Sydney  - Australia's Sex Party picked an appropriate venue for its launch Thursday: a Melbourne sex-toy emporium where vendors promised something for absolutely everyone.

"Community attitudes to sex and censorship have been shown over and over again by community opinion polling to be more relaxed than ever, and yet in politics the opposite is the case," party leader Fiona Patten said.

"When was the last time you heard a politician say something positive about sex?"

Sydney, Nov 19: Australian opener Mathew Hayden who will be playing his 99th Test tomorrow, at the Gabba against New Zealand, has said that the match would likely provide him answers whether he would be around for his fifth Ashes tour next year.

Hayden (37), who had recurring injury dramas and a poor start to the series in India, has critics questioning his future in the Australian top-order.

Sydney, Nov 19 : South Africa by recruiting former coach Duncan Fletcher, the architect of England’s 2005 Ashes victory, as a consultant for the Proteas’ forthcoming tour of Australia is expected to escalate tensions further between two teams.

The series, billed as the battle for Test supremacy, has been tinged with spice from the outset, with opposing coaches Mickey Arthur and Tim Nielsen asserting their teams’ credentials for the No. 1 ranking and highlighting flaws in each other’s armoury.

Sydney, Nov 19 : Australian skipper Ricky Ponting remains in a tense stand-off with former captains Ian Chappell and Allan Border, following their comments in the aftermath of the controversial fourth Test against India in Nagpur.

Ponting came under fire over his decision to bowl part-timers when Australia might have pushed for victory in Nagpur, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Sydney  - Neither masterpiece nor mess, filmmaker Baz Luhrmann's new cinematic epic Australia climbs above mediocrity through its cavalcade of local talent and the spectacular scenery of the Outback, critics said Wednesday.

"The film has broad appeal, particularly to the chick-flick market, with its sweeping, over-long melodramatic saga about cattle drives, the stolen generations, the bombing of Darwin and Hugh Jackman's abs," Jim Schembri wrote in the Canberra Times.

Sydney, Nov. 18 : Media baron Rupert Murdoch has rejected the notion that newspapers will lose their relevance due to the Internet revolution.

Tearing into the "doom and gloomers" who have been predicting the demise of newspapers yesterday, Murdoch backed the industry to hit new heights this century, but cautioned it to move “beyond dead trees".