From OilPrice.com:

Song Xiaojun, a former senior officer of the People's Liberation Army, warned that Australia cannot juggle its relationships with the United States and China indefinitely and Australia has to find a godfather sooner or later. Australia always has to depend on somebody else, whether it is to be the 'son' of the US or 'son' of China.

What is also notable about Song's remarks is that they coincided with Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr's first official visit to China, where Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi urged Australia to dismiss its alliance with the United States, a decades-old bipartisan and central pillar of the nation's foreign policy, as "the time for Cold War alliances has passed."

Seth Robson | Yokota Air base, Japan | May 10

S&S - U.S. servicemembers looking at career options in this era of shrinking military budgets and force drawdowns might want to take a look Down Under.

The Australian government is recruiting experienced U.S. enlisted personnel and officers to fill a range of positions — from submariners to doctors — in its military, according to a posting on the Australian Defence Force website.

“The Australian Defence Force looks to overseas candidates to fill gaps in our Services, which can’t currently be satisfied by standard recruitment,” reads the intro for overseas applicants on the Defence Force’s recruitment website. “We recognise that these candidates can bring skills and attributes to the Navy, Army and Air Force that will strengthen their overall operation and success rate.”

The job offers could be tempting for U.S. troops as the Afghan War winds down and the Department of Defense looks to trim billions of dollars and more than 100,000 uniformed personnel from its books.

Sydney | Apr 4

AFP - The first contingent of up to 2,500 US Marines to be deployed in Australia were settling in Wednesday as Washington bolsters its military presence in the strategically vital region.

Some 200 Marines touched down in Darwin overnight as part of an enhanced defence cooperation outlined during a visit by US President Barack Obama in November that rankled China.

The troops are in the Northern Territory on a six-month rotational basis and will be based at Robertson Barracks on the outskirts of the city.

In a joint statement, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Defence Minister Stephen Smith and Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson welcomed what they said was the latest chapter in a more than 60-year alliance with the US.

"It represents an evolution of existing exercises and activities that the United States already conducts with the Australian Defence Force in Australia," they said.

"The intent in the coming years is to establish a rotational presence of up to a 2,500 personnel Marine Air Ground Task Force, rotating into Northern Australia in the northern dry season.

"There are no (permanent) US military bases in Australia, and this will not change," they added.

Feb 22

Crikey.au - Kevin Rudd has preempted gathering speculation about a leadership showdown next week by resigning as foreign minister in a dramatic late night press conference in Washington DC.

Rudd blamed the lack of support from senior colleagues and the Prime Minister, citing Julia Gillard’s failure today to repudiate attacks on him by Simon Crean and others this week.

“I cannot continue to serve as foreign minister if I don’t have Prime Minister Gillard’s support. Therefore the only honourable thing and honourable course of action is to resign. I do so with a genuinely heavy heart and after much personal reflection” he said. He also said he would have preferred to resign in Australia rather than overseas.

Background: jobs for the boys

we need to talk about Kevin's restoration again

Update Feb 24: Labor war as Rudd unloads

Port Moresby, PNG | January 25

BBC - Soldiers in Papua New Guinea have staged a mutiny and replaced the defence force chief, reports say.

The apparent mutiny took place early in the morning in the capital, Port Moresby, Australian media and officials said.

A group of 12 to 20 soldiers were involved, ABC News reported.

January 1

BBC - Martial law will be lifted in Fiji this week, Commodore Voreqe "Frank" Bainimarama said in a New Year speech.

The military ruler, who seized power in a 2006 coup, said that consultations on a new constitution would begin next month.

"To facilitate this consultation process, the public emergency regulations will cease from 7 January 2012," he said on Monday.

December 15

SMH - Peter O'Neill has ordered police to take control of Papua New Guinea's government offices where his rival Sir Michael Somare is holed up claiming to be the alternative prime minister. Mr O'Neill told a press conference that 70 extra police officers are already in the capital with up to 200 more on their way to deal with the political crisis that has reached its third day.

