Toulouse, France - Australian carrier QantasQantas has taken delivery of the first of the 20 Airbus A380 superjumbo aircraft it has ordered, Airbus said Friday.

The aircraft was handed over to Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon at a ceremony at Airbus headquarters in the southern French city of Toulouse.

The world's largest commercial airliner, the A380 typically seats 525 passengers but can seat up to 850, depending on cabin configuration.

The Qantas A380 will have a more spacious cabin, with only 450 seats, 332 of them in Economy class, Airbus said in its statement.

Canberra, September 19: A team of marine scientists has found hundreds of new lifeforms, which includes some bizarre creatures, on Lizard and Heron islands on the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef off Western Australia.

According to a report carried out in www. news. com. au, the research project has taken four years and revealed some strange creatures.

Among those found was a “tongue biter” parasite that eats the tongues of host fish and then essentially becomes the new tongue by attaching itself to the fish’s mouth.

The study also found hundreds of previously unknown soft corals, brightly coloured jellyfish, crabs and other creatures they believe may hold the key to curing some human diseases.

Sydney - An Afghan district governor and his two bodyguards were killed in a gunfight involving Australian soldiers in southern Afghanistan, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) said Friday.

Rozi Khan Barekzai, governor of the Chora district in Uruzgan province, was killed Wednesday in Trin Kot, the provincial capital.

He was a mujahedin commander during the war against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and had also served as provincial police chief after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

"It is not possible at this time to determine that he was killed by ADF fire," the statement said.

Sydney - There's something stalking the suburbs of Sydney and it's not joblessness, homelessness or another of the nasty fellow travellers of the global financial crisis.

The 4 million people of Sydney were warned Friday that their children could be gobbled by leopards, panthers, cougars or other big cats that have escaped from zoos.

"I don't think it's necessarily an urban myth," Nathan Rees, the premier of New South Wales, said when commenting on reports that exotic animals were prowling the fringes of Australia's biggest city.

Rees, who is just two weeks into the job, was immediately accused of a scaremongering to distract attention from the scandals plaguing his government.

Sydney - The era of cheap debt that powered Macquarie Bank Ltd to becoming Australia's most admired and most profitable financial institution is over.

Shareholders were hoping Friday that a share-price rebound signalled it was not also game over for the nation's biggest home-grown investment bank.

There was hectic buying of a counter wallowing at a five-year low.

Sydney - Austral