East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta(L) addresses a joint press conference with Australia’s immigration minister Chris Bowen(R) after their meeting at the presidential palace in Dili. Australia moved to toughen its refugee stance on Tuesday, launching a stricter character test so those convicted of crimes, including rioting, while in immigration detention could be shipped home. Immigration Minister... 

Floodwaters are seen in the Depot Hill district of Rockhampton, Australia. Floods that have cut air, rail and road links to an Australian coastal city are now threatening its sewage plant, and waters are still expected to rise another few feet. Thunderstorms were forecast Thursday to soak the already flooded communities in northeastern Australia, where residents in the path of another rising river... 

People are leaving Europe because of immigration from poor countries and diktats from EU bureaucrats, right-wing firebrand Pauline Hanson said Sunday after abandoning plans to move to Britain. ‘I love England but so many people want to leave there because it’s overrun with immigrants and refugees,’ the former leader of the anti-immigration One Nation party told the Sun-Herald newspaper. She... 

Angry Indians protesting The number of Indian students wanting to study in Australia has slumped by almost 50%, according to figures from the Australian government. The decline follows a year when attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney made headlines in India. They also caused diplomatic relations to sour between Canberra and Delhi. The Indian government issued a travel advisory to students... 

That perennial and uniquely Australian debate – are we an Asian country or not – has finally been settled. By the Chinese. A Lowy Institute poll of Chinese public opinion on world affairs, to be released today, shows Australia is accepted as an Asian nation, with an important role to play in regional organisations, attractive values and a good political system. But the Chinese are wary... 

Chanukah was celebrated at the New South Wales Parliament House for the first time since the house was established in 1856. Attendees at Tuesday’s historic event in Sydney, initiated and hosted by the New South Wales Chabad under the auspices of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, included Premier Nathan Rees, opposition leader Barry O’Farrell and more than 70 lawmakers, a dozen... 

THEY'RE HERE: Former KKK Grand Imperial Wizard Johnny Lee Clary in Perth. He says Klan violence is not limited to the US. The feared American racist organisation Ku Klux Klan has infiltrated Perth, a senior US-based KKK leader has claimed. Speaking from Arkansas, Thomas Robb, the US national director of the major Klan faction, The Knights Party, told The Sunday Times that the group — infamous... 

Protesters are even calling the Australian flag a “Symbol of Racism” Thousands of migrants and green communists in Sydney and Newcastle have rallied against racism after a week of violence on and near Sydney’s beaches. About 2,000 people have marched through the streets of Sydney’s central business district calling for racial harmony and understanding. The march has been organised...