Sydney - Australians were Monday savouring the conviction of former judge Marcus Einfeld on charges of making a false statement and acting to pervert the course of justice.

Einfeld, who 10 years ago was proclaimed a National Living Treasure for his devotion to justice, faces jail for lying to a magistrate in order to get out of paying a 77-Australian-dollar (50-US-dollar) speeding fine.

The millionaire former Human Rights and Equal Opportunity commissioner falsely claimed that a female friend, who proved to be dead at that time, was driving his car when it was snapped by a police speed camera.

Hong Kong - Wealthy Hong Kong may be teetering on the brink of a global recession but a prestige car number plate can still fetch more than 46,000 US dollars, auctioneers said Monday.

The car registration number 1234 fetched 360,000 Hong Kong dollars (46,445 US dollars) at Sunday's government auction where a total of 280 unusual plates raised just short of 345,000 US dollars.

Taipei - Chinese negotiator Chen Unlin arrived in Taipei Monday for the highest-level talks between Taipei and Beijing in half a century.

Chen and his 74-member delegation arrived in a chartered Air China plane which landed at the Taoyuan International Airport near Taipei at 11:45 am.

The talks will begin at the Grand Hotel in Taipei Monday afternoon and last until Thursday.

Tehran, Nov 3: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said in Tehran that India's nuclear deal with the United States will in no way adversely impact a project to import Iranian gas via Pakistan.

"There will be no impact of Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement on Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline,” said Mukherjee to a joint press conference in Tehran along with Iranian Minister of Economy and Finance Shamsuddin Hoseyni.

Hamburg, Germany - If you don't get enough sleep at night, be sure to drink a strong cup of coffee before trying to remember important facts - otherwise your sleep-deprived mind will play tricks with your memory, according to a team of German researchers.

Hamburg - There is new evidence that a virus could be the cause of irregular heartbeat in millions of patients who otherwise exhibit no diagnosed reason for atrial or ventricular fibrillation, according to a team of German scientists.

The researchers at the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin say they have uncovered the first firm evidence of the molecular mechanism whereby virus infections cause cardiac arrhythmia.