Eight people arrested by terror police in Birmingham were allegedly planning an Iraq-style kidnapping and beheading in the UK. The suspects - believed to be of Pakistani origin - were detained under the Terrorism Act after a six-month surveillance operation. Another 200 Pakistanis were arrested in areas nearby on suspicion of allegedly planning ball tampering at local cricket games this year.
A Russian court ruled in favour of jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky today, saying it was unfair that the former head of oil company YUKOS was put in a punishment cell for 10 days in June after warders found two undeclared lemons in his cell. When reached for comment on the issue President Putin said "Modern Russia does have a sense of humour, it is just not appreciated in the West, we think our new brand of show trials have great punchlines."
The election-year debate over the value of the American alliance will be brought into sharp focus when US Vice-President Dick Cheney visits Australia next month. Mr Cheney's visit is expected to draw protestors out onto Sydney's streets. It is rumoured the main protest will be against any attempts by Cheney to go roo shooting with Aussies.
Former WBA world champion and rugby league footballer Anthony Mundine's first music video shows the union jack flag and a photo of Prime Minister John Howard being burned together. Filmed in Sydney in the notorious area of Redfern known as The Block, it shows Aboriginal residents tossing them into a barrel of flames. It then shows the rest of the petrol can used to start the fire being poured into dozens of Coke bottles and passed to residents to get high on.
New Zealand's foreign minister has warned Kiwis to stop taking cheap shots at Australia and the US and instead recognise what they do in the Pacific region. He said there seemed to be an "irrational, and growing, sense of sport among some quarters in New Zealand where it is considered a perverse badge of honour to take cheap shots at the Australians and Americans". Australia's Foreign Ministry reacted with a shrug of the shoulders, highlighting that a sense of sport and a perverse badge of honour in New Zealand was not assumed to have anything to do with Australians or Americans, unless they were dressed up in an outercoating of wool.
France's foreign minister has said that troops alone will not solve Iraq's woes in his country's latest swipe at US policy in the Middle East. The US agreed that woes sometimes can't be solved this way, it then lamented having big American graveyards in France full of troops and the fact the French are free to eat cheese, stare at paintings and be arseholes.
Prince Charles visited Harlem Sunday, making a stop at a charter school where he took some time to shoot hoops with a basketball team. Prince Charles even got a chance to trash talk his opponents as he eyed the basket, with one of the hoopsters telling media the prince told him that "One is Crowned as the Royal shot taker, now if one does not mind allowing one to move to the right, one will delightfully take the lane and finish with a cheerful lay up, then one would rather like to sip some more tea."
Nearly 20 environmentalists scaled the Eiffel Tower to hang protest banners about the threat of global warming as the world's top climate scientists gathered nearby to issue a key report. It alarmed Parisians as they immediately assumed the country had fallen to Greenpeace.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have converged on Iraq's Shi'ite holy city, Kerbala, for Ashura, marking the 7th century Battle of Kerbala, which helped consolidate the schism between Shi'ite and Sunni Islam. It ends on Monday, though the body count will go on.
The US is launching an effort to shed its unfriendly image, the move got off to a wrong start when it was discovered the French had been involved in consultations.
US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is in Afghanistan meeting with troops, it was preceded by a brief stopover in Pakistan, when asked what that was like Pelosi refused to comment saying she 'had no time to do any shopping there'.
