Thousands flee cyclone Hamish

Thousands of tourists and residents have been evacuated from island resorts on Australia's Great Barrier Reef ahead of powerful tropical cyclone.

Australia's weather bureau had earlier warned that Tropical Cyclone Hamish could cause substantial damage and flooding, with the storm at its height packing winds of up to 295 kph (177 mph).
Source:http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=99951

The state government put emergency personnel, including search and rescue teams, on standby and sent 6,000 sandbags, flood barrier equipment and tarpaulins to towns along the central coast, Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said in a statement yesterday.

Akshay Kumar takes Kylie Minogue to Indian wedding

Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue was the guest of Bollywood action hero Akshay Kumar. Kylie was invited by Akshay and his wife Twinkle khanna for lunch.

Kylie is in Mumbai to shoot a song and a few scenes for Bollywood movie Blue , co-starring Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif , Sanjay Dutt , Lara Dutta and Zayed Khan .

On the day she arrived, Kylie was invited over to lunch by Akshay and his wife Twinkle Khanna . While chatting about Indian culture, Kylie expressed her desire to see an Indian wedding, with all its traditional rituals. By a stroke of coincidence, its wedding season in the city and a sister of Akshay’s close friend was getting married on the same day.
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Australian Pop diva Kylie Minogue arrives in India

Mumbai, February 27 (ANI): Australian pop sensation Kylie Minogue on Thursday arrived in Mumbai to record a song with Oscar winning music composer A.R Rahman for forthcoming Bollywood film 'Blue'. Catcalls and cheering crowd greeted Minogue as she landed in Mumbai. The film starring actors Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Zayed Khan, Katrina Kaif and Lara Dutta is touted to be India's first 'official' underwater film.

Australia struggles to battle wildfires - 7 Feb 09

Thousands of firefighters and hundreds of volunteers are battling wildfires in southeastern Australia.

In the state of Victoria, dozens have been killed and at least 100 homes destroyed in the blazes.

People are busy trying to protect their homes and to avoid the heat, as the temperature reaches record levels.

Al Jazeera's Jayne Azzopardi reports.

Kylie Minogue's Home For Sale!!

Kylie Minogue's beautiful home in Australia's Western Port Bay is up for sale. The home is special to the star as she describes it as her 'sanctuary'. It was here that she was nursed back to health by former lover Olivier Martinez. The popstar has spend quite some time at her home called 'Beauciel' meaning Beautiful Sky, as she fought back breast cancer in 2005. It was worth 200,000 pounds at that time. Since then the property has undergone various renovations worth 200,000 pounds.

The celebrity couple have made various environmentally friendly innovations that includes solar and wind power and have planted around 1,000 trees. The other features about the house includes a huge country kitchen, a restored chicory kiln and an organic fruit and vegetable garden.

News Source:http://living.oneindia.in/insync/2009/kylie-minogue-030209.html

Photo Source:www.i8.photobucket.com

Mirza, Bhupathi win mixed doubles title

India's Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi have won the Australian Open mixed doubles title.
Mirza and Bhupathi beat Nathalie Dechy of France and Andy Ram of Israel 6-3, 6-1 at Rod Laver Arena. Bhupathi and Mark Knowles of the Bahamas lost the men's doubles final Saturday to Bob and Mike Bryan of the United States.
The mixed doubles match was a scenesetter for the later men's singles final between No. 1 Rafael Nadal and second-seeded Roger Federer, their seventh meeting for a Grand Slam title.

Fight at the Australian Open Championship 2009

Sania Mirza knocked out of the Australian Open

Sania Mirza crashed out of the singles event of the Australian Open after suffering a 3-6, 2-6 hammering at the hands of Russian 10th seed Nadia Petrova in the second round here on Wednesday.

The Indian ace, who is making a comeback to the competitive tennis after a long injury lay-off, squandered break points in both the sets to see early curtains on her campaign.

With Sania's defeat, Indian challenge ended in the singles action in the first Grand Slam of the year.

Cashing in on little mistakes of big players is imperative to tame them but the Indian player missed on those chances in both the sets.

The unseeded Indian did show some improvement in her ground strokes as she hit some stunning double-handed backhand winners but failed to maintain the intensity.

Petrova, world number 11, on the other hand whenever faltered, had a very strong game to bail out herself.

Sania had her first breakpoint -- earned through a beautiful service return winner -- in the third game of the first set but Petrova served well to save the game, which she completed by hitting an ace.

It was now turn of Sania to face a breakpoint, which she offered by hitting a forehand long, and the Russian gleefully accepted that to go up 3-1.

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Petrova consolidated the lead to 4-1 by holding her serve in the next game and the set went on serve from there in favour of the Russian.

Sania engaged her opponent in long rallies, did show that she had a plan to set up points, but lacked in execution.

Petrova was calm in the crunch situation and held her nerves to ward off the danger.

Again in the second set, it was Sania who had early chance to break Petrova when she had two breakpoints in the fourth game.

But the Russian raised her game by a few notches and served extremely well to deny the Indian any chance to make a comeback to the match.

Petrova then break Sania in the fifth and seventh games to create a 5-2 lead and served out the set and match with the help of a couple of aces.

Sania now will play in women's doubles with American Vania King and in mixed doubles with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi.

SOURCE

Australia - Movie Review

Jackman and Nicole Kidman in ''Australia.'
20th Century Fox
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
PG-13 for some violence


The Story
Kidman stars as Sarah Ashley, an uppercrust Brit who believes her husband's cheating on her. After he refuses to return home from tending to their business interests down under, Sarah packs up dozens of bags and hightails it to Australia. Her goal: find out who he's cheating with and get him to sell off their land and go back to England.
Sarah's plans abruptly change when she reaches their cattle ranch only to find out her husband's been killed. An Aboriginal medicine man has been named as the culprit, but Sarah soon catches on to the fact there's much more going on at the ranch than meets the eye. Her husband's right hand man, Neil Fletcher (David Wenham), is a nasty fellow who treats the locals worse than cows and wouldn't know the truth if it jumped up and slapped him in the face. Sarah fires Neil, an act which elevates her standing in the eyes of all the hired help on the ranch, including a young part-Aborigine boy, Nullah (Brandon Walters), who forms a special bond with Sarah.


Without Neil, Sarah needs someone who can drive her cattle to market. Sarah has to sell off her cattle to the military in order to keep the ranch afloat and to stave off an offer to buy the place from King Carney (Bryan Brown), an offer her husband rejected outright. King Carney's the biggest cattle baron on the continent and he desperately wants her piece of land. And Neil, who happens to be his son-in-law, is willing to do just about anything to help King Carney take over the strategically located property. Sarah hires the very reluctant, extremely good-looking Drover (Hugh Jackman) to lead the cattle through treacherous terrain. Drover, his occupation and the only name he goes by, isn't a fan of King Carney or Neil. He's not really a fan of Sarah's either, but they're forced together due to their mutual dislike of the competition. Of course, being that this is a romantic epic, they soon discover there's an attraction between them that can't be denied.