Australia

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is holed up in the Ecuador's embassy in London, gave an upbeat assessment late Thursday to his chances of winning a seat in Australia's Senate, AFP reports.

Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard faces a leadership challenge after rivals called for a ballot to resolve months of slipping polls and internal tensions that put her minority Labour government on course to be swept away at September elections."This is not personal. It's about the party, the future of the country," said senior Labour minister Simon Crean, calling the challenge to break a deadlock between Gillard and chief rival Kevin Rudd, who she deposed in 2010.

Australian authorities urged the evacuation of parts of the resource-rich northwest Tuesday as a powerful cyclone whipped up huge seas, while a man died in heavy flooding in the northeast, AFP reports.

Australia's record-breaking heatwave has sent temperatures soaring, melting road tar and setting off hundreds of wildfires - as well as searing new colours onto weather maps.

Four men dressed as Smurfs were arrested in Australia Tuesday after authorities called for the costumed men to come forward in connection with a Dec. 16 assault at a convenience store.

According to the Age, the men, with skin painted blue like the fictional characters from the cartoon, allegedly assaulted a 37-year-old man at a Melbourne convenience store when he reportedly refused to light a cigarette he offered to one of the "Smurfs."

The unidentified victim passed out in a car and only recalled the incident upon waking, a police spokeswoman said, the Herald Sun notes. After a public appeal from authorities seeking vital information in the case, the four men -- aged between 18 and 19 -- turned themselves into the police.

Since then, the Smurfs have been released, but they are expected to be charged with offenses relating to the assault.

Camera footage from the convenience store (featured above) shows the Smurfs moments before the alleged assault took place.

In recent months, other persons dressed as fictional characters have also drawn the ire of police. Michigan "Batman" Mark Williams was arrested for resisting and obstructing police during an investigation in October, and another "Batman," 23-year-old Matthew Argintar, was arrested at a Home Depot in New Jersey after he caused a disturbance by showing up in costume.
 

While fires burn across southeastern Australia and the northwest braces for Tropical Cyclone Narelle, Australia's volatile weather has produced a spectacular red dust storm.

A wildfire near Deans Gap, New South Wales, Australia, crosses the Princes Highway

 

Bush fires raging across some of the most populous parts of Australia — feeding off widespread drought conditions and high winds — pushed firefighters to their limits and residents to their wits' end on Wednesday as meteorologists tracked the country's hottest spring and summer on record into uncharted territory.

Fire crews in south-east Australia are racing to bring hundreds of bushfires under control before temperatures rise and winds pick up again.

More than 120 blazes are still burning in New South Wales, razing at least 300,000 hectares of land and killing thousands of livestock.

Cooler weather has brought some reprieve but forecasters predict another hot spell at the weekend.

The fires have destroyed buildings in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

On Wednesday, the heat wave moved up the east coast to Queensland, where a bushfire started on Bribie Island, north of the city of Brisbane.

Temperatures will stay above 30C across the state and are expected to reach the high 40s in some parts on Thursday, forecasters say.
'Tornadoes of fire'

Fire fighters in New South Wales have worked around the clock to take advantage of cooler conditions brought on by a southerly wind.

Across the Sydney area the mercury fell to below 30C on Wednesday, after passing 40C on Tuesday.

"The cooler conditions have certainly assisted the fire fighters on the ground in being able to get in and get some containment lines established around these fires, and indeed back-burn around some of those containment lines," RSF Superintendent Matt Inwood told ABC News.

"We definitely will make the most of those conditions while we have them, but we're very mindful of the warmer conditions expected over the coming week."

Fifteen fires remain uncontained, with the worst blazes burning in the state's south near Yass, Sussex Inlet and Cooma.

All national parks, state forests and reserves have been closed to the public.

With scorching temperatures set to return at the weekend, even moderate breezes will prove "problematic and risky", RSF Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons warned.

Bushfires also continue to cause concern in southern and northern Tasmania.

A large blaze is still burning out of control by the Tasman peninsula, near areas already hit by major blazes over the weekend. More than 20,000 hectares of land and 120 homes have been destroyed.

Photos of a Tasmanian family shown clinging to a jetty surrounded by "tornadoes of fire" have been widely shared by the international media.

Tim Holmes told ABC News that he, his wife and their five grandchildren sought shelter in the water under a jetty when the bushfire closed in on the town of Dunalley, 57km (35 miles) east of the state's capital, Hobart.

"We saw tornadoes of fire just coming across towards us and the next thing we knew everything was on fire, everywhere all around us," Mr Holmes said.

Teams have been searching through ravaged buildings and a number of people remain unaccounted for, but no deaths have been reported.

Meanwhile fire fighters in south-west Victoria continue to battle a bushfire near Portland. The state government said it was considering offering emergency grants to people who have lost their homes.

The fires follow days of searing heat. The national average maximum daily temperature exceeded 39C from 2-8 January, breaking a previous record of four consecutive days of such heat.

