

Australians have been advised to avoid travel to Athens and several other areas of Greece amid riots in the country. The fatal police shooting of a teenager has sparked Greece's worst rioting in years, with gangs of youths rampaging through Athens and the northern city of Thessaloniki at the weekend. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has not changed its overall level of travel advice for Greece, but it advises Australians to avoid central Athens and the tourist are...

Sydney Opera House architect dies

The Danish architect of the iconic Sydney Opera House, Jorn Utzon, has died at the age of 90, after suffering a heart attack. Mr Utzon, an award-winning architect, put "Denmark on the world map with his great talent," said Danish Culture Minister Carina Christensen. Having won a competition in 1957 to design the building, he left the project before it opened in 1973. Mr Utzon never visited the completed landmark, after disputes about costs. He had quarrelled with the Australian ...

Malouf’s bracelet dazzles on a list of literary treasure

DAVID MALOUF has won Australia's newest and richest literary prize for his short story collection The Complete Stories. Malouf was presented with the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award in Perth last night. The $110,000 award, which was created by the former Labor government in Western Australia, is worth $10,000 more than the next richest, the Prime Minister's Literary Award, and is given for fiction by writers resident in, or outside Australia, writing primarily about Australia or As...

Indonesia looks inward for economic help

The Indonesian President says his country will turn to its large domestic market to maintain economic growth in the face of an expected slowdown. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has told the APEC summit in Peru, Jakarta will boost growth with infrastructure projects like power plants, and fight poverty with greater spending on education and health care. He says with global markets weakening and prices soft for Indonesia's exported commodities "sources of growth will come more from our large dome...

APEC expected to back G20 action plan

Asia-Pacific leaders were to wrap up a summit in which they vowed to form a united front against the world financial crisis, but bold initiatives looked unlikely to emerge. US President George W Bush used his final summit before leaving office to encourage continuity on the part of his successor Barack Obama on issues ranging from North Korean nuclear talks to free trade. "We refuse to accept protectionism in the 21st century," Bush said emphatically on Saturday. His was one of a se...