PNG woke this morning with two men claiming to be prime minister, two governors-general, two cabinets and two police chiefs.
The two main camps have been duelling for legitimacy since Monday when the Supreme Court ruled Sir Michael was to be restored as prime minister, replacing Mr O'Neill.

Astrolabe Reef, off Tauranga, New Zealand | October 10

BBC - New Zealand officials say a "significant" amount of oil is now leaking from a cargo ship stranded on a reef off the country's North Island.

Between 130-350 tonnes of oil is thought to have leaked from the vessel, far more than the 30 tonnes earlier estimated.

Sydney | Sept 18

AFP - Deep in the silence of Australia's Outback desert an imposing American spy post set up at the height of the Cold War is now turning its attention to Asia's growing armies and arsenals.

Officially designated United States territory and manned by agents from some of America's most sensitive intelligence agencies, the Pine Gap satellite station has been involved in some of the biggest conflicts in modern times.

But its role in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, and in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, had been little recognised until one of its most senior spies broke ranks recently to pen a tell-all account.

Intelligence analyst David Rosenberg spent 18 years at the base, 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) south of Alice Springs, working with top-secret clearance for the National Security Agency (NSA), home to America's code-cracking elite.

Formally known as the "Joint Defence Space Research Facility", Pine Gap is one of Washington's biggest intelligence collection posts, intercepting weapons and communications signals via a series of satellites orbiting Earth.

Australia has had joint leadership at the post and access to all intercepted material since 1980, but the base's history is not without controversy.

Former prime minister Gough Whitlam was sensationally sacked by the British monarchy -- allegedly at American urging -- not long after he threatened to close Pine Gap in 1975, although other domestic political issues were also involved in his removal.

Its futuristic domes were originally built as a weapon in America's spy war with Russia, officially starting operations in 1970, but Rosenberg says it is now targeting the US-led "war on terror" and Asia's military boom.

"There's a large segment of the world that are weapons-producing countries who have programmes that the United States and Australia are interested in, and obviously a lot of Asia encompasses that area," Rosenberg told AFP.

Wellington, NZ | August 29

The Telegraph - The penguin was moved from the Wellington Zoo, where staff have cared for him for the past two months to the research ship Tangaroa, which will release him after four days at sea at a latitude of 51 degrees south.

Happy Feet has been placed in a custom-made crate for the journey. He will be kept cool with 60 buckets of ice and fed fish.

The Tangaroa is New Zealand's largest research vessel and was already scheduled to head into frigid southern waters to check on fish numbers in order to set fishing quotas.

The 3-foot-tall penguin was found on a New Zealand beach on June 20, far from his Antarctic feeding grounds. He was moved to the zoo after he became ill from eating sand that he likely mistook for snow. He's since regained weight and been cleared to be returned to the wild.

Wellington, NZ | July 18

AP - A New Zealand newspaper group is reporting that the deadly February earthquake in Christchurch unearthed a suspected Israeli spy ring.

Three Israelis died in the quake that killed 181 people. Other Israelis escaped the quake.

The Fairfax newspaper group, which didn't state how it obtained the information, said one of the Israelis who died was carrying at least five passports.

Fairfax said New Zealand Prime Minister John Key took four calls from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the quake, and that an unaccredited Israeli search and rescue squad searching a cordoned area in Christchurch was stopped by New Zealand officers.

** New Zealand spy claims reach Israeli media
** SIS on trail of suspected Israeli spies

Wellington | July 6

Deccan Chronicle/AFP - A tsunami began travelling across the Pacific on Thursday towards New Zealand and Tonga after a powerful 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

Tsunami waves were measured off Raoul Island, one of New Zealand's Kermadec Islands, up to a height of 0.84 metres (2.7 feet) above normal sea level, the centre said.

"Sea level readings confirm that a tsunami was generated," the centre said. "This tsunami may have been destructive along coastlines of the region near the earthquake epicentre."

The tsunami could reach Tonga by 2017 GMT and the eastern cape of New Zealand by 2052 GMT, the centre added, advising that if there were no damaging waves for two hours after the initial warning, local authorities could assume the threat had passed.

