Burma wants supplies but not foreign aid workers, its foreign ministry says, hours after the UN chief urged military leaders to prioritise relief work. 

Burma is 'making strenuous efforts' to get aid to affected areas by itself and was not ready for foreign teams, a statement in a state daily says. 

With a bill like a duck, a tail and fur like a beaver and snake-like venom hidden in heel spurs, the platypus could be the result of some strange genetic experiment.

It is: evolution. 

Two Men's Lives Reflect Divergent Fortunes of Jewish, Palestinian Peoples

By Griff Witte 

Sixty years ago, Dror Gurel and Nabil Zaharan were born into a land at war. 

Senator Barack Obama won a commanding victory in the North Carolina primary on Tuesday and lost narrowly to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana, an outcome that injected a boost of momentum to Mr. Obama’s candidacy as the Democratic nominating contest entered its final month. 

Picture, if you will, a tree-lined plaza in Baghdad's International Village, flanked by fashion boutiques, swanky cafes, and shiny glass office towers.

Like Kiribati and Tuvalu, the islands of the Torres Strait are slowly being submerged. But unlike their Pacific neighbours, the plight of their inhabitants is being overlooked. 

It is crunch time for the Bush administration as it continues to hold out hope for a peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. 

But even US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice let out a sign of her frustration at the lack of progress on the ground, particularly on the part of the Israelis. 

Iemma to push ahead with privatisation plan ….. 

New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma is planning to defy the will of his own party and push ahead with electricity privatisation. 

Yesterday the state conference of the New South Wales Labor Party voted 702 to 107 against privatisation of electricity assets. 

The world's most dangerous terrorist, who has already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people, has launched yet another campaign of murder and destruction.

The Iemma Government will defer the poker machine tax payments of scores of clubs in a bid to compensate for a loss of revenue since the indoor smoking ban came into force. 

The Gaming and Racing Minister, Graham West, confirmed yesterday that the Government was drawing up a policy in response to a request from Clubs NSW to allow as many as 150 clubs to defer their payments for a year or 18 months. 

For anyone at the CIA or the Pentagon who might be considering moonlighting as a spy, the report offers a warning: 'Since 1990, American spies have been poorly paid.' 

In fact, the proportion of those who received no payment at all for espionage increased from 34 percent before 1980 to 59 percent during the 1980s and to 81 percent since 1990. 

For months, beleaguered American consumers have defied expert forecasts that they would soon succumb to the pressures of falling home prices, fewer jobs and shrinking pay-checks. Now, they appear to have given in. 

Senator Barack Obama broke forcefully on Tuesday with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., in an effort to curtail a drama of race, values, patriotism and betrayal that has enveloped his presidential candidacy at a critical juncture. 

President Bush today blamed Congress for many of the nation's economic woes, charging that lawmakers have blocked his proposals for dealing with problems ranging from soaring gasoline prices to the increasing cost of food.

The mortgage industry, facing the prospect of tougher regulations for its central role in the housing crisis, has begun an intensive campaign to fight back.