Sydney, September 21: Satellite images have shown that the melting of the Arctic ice has reached disturbing levels, with disappearance of the ice this year peaking at a level close to last year''s record melt, making it the second-worst since satellite records began.

Sydney, September 21 : A vast wall that showcases aboriginal rock art, dating back more than 15,000 years, has been found in Djulirri rock shelter in the Wellington Range in Australia, which redraws the history of the contact between Aboriginal people and the world, and suggests that the British were probably not the first visitors to the continent.

According to a report in Sydney Morning Herald, the wall displays about 1500 paintings chronicles the history of Aboriginal contact with outsiders, from Macassan prows and European sailing ships to 19th-century steamships and a World War II battleship.

Sydney - Prime Minister Kevin said Saturday that his mission was to make Australia "the most Asian-literate nation in the Western world."

"The 21st century will be the Asia Pacific century ... so we need to make sure that in decades ahead we are fully engaged with the region," Rudd told a gathering in Adelaide. "It will be the global powerhouse and there are great opportunities if we engage properly and engage now."

The prime minister said more Australian students should study in other Asian countries to balance the 250,000 Asians currently studying in Australia.

"They become bridges through which we do business later on and this is a very important long-term investment," he said.

Sydney  - Australia's securities regulator Friday joined its counterparts in the United States and Britain in curbing the short-selling of shares that has contributed to the tumult on stock markets.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) ruled that from Monday a temporary ban on what's called naked short-selling would take effect.

In naked short-selling, traders sell shares they don't actually own in the hope of buying them later at a cheaper price. ASIC said it was concerned some individuals were spreading false and misleading information about listed companies to provoke fire sales of securities at low prices.

Sydney, Sept. 19 : A convicted killer and ringleader of the "Super Max jihadists" is likely to create legal history by claiming that his segregation from other prisoners represents false imprisonment.

Bassam Hamzy''s lawyers flagged an appeal in the Supreme Court today that they may argue that his solitary confinement in Goulburn''s Super Max prison complex constitutes false imprisonment, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

If he decides to go ahead with the new claim, his lawyers will argue that he is illegally imprisoned within a prison.

Sydney, Sept 19: Internet search engine “Google” has jumped ten spots to reach at number 10 in the list of the “Best Global Brands 2008”.

Google, which has built on its dominance in internet searches to expand into software, video, mapping and web browsing, was “the undisputed king of the internet world”, and its brand value had shot up by 43 per cent, from 21.9 billion dollars to 31.5 billion dollars, said a report in news. com. au.

According to the report, the annual study on the hottest brands in the world showed that tech companies put on the strongest showing, financial companies were the weakest, in.