Food -- Sausage sizzle Chips -- Bloody chips Complainer -- Bloody whingin' Pom Australia -- Great Southern Land Drink -- Beer Beverage -- Beer Water -- Light beer Hello -- G'day how ya going, alright? Yeah yeah I'm good mate Friend -- Mate Enemy -- Mate Stranger -- Mate Woman -- The bloody missus Day off work -- Sickie - "Crook mate, yeah, not sure what it is." Not a problem -- No worries mate Good -- Not bad TV -- Eddie McGuire Money -- Packers Troublemaker -- Shit-stirrer/West Coast Eagle Footy Star Jokes -- England Cricket Team/New Zealanders A tourist -- Backpacker/Clueless cunt Cooker/Oven -- Barbie/The Missus/Robbo Can of beer -- Tinnie Metrosexual -- Ian Thorpe National Sports Representative -- Champion ANZACs -- Legends/Blokes who scored us the Public Holiday in April Get insulted -- Cop a serve/Listen to Mark Philippoussis talk about his next big comeback Football -- Aussie Rules Soccer -- Wog shit/Kids on the weekend/That sport watched every four years Toilet -- Dunny/The Front and Back Office Stupid person -- Flaming galah/Person who can't stand Cold Chisel Car -- The wheels mate A day when you don't drink beer -- What's that mate? Getting upset at something -- Spit the dummy/Chuck a Lleyton Hewitt Liar -- Bullshit artist/Bloke talking about the hot chick he scored Stealing someone's food -- Cunt Stealing someone's beer -- Fucking cunt Someone sober -- What's that mate? Unfunny -- Kyle Sandilands Very unfunny -- Rove McManus' lovelife jokes Tough guy -- Bloke bringin' back the biff/Mark Latham A long walk in the outback -- Walkabout/Idiot backpacker An old man -- Wrinkly sport/Lou Richards Old episode of The Flying Doctors -- Good shit Old episode of Young Talent Time -- Turn that shit off Nice clothes -- Shorts and singlet Ladies man -- Shane Warne Father Christmas -- Gazza with a beard earning $10 an hour at DJ's The Queen -- Dame Edna The King -- Graham Kennedy Fighting -- Spending a day at Cronulla Christmas -- Bushfire moon Disappear -- Pull a gecko/Damian Martyn Public transport -- The sober person
Now for something a little more serious about what it means and why we can celebrate it, I'm serious. Eh, don't believe it then.
"It's a totally inhospitable place, you shouldn't be here, the sun, you live about three quarters of a mile from it, I've seen insects walking around with kneepads, you fling yourselves into the sea when you're not actually walking around audiably crackling in the heat and the sea is full of jellyfish and sharks and other things who hate you, but yet you persist in living here. So you know, its a jail, you live in, it's lovely, you've done wonderful things with it, but you're all still in denial."
-- Dylan Moran, Irish Comedian
News Corporation is finalising a deal with partners to launch a networking website venture in China within a few months, according to venture capital and Chinese government sources. All Chinese MySpace entries will ring a similar refrain in the About Me: "I ruv Chinese Government, is good to me, erection I vote Hu Jintao!"
New Zealanders' love affair with sheep gained official recognition Friday when the agriculture minister declared Feb. 15 "National Lamb Day." There will be no limits to the celebration, with all positions attaining national recognition, even reverse cowgirl.
It's what Hollywood was built on. And there's no question that to the many powerful Democrats in the entertainment community, Sen. Barack Obama who is now running for US President has loads of it. And Hollywood is expecting a return on its deposit, with rumours that Barack Obama must now star as a crack addicted gang-banger who gets involved in a tit-for-tat gangland dispute, but finally finds peace and goes on to college, while his nigga Doughboy is murdered two weeks later.
Federal officials in Los Angeles Tuesday said they arrested more than 750 illegal immigrants over the past week in the metropolitan area, the illegals came from 14 countries in all, including Mexico, Honduras, Ukraine, India, Japan, Poland and Trinidad. President Bush proposed building a fence around the countries named to keep illegals out of the US.
In the annual State of the Union address, US President George W Bush today urged a rebellious Congress to give his new Iraq war plan a chance, insisting it was not too late to shape the outcome. There was one awkward moment when Bush looked off camera to the side and appeared to mutter "Does that bitch behind me look all smug?"
Britons feel less British than they did a decade ago, with the English joining Scots and the Welsh in identifying more strongly with their local nationality, a survey said. There is also speculation that the affordability of dental care has contributed to a British 'identity crisis'.
Chadian security forces detained an armed hijacker who forced a Sudanese airliner plane heading to the troubled Darfur region to divert to N'Djamena today. It was discovered later that the hijacker demands were motivated by the take-off - apparently he just ended up on the plane by accident and got scared when it did something. It was then that he demanded they land it so he could throw it off the earth to appease the gods.
