"If the government was not under pressure, they would
have said boys take your time, you are doing a good job...If
you want, at your judgement close it, not at our judgement. I

A Qantas A380 Airbus has become the first of the giant airliners to fly passengers
over Antarctica.
It took 450 revellers out of Melbourne to see in the new year, partying and

The last dregs of champagne have been drained, the fireworks are forged in the
memory and those New Year resolutions have probably already been broken.

A man from far north Queensland spent a lonely New Years Eve trapped in his car at
the bottom of a cliff.

A man will undergo surgery for a bullet wound after a police officer shot him in the
arm following a car chase in southern Queensland.

A boat carrying 58 suspected asylum seekers has been intercepted by the Australian
navy just north of Ashmore Islands.

(ATTN: UPDATES with Lee's telephone call to a South Korean unit in Somali waters,
additional remarks, details from 5th para)

SEOUL, Jan. 1 (Yonhap) -- The government on Friday approved a set of new laws
calling for drastic changes in the country's labor union system, which passed in

(ATTN: ADDS comments from analysts, N. Korean statement on economic reconstruction;
RECASTS lead, headline; RESTRUCTURES; TRIMS)
By Sam Kim

(ATTN: UPDATES throughout; ADDS details, background; RECASTS lead, headline)
By Sam Kim
SEOUL, Jan. 1 (Yonhap) -- North Korea ushered in 2010 on Friday by expressing