International share trading advice

Hi guys, I was wondering does anyone here have an international share trading account?
I wanted to set one up with maybe comsec? as I know they have an international arm,
I know the risks like currency risk with the US$ etc....

Has anyone here been successful in international shares?
Im looking at this as a more LT venture rather than ST trading, as I waiting for the US S&P 500
to crash, and there are a lot of great US blue chips ive always wanted to buy and invest in.

Does anyone know any good online brokers that do international trading?

How does it work when you get divvies?
do you still pay capital gains on it here?
is it counted as international income?

anything else I should know about that I haven't even though of when getting into international shares,
specifically US shares.