Australian oil and gas giant Woodside has yet to explain why it needs to move ancient rock art to develop a gas plant on Western Australia's Burrup Peninsula, protesters say. Woodside has countered by saying the art seems to be a metaphor for the justification of the War in Iraq, this has divided some protesters who agree with that interpretation, with some protesting their protesting fellow protestors now. Meanwhile, local Aboriginal art scholars were too high on petrol to respond.
In Canada, the trial of a pig farmer accused of murdering 26 women - mostly prostitutes and drug addicts - begins Monday, in what is one of the nation's most anticipated trials ever. When the media asked why he did it as he was being ushered away by police, the pig farmer told them "I live in Canada!"
Another man has been caught allegedly taking inappropriate photographs of women at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne. The 35-year-old Werribee man was arrested late today and interviewed by police at their Melbourne headquarters. The man asked how long it would take as the 10,000 plus subscribers to his Australian Open Fetish Upskirt website would not be happy if no updates arrived within 48 hours.
Music fans will be able to take Australian flags into the Big Day Out festival despite an attempt from organisers to lock out the 'gang colours' they claim incited racial hatred last year in Sydney. BDO promoter Ken West said the display of nationalism under the flag at the Sydney leg of BDO last year, a month after the Cronulla riots, was intolerable. Behavioural studies of this gang has shown them to enjoy beer, the beach, burnouts in done-up bogan cars, pub bands, countless sports, and a disregard for holier-than-thou 'koala suit wearing tree hugging alfalfa munching' tossers like Ken West.
McDonald's opened its first drive-thru in Beijing on Friday. Since 1990 there have been relatively few hiccups for McDonald's in China, with the biggest controversy being the execution of Hamburglar and the brief imprisonment of Ronald McDonald who protested it to the government.
Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will embark on a widely anticipated campaign for the White House Saturday. Clinton was expected to disclose plans to form a presidential exploratory committee on her Web site, according to Democratic officials familiar with the matter. When asked what her primary advantage over her competitors will be in 2008, a spokesman for Hillary said it will be her husband Bill, who will have sex with her competitor's wives behind their backs.
California is set to introduce a bill to ban the spanking of children. Meanwhile, smoking weed in front of children will still be okay.
Western nations fear China has sparked a new arms race in space with the ballistic missile destruction of one of its own satellites. The action was the first known satellite-killing test in space in more than 20 years, the White House said today. China said today that other nations had no reason to feel threatened by its space program, except for 'those goddamn Mongolians'.
A pipeline carrying Russian oil to the European Union via Ukraine has been shut off after high winds led to power shortages in western Ukraine that forced a pumping station to close down, an official said today. President Putin of Russia rang Al Gore and wanted a list of the biggest culprits of Global Warming so he could poison them.
A U.S. spacecraft is zooming toward a close encounter with Jupiter to study its tempestuous atmosphere, ring system and four of its moons before dashing off to see distant Pluto in 2015, scientists said on Thursday. If the plan fails, President Bush has promised to send 10 more satellites.
Kenyans rejoiced on Wednesday after Barack Obama plunged into the U.S. presidential race, saying if the youthful senator from Illinois wins the White House he will not forget his roots. In fact Americans of Kenyan descent expect him to enact pro-marathon policies as a priority.
Australian troops have fought an intense gun battle with insurgents after their armoured vehicles came under fire in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The soldiers returned fire with more than 400 rounds after militia forces attacked their Australian light armoured vehicles (ASLAVs) during a routine patrol yesterday evening. No beer was hurt.
A high-end antique dealer on the Upper East Side of New York City is suing four unnamed homeless people for $1 million on the grounds that they've driven away customers by loitering on the sidewalk. If the lawsuit goes the wrong way the homeless people are worried they'll lose everything.
Hindus in Europe are joining forces to oppose German calls for a law across the European Union banning the display of Nazi symbols, saying the swastika symbolizes peace and not hate. Hindus will next attempt to defend the display of Pro-USA posters throughout the North West Frontier province of Pakistan because it symbolizes liberty over oppression.
