We advise you to reconsider your need to travel to Mexico at this time because of the outbreak of a severe strain of swine influenza in humans (for further information see also our travel bulletin on swine influenza).
Australians who do not have essential business in Mexico should consider leaving. Australians intending to remain in Mexico should ensure that they have access to adequate supplies of food, water and other essentials.
On 24 April 2009 the World Health Organization (WHO) advised Australia of an outbreak of influenza illness in the United States and Mexico. On 27 April 2009 cases were also identified in Canada. You should consult a doctor or the nearest hospital immediately if you develop flu-like symptoms. Travellers may be asked to declare their state of health at Mexico’s international airports prior to departure.
On 29 April 2009, the WHO raised the level of the influenza outbreak from phase 4 to phase 5 (of 6). The change to a higher phase of pandemic alert means that there is human-to-human spread in two countries in one WHO region. See the Health Issues section for more information.
LIKE most French villages in the middle of the day, the streets of Fromelles were deserted when I stepped off the local bus in front of the ubiquitous Town Hall with Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite carved into the facade.
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Peter Hodge has retraced the footsteps of his grandfather, Jack, who was soldier during WW1. Picture: Stuart Mcevoy
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Riding through the pancake flat countryside, under leaden skies that refused to clear the entire time I was in French Flanders, it's obvious most of the architecture is a post-war reconstruction effort: relatively dull and functional.
Fromelles, close to the Belgian border, is not large or significant enough to feature on my giant Michelin map of France or in my Lonely Planet guide. However the steady stream of visitors, many of them like myself attempting to connect with a distant past, belie this status.
I'm retracing the footsteps of my paternal grandfather who passed away in 1972. The few remaining memories of the time I shared with John Morley Cornelius Hodge (Jack, to his friends and family) are of a man ravaged by Parkinson's disease, immobile and incontinent in the family house. Fragments of his life - postcards, medals, war memorabilia - are in my keeping.
They reveal a different man, one I long to know and understand.
The Prime Minister's website carries the text of a doorstop interview given by Kevin Rudd on 30 March 2008 at his meeting with Australian expats in Washington.
Note the Ambassador's comment about the date on which Mr Rudd raised the possibility of meeting some expats on his visit to the US.
SATURDAY, February 4, 1967, was a difficult day at the office for Major Peter Badcoe.
An officer with the Australian Army Training Team in Vietnam, he had spent the previous afternoon in a "fairly inconclusive scrap" with Vietcong forces at Hung Tra on the border of North and South Vietnam.
Saturday dawned with fresh fighting. Badcoe's letters to his wife, Denise, and their three daughters recall that as his team of South Vietnamese soldiers entered the village of Sia, they"met the VC coming down the road".
February 15, 2008 02:00pm AN open skies agreement between Australia and the US is likely to spark an international airfare price war, travel agency Flight Centre says.
Managing director Graham Turner said travellers would benefit from the arrival of new carriers on Australia-US routes, with increased competition likely to spark a wave of airfare discounting.
Australia and the US today finalised the long-awaited open skies agreement, which will allow vast expansion of air travel and competition on the busy trans-Pacific route.
Federal transport Minister Anthony Albanese said under previous arrangements, new airlines had only been allowed four services a week, effectively restricting competition.
Australian and US airlines would now able to determine the frequency of services routes without government interference.
BUREAUCRATIC red tape threatens to delay the reburial of World War I Australian diggers believed to be hidden in unmarked mass graves in northern France.
A team of forensic archaeologists will in April begin a partial excavation of the graves, which possibly contain the bodies of more than 160 Australian 5th Division soldiers killed during the disastrous battle of Fromelles.
Buried with them are believed to be more than 200 British 61st Division soldiers, who along with their Australian comrades were all killed during the ferocious battle with invading German troops in July 1916.
But the head of the archeological team fears that if any bodies are found, relatives could face a lengthy wait before the remains of their loved can be exhumed and re-interred.
SHE'S got purple highlights in her hair and bright blue fingernails, but to doctors at the Children's Hospital at Westmead, Demi-Lee Brennan is a one-in-6 billion miracle.
The 15-year-old liver transplant patient is the first person in the world to take on the immune system and blood type of her donor, negating the need to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life. The phenomenon, which has been documented in the New England Journal of Medicine, has amazed doctors, who say they have no idea how it occurred.
After different exchanges with the French government - in particular the Ministry for Foreign Affairs - , and based on their firm recommendations, the organisers of the Dakar have taken the decision to cancel the 2008 edition of the rally, scheduled from the 5th to the 20th of January between Lisbon and Senegal’s capital.
