Sydney - At least 14 people are dead in forest fires that Friday ravaged Australia's south-east corner.

High winds and record-breaking temperatures combined to create tinder-box conditions in forests north of Melbourne in the state of Victoria.

Fires, some deliberately lit, devoured hundred of homes and may have led to dozens of deaths.

Sydney - At least 30 homes have been lost to forest fires in Australia's south-east as high winds and record-breaking temperatures combine to create tinder-box conditions.

Two people are in hospital with serious burns after trying to save homes from blazes on the outskirts of Melbourne.

Australia's second-largest city recorded is hottest February day, with the temperature above 44 degrees Celsius. Officials warned of a possible repeat of the blazes in
1983 that left 75 people dead.

Sydney, Feb. 6: There is palpable excitement around the selection of New South Wales batting prodigy Phillip Hughes, who is among four uncapped Australians in a squad charged with defending Australia''s No. 1 Test ranking in South Africa.

Hughes, 20, is poised to become his country''s youngest Test debutant since Craig McDermott pulled on a Baggy Green cap in 1984, and 36-year-old leg spinner Bryce McGain the oldest since Bob Holland in the same year.

Sydney, Feb. 6 : Since the upheaval of World Series Cricket, only two batsmen have made their Australian Test debuts before their 21st birthdays. The third will be New South Wales opener Phillip Hughes during the first Test in Johannesburg in South Africa three weeks from now.

The two other 20-year-old batting debutants proved hard to shift. Stephen Waugh played 168 Tests and Ricky Ponting is still entrenched, 14 years after his debut.

Sydney  - In Australian poet Dorothea Mackellar's famous homage to her "willful, lavish land," she extols a weather trifecta of "floods and fire and famine" that "pays us back threefold."

Cattle ranchers in the east-coast state of Queensland, 60 per cent of which is now flooded, are indeed looking for a tripling in earnings after the biggest downpours in decades have provided enough water to grow enough grass for two years of feed for their livestock.

Sydney, Feb 5 : Actress Scarlett Johansson has admitted that she understands men, except for one aspect: "Why do they have nipples?"

During an interview in Los Angeles, the stunning beauty asked the question innocently.

She added: "That has always amazed me."

The babe, who turned 24 in November, has been linked romantically to a number of famous men, including actors Jared Leto and Josh Hartnett, New York Yankees baseball star Derek Jeter and Grammy Award-winning singer Justin Timberlake, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

However, it was in 2007 Johansson began dating heartthrob, Ryan Reynolds, and the relationship turned into a loving relationship.