British backpackers drink twice as much in Australia as they do at home, a new survey has found. The survey was conducted recently, after England lost The Ashes and went back to being perennial losers at sporting contests against Aussies.
Bushfires in Victoria's northeast today burnt a major power transmission line, cutting power supplies across the state. The Tatong fire, near Benalla, damaged the power line that links Victoria and New South Wales, which caused blackouts in 200,000 Victorian homes and threw Melbourne's public transport system and road network into chaos. South Australians pitched in by offering to laugh.
A comedy about Hitler by a Jewish filmmaker has rocketed to the top of the German box office charts in its first week in the cinemas. Its success has caused concern and consternation once again for German Jewry as Germans do not have a sense of humour.
Draped in national flags and armed with bottles, chairs and sticks, rival Serbian, Greek and Croatian fans clashed at the Australian Open yesterday in a wild confrontation that police fear could escalate today. More than 150 supporters were ejected from Melbourne's glamour international event after the clash on the lawns outside the main arena caught organisers off guard. There was a temporary break in tension when all three groups laughed at a small Macedonian man angry at being shunned.
Britain and France talked about a 'union' in the 1950s and even discussed the possibility of Elizabeth II becoming the French head of state. The once-secret papers from the British National Archives have yielded the discoveries and reveal the true extent of France's willingness to surrender even when not under military attack.
The US embassy in Athens was yesterday pierced by an anti-tank shell in what Greek police called an "act of terrorism." It is being blamed on the close relations between the US and Turkey, some noted Greek scholars opining that 'We thought we had it all, but Turkish boys must appeal to them more, and it angers many Greeks'.
A school in Seattle has restricted viewings of Al Gore's global warming movie, with one parent saying "Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher." Al Gore's representatives tried to make a compromise for the school by replacing condoms with Al Gore as the driver of a hybrid car for all school dates.
Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own nation in an attempt to circumvent international copyright laws. It will purchase Sealand, an island off the British coast. The island purchase marks an escalation in the determination geeks and nerds have to ensure the survival of viewing internet porn while listening to the Billboard Hot 100.
A poll today says the tide has turned on David Hicks. Most Australians say it's time he left his tiny cell in Guantanamo Bay. The Adelaide-born Hicks continues to be represented by Major Michael 'Dan' Mori, who many say has contributed to the turnaround in public sentiment. A spokesman for the conductor of the poll said: "People respect his uniform. And a lot of Australians have traditionally respected America - the symbol of justice, the symbol of democracy and freedom. And in a sense Mori is a symbol of the old America they used to respect and still respect." He went on "I mean, before Dan Mori, it was the Frog Brothers led by the unwavering and determined duo of Corey Feldman and Corey Haim."
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has put the blame for the sentiment towards the military campaigns in the Middle East on anti-war dissidents and the media. Warning it would take the West another 20 years to defeat Islamic terrorism, the Prime Minister used a wide-ranging "swansong" lecture on defence to denounce critics and the media who have been a thorn in his side since the invasion of Iraq. Conspicuously, the Prime Minister did not also blame the same suspects for the portrayal of British food to the world, and therefore refused to put a timeframe on improving its quality.
Surf Life Saving Australia has revealed that it is set to become part of the curriculum at more than 8500 schools across the country. Lesson #1 for surfing safety will continue to be the same as Lesson #10, which is 'Stay the fuck out of the ocean there's sharks in there!'
Scotland is preparing to mark 300 years since accepting the Treaty of Union with England - which bound two countries together and gave the world Great Britain. But the anniversary Tuesday of the Scottish parliament's voting to accept the treaty is focusing attention on growing discord, with advocates of Scottish independence gaining strength in their campaign for a referendum on breaking the union. It may reach a tipping point in the near future when Mel Gibson schedules his next holiday there and begins drinking on the streets of Glasgow.
Two 19-year-old men have been charged with affray and assault following an incident on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. A Victorian Police spokeswoman said the men allegedly approached a group of tourists at a BP service station and started a fight. This is part of Victoria's continuing attempts to take their campaign of 'hate us now' from a states-based issue to a world-based one.