The quake struck at 07.03am Thursday (1903 GMT Wednesday) at a depth of just one kilometre (0.6 miles), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

Its epicentre was 160 kilometres (99 miles) east of Raoul Island and 914 kilometres from the Tongan capital, Nuku'alofa.

Christchurch | June 13

CNN - A pair of earthquakes with magnitudes of at least 5.0 struck within 90 minutes of each near Christchurch, New Zealand, on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported, reviving vivid memories of a deadly quake that killed more than 180 people in February.

"Everyone is on edge here anyway," said Rhys Taylor, who said he could hear sirens and see helicopters flying over Christchurch. "Obviously, power's out -- sort of all over the city at the moment -- and phone lines are down."

Christchurch | February 21

Herald Sun (Au) - A large earthquake - more violent than one that struck in September last year - has struck Christchurch in New Zealand, bringing down buildings, power and phone lines.

Buildings and houses have collapsed, with fears there may be fatalities with many potentially trapped inside buildings.

Aaron Cook and Tom Reilly | Feb 2

smh.au - Cyclone Yasi will smash into the coast near Cairns tonight, with furious winds, torrential rain and flooding adding to Queensland's massive damage bill from natural disasters this summer.

A storm surge is expected to reach 2.5 metres above the highest tide, inundating the Cairns CBD.

The Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, said lives could be lost and warned that flooding from a storm surge, caused by high winds pushing water onshore, could be more dangerous than wind and flying debris.

"It will be a display of the awesome power of nature but it's not something you want to go outside and watch," she said.

When the eye of the storm strikes land about midnight, wind gusts approaching 250km/h are likely to lift roofs and cause significant structural damage.

A direct hit on Cairns was a more likely scenario according to computer models, said a senior meteorologist from the Bureau of Meteorology, Ann Farrell.

"It is possible it could reach category five intensity and that would push winds up to around the 300km/h mark," she said. Evacuation orders have been given to people in high-risk areas from Cooktown to Hinchinbrook Island.

animated weather map after the jump

Tuvalu | January 14

AP - Demonstrators in tiny South Pacific country demand resignation of finance minister

The tiny South Pacific country of Tuvalu has imposed emergency rule after protesters marched in the capital to demand the resignation of the finance minister.

The emergency was declared yesterday to prevent moves to destabilise the government, the communications minister, Kausea Natano, said.

Brisbane | Jan 12

AFP - Australia's third-largest city Brisbane prepared for the peak of its worst floods in decades on Wednesday, with more than 30,000 homes under threat, as the death toll rose to 13.

Thousands of people fled to higher ground and Brisbane's centre was a "ghost town" with the river city of two million battened down for its worst deluge in decades, while deadly floods inundated vast areas of Australia's northeast.

More than 50 suburbs and 2,100 roads were expected to be left under water as the Brisbane River bursts its banks and swamps the city centre, along with other areas.

"Brisbane will go to sleep tonight and wake up to scenes that they have, many of them, never seen anything like in their lives," Queensland Premier Anna Bligh warned late Wednesday, with flooding expected to affect 36,000 homes and businesses.

The river was predicted to peak at around 4:00 am on Thursday (1800 GMT Wednesday) at 5.2 metres, down from an earlier forecast of 5.5 metres and lower than the levels reached in the last major floods in 1974.

The toll from the floods reached 13 after police confirmed the death of a 50-year-old man in Ipswich, a town upstream from Brisbane.

Power was cut to tens of thousands of premises and some residents headed to evacuation centres as boats and floating restaurants broke their moorings and careered down the swollen Brisbane River, smashing into bridges.

Bligh warned that "we are bracing for a massive amount of water coming into this river system and it will flood thousands of properties", but said she believed that region would "recover very quickly".

"We accept for many it'll be a long slow road but getting our economy back and ticking quickly is one of the first priorities of the taskforce that is already working on recovery," she said.

Arran Corbett from Sontek, which monitors river flows, told the AAP news agency the river was flowing very rapidly at 9,400 cubic metres a second.

