I think in terms of "news" I don't think it achieves anything unless the news is inherently local focused. i.e. our own raising of $500k wasn't huge news in the US, but it was a big deal here in Aus.

A good example is the current top topic "co-working space opens in Marrickville"...certainly wouldn't be of interested to anyone outside of NSW.

In my mind, anything that raises the profile of local events/news is a good thing. I think I'd have preferred to see an actual localised version of HN which rates "local" content higher than US content (perhaps).