The gaffe-prone Muslim cleric Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilali says he loves Australia and he will be returning despite politicians' calls for him to stay away. The cleric sparked controversy this week, when on an Egyptian chat show he labelled white Australians "liars" and said Muslims were more entitled to be in Australia than those with a convict heritage. In recent comments the Sheik said "I say many, many times. I taught - love Australia or leave it. Australia is still the best country in world. We're intelligent people, (the) Australia nation." He did not also note that it is a nation of wankers and he is in the running for the top prize this year.
More than 160 beach-goers were stung and two beaches were closed as a northerly wind change drove blue bottle jellyfish shorewards in south east Queensland. More than 100 people were stung at Noosa and Rainbow beach on the Sunshine Coast. Hospitals were inundated with victims and had to leave those suffering party drug problems in the waiting room.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News in Baghdad, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., called the situation in Iraq "heartbreaking". When asked about the situation in her marriage she noted that "The insurgency cannot be defeated, Bill is too much of a radical."
US President George W. Bush today said he would dispatch about 21,500 extra US troops to Iraq, and in a rare admission said he made a mistake by not deploying more forces sooner. His comments shocked a nation as he went on live TV and said "Indeed, I did have a relationship with Iraq that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong."
David Beckham is rumoured to be signing with a US team and will announce today. Soccer fans in Europe do not know for sure that his onfield exploits will ever be heard of again.
A bill to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade won passage in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday as newly empowered Democrats moved quickly to keep campaign promises. The former members of New Kids on the Block praised the move.
Bindi Irwin is tipped to be the new face of Australia, as the national tourism body downplays the role of controversial model Lara Bingle. It is thought that Bindi is good insurance for at least 10 years before any romance and sex scandals.
Venezuelan stock prices plunged one day after President Hugo Chavez proposed nationalizing the energy and telecommunications sectors. In frustration the three guys who make up the Venezuelan Wall Street threw their briefcases on the ground next to the shanty house set up for the Stock Exchange.
Britons can now sign up to email terror alerts at the MI5 website. The emails will also offer shopping discounts and special sales for malls and public transport most likely to be targeted in that email.
A U.S. air strike hit targets in southern Somalia where Islamic militants were believed to be sheltering suspects in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, Somali officials and witnesses said Tuesday. President Abdullahi Yusuf told journalists in the capital, Mogadishu, that the U.S. "has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies." Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aideed told The Associated Press the U.S. had "our full support for the attacks." The Islamic terrorists told anyone who would listen that "This is some bullshit."
In South Carolina a security guard has shot at a fleeing woman who stole a book from the library he was guarding. When reached for comment, the security guard muttered "Motherfuckers need to learn how to borrow correctly."
The German Chancellor has stated that the sudden suspension of oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline in Belarus destroyed confidence in Russia as an energy supplier. Germany did not have an immediate answer to this recurring problem, but killing, deporting, and enslaving the Russian and other Slavic populations in the East and repopulating with Germanic peoples was raised as a possible long term solution by one government official 67 years ago.
Governor Schwarzenegger has put together a proposal to provide health care cover for all in California. The plan is ambitious, and when asked why Californians should have any confidence in the plan, the Governor noted that he had previously provided air to all of Mars successfully.
China will sink under the weight of its own rubbish within 13 years as millions of rural dwellers migrate to more affluent urban areas, state media reported today. This 'rubbish styled quicksand' means when Bugs Bunny digs a hole Elmer Fudd can follow and finally get him with the double-barreled shotgun.
A Muslim group linked to the London bombings and banned in parts of Europe and the Middle East has booked a southwest Sydney town hall to stage a conference later this month. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has booked the Bankstown Town Hall for January 27, News Ltd newspapers report, and in a video promoting the conference claims it is to discuss the coming of an Islamic superstate. The conference is $40 at the door, but those with beards longer than one inch get in free.
British surgeons have condemned a plastic surgery lottery that offers winners money for face lifts, breast enlargements and tummy tucks. London-based Europa International is running what is thought to be the world's first lottery for cosmetic surgery. The winner gets the Pamela Anderson look. The booby prize gets the Michael Jackson look.
