Australia | featured news

Australian police have arrested a man they say is affiliated with international hacking collective Lulz Security on a charge of attacking and defacing a government website, officials said Wednesday.

Ask a traveler where you’ll find the most welcoming locals, and you’ll likely see a few nations consistently named. For example,  you’re likely to hear Australia come up a few times. Same with Ireland.

Australian experts are concerned about the threat of a new type of drug-resistant pandemic flu that is circulating in the population at large. The swine flu strain has learned how to dodge the antiviral Tamiflu and, though rare, is emerging outside of hospitals.

Australian police say they have made their biggest ever seizure of methamphetamine -- as much as $450 million worth of the destructive drug.

One of the DJs who was involved in a prank call to Kate Middleton’s hospital – which led to the suicide of a nurse – has returned to the airwaves in Australia.

Sydney's skyline erupted with tons of exploding fireworks as revelers cheered in the new year from the city's crammed harbor in the world's first major celebration for 2013.

Tony Clift's family has plowed the rich black soil of Australia's Liverpool Plains for six generations. The thought of selling never crossed his mind — until a Chinese company came to town. Shenhua Watermark Coal offered to buy farms at unheard-of prices. The decision wasn't easy, Clift says. His pioneer ancestors settled the land in 1832. But farming is a business nowadays, and selling his 6,500 acres (2,600 hectares) made business sense.

Anger continued to swirl around a hoax call made to a London hospital by two Australian radio hosts who talked their way past a nurse to get a medical update on Kate Middleton. Three days later, the nurse was found dead in an apparent suicide. But some Australians are also defending the hosts, who are said to be "shattered" by the uproar.

The British hospital that fell victim to a prank call from two Australian DJs asking questions about the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge condemned the hoax on Saturday, as the radio station behind the prank tried to defend itself against rising anger a day after the nurse who took the call was found dead.

An Australian radio station that staged a prank phone call to the hospital where Duchess Kate was being treated has suspended the radio hosts involved and pulled all advertising after a nurse who was fooled by the call was found dead.