Melbourne, Aug 29 : Indian born doctor Mohamed Haneef wants compensation from the Australian Government, an apology for his arrest and imprisonment after the Australian Federal Police (AFP) dropped its case against him.

The Gold Coast-based doctor was charged over a terrorism plot in the UK but the case against him later collapsed.

Sydney - Credit-crisis victim Centro Property Group racked up one of corporate Australia's biggest losses Friday.

Australia's second-largest shopping mall owner after global leader Westfield recorded a full-year loss of 2 billion Australian dollars (1.7 billion US dollars).

Centro, which owns 665 shopping malls in the United States, flagged further asset sales to shore up its financial position. By the end of the year it needs to find 7.4 billion Australian dollars to get its balance sheet right.

Singapore - The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has reached tentative free trade agreements with three major trading partners - India, Australia, and New Zealand - after years of negotiations.

Though the full terms the agreements reached Thursday in Singapore during a meeting of ASEAN ministers would not be made public until the signing in December, they cover more than 400 goods with India and goods, investment, services and intellectual property with Australia and New Zealand.

"This is the most comprehensive free trade agreement that ASEAN has ever entered. It is the largest free trade agreement that Australia has ever negotiated," Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean told reporters in Singapore.

Melbourne, Aug. 28 : Australian Police have arrested several Indian students for violating the country’s immigration laws.

According to The Australian, nearly 300 overseas students were thrown into detention centers in Sydney and Melbourne in the past three years after falling foul of Australia''s immigration laws.

Documents obtained by The Australian under Freedom of Information laws reveal that in the three years to the end of March, 299 overseas students were put into the Villawood Detention Center in Sydney or the Maribyrnong Center in Melbourne. Most were deported and five are still in detention.

University, TAFE and secondary school students from 24 countries were detained.

New Delhi, August 28 : Scientists have found that the continent of Australia has been largely untouched by humans, and stands as one of the world’s top five wilderness havens, ranking alongside the Amazon forest and the Sahara desert.

A report by two conservation groups, the Pew Environment Group and the Nature Conservancy, found that forty percent of Australia qualifies as wilderness.

The two conservation groups have hired scientists to scan the globe for the last remaining areas of wilderness and the report, the Wild Australia Program Study, put Australia towards the top of the list.