Melbourne, Jan 8 : Former Australian cricketer Greg Blewett wants fiery bowler Shaun Tait to use this summer's limited-overs cricket season to re-launch his international career.

Tait, who has struggled with injury and motivation since spearheading Australia's 2007 Cricket World Cup triumph, was selected in the national squads for the coming Twenty20 and one-day international series.

Beijing - Wang Rongquing, a Chinese human rights activist, was sentenced to six years in prison by a court in Hangzhou in western China, fellow activists said Thursday.

According to the China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), Wang, 65, was found guilty by the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court of "subversion of state power."

The dissident had been accused of trying to build up the banned China Democracy Party, which is regarded as an "enemy organization" by the state.

The activist, who according to his family is in ill health, able to walk only with the aid of crutches, was arrested in June before the Beijing Olympic Games.

Gaza/Tel Aviv - Israel pressed on with both its air and ground offensive in Gaza on Thursday, as government officials were due to travel to Cairo to discuss Egyptian-French truce proposals.

Residents reported heavy shelling in the southern Gaza border town of Rafah overnight, as an Israeli military spokesman said Israel bombed another 15 smuggling tunnels running under the border with Egypt, as well as what he said was the house of a militant commander who oversaw the rocket attacks from the Rafah area at nearby Israeli targets.

London, Jan 8 : Daniel Craig has said that the last two films in the James Bond franchise were deliberately taken in a different direction because Mike Myers'' `Austin Powers' trilogy ruined the spy genre.

The 40-year-old star starred in the last two Bond movies-2006''s `Casino Royale' and last year''s (08) `Quantum of Solace'-have shifted to a darker, less light-hearted tone as compared to their predecessors.

Sydney - The steep fall on Wall Street proved a strong gravitational pull on Australian stocks Thursday with the market losing most of recent gains.

The ASX 200 gave up 85 points, or 2.3 per cent, to 3,694.

"We had a good run on commodities over the last few days and we are reversing some of those gains," IG Markets dealer Oliver Stevens said.