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Friday, September 25, 2009 SYDNEY: A pair of Australian friends have broken the world record for endurance handshakes.Jack Tsonis and Lindsay Morrison clasped hands on Monday morning and started shaking for over 12 hours.They were trying to raise $10,000 for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Sydney's Wayside Chapel.Under rules from Guinness, the endurance handshakers were not required to look each other in the eye or exchange pleasantries during the attempt. However, they had to maintain a good grip on each others palms and continuously move them up and down… even when one of them was going to the toilet.

Thursday, September 24, 2009 SYDNEY: Millions of Australians were wiping a film of reddish Outback grit from nearly everything Thursday after the country's worst dust storm in seven decades played havoc with transport systems and sent asthmatics scurrying inside.The country's largest airport said it hoped to resume normal flight schedules Thursday, a day after the dust cloud caused almost 20 international flights to be diverted away from Sydney and threw domestic schedules into turmoil.Skies over eastern Australia were mostly clear and blue, and New South Wales state health officials said they expected air pollution to drop to normal safe levels after reaching record highs the day before.The dust storm Wednesday had shrouded Sydney and surrounding areas for about eight hours, blotting out landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge and even reaching underground to coat subway stations.The haze, churned by powerful winds that lifted thousands of tons of topsoil f...

Tuesday, August 04, 2009 MELBOURNE: Australian police launched a major anti-terrorism operation on Monday, detaining several people they said were suspected of plotting an attack in the country.About 400 officers from state and national security services took part in at least 19 pre-dawn raids on properties in the southern city of Melbourne, Victoria state police said in a statement. Police said members of a Melbourne-based group had “been undertaking planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia.'' The group was allegedly linked to hostilities in Somalia, the police statement said without giving further details. The Australian newspaper reported the detainees were Islamist extremists who had planned to launch a suicide attack on an Australian Army base. The men were allegedly planning to use automatic weapons to kill as many soldiers as possible before killing themselves, the newspaper reported. Police refused to confirm the report or release any further details, but s...