RESOURCE projects and a buoyant housing market will drive Australia's economy next year, offsetting the loss of key stimulus measures.

FRANCE'S constitutional court struck down a new carbon tax because it would not have applied to 93 per cent on industrial emissions.

ANIL Kumar, co-accused in the insider trading allegations involving Raj Rajaratnam, could strike a deal with his US prosecutors.

GLOBAL warming has caused a seven-fold increase in cases of malaria on the slopes of Mount Kenya, a research team has found.

LENDING to Australia's private sector made a slight monthly gain in November, while registering a near 1 per cent rise over levels in 2008.

HANDS up who would have picked an internet provider and a cash-strapped copper miner as the star Australian stocks of 2009?

EIGHT Americans possibly working for the CIA were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a US base in Afghanistan yesterday.

SIX people are dead and their Australian pilot is fighting for his life in hospital after their light plane crashed in Papua New Guinea.

A FALLEN power line appears to have caused Western Australia's devastating Toodyay fires.

THE sharemarket closed at 15-month peak today and gained 31 per cent in 2009, but was still nearly 2000 points below its record high.