Word: australia
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...Mark Twain had an impact on Australia, too, and not just a literary one. On a visit here in 1895, he took a train from New South Wales to Victoria. At Albury, on the state border, he and the other passengers had to change trains in the freezing pre-dawn. He later attacked the absurdity of Australia's 22 different rail gauges, and the "paralysis of intellect that gave that idea birth." That line became part of the rallying cry that - several decades later - led to the standardization of all railways between Australia's mainland-state capitals. Tim Fischer, Wodonga...
This capitulation is perhaps a more important moment in U.S. history than it first appears. I have a theory: a country enjoys Abba's music in inverse relation to its own global significance. I observed this firsthand growing up in the world's most Abbaricious country, Australia. In 1976, 54% of my compatriots watched the local TV special The Best of Abba. That's as many of them as watched the moon landing. The album of the same name is still Australia's best-selling ever...
...studio. Some are fellow artists and dealers from the community several thousand strong occupying the courtyards and alleys here in Songzhuang, in Beijing's eastern suburbs. The conversation ranges from gossip about colleagues through the sources of artistic inspiration to the merits of colleges in Australia, where Lu's son is studying. Later, Lu and I hop into his brand-new, lime green Jaguar and drive over to the site of the sprawling house he is having built overlooking a small lake. Proudly showing off the view from the second floor, Lu extols the virtues of living in Songzhuang...
Pope Benedict XVI is 81. The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, is 67. The median age of Australia's regular Catholic churchgoers is 58. The quarter-million pilgrims who've flocked to Sydney to celebrate World Youth Day are, well... young. But the 2,000-year-old Church that still prints official documents in Latin and the 20-year-olds snapping photos of the Pope on disposable cameras seem to be having a blast together. "The task of young people is to bring fire into the Church," Pell said on Wednesday, after joining 4,400 priests...
...Australia is an apt venue for World Youth Day, the Pope said, because its Church is "the youngest on any continent." The oldest pontiff to be elected since the 18th century is reputed to own an iPod and sends a daily SMS message to pilgrims, signing off "BXVI." Young people in turn have been invited to send text messages for display on giant "prayer wall" screens around the city. Event coordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher says planners want to make WYD memorable "by using new ways to connect with today's tech-savvy youth...