Melbourne, Feb 23 : Tourism Queensland has received a total of 35000 applications for the `Best Job in the World'.

In a last minute flurry nearly 7500 applications were uploaded at the weekend.

Looking at the huge response, tourism officials have now added extra staff to help process the staggering 34,684 island caretaker applications.

Tourism Minister Desley Boyle said that she was blown away by the interest in the Great Barrier Reef's caretaker role.

Sydney, Feb. 23 : About 20,000 Sydney residents turned up to watch a celebrity match to raise funds for victims of the Victorian bushfires on Sunday.

Organized by Peter Garrett, the Federal Member for Kingsford, the match was played between the Steve Waugh''s XI and Mark Taylor XI in the Big Bash Twenty20 match at the SCG.

Johannesburg, Feb. 23 : The key to Australia defeating South Africa will be team skipper Ricky Ponting, who averages more than 50 per innings in Tests.

If the captain grabs the Proteas by the scruff of the neck and overshadows rival skipper Graeme Smith to make the series his own, not only will Australia''s chances of retaining the world No. 1 ranking go through the roof, but Ponting will go close to overtaking Steve Waugh in fourth place on the list of Test run-scorers," says in an article for the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sydney - One-third of the 34,684 applicants for the dream job of caretaker on a paradise island in Australia's Great Barrier Reef were from the United States, Queensland state Tourism Minister Desley Boyle said Monday.

Some jobseekers were unable to lodge their 60-second video clips because the website crashed under an avalanche of last-minute applications for a post that pays a lot of money for very little work.

"We'd been advising people for a couple of weeks not to leave their submission until the last minute," Boyle said. "This massive amount of traffic slowed the site down and, regretfully, some people weren't able to get their video application in by the deadline."

Melbourne, February 23: Nicole Kidman has once again been voted the Most Fashionable Aussie in a new survey.

According to the annual Rosemount O Summer Style Index, the actress grabbed the title beating former Miss Universe-turned-TV presenter Jennifer Hawkins.

Cate Blanchett was at the third spot, followed by the World's Sexiest Man Hugh Jackman, the only male in the top 10.

Wrapping up the top five was the stunning singer Kylie Minogue.

Brisbane, Feb. 23: Controversial Indian-born surgeon Dr. Jayant Patel a. k. a. "Dr. Death" reopened a patient's abdomen and scooped out over two litres of blood, a magistrate's court here was told on Monday.

According to The Australian, Gerry Kemps had lost so much blood after an oesophagectomy in December 2004 that Dr. Patel had to scoop it from his abdomen with a kidney dish, former Bundaberg Base Hospital scrub nurse Katrina Zwolak told the Brisbane Magistrates Court.