For my friends back in the U.S., I thought you might be interested in learning about what we in Australia hear about the rest of the world in a typical week. The following represents my own memory of the major news stories, as presented in the past seven days on the websites of the
The Courier-Mail,
The Age, and
The Australian, as well as the news presented on Seven and ABC television:
- Britney lost custody of her children. This one received an excessive amount of attention in the Aussie press, unfortunately, and included the shocking detail that she went to a tanning salon after she dropped off the kids with their father.
- The situation in Burma (Myanmar). Students on the UQ campus have been collecting signatures and starting facebook groups to urge the Australian government and the U.N. to get more involved.
- The upcoming elections in Pakistan. As you might imagine, news from Asia is generally much more prominent here (and I hear very little about the Middle East).
- Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car accident. Oh, yeah, that was 10 years ago, but every excruciating detail of her final minutes has been discussed this week as a result of the inquest in London.
- Eva Longoria released a sex tape. Actually, it was a joke intended for Will Ferrell's website, but there was a lot of interest in this one because Eva has massive appeal here. She's prominently featured in several ads, including one for Pepsi Max, where she ends up running out of the gas with two strange boys in the car whom she's just picked up. She smiles and says, "I guess we'll have to spend the night here."
- Marion Jones admits to taking steroids before the 2000 Olympics. The headline at The Australian: "Marion Jones admits she's a drug cheat."
- Aussies prepare for Pom Assault. According to today's Fox sports website, "AUSTRALIA is preparing for a foul-play ambush from England when the two sides collide in a World Cup quarter-final tonight." That's the World Cup in rugby union football, mind you. Again, rugby league is something else...
For the most part, the rest of the news this week focused on stories coming from Australia itself (e.g., the trial of a father who drowned his sons by driving his car into the water, the wildfires in New South Wales, the building of a pulp mill in Tasmania). One can dig around and learn much more about the rest of the world, of course, especially on news websites. And, I think it's safe to say that the average Australian is more aware of news in the rest of the world than is the average American. I am looking forward to catching up with the news back in the U.S. when I arrive there next week. What's the latest on the Obama vs. Hillary battle? What's the current hotspot for racial tension? What's the latest gruesome murder? Who have the police mistreated this week? And, most importantly, is the latest edition of "Survivor" any good?