National security concerns relating to an Adelaide mosque have prompted the Federal Government to block $200,000 in Saudi Arabian funding. The Saudis have been welcomed to come down and spend it in Skycity Casino though.
Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad has called Bush and Blair worse than Saddam at a conference which contains an exhibition on Western war crimes, including atrocities in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Vietnam and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, according to organisers. In response to the media campaign the West decided to point out Muslim crimes against humanity by releasing a bunch of cartoons mocking them as sword wielding bomb exploding psychopaths. Thousands of Muslims are expected to die in the riots.
A Policeman's wife rescued her husband after a monster crocodile clamped its jaws around his head and shoulders while he snorkelled in the Torres Strait. The crocodile will be hunted down as it had an identifying 'fuck the police' engraved on its back.
Starting Monday, patrons of the Dallas-based Pizza Patrón chain, which caters heavily to Latinos, will be able to purchase American pizzas with Mexican pesos. The pizza chain denied it wants to change its name to Pizza Alamo.
Boston city councilors, law enforcement officials, and community leaders are pressing City Hall to come up with $1.5 million to buy a promising acoustic gunshot-detection system. The sensor system could give officers a jump on arresting suspects, improve police response time to 911 calls, and possibly reduce firearm violence. Loyalists said this was a plan over 200 years too late.
Afghanistan has banned an Indian-made film set around the fall of the Taliban after an outcry from the ethnic Hazara minority, which is described in the movie as "the most dangerous tribe" in the country. It is a symbolic gesture as no one has a TV or the electricity to power it.
A US newspaper has named left-wing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as the 'most powerful Italian since Caesar'. Another US newspaper has demanded that she use her new found powers to 'Welease Wodger'.
U.S. forces had no role in Saddam Hussein's hanging, but would have handled it differently, a U.S. general said on Wednesday, after a video of Iraqi officials taunting him on the gallows sparked outrage among Sunni Arabs. For instance, US soldiers would have used South Park Saddam taunts and messed around with Jackass style stunts on the gallows rather than serious insults.
Cheese is to be treated as junk food under new advertising rules for children's television in Britain. This may further damage relations with France.
Toyota Motor Corp. is developing a fail-safe system for cars that detects drunken drivers and automatically shuts the vehicle down if sensors pick up signs of excessive alcohol consumption, a news report said Wednesday. There is still debate about how to protect the car from domestic violence after this happens.
The Seven Network has apologised to viewers after receiving complaints about a major technical glitch which interrupted a prime-time transmission tonight. For more than six divine minutes, a mysterious ghostly voice repeatedly told Seven Network viewers: "Jesus Christ one of the Navarines" during a documentary on a train disaster. When reached for comment, a Seven spokesman apologised to 'all our viewers whose sins past, present and future have not been washed away with the blood of Christ and are offended about doing so.'
A two-year-old calf that escaped slaughter at an abattoir in Mumbai for a Muslim festival has been named George after the US president, a report said today. George bolted and ran into a scrapyard where he kept butchers at bay for 20 hours, the Times of India reported. The calf broke away from the rest of the herd on Monday while the animals were being unloaded at Deonar slaughter house in India's financial capital. "He instinctively knew that attack is the best form of defence, like the real Bush,'' Khanna said. Muslims blamed the escape and media attention about the name on American-Israeli agents.
North Korea has no serious trouble feeding its people despite heavy floods and sanctions by "enemy states" Japan and the United States, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper said today. "It is not a satisfactory production level relative to our goal, but the problem of feeding the people is in no way at a serious level,'' Kim Kyong-il of the North's Agricultural Ministry told the Choson Sinbo newspaper. North Korea also denied that the average delivery time for a pizza was 12 weeks.
At least 90 people were believed to have been killed in the crash of an Indonesian commercial airliner whose wreckage was found Tuesday morning, local reports said. Officials have accused modern technology in the hands of Indonesians as the cause of the incident.
The Human Zoo - a world-first experiment which places humans in animal zoo enclosures - opened today with the first group released into their new surroundings at the Adelaide Zoo. One visitor to the zoo was foolish enough to climb over the security fence and was almost attacked by an old human who thought he had his dentures in his pocket.
