BOY band mogul Lou Pearlman, who launched Backstreet Boys and `N Sync, was sentenced to 25 years in prison today for swindling investors and major US banks out of more than $US300 million ($313.25 million)
WALL Street swung lower today after crude oil prices spiked to record highs on news that US crude oil inventories fell unexpectedly last week, heightening economic concerns
AN Iraqi trader told a Baghdad court how his businessman brother was executed in 1992 when former deputy premier Tareq Aziz was in Saddam Hussein`s regime
JAPAN has passed a law allowing military use of space, ending a decades-old pacifist policy as it casts a wary eye on North Korea`s nuclear ambitions and China`s rising spending on its armed forces
INDONESIANS took to the streets in angry protests over the soaring cost of food and a planned fuel price hike today, as an economic "crisis" overshadowed the 10th anniversary of Suharto`s fall
NO athletes were injured but sports facilities were seriously damaged by China`s devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, state media reported today
A FORMER British police officer has been arrested in Bangkok in an international crackdown on a sex trafficking ring that saw nine Thais detained last month in London, Thai police said today
UN chief Ban Ki-moon will arrive in Burma tomorrow and has been promised a meeting with junta leader Than Shwe in the latest desperate efforts to get aid to cyclone victims
AUNG San Suu Kyi`s opposition party today called on the UN to take a greater role in delivering aid to cyclone victims in Burma, on the eve of UN chief Ban Ki-moon`s visit to the country
THE National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) has received the largest ever cash donation from an individual to an Australian art museum ? more than $15 million
CLINT Eastwood has come under fire from renowned director Spike Lee for not including any African-American soldiers in his recent films about the 1945 battle of Iwo Jima
