Sydney - Credit-crisis victim Centro Property Group racked up one of corporate Australia's biggest losses Friday.

Australia's second-largest shopping mall owner after global leader Westfield recorded a full-year loss of 2 billion Australian dollars (1.7 billion US dollars).

Centro, which owns 665 shopping malls in the United States, flagged further asset sales to shore up its financial position. By the end of the year it needs to find 7.4 billion Australian dollars to get its balance sheet right.

Washington, Aug. 29: U. S. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has said he is yet to make a decision on who will be his running mate.

He made the remarks in a morning interview with KDKA radio station on Thursday.

McCain is set to announce his pick on Friday in front of a big rally of 15,000 people in Ohio.

New York, Aug. 29: Republican presidential nominee John McCain has just lost two votes to Democratic rival Barack Obama – his wife Cindy McCain's half-sister and the woman's son.

"I'm not voting for McCain. I have a different political standpoint. I think (Obama's) proposals to improve the country are more positive and I'm not a big war believer," the New York Daily News quoted Kathleen Portalski, 65, as telling the website Usmagazine. com.

Portalski's son Nathan said he, too, is backing Obama. And with him it's not just politics - it's personal.

Denver, Colorado/Washington - Barack Obama, a one-term Democratic senator from Illinois, has begun the tough challenge of convincing voters that he is ready to tackle a series of international crises facing the next president of the United States.

It will be a key message as Obama campaigns for the White House between now and the November 4 general election. While abroad Obama is strongly preferred over his Republican rival John McCain, the case at home is more complicated.

Washington, August 29 : Using the latest high-resolution images and technology from satellites orbiting Mars, scientists have observed that parallels exist between Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys and the Red Planet’s gullies, which may shed light on climate change on Mars.

On Mars, the gullies appear to originate from cirque-like features high on pole-facing crater-interior walls, especially those within the Newton crater, 40 degrees South, examined for the study.

In addition to the cirque-like features, the evidence cited for former glaciation includes bowl-shaped depressions fringed by lobate, viscous-flow deposits that extend well out onto the crater floor.

Washington, August 29 : Researchers at the Queen’s University Belfast have come up with a solution to the world’s worst case of ongoing mass poisoning by creating a new low-cost technology to provide arsenic-free water to millions of people in South Asia, who are currently exposed to high levels of the poison in groundwater.

Currently, over 70 million people in Eastern India and Bangladesh, experience involuntary arsenic exposure from consuming water and rice; the main staple food in the region.

This includes farmers who have to use contaminated groundwater from minor irrigation schemes.