Canberra, September 20 : South Asia’s tourism industry is in jeopardy, with reports indicating that the endangered Great One-horned Rhinoceros is in dire straits in Nepal.

According to a report carried out in www. news. com. au, the Rhino is being driven out of its natural habitat in search of food into the hands of illegal poachers.

A meeting of the Asian Rhino Specialist Group in Nepal said that the massive animal’s feeding grounds were being invaded by “exotic species” of weeds and wild plants and the rhino could soon run out of natural fodder.

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 - A wall of Aboriginal rock art paintings replete with images of aeroplanes, bicycles, guns and steamships blasted open the notion that interaction between Australia's indigenous population and the rest of the world began with the British takeover and the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, scientists said Saturday.

"This rock art dismantles the popular identity of Australia being a nation first visited by the British," Griffith University archaeologist Paul Tacon said.

The panoply of 1,500 pictures, some dating back 15,000 years and the most recent done in the 1940s, detail extensive contact with Bugis traders from the Indonesian port city of Macassar in Sulawesi, now called Ujung Pandang.

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.

Melbourne, Sep 19 : Australia’s relationship with China could be affected by the US election results and the Australian influence is limited to reacting to US actions, a former American diplomat has said.

Former Clinton government official Derek Shearer said Republican candidate John McCain would be more forceful with China, while a Barack Obama Democrat Administration is likely to be less confrontational.

Now visiting Australia on a US state department tour, the former US Ambassador to Finland, said he expected tough foreign diplomacy from Senator McCain.

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.