Warm, friendly & affordable hostel accommodation for travellers of all ages. Nelson BC.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has rejected reports that more than 100 Federal Government officials are being sent to the Copenhagen climate change conference.

Australia is set to get its first taste of the creative mind of world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, who has been asked to design a building for Sydney's University of Technology (UTS).

A former aged care nurse has been found guilty of assaulting patients at an Adelaide northern suburbs nursing home.

South Australia's Social Inclusion Commissioner David Cappo thinks the Medicare levy should rise to help fund disability services.

Investigations are continuing into the death of a 39-year-old man at Leyburn, south-west of Toowoomba in southern Queensland.

Britain is to set up a dedicated agency to direct its space policy.

Patrick Disney Miller, a grandson of Walt Disney, has been arrested on suspicion of illegal gun possession.

Encouraging employment and trade figures in the United States have led Wall Street to gains of about two-thirds of a per cent in late trading.

A 10-month-old boy has drowned in a bathtub on southern Queensland's Darling Downs.

The FBI and other US security officials are questioning several Americans being held in Pakistan for alleged links to Al Qaeda.

Thousands of extra police will be on the streets across Australia and New Zealand in a special two-day operation to crack down on anti-social behaviour and alcohol-fuelled violence.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has accused Barnaby Joyce of irresponsibility after the Opposition's new finance spokesman suggested the United States may default on its debt and force the world into an economic meltdown.

Victorian detectives hope new evidence from Western Australia will lead them to the killer of a Melbourne woman 15 years ago.

An internet blog has defied a court order that suppressed the name of a New Zealand Olympian accused of multiple charges of violence and rape.

Australian-born researcher Elizabeth Blackburn was among those honoured at a gala ceremony in Stockholm overnight celebrating the 2009 Nobel laureates in literature, economics, medicine, physics and chemistry.

The controversy over British MPs' perks has erupted again after authorities published a new batch of expense receipts, including one filed by a defence minister for repairing a bell tower at his home.

The consumer group Choice has found evidence that couples planning a wedding are being routinely charged more for reception venues and other services than people holding other types of events.

Millionaire investor George Soros has unveiled a proposal to provide up to $US110 billion ($120 billion) in cash for poor countries to help them develop climate-friendly technology.

A Canadian woman is to appear in court on Christmas Eve for posing as a witch in order to defraud a grieving Toronto lawyer, in a case that invokes a century-old law, police said.

Cooler weather has brought relief to firefighters in New South Wales overnight.