A PROPOSED $1.15 billion resort on Great Keppel Island has been rejected by the Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, because of concerns that it will harm life on the Great Barrier Reef.

A leadership program that gets money talking to need is having profound effect on participants as well as beneficiaries, writes Adele Horin.

Norman Swan was driven to write about his rail and bus experience that delivered him from Sydney to Brisbane in just 17 hours. He is confident it will be a best-seller as Travel for Dummies.

THE head of a world treaty for the protection of wetlands has warned it is too early to flood the threatened Coorong wetlands with seawater and Australia should be ”very cautious” about the proposal.

IT’S not often that the annual report of a government agency reads like a crime novel.

JOHANNESBURG: The United Nations torture investigator said he would recommend action against Zimbabwe after he was detained on arrival at Harare airport and deported.

OBAMA: On the evening of July 7, 1978, Yasushi Chimura and his fiancee, Fukie Hamamoto, drove in a small truck to a lookout point above the craggy coast that marks the city of Obama’s meeting with the Sea of Japan (East Sea). The waters were placid, and they were excited about their wedding in November.

TEGUCIGALPA: Representatives of the deposed Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya, and the country’s interim government have signed an agreement that could open the way for Mr Zelaya’s reinstatement four months after he was ousted in a coup.

HOPES of a diplomatic breakthrough over Iran’s nuclear program were dwindling after Tehran demanded changes to a uranium exchange deal that European diplomats described as ”unacceptable”.

JERUSALEM: There is nothing ordinary about this United Nations advocacy campaign. The lights dim before a packed audience and a slideshow begins: images of Gaza in conflict, people fleeing their homes, buildings on fire.

SUNBURY’S Warren Hellison felt he had the weight of the world on his shoulders as he hoisted a 170kg bar above his head to take gold at the World Master’s…

An emergency was declared at Perth Airport this morning when a Qantas Boeing 737-800 landed with an “incapacitated” captain.

An Irish backpacker bashed outside a takeaway shop in Coogee last Sunday has died in hospital overnight.

Tasmanian Labor MHR Jodie Campbell is quitting politics.
The 37-year-old told her staff last night that she won’t recontest the marginal seat at next year’s federal election.

Detectives are close to laying charges after a Melbourne grandmother, missing for almost two years, was identified as the body in a barrel found dumped in a creek.

A routine vehicle check turned violent late yesterday when a police officer was bashed by a motorist and his friends in a car suspected of being unregistered.

FOR $5000 a head, business people and lobbyists can get the opportunity to hobnob with federal and state ministers at Labor’s state conference in a fortnight.

BONDI will say ”Shalom” to the Hakoah Club next week, when the social club – the epicentre of Jewish life in Sydney for decades – makes way for demolition of the infamous concrete carton it has called home begins.

CHINA’S vice premier, Li Keqiang, arrived in Sydney last night on a visit that is part of a carefully constructed strategy by the Rudd Government and Beijing to improve relations jarred by a series of bilateral issues.

JOHANNESBURG: Zimbabwean immigration officials barred the United Nations’ torture investigator from entering their country and returned him to South Africa yesterday, an act he termed a ‘’serious diplomatic incident” that reflects a split in the coalition Government.