Average national top temperatures on Monday of 40.33C set a new record.

The bureau has added new colours to its forecast chart to indicate temperatures above the previous 50C-limit because of the heat wave.

It said extreme temperatures would continue in Australia for the next week.
 

A pair of "ghost gum" trees in Australia's outback made famous in watercolours by Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira have been destroyed in a suspected arson attack, shortly before they were due to be placed on a national heritage register.

Forget Australia's mining boom. The nation's strong economy, high currency and wages have made it a magnet for sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Foreign sex workers, drug smugglers and global rock acts are all targeting Australia to cash in on an economy growing at 3.1 percent when other developed nations are struggling to expand at all.

The alternative boom has emerged as Australian average full-time wages hit $72,500 a year, and with the Australian dollar trading stubbornly above parity with the U.S. dollar for the past two years.

That has made Australia even more profitable for fly-in and fly-out rock acts and prostitutes, and especially for drug traffickers who are taking bigger risks with the hope of windfall profits.

"Offshore organised crime syndicates perceive Australia to have a robust economy and to have been less affected by the global financial crisis than other jurisdictions," said Paul Jevtovic, the Australian Crime Commission's executive director of intervention and prevention.

DRUG PROFITS

Australian police made 69,500 illicit drug busts in the year to June 30, 2012, the highest in a decade, and have made record arrests in the first six months of this financial year.

In recent months, police have intercepted drugs hidden in a 20-tonne steamroller and heavy machinery, in a large wooden altar, and they have broken up a drug ring involving smugglers in Australia, Japan and Vietnam.

One of the biggest smuggling operations was a failed bid to bring in more than 200 kg (440 lb) of cocaine across the Pacific Ocean from Ecuador on a 13-metre (40-foot) yacht, found grounded on a small atoll in Tonga with a dead crewman aboard.

Australian police, who work closely with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and authorities throughout Asia and the South Pacific, said the high prices paid in Australia and the strong dollar all helped make the country attractive for smugglers.

Crime statistics show why some are willing to risk up to 20 years in prison.

The Australian Crime Commission, which examines trends and works closely with police agencies, said heroin and MDMA, also known as ecstasy, sell for about eight times more in Australia than in Britain and the United States, though Australia is a much smaller market.

Crime Commission data given to Reuters shows a kilogram of cocaine is worth about $2,400 in Colombia, $12,500 in Mexico, and $33,000 in the United States.

The same kilogram of cocaine is worth $220,000 in Australia.

ROCK REVIVAL

Once a remote destination for big rock acts, Australia has been flooded with talent over the past year and faces a steady stream of musicians, including heritage acts, in 2013.

The strong dollar has made Australia the ideal place to perform for musicians wanting to make money at a time when touring rather than album sales is the main driver of income, with many acts charging a premium in a cashed-up economy.

In the first half of 2013, Australia will see tours by Bruce Springsteen, Pink, Guns N'Roses, Ringo Starr, ZZ Top, Thin Lizzy, the Steve Miller Band, Deep Purple, Santana, Status Quo, Robert Plant, Neil Young, Carole King, Paul Simon and Kiss.

The high ticket prices have upset some fans, who question why an artist like Springsteen charges $220 for a premium ticket in Australia, when the same ticket to the same show in Connecticut in October cost $90. "You can't tell me it costs more than double per head to stage a concert here in Australia," said music fan Robin Pash, who has just returned from the United States, where he saw Springsteen and a series of acts for what would be considered bargain prices.

Entertainment journalist Jonathon Moran, however, said the higher prices reflected the higher cost in Australia, although Australia's strong dollar did make it more attractive to perform downunder.

"More people want to come here, and Australian audiences are comparatively well off and can afford the tickets," Moran, from Sydney's Sunday Telegraph, told Reuters.

SEX AND THE BOOM

Sex workers are also cashing in on the boom, particularly in remote mining towns, where the world's oldest profession is the latest to adopt fly-in, fly-out work practices. And more overseas sex workers are heading for Australia.

A 2012 report for the government in the most populous state, New South Wales, found a marked rise in the number of female sex workers from Thailand, Korea and China since 2006, with 53 percent of sex workers from Asia and a further 13.5 percent from other non-English-speaking countries.

The report, by the University of New South Wales, found a median hourly rate of A$150 for sex services in Australia's largest city of Sydney, although sex workers can charge double that in remote mining towns full of cashed up men.

In the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie in the Western Australia state, the Red House brothel, which has operated since 1934, advertises services starting at A$300 an hour.

Proprietor Bruna Meyers said women in her establishment earned up to A$4,000 a week at a busy time, or about three times the average full-time Australian wage.

"The girls who come here are mainly from over east (eastern Australian states). They come in, sometimes for two or three weeks at a time. Some are just girls who are travelling around the world," Meyers told Reuters.