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BILLY Slater’s season of magic spontaneously combusted in a moment of madness and, combined with a controversial penalty try, gave New Zealand their first ever Rugby League World Cup with a stunning 34-20 upset of Australia at Suncorp Stadium Saturday night.

Massive underdogs heading into the match, the Kiwis pulled off the biggest upset in World Cup history - the Kangaroos surrendering their No.1 ranking to their transtasman rivals with their first loss since 2006.

The Aussies were left lamenting a series of blunders and a massive call from video referee Steve Ganson - the Englishman awarding the visitors a penalty try with ten minutes remaining on the back a horrendous Slater error when he gifted Benji Marshall a try to give New Zealand rugby league their proudest moment.

“The game was back was in a bad state this time last year and some tough decisions had to be made,” Stephen Kearney said of his elevation to the coaching position after Gary Kemp’s sacking.

“I’m very pleased for the game back home, it’s something on the back of what the Warriors achieved this year, I think it’s been a real boost for our game.”

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A TOP Islamic council in mostly Muslim Malaysia has told Muslims to avoid yoga because it uses Hindu prayers and encourages a union with God that is blasphemous.

The latest edict from the National Fatwa Council reflects a growing swing towards a conservative brand of Islam in the multi-ethnic country that has prompted worries among non-Muslims.

“There are other ways to get exercise and a peace of mind,” council chairman Abdul Shukor Husin said in Putrajaya, the country’s administrative capital, today.

“You can go cycling, swimming and eat less fatty food.”

“For us, yoga can destroy a Muslim’s faith. But this is not a matter for the non-Muslims to be concerned about because its not imposed on them. We are looking out for the Muslim community,” he said, noting Egypt and Singapore had issued similar rulings.

Fatwas or religious edicts are not legally binding, but they are highly influential in Malaysia.

The new ruling comes hot on the heels of another edict against young Muslim women wearing trousers.

The National Fatwa Council said that by wearing trousers, girls risked becoming sexually active “tomboys”.

Gay sex is outlawed in Malaysia.

In May, the Government dropped a proposal to restrict women from travelling abroad on their own after an outcry from women’s groups.

About 40 per cent of Malaysia’s population of 27