Several embassies have tightened travel warnings for Lebanon, advising their nationals to avoid parts of the country due to unrest in neighboring Syria and the kidnapping of a group of Estonians.

The British embassy now advises its nationals to avoid travel to Lebanon's eastern and southern borders with Syria following incursions by Syrian troops into the country.

An ultra-light plane crashed into a ferris wheel at a small town fair in Australia, narrowly missing two children, and dangled from the structure for hours before its occupants could be rescued.

Locals were stunned on Saturday to see the Cheetah S200 fly into the ferris wheel at the Old Bar Festival near Taree, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Sydney, and become wedged in its metalwork.

A 16-year-old girl secretly took legal action against her parents in Australia to escape an arranged marriage in Lebanon in what a magistrate has called an ''act of great bravery,” Australian newspapers reported on Friday.

The dailies quoted Federal magistrate Joe Harman as saying that he was satisfied there was a psychological risk to the girl unless the court intervened.

Australia will remove all gender barriers in its military over the next five years, opening up positions that had previously been considered too dangerous for women, including front-line combat roles, a minister said Tuesday.

Australia will follow Canada and New Zealand in allowing women who meet physical and psychological criteria to perform any role they choose, Defense Minister Stephen Smith said.

Amid the din of a dozen kids beating batter, squeezing lemons and bustling about a commercial kitchen, Luca Lawandos expertly cracks an egg and separates the yolk from the white using the shell.

Standard fare for a cooking class perhaps, until you consider that Luca is just three years old.

Prominent Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil, who appeared in numerous smash-hit films including "Crocodile Dundee" and "Australia", was Thursday jailed after beating his wife with a broomstick.

The 58-year-old was given a one-year sentence and ordered to serve a minimum of five months after being convicted of breaking wife Miriam Ashley's arm during a drunken attack in December.

Australian beer giant Foster's has accepted an improved takeover worth Aus$9.9 billion (£6.5 billion) from British-based brewer SABMiller, the pair announced on Wednesday.

Foster's Group, whose leading lager brands include Corona and Foster's, had in August rejected a hostile bid of Aus$9.51 billion from SABMiller, which produces rival beers Grolsch and Miller Lite.

Australian police were negotiating Tuesday with a man claiming to have a bomb after he burst into a law firm with his young daughter, forcing parts of a Sydney business district to be evacuated.

Authorities were trying to convince the middle-aged man to give himself up as roads in the Parramatta area of western Sydney were shut and workers cleared from the scene, which is near the city's Family Court precinct.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard dismissed mounting speculation Friday about her future, vowing to stay in the job despite a crushing court blow to the government's asylum-seeker policy.

The nation's highest court on Wednesday scuttled Canberra's proposal to send 800 boat people to Malaysia, in a huge embarrassment for Gillard and her fragile Labor government, sparking fevered talk that her days are numbered.

A passenger miraculously survived when a light plane nosedived into the sea off Sydney on Friday after onlookers plunged into the choppy ocean to rescue him.

The pilot was killed in the crash just off a northern Sydney beach despite two policemen stripping off their uniforms and swimming to the wreckage to try and find him.