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 ANTIPODES - Australians awoke yesterday to find a large chunk of their east coast missing and Sydney harbour significantly widened. Having ruled out major plate tectonic upheaval, a sudden flash flood, crazed asylum seekers and indiscreet nuclear testing, coastal oceanographers were forced to conclude that this can only be the work of a fish that preys on large land masses. 'This was no boating accident' declared icthyologist Frank Hooper. 'If you closely examine the 500km-long bitemarks, you can deduce that this is a large predatory creature whose preferred habitat is near coastal cities, which it occasionally swallows whole.' Australia's ability to identify and hunt down this leviathan will be severly hampered by the fact that its oceanographic research centre was based in the city of Newcastle, which experts now say is being slowly digested. 'I have been listening to East Coast FM all morning for news of further developments' declared Prime minister John Howard, 'but so far, just static.' The Howard adminstration has already put in place plans to evacuate all of coastal Australia to the centre of the Outback, where they will be safe from further attack, should the fish return. Meanwhile in a heated TV debate, the Greek government has denied releasing the Kraken.
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Nose on Michael Jackson statue still not right
LOS ANGELES - Though the bronze statue of pop superstar Michael Jackson was unveiled to much fanfare on Sunset Boulevard yesterday, it has emerged that work on the nose is not quite complete. 'It just still doesn't look right - I think I may have to rebuild it from scratch' explained sculptor Frank Andersen today. 'Basically the nose started off looking normal enough, but when I showed it to Michael he said he wanted some taken off. So I spent another week on it and he said that it still wasn't right, and so I just kept going and going until there was practically nothing left. Basically the result is that the statue looks nothing like the original Michael Jackson.' This is not the first time that sculptors have found themselves frustrated by the Jackson visage. David Prentiss worked from the release of Thriller to Invincible on a larger-than-life likeness of Jackson, but quit after finding himself unable to keep up with the changing face of modern pop's most famous icon. 'Basically his surgeon would phone me up and say "Sorry, Dave - he's getting it done again this month." I might as well have been trying to sculpt Pinnochio at an Irish tribunal.' Given the difficulties encountered on small-scale reproductions, plans to have a bust of Jackson placed on Mount Rushmore have been shelved, and it has been rumoured that Jackson wants the statue re-done in the whitest available marble.
Fianna Fáil to make 2017 'Take no bribes' year
DUBLIN - 'Our ideals have always been to think well into the future about what the Irish people wnat from their government' declared Taoiseach Bertie Ahern this week. 'That's why we have decided to make our election promise "No kickbacks for 2017"'. Ahern admitted that the government does not plan to set unattainable goals. 'We'll see if we can stay clean for a year and take it from there. One day at a time, as they say.' 'We have to remain realistic about the implementabilty of this plan' explained sacked TD Ray Bourke, who has openly pledged to claw his way back into power, make the most of his years of public service, and retire by the end of 2016. 'You never know, the property market could be even better by 2017, with much of Dublin still to be re-zoned and plenty of beautiful wildlife reserves not yet under concrete.' As a confidence-building measure, the Taoiseach has promised to suspend all tribunals for 2017. 'We don't want what will possibly be the most honest year in Irish politics to be contaminated by anything like suspicion. The pursuit of justice would really ruin the atmosphere.'
Concrete reinforced with mob informers
The American Institute of Civil Engineers, investigating the amazing longevity of the Hawksmith Bridge, Illinois, have made an extraordinary discovery. 'Baically the reason this haphazardly erected bridge from the 1920s has stayed together for this long is because its structural composition is 30% prohibition-era stool pigeons' explained Institute chairman Frank Phillips. 'Through a thorough examination of the structure we have discovered that mob informants exhibit significant load-bearing capacity and remarkable tensile strength.' Not since teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa became part of the Interstate highway system following his disappearance in the late 1960s has such an important disovery been made. 'We were always told that a lot of men and materials went into the construction of this bridge' said Phillips. 'And now we know how true that is.'
India appoints Minister for Naked Children
NEW DELHI - Estimating that the number of children in India with no clothes on exceeds that of the entire population of Western Europe, the Vajpayee amdinstration has decided to appoint a special ministerial role to deal with the issue. 'Saudi Arabia has its Oil Minister; Columbia has its Department of Kidnapping and Enterprise; today we open a new bureau, and to set a good examplem, we will ensure that all staff members will be fully clothed' explained the President yesterday. The total number of naked children in third-world countries has proven notoriously difficult to pin down, due to such widespread practises as shirt-pooling and naked-child-hiding. Additionally, some countries exclude necklace-wearing children from the 'naked' category whilst others do not, and there have been calls for a common international standard of nakedness to be put into statistical usage. The UN is due to agree on a charter of nudity by 2004.
Revealed: crop circles only appear in GM wheat fields
NEBRASKA - In a shock report issued by investigators into GM foods today it has emerged that only plantations of genetically modified crops have taken on a life of their own and decided to lie down flat in mysterious patterns denoting cosmic messages that could not have been man-made in a single night. 'If you pardon the pun, the plot certainly thickens' remarked lead investigator Mark Hunter today. 'Here we have over 712,000 stalks of wheat in a single field that simply keeled over and died for no reason other than to keep crusties guessing, it seems.' It is thought that the crops were endowed with Monsanto's terminator gene, which does not re-pollinate and forces farmers to buy a new batch of crops each year. But Monsanto chairman Phil Rothstein dismissed the harum-scarum. 'So what if some of our crops decide to uproot themslves and run down the road terrorising farmers? They'll still make a great-tasting burger bun.' It has, however, been reported that crop-circle patterns have appeared even in loaves of GM bread. One woman in Berkshire claims to have purchased a loaf in which lines appeared clearly marking out the mysterious word HOVIS. Amidst the controversy, Monsanto have shelved their development plans for the GM self-slicing loaf, which, Rothstein laments, was to be 'the next best thing.'
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We're sticklers for dtail 
