Oceania News

FOR MUM: Doreen Shields and daughter Rowen Sullivan, who wants to have her birth mother's name on her birth certificate.

OPPOSITION leader Tony Abbott has told his party faithful the tide is turning their way, while Prime Minister Julia Gillard accused him of cockiness as she hailed Labor's "champions of communities". Meanwhile at Rosehill in Sydney, Ms Gillard received one standing ovation after another as she rallied her troops at a NSW Labor Party candidates ... (more)

The lights have been switched on at Sydney's Vivid festival, a three-week melting pot of cultural, artistic and musical events.

Wandering cats are a menace to native birds and wildlife, but the cat "right to life" lobby is preventing them being euthanased.

This year 281 spellers will compete from the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands and Department of Defense Dependents Schools in Europe; as well as the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea.

EASIER access to cheap healthy food, better urban and workplace planning, and early education programs are desperately needed to help combat a growing weight problem in regional Australia.

The renaming, approved by South Australia's Geographical Names Committee in December, follows the granting of native title last May over 70,000 square kilometres of land that included Lake Eyre.

What's new in animal species? Plenty, according to the sixth annual Top 10 list by the Institute at Arizona State University that includes everything from a glow-in-the-dark cockroach to an "Old World" monkey with a bright blue buttocks.

Both major West Australian political parties fear Shell's Prelude floating liquefied natural gas project will trigger a departure from onshore processing, slashing state royalties and denying local jobs.

A Tauranga dairy has bowed to public pressure and stopped selling synthetic cannabis.

Woodville's vexatious litigant James Reid's latest attempt to challenge a court ruling has been thrown out and he must pay more than $11,000 in court costs.

Some of New Zealand's best reggae artists are joining forces to help fight child abuse as part of a music special that will be screened on Maori Television next month.

A 72-YEAR-old man is among nine men who have been charged following an overnight police operation targeting street prostitution in Highgate.

Protest group Stop CSG Tara says 45 activists have been blockading Queensland Gas Company operations, near Dalby, for five days, stopping workers leaving their camps or entering a worksite.

A 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck 255 kilometres southwest of Tonga on Friday, according to the US Geological Survey, but there were no reports of damage.

Minister of Finance Bill English, Minister for State Owned Enterprises Tony Ryall and NZX CEO Tim Bennett at the listing of Mighty River Power.

THE economy and lifestyles of the Geelong area will be smashed by Ford's decision to close production and cut 510 jobs by 2016.

Hazel Hawke, the ex-wife of Australia's longest serving prime minister Bob Hawke, has died after complications with dementia.

A worker leaves Ford's Broadmeadows assembly plant on Thursday. Ford is closing its Australian manufacturing operations in just over three years.

STATES show "scant regard for human health" by letting polluting projects with potentially deadly consequences to go ahead, doctors say.