POLITICS & POLICY

Australian Labor Party and Liberal National Party battled neck-to-neck in their first week of campaign

Stephanie Banister, dubbed as "Australia's Sarah Palin" for vying a spot in the Parliament of Australia has drawn online flak for giving surprisingly inaccurate facts about Islam. Ms. Banister is a candidate for a Brisbane seat of Rankin under the right-wing One Nation party. Despite her desire to run for public office, this election might not turn out to be a happy ending for her. Ms. Banister has been charged for sticking labels on Nestle products in a Brisbane store. The alleged st...

Snowden’s Father is Confident about Putin’s Stand

Following the Snowden asylum granted by Russia, the U.S. has decided not to move forward with a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

After admitting in July that crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has indeed been pouring contaminated radioactive water into the ocean waters, it was just a matter of time as to when the world will know just how much toxic liquid it actually releases. On Wednesday, the information was released and it was like World War II again. Since being damaged in 2011, the Fukushima facility has leaked a whopping 300 tonnes of radioactive water daily into the ocean.

Here are quotes from an inspiring leader.

The prolonged heat and low rainfall that UK experienced in July not only distressed humans but has also affected the otherwise peaceful conditions of freshwater fishes in the lakes and rivers. On Wednesday, the Environment Agency reported at least 50,000 fishes have died off the British coast due to dangerously low oxygen levels in the waters.

Australian Labor Party Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr debated with Opposition’s spokesperson Julie Bishop

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar remains just below USD 0.9000 after a weaker US dollar suffered against all the major currencies based on the Japanese economy's outlook.

New Zealand’s failure in key environmental areas was announced in a high-level conference during a time when the nation’s 100 per cent pure brand is under international media scrutiny. Insights were given regarding New Zealand’s climate, energy efficiency and waterways were given in the recent Environmental Defence Society’s national conference.

The Australian High Court has rejected the challenge of the mining tax's validity led by Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals. Aside from raising negligible revenue, the imposition of the minerals resource rent tax has upset miners who argued that they are already paying royalties to state governments, including income tax to the federal government.

The Australian Labor Party candidate Pm Kevin Rudd and Liberal Nation Party Tony Abbott raced on to the Muslim and Chinese community for election

Queensland MP Peter Dowling’s mistress has enjoyed spending the taxpayers’ money. The lover of the disgraced Australian politician revealed that she enjoyed luxury that other people paid when she was with him.

Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir was bound for Tehran over the weekend when his plane was barred from flying over Saudi Arabia's airspace. The sole reason was that Sudanese authorities had failed to properly coordinate its intentions to the authorities from Saudi Arabia.

The Australian business community has welcomed the news of Tony Abbott's $5 billion company tax cut under the Coalition government. However, like everybody else, companies wonder where will Tony Abbott get the money?

Diary giant Fonterra of New Zealand has gotten itself into another mess in China. This time, it's been ordered to pay US$793,000 for overpricing its baby milk formula products in the world's second-largest economy.

While waiting for Comet ISON’s near-Earth approach in December, spectators can witness first a stunning display coming from the 2013 Perseid meteor shower. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) describes the annual space event as the “best meteor shower of the year” and it is set to peak during the nights of August 11 and 12.

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The RBA delivered probably one of the most widely foreshadowed interest rate cuts yesterday afternoon as the cash rate fell to 2.50% but removed their easing bias which saw the AUD appreciate after the announcement.

PM Kevin Rudd accused Rupert Murdoch of hating Labor’s NBN as threat to Foxtel

The ambitious Australian project of providing high speed broadband to the nation by replacing the copper cables with the fiber optic cables is on schedule said Deputy PM and Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese.

Early Tuesday morning the twitter account of the Australian election commission was hacked and users started to get messages from the hacked account. The hacker launched a phishing attack from the hacked account aimed at getting the login details of the users

An Australian lady was conned into buying two apple fruits in a box for 1200 dollars, believing them to be Apple smart phones, reported NDTV. Buying from people online can be very tricky, a 21 year old Australian lady learnt firsthand. The lady who was not named, posted an ad online in the Gumtree Web site. She wanted to buy two Apple smart phones. She was contacted by another lady who said she had “two apples” for sale.

A state-run news agency in China has not stopped in delivering sharp attacks about New Zealand in the wake of Fonterra's botulism scare. The Chinese news agency called New Zealand's 100 per cent pure Pure campaign to boost tourism, a "festering sore". The agency also declared that homes in New Zealand were leaky, damp and uninhabitable because of free market ideology.

Ethics Committee chair and LNP’s MP Peter Dowling apologised to family in the wake of his sexting scandal.

Australia’s first day of election campaigning has become a disaster for Liberal Party’s Jaymes Diaz. The candidate for the Greenway district in western Sydney was unable to name his own party’s Coalition policy during a television interview, and his gaffe is going viral online.

Griffith snubbed PM Kevin Rudd during debate with Bill Glasson

Smartphone maker Apple Inc gets tangled in yet another controversy, this time involving its suppliers Foxconn Technology Group and Unimicron Technology, alleged to have been dumping toxic wastewater from heavy metals into China's local rivers.

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar has opened slightly higher this morning after a relatively quiet session offshore overnight.

After coming under heavy attack by the media, Twitter finally decided to take steps to check online abuse especially towards women. The Twitter Web site will now have a “report abuse” button, which is currently available in the Twitter app in iPhones, allowing users to stem the tide of the growing “trolls” online, reported Reuters.