"To put it into perspective, that will fill about 1,000 Olympic pools in a second," he said

First it was Arkansas. Next, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Maryland, and now Sweden????

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) -- Just four days after thousands of dead blackbirds are found in Arkansas, residents in Sweden are cleaning up their own version of the unusual happening.

Officials in Sweden say about 50 birds were found in the southern Sweden city of Falkoping Wednesday morning.

Earlier in the week, another case of dead birds hit Louisiana, leaving those residents just as confused as others.

Margalit Fox | New York | January 2

NYT - Denis Dutton, a distinguished philosopher, writer, and digital-media guru who founded Arts & Letters Daily, one of the first websites to exploit the Internet as a vehicle for meaningful intellectual exchange, died Tuesday in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he lived. He was 66.

The cause was prostate cancer, his son, Ben, said.

An impassioned polymath, genial contrarian, and native Californian, Mr. Dutton was at his death a professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury, in Christchurch, where he had taught since 1984.

Jan 1

BBC - A senior official has described the flooding in Queensland, Australia, as a disaster of "biblical proportions".

State Treasurer Andrew Fraser said the economic impact would be severe, with huge costs compounded by lost income from mining, farming and tourism.

Rockhampton, where 77,000 people live, is the latest city bracing for impact, amid warnings of 30ft (9m) floodwaters.

More than 20 other towns have already been left cut off or flooded across an area larger than France and Germany.

The crisis has been triggered by Australia's wettest spring on record. At least six river systems across Queensland have broken their banks. The floods have affected about 200,000 people, and many have been evacuated.

"We're still directly battling floodwaters, we haven't seen the peak of the flood yet at centres like Rockhampton," said Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who toured the stricken areas.

Sean Paul has reiterated the theme "The future isn't happening in the US anymore" in several post that I can remember.

But still, I was slightly shocked to find this belief echo'd by the usually conservative New Zealander "man on the 'net", as reflected in this poll attached to this story....

stuff.co.nz

Click on the Poll Results.

John Dagge | Melbourne | December 17

CSM - Australian refugee advocates expect Wednesday’s shipwreck off Christmas Island to tighten the country's already strict immigration policies on asylum seekers.

To be sure, Australians responded with sympathy to photos this week in local newspapers of Iranian and Iraqi asylum seekers clinging to the wreckage of their rickety boat in a botched attempt to reach Australia's Christmas Island. But the solution favored by many here appears to be a measure of what they see as tough love: To discourage asylum seekers from risking their lives, the government should take a harder line on people smugglers and illegal immigration.

Rapa Nui | December 4

Al Jazeera - Dozens of people have been injured on Easter Island after riot police evicting islanders from their ancestral home were faced with stone-throwing protesters.

The clash began early on Friday when police moved to evict 10 people from the home they had been occupying since ousting a government official from the property, the Associated Press reported Maka Atan, a Rapa Nui lawyer, as saying.

Nov 30

ABC.net.au - The number of people affected by the recent cholera outbreak in Papua New Guinea is close to two thousand.

The original point of the outbreak is Daru, a tiny island off the coast of PNG's Western Province, where around one thousand cases have been documented. The situation is stabilizing there but it's now on the move emerging in villiages on the mainland between two districts.
_____________________________________________________
Since July 2009, over 5000 people have been infected

Natasha Bita | November 29

The Australian - MILLIONS of Australians have been left short of cash or with phantom debts from corrupted savings accounts.

A National Australia Bank computing error infected other financial institutions over the weekend.

Angry and confused customers queued at NAB branches yesterday demanding cash advances, after the bank resorted to opening 16 branches for unprecedented Sunday trading.

Five days after a "corrupted file" delayed payments, including wages and welfare benefits, the NAB error has contaminated the entire banking system.

The Commonwealth, ANZ and Westpac, as well as HSBC and Citibank, said some customers' transactions had been affected by the NAB data-processing errors. NAB yesterday apologised and promised no customers would be financially disadvantaged.

But internet banking statements revealed that some customers were being charged interest on "phantom" debts erroneously generated by the bank's seemingly rogue computer.