Ready to fly. Well, my bags are packed and the butterflies in my stomach are finally starting to settle. We just got back from a lovely Christmas in July dinner with Emily and Clare and Bex and Fin. I introduced

SHARES in Country Road shot up almost 5 per cent yesterday after the upmarket retailer forecast a "materially higher" full-year profit.

AUSTRALIA must capitalise on the Chinese economic boom with large structural and economic changes, BHP chairman says.

QANTAS says it will report a strong full-year profit despite a blowout in fuel costs that will claim 1500 airline jobs.

MACQUARIE Radio Network - owner of 2GB - expects it operating profit will be up to 20 per cent lower in 2008 than in 2007.

OXIANA shareholders yesterday shot down plans to give outgoing chief executive Owen Hegarty a $10.7 million payout.

TWO boys have discovered the burnt body of a man in a creek.

AN air force officer has been shot in a training mishap.

THE lover of convicted drug smuggler Tony Mokbel is in a legal wrangle over her right to visit him in jail.

MELBOURNE'S Jo Fincham has told how she and rural romeo Rob Hodge have fallen head-over-heels in love after being brought together by reality show The Farmer Wants A Wife.

A $26 MILLION exclusive gay-only retirement village has been given the green light to open in Victoria.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Australia next week.

MINING company Queensland Energy Resources (QER) has described as "hypocritical" Greenpeace's decision to send its ship Esperanza to tomorrow's protest against its proposed oil shale mine in north Queensland.

A CAMPERVAN rental company at the centre of a row over offensive, sexist slogans has been ordered to remove them after it was found in breach of the advertising code.

ELECTRICITY customers who signed up for green power with two of South Australia's major energy retailers are being delivered power predominantly sourced from coal and gas.

MORE than 60 passengers have been evacuated from a Whitsunday Islands tourist boat off the Queensland coast after a fire broke out on board.

HOME owners could be forced to turn their houses green before they are allowed to sell them under a proposal before the Victorian State Government.

A 61-year-old man who suffers from dementia has gone missing after leaving a care facility in Melbourne this morning.

A THUNDERSTORM is lashing Perth and the southwest with heavy rain, hail and the strongest winds recorded this year, causing blackouts, flooding and damage.