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I learnt something today. Carstensz Pyramid is the highest mountain in Oceania at 16,023 feet.
It’s only four degrees south of the equator in West Papua, but has several glaciers and is the only region of Indonesia where snow falls.
In Australia we don’t think enough beyond our own country when it comes to the continent.
Geographers consider [...]
Beijing should never have been chosen to host the 2008 Olympics. China has a repressive society. It’s a one-party state which kills opponents to the government. Catholics are persecuted.
There are many corrupt and despotic regimes in the world today, such as Zimbabwe and North Korea, but China is the biggest.
I don’t envy the Chinese government [...]
Prince Charles has set a new record as the longest heir in waiting for a world monarchy, notching up a record 59 years and 74 days in his wait to be King of Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Charles has surpassed the previous record set by Edward VII when he finally succeeded Queen Victoria to [...]
I produced the “world news” page for the Kalgoorlie Miner recently and came across the “Hooters shooter” incident while browsing AAP.
In brief, a disgruntled diner started firing at the building with a handgun and killed a person.
I’ve been unhappy with restaurants before, but never to the point of violence. My biggest grips are slow service [...]
The world lost a significant man today. I won’t call him a great man, even though I believe him to be one, because there is too much controversy surrounding him, and in terms of greatness, he failed his mission.
Ian Smith was a war veteran who led his country of Rhodesia through what many thought were [...]
There aren’t many novels about newspapers. Stories involving print journalists are far fewer than those about lawyers, soldiers and police for example.
That’s a little surprising when you consider that journalists are writers. But when you think about it, we are craftsmen while novelists are artists. We ply a trade while they follow their creative spirits. [...]
Some people seem to think that newspapers delight in publishing bad news. As an editor I admit that bad news, tragedy and conflict often help to sell papers. That says something about human beings, I think, rather than newspapers.
From a personal perspective I prefer to focus on the positive but unless you're colorblind or wearing [...]
A recent development in the constantly changing world of the internet has been the proliferation of data storage services. Placing documents, pictures, music or videos online used to involve a convoluted process of file transfer using specialised software and it required the user to have their own domain.
That led to the creation of social networking [...]
There has been a lot of discussion in Australia about plans to introduce a citizenship test for immigrants. This PDF document is a beauty. I found it at FWDitOn.com, a web site for people to submit funny emails.
I love the question: Which Australian Prime Minister held the world record for drinking a yardie full of [...]
