Kim Kardashian cancels Australian tour

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Attention, Australia: Kim Kardashian hasn't just left the building, she's left the country.

The "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" star has abruptly abandoned her promotional blitz Down Under, amid questions about her divorce from NBA player Kris Humphries.

"She went to Australia to honor her commitments," a statement from her personal publicist reads. "However, during this very difficult time she felt it'd be best to return home to close friends and family."

Kardashian arrived in Sydney with her sister Khloe on Tuesday, and managed to promote her Kardashian Kollection line of handbags at events in venues such as Sydney nightclub Hugo's and the Westfield Miranda shopping center.

However, the reality TV personality has reportedly decided to fly back to Los Angeles either Thursday or Friday. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Kardashian is "devastated" by her impending divorce from Humphries and is unable to fulfill the remainder of her obligations in Australia -- which included an appearance at the Melbourne Cup Carnival Saturday.

Kardashian, 31, filed for divorce from Humphries Monday, after just 72 days of marriage.

The split has generated an onslaught of headlines, including numerous suggestions that the union was a publicity stunt, and reports that Kardashian had profited handsomely from the wedding.

As reported earlier, Kardashian and Humphries raked in about $18 million from the wedding, including $2.5 million from People for the wedding photos, and $15 million for the two-part E! special "Kim's Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event."

In a statement following the split, Kardashian lamented, "I hope everyone understands this was not an easy decision. I had hoped this marriage was forever, but sometimes things don't work out as planned. We remain friends and wish each other the best."

Spokespersons for Kardashian did not immediately respond to TheWrap's request for comment.

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Great Australian WWII heroine dies at 98 (AFP)

SYDNEY (AFP) – Nancy Wake, Australia's greatest World War II heroine and a prominent figure in the French Resistance known as the "The White Mouse" for her ability to evade the Germans, has died in London.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the woman who was once the Gestapo's most wanted person, was "a devastatingly effective saboteur and spy".

"Nancy Wake was a woman of exceptional courage and resourcefulness whose daring exploits saved the lives of hundreds of Allied personnel and helped bring the Nazi occupation of France to an end," Gillard said.

Wake, who died in a London hospital on Sunday just days short of her 99th birthday, was the nation's most decorated servicewoman from WWII, holding France's Legion d'Honneur, Britain's George Medal and the US Medal of Freedom.

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, she grew up in Australia and politicians in both countries led tributes to the woman who survived several firefights with the enemy, being shot at in a pursuit and a brief imprisonment during the war.

New Zealand's Veterans' Affairs Minister Judith Collins described Wake as "a woman of exceptional courage and tenacity, who cast aside all regard for her own safety and put the cause of freedom first".

Australian National Party leader Warren Truss said Wake's heroic achievements "are the stuff of legend".

"And all Australians feel very proud of this wonderful woman," he said.

Wake ran away from home aged 16 and by the early 1930s was living in Paris, where she worked as a journalist.

Witnesses to the rise of fascism in Europe, Wake and her wealthy industrialist husband Henri Fiocca joined the fledgling Resistance after France's surrender in 1940.

She once described a visit to Austria in 1933 as a first-hand look at Nazi cruelty.

"In Vienna they had a big wheel and they had the Jews tied to it, and the stormtroopers were there, whipping them. When we were going out of Vienna they took our photos. That was my experience of Hitler," Wake said.

Wake and her husband helped Allied servicemen and Jewish refugees escape into Spain before she took her partner's advice and fled to England in 1943, where she began work in special operations.

She parachuted back into France in April 1944 before D-Day, tasked with helping distribute weapons to Resistance fighters.

"In those days it was safer, or a woman had more chance than a man, to get around, because the Germans were taking men out just like that," she later recounted.

Wake was never to see Fiocca again, learning only after the liberation of France that he had been killed by the Gestapo in August 1943.

After the war, Wake returned to Australia in 1949, where she made several failed attempts to win a seat in parliament.

She went back to England, where in 1957 she married RAF officer John Forward, but the couple settled in Australia within two years, living there for the next four decades until Forward's death in 1997.

Restless again, Wake left Australia for England in 2001 with the intention of remaining there for the rest of her life.

The fearless heroine was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2004, praised for her outstanding actions in wartime.

She is expected to be cremated privately and her ashes scattered at Montlucon in central France, scene of her 1944 heroism.

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Australian boxer's life celebrated at state funeral (AFP)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AFP) – Two thousand mourners said farewell to Australia's former world boxing champion Lionel Rose Monday at his state funeral at Melbourne's Festival Hall, the venue for many of his fights.

Rose, the first Aboriginal boxer to win a world title, died on May 8 aged 62 after a long period of ill-health.

Among the mourners at his funeral were Rose's long-time trainer Jack Rennie, who attended in a wheelchair, former world champion Johnny Famechon and Aboriginal fighter Tony Mundine.

Rose, who suffered a stroke in 2007 that left him partially paralysed and with speech difficulties, won abiding national respect for his achievements.

His life was celebrated and he was hailed by friends as an inspiration to his Aboriginal people and a man of both pride and humility.

"He knew from an early age the challenges facing his family and the Aboriginal community," Aboriginal elder Joy Murphy Wandin told the funeral gathering.

"Lionel's career has been an inspiration for many.

"Lionel also sent a strong message especially to young people around the world to stand up and fight for your rights and aspire to reach your dream."

The service was interspersed with old newsreel clips of his great fights and Rose's subsequent career as a country music singer.

Rose, who outpointed Fighting Harada for the world bantamweight title in Tokyo in 1968 at the age of 19, became a national sports hero and an icon for Australia's indigenous community.

He was named Australian of the Year later that year, the first Aborigine to be awarded the honour and was also appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

Rose went on to make three successful world bantamweight title defences against Japan's Takao Sakurai, Mexican Chucho Castillo and Englishman Alan Rudkin before he lost the title to Mexican Ruben Olivares in a fifth-round knockout in August 1969.

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Australian charged over Justin Bieber egg throwing (AFP)

SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian teenager was charged with breaking into the roof of a concert arena so he could throw eggs at Canadian pop sensation Justin Bieber.

The 17-year-old heartthrob, touring Australia, has been mobbed by screaming girls at sold-out shows, but had eggs thrown at him when performing his first single "One Time" at a concert in Sydney on Friday.

None hit him and he finished singing the song before taking a break so the stage could be cleaned up.

Australian Associated Press said a 17-year-old Sydney resident was arrested at his home early Thursday and charged with break and enter, trespass and malicious damage following complaints from Acer Arena.

He was bailed to appear at a children's court on June 2.

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