Sydney - It has been hailed as the greatest voice ever recorded in Australia: plaintive yet uplifting, keening but controlled, distinctive but not so extraordinary that it quickly becomes tiresome.

It belongs to blind-from-birth Aboriginal singer-songwriter Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, and it's about to go global with the release in the United States of the self-titled album Gurrumul, which has done so well elsewhere.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles  - Denzel Washington has picked  to co- star with him in a disturbing action thriller in which they team up to save humanity in a near-future America faced with catastrophe.

Los Angeles  - Actor/director Mel Gibson has flatly denied rumours of a romance with a Russian singer that was alleged to have prompted a 900-million-dollar divorce action from his wife of 27 years, Robyn Moore.

The tabloid reports surfaced after Gibson was spotted twice with a 28-year-old Russian singer named Oksana.

A source told the National Enquirer, "It may turn out that Mel's friendship with the woman is innocent, but Robyn warned him that if he embarrassed her one more time, their marriage is dead and buried."

Los Angeles  - George Clooney will te

Los Angeles  - The Screen Actors Guild, the largest union representing Hollywood actors, is to ask its members to authorize an open-ended strike after two days of mediation with film producers ended in deadlock, the union announced Monday.

The weekend talks between SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) were seen as a last-ditch attempt to bridge gaps between the sides over residual payments for work that is distributed through electronic media.