Sydney - Australian stocks ended a topsy-turvy session marginally lower Thursday despite the news that the US Senate had approved a bail-out package for Wall Street.

The ASX200 slipped 33 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 4,761.

"Resources had a great rally yesterday, and they are giving back some of those gains today with BHP Billiton down and Rio Tinto down 4 per cent," analyst James Waggett of Bell Potter Securities said Thursday.

Sydney - The prime cause of teenage girls seeking treatment at Australian hospitals is not for injuries sustained accidentally but those inflicted deliberately by the girls themselves.

New research from the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare shows that the rate of self-harm among girls aged 13 to 19 has risen by a third since 2000. Three times as many girls as boys are being admitted for slashed limbs or other self-inflicted injuries.

Sydney - The Australian eccentric who sparked a worldwide craze for hugging in public places hopes to do the same for organ donation.

The 26-year-old Sydney resident, who goes by the name of Juan Mann, is offering up his own kidney to a stranger.

"I'm young, I'm fit, I'm healthy, I have two kidneys," he told the city's Sun-Herald newspaper. "I don't really drink. I don't need that second one, and someone will be able to get out of hospital."

Mann became a YouTube luminary when a video showed him embracing strangers. Two years ago, he was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey television show in the United States.

Sydney - The spectre of recession has Australians drinking more but spending less on alcohol, a market research firm said Wednesday.

A survey of 1,300 liquor outlets by the Bailey Group found more alcohol being sold but the average purchase price declining.

The explanation for the conundrum is that drinkers are shifting downmarket.

Mike MacAvoy, chief executive of lobby group Drinkwise, said drinkers were adjusting to their budgets.

Sydney - Anglo-Australian mining company BHP Billiton Ltd learned Wednesday that its 120-billion-US-dollar takeover bid for rival Rio Tinto Ltd would not be blocked by the local regulator.

Shares in the takeover target surged more than 12 per cent on the news that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) had decided the deal was unlikely to lessen competition in any relevant market.

BHP's hostile offer was still being examined by European regulators but has received a positive vetting in the United States.

Sydney - Australia would be foolish to act alone on global warming, the government's top climate change adviser said Wednesday.

Economist Ross Garnaut, who has recommended Canberra set itself a 10-per-cent reduction target for 2020, said those pushing for more ambitious targets would be mugged by reality at next year's climate change conference in Copenhagen.

"The very worst outcome would be a lot of high sounding principles being agreed upon at the end of next year at Copenhagen but there being no substance behind them," he said. "The world can't afford to have that happen again. It happened, more or less, at Kyoto."