Sydney - The global financial crisis and the battle in Afghanistan would feature strongly when Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd meets US President Barack Obama in Washington next month, officials said Friday.

The March 24 tryst in the White House would be Rudd's first meeting with Obama.

Their meeting would come a week before the summit of the Group of 20 (G20) April 2 in London, which both leaders are scheduled to attend.

The prime minister also attended the December summit in Washington of the G20, which consists of 19 of the world's largest economies and the European Union.

Sydney  - Major fires were burning Friday across the southern Australian state of Victoria as more than 3,000 firefighters tried to hold containment lines with high temperatures and strong winds intensifying the bushfire danger.

More than 200 schools, childcare centres, and many national parks and tourist attractions in south-west Victoria and along the picturesque Great Ocean Road have been closed because of the fire threat.

Melbourne, Feb 27  The competition for landing what has been touted as the "best job in the world" has narrowed further, as bosses at Tourism Australia have shortlisted the top 50 candidates for the sought after position.

Almost 35,000 video applications were considered for the 150,000 dollars, six-month stint as the Hamilton Island caretaker on the Great Barrier Reef.

The identity of the 50 short-listed candidates will be revealed on March 3.

The job was a Tourism Australia campaign to boost the floundering tourist market, and it attracted applications from more than 200 countries.

Sydney, Feb 27 : People vying for Tourism Queensland''s Best Job In the World have branded the campaign worst run contest ever after repeated website failures prevented them from submitting their applications.

Fifty job seekers, out of more than 34,000 applicants around the globe, have been shortlisted for the 150,000-dollar stint as `island caretaker' on the Great Barrier Reef, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

However, blog sites and Internet forums have been buzzing with complaints since the weekend, when the Tourism Queensland website crashed on the eve of the competition deadline.

Sydney  - Fifty fortunate applicants have come a step closer to the dream job of caretaker on a paradise island in Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

Nearly 35,000 people applied for the position with applicants from 200 countries led by 11,565 job seekers from the United States, followed by Canada (2,791), Britain
(2,262) and Australia (2,064).

"I think we're safe in saying that this is the most sought-after job in the world," Queensland state Tourism Minister Desley Boyle told the local media.

Melbourne, Feb 26 : Forget about diets, exercise and other weight-loss methods, for LAP band surgery is a cheaper way to fight obesity and diabetes, according to a new study.

The first of its kind Victorian study by Monash and Deakin universities has found that gastric banding can also provide more healthy years to highly obese patients, while saving the system thousands of dollars in ongoing costs.

The findings come in line with calls by doctors for weight-loss surgery to be subsidised.