A HELICOPTER has rescued a lone Adelaide hiker who survived nine days in a hut in rugged New Zealand bush country on just muesli bars and Weetbix.
A search and rescue crew picked up the woman who began a solo hike near the South Island town of Wanaka last week but soon realised she was not sufficiently well equipped or fit enough for the trek.
She made it to a hut on the trail - known as the Shania Twain track as it crosses land owned by the Canadian singer and has been largely funded by her.
But the Adelaide woman's rescuers say she was "too exhausted and too terrified'' to attempt the walk back alone.
"This is a young woman (who) had never been tramping before and ended up spending nine days stuck in a hut on the track existing on Weetbix and muesli bars because she neither had the skills nor the level of fitness to get out,'' said Phillip Melchior, chairman of New Zealand's national search and rescue organisation LandSAR.
"It's an example of someone being woefully ill-prepared for what they're about to do.''
The unnamed woman, believed to be in her 20s, had been backpacking around New Zealand for about six months when she decided to head south to hike.
PRESIDENT-elect Barack Obama's speeches are proving a best-seller in Japan - as an aid to learning English.
An English-language textbook, The Speeches of Barack Obama, has sold more than 400,000 copies in two months, a big hit in a country where few hit novels sell more than a million copies a year.
Japanese have a fervour for learning English and many bookstores have a corner dedicated to dozens of journals in the language, many of them now featuring the new US leader's face.
"Speeches by presidents and presidential candidates are excellent as listening tools to learn English, because their contents are good and their words are easy to catch," said Yuzo Yamamoto of Asahi Press, which produced the best-selling text book.
"Obama's is especially so. His speeches are so moving, and he also uses words such as 'yes, we can,' 'change' and 'hope' that even Japanese people can memorise," he said.
Speeches by Us President George W. Bush and former nominee John Kerry's four years ago did not have the same appeal, however, and nor do those made by Japanese politicians, Mr Yamamoto said.
JAPANESE Prime Minister Taro Aso faced a rare challenge from an Opposition MP in Parliament today - a reading test.
Mr Aso, his ratings below 20 per cent after a spate of gaffes and policy flip-flops, has been berated by media for misreading kanji, the characters used in Japanese writing.
Diverting debate from an extra Budget aimed at boosting the recession-hit economy, Opposition Democratic Party member Hajime Ishii held up a white board with 12 combinations of kanji suggesting they might be too hard for Mr Aso to pronounce properly.
Mr Aso did not take the bait, but responded when asked if he himself had written a long essay that appeared under his name in a magazine late last year.
"I hate to disappoint you, but I wrote it myself," a smiling Mr Aso replied, before debate returned to more serious topics.
Japan's ruling party tapped Mr Aso, a fan of manga comics, in hopes he could lead it to victory in an election that must be held this year, but his popularity is in tatters and the party is in danger of losing the election.
