Sydney - Gamblers who tipped that the government was wrong and that Australia would fall into recession this year were rewarded with big pay-outs Wednesday from internet betting agency Centrebet.

Centrebet financial analyst Neil Evans said the smart money had always been on the economy contracting in two consecutive quarters and that astute gamblers had always discounted claims that billion-dollar stimulus packages would keep the economy growing.

This week Prime Minister Kevin Rudd conceded he was wrong and that the economy would indeed go backwards in 2009.

Sydney, April 22 : In an analysis of fossil deposits in central India, an international team of geologists has found that complex life, in the form of multicellular organisms, existed on earth more than 400 million years earlier than previously thought.

According to a report by ABC News, the finding comes out of research aimed at ending controversy over the age of the Vindhyan basin in central India.

The controversy concerns two fossil discoveries in 1998, which gave conflicting views over when the Vindhyan sedimentary basins, which spread over more than 100,000 square kilometers of central India, were formed.

Sydney - An Indonesian fishing boat carrying 32 male asylum seekers was intercepted Wednesday off Australia's west coast.

It was the seventh boat to arrive so far this year, the same number of boats that arrived in the whole of 2008.

The men were taken aboard HMAS Wollongong and are being transported to Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island for processing.

Melbourne, Apr 22 : Prince Charles is set to pen a book on climate that will focus on the threat big business poses to the environment.

Publisher HarperCollins said that the Prince''s book would talk about how humans have become dangerously disconnected from nature through their unstoppable pursuit of economic growth and technological progress.

He will also be making a documentary due for release next year.

The project is named ‘Harmony and Charles’.

Sydney, April 21: Kiwi fans of Lord of the Rings have lost their bid to have local landmarks named after place names from the country''s Oscar-winning trilogy.

Fiordland motorcamp operator Aaron Nicholson had proposed that a two-kilometre stretch of the Waiau River between Lakes Manapouri and Te Anau be renamed Anduin Reach.

The area doubled as the Anduin River in Fellowship of the Ring, with cast members floating downstream in elfin boats.

Sydney, Apr. 21 : The threat of terrorism could lead to some cricketers cutting short their international careers, said Sri Lanka coach Trevor Bayliss.

Bayliss was in the team bus that came under attack in Lahore last month from terrorists, believed the fear of future attacks could lead to players curtailing their careers.