ABC Breaking Stories

The head of the Northern Territory Resources Council says the Federal Government's scrapping of a tax exemption for the gas product condensate will force some companies to rethink their operations in Australia.

Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg says the worst health crisis ever seen in Queensland has emerged this week.

Ten people have been killed in a bus crash in Fiji.

Two local victims of the global credit crunch have posted huge losses for the 2008 financial year.

A man has been jailed by the District Court for 14 months for giving a convicted South Australian murderer a false alibi.

Georgia's Parliament has approved a resolution calling on the Government to cut diplomatic ties with Russia after Moscow backed the secession of two Georgian rebel regions.

Fairfax newspaper journalists are picketing outside their offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Wollongong and Newcastle to protest against the company's decision to cut 550 jobs.

The outgoing head of the Australian Sports Commission Mark Peters says he supports the idea of a national lottery to boost funding for sport.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says there are signs the economy will improve next year.

US forces arrested the deputy head of a committee that purged Iraq's government of members of Saddam Hussein's party, an ally said, but the US military said he was a wanted militia leader behind a deadly Baghdad bombing.

A former US Marines sergeant accused of killing four unarmed Iraqi detainees has been acquitted of all criminal charges in the case, including voluntary manslaughter.

Angry landowners in Papua New Guinea say they will continue to stop construction at a Chinese-owned nickel mine until they meet the PNG Government next week.

There have been passionate reactions on both sides of the electricity privatisation debate following the Premier's decision to push ahead with an alternative package.

Republican White House hopeful John McCain has picked his running mate, his campaign said overnight.

The Australian acting community is mourning the death of All Saints star Mark Priestley.

Afghan and US-led coalition forces have killed more than 100 Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand during three days of fighting, the US military said overnight.

Guyana's top criminal and an accomplice were killed in a shoot-out with security forces, police said.

A British computer expert who hacked into dozens of US military computers has lost his appeal against extradition in the European Court of Human Rights.

A 74-year-old man has been arrested in Hong Kong over the stabbing of an elderly couple in Sydney's south yesterday.

A senior Queensland doctor says she has passed onto the State Government her evidence supporting claims that emergency patients have died because of a shortage of public hospital beds.