Canberra (Australia), Apr. 11 : Defence strategists have ignored the advice of Australia''s most senior intelligence chiefs and rejected the view that China''s military expansion poses little threat to the nation''s long-term security.

The standoff between the intelligence doves and defence hawks has gone all the way to Kevin Rudd personally, reports The Australian.

But the hawks have won, and Australia will spend over 100 billion dollars over the next two decades to boost its naval and air war-fighting capacity.

Canberra (Australia), Apr. 11: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd knows that hallway cricket is banned in the outer corridors of Parliament House, but this does not stop him from rolling a cricket ball over inside his office.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Rudd uses sport as a means of communicating with staff. After travelling and working most of the day, at 6.40 p. m., he starts walking around with a battered Sherrin football and a makeshift cricket ball.

Sydney, Apr. 8: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has reportedly been called a nerd by some Australians for saying that if he was eligible for a stimulus package hand-out, he''''d blow it on books and music.

Appearing on Nova radio in Sydney today, Rudd said taxpayers earning less than 100,000 dollars will receive a one-off bonus of up to 900 dollars, as part of the federal government''''s 42 billion dollar stimulus package.

Sydney  - The Australian government Tuesday scrapped a tender process and announced it would form a new company to build a national high-speed fibre-optic broadband network.

The company would be a public-private partnership, with Canberra selling its majority stake when the 43-billion-Australian-dollar (30- billion-US-dollar) project is completed.

"It's the most ambitious, far-reaching and long-term nation- building infrastructure project ever undertaken by an Australian government," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said.

Sydney, Apr 5 : Australian Prime Minister Kevin Michael Rudd''s ill behaviour with a flight stewardess on a VIP flight from the Pacific Islands Forum in Port Moresby in January has been linked to a possible iron deficiency.

Rudd specially took out time from the G-20 summit in London to apologise for blowing up at the woman after he did not receive the non-red-meat meal on the flight, Sydney Morning Herald reported.

"All of us are human, I''m human, I''m not perfect," he said.

Singapore - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Saturday exchanged views on the G20 summit with his Singapore counterpart Lee Hsien Loong and the city-state's Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong.

Rudd, in transit through Singapore after the London Summit, also discussed global challenges of the economic downturn, Singapore's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.