Around the World: Australia

Protesters stop trains

An environmental group said it blocked rail lines to Australia's main coal export port for six hours yesterday, calling it a protest against the failure of the Copenhagen summit on climate change.

Rising Tide said its members chained themselves to tracks, hung from a bridge and climbed on trains to stop them reaching the Kooragang coal terminal in Newcastle, north of Sydney.

Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal and relies heavily on coal for its electricity. Much is mined in the Hunter Valley, inland from Newcastle, and mostly shipped from the port.

Spokesman Steve Phillips said the protest ended after 23 of the group's members were arrested by police.

WWII ship found

An Australian hospital ship torpedoed by the Japanese during World War II with the loss of 268 lives has been located in waters off the coast of the northern state of Queensland, the government said yesterday.

The loss of the Centaur in 1943 while sailing to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea was one of Australia's great wartime disasters. Survivors and their relatives have long pressed for the wreck to be found, fearing salvagers would reach it first.

(China Daily 12/21/2009 page11)