Sydney  - Australia cannot afford to host the 2015 Rugby World Cup and may not bid for the 2019 competition either, Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O'Neill said Tuesday.

O'Neil said the International Rugby Board (IRB) was insisting the host assume all costs as well as a tournament guarantee fee.

As well as financial concerns were the time constraints, because the IRB will announce the 2015 and 2019 hosts on July 28, six years before the first tournament and 10 years before the next.

Melbourne, Apr 20: Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman revealed that he is thrilled about his forthcoming flick ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’.

Hugh, who plays Wolverine in the upcoming flick, has also produced the flick with wife Deboraa-Lee-Furness and pal John Palermo.

"I am excited. There have been a lot of wild twists and turns in my life over the past six months that have been really exciting for me,'''' the Daily Telegraph quoted Jackman, as saying.

Melbourne, Apr 20: Just by thinking ‘out of box’, doctors successfully removed a leech, which was attached to an Australian woman''s eyeball.

The leech made its way to the 66-year-old woman’s eye while she was gardening in the backyard of her suburban Sydney home in March last year and accidentally flicked some moist soil and the blood-sucking organism into her left eye.

Melbourne, Apr 20 : Australia’s captain for the Dubai series, Michael Clarke, has said that his team’s main focus will be on improving their batting during the one-day international series against Pakistan.

Clarke leads a squad without regular captain Ricky Ponting, strike bowler Mitchell Johnson and middle order batsman Mike Hussey, all being rested ahead of the Twenty20 world championship and Ashes campaign.

The Australian squad assembled in Dubai ahead of the tour-opener on Wednesday with Clarke predicting that Pakistan will prove a difficult opponent in their first ODI clashes in more than four years.

Sydney - Doctors at a Sydney hospital used saline solution to remove a leech that had attached itself to an Australian woman's eyeball, news reports said Monday.

"It was tucked up underneath her upper eyelid," emergency room doctor Toby Fogg said. "Our little fellow started off at about half a centimetre and by the time we removed it, it was about 2 centimetres long. It had quite a good lunch."

The 66-year-old woman was gardening when the leech found its way into her eye.

Sydney - An Australian law lecturer was jailed Monday for contempt of court after pulling down her trousers and baring her buttocks to the presiding judge.

Megumi Ogawa, 41, was sentenced to four months' jail in a Brisbane court for what Judge Stuart Durward said was "disgusting behaviour" at an earlier trial where she was found guilty of harassing court officials.

During the earlier trial, the court was told the Southern Cross University staff member threatened court officials with death and sent them 83 emails and made 176 phone calls.