Cairns, Australia News

AN Australian mine worker shot dead in Papua was hit by five bullets, not one, the police chief of the volatile Indonesian region says.

AN Air Niugini passenger jet with 51 people on board made an emergency landing at Cairns airport yesterday after fuel spewed from the plane shortly after takeoff.

EVER snapped a banana? How about 96 in a minute? Mourilyan grower Graheme Celledoni beat the Guinness world record in 60 seconds of frenzied snapping at the Innisfail Show.

MORNING joggers and walkers stumbled on a couple having sex at a barbecue area near the Cairns Lagoon.

This is the first picture of the ship which ran aground on Inset Reef, 600km north of Cairns.

A former charity worker from Hampshire, who landed "the best job in the world", has been hard at work - visiting a paradise island to dive, enjoy a beach picnic and gaze at the sunrise.

BEAUTIFUL one day, precarious the next. That's the verdict of a report that says coastal tourist towns in Queensland will be the hardest hit by the global economic downturn.

A YOUNG woman has been raped on a residential footpath in broad daylight in the far north Queensland city of Cairns, police say.

While Cairns is fundamentally a nice tropical resort community, the restaurants don't forget that they are right on the great barrier reef and there is ample fresh reef fish: Barramundi, coral trout, grouper, emperor and snapper.

'These issues were investigated at the time and properly dealt with' , Civil Aviation Authority.

Q. We have an active son aged 16 and a shopaholic daughter aged 14, and have rashly suggested to them that we might go to Australia in summer 2002.

Australian authorities said as many as 70 prisoners in the northeastern state of Queensland may have contracted swine flu, after five inmates in two jails tested positive for the H1N1 virus in a week.

MELBOURNE has emerged as a late winner in the contest to build Australia's new air warfare destroyers.

BRISBANE home values have continued to rise with the latest figures revealing a 2.6 per cent increase since the start of the year and the median price at $432,101. The latest monthly RP Data-Rismark International indices found that values also continued to rise nationally, with a 4 per cent increase in the year to May.

AFTER steering his American warship into Cairns, USS Essex Captain Brent Canady declared he and his crew were looking forward to meeting the locals.

What's at stake: the Lockhart River system has been gazetted under Queensland's Wild Rivers legislation.

A GOVERNMENT MP launched an attack on Jetstar in Parliament, accusing the budget airline of infuriating passengers with flight cancellations.

A 14-year battle over ancient land and sea rights in far north Queensland has been won by the traditional owners of the land.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Trade representatives from the European Union and Australia say they will push for further progress on the Doha round of multilateral trade talks at a meeting in Paris this week.

A US warship has been forced to bypass the north Queensland town of Townsville after it was told there was no room to dock the 250m-long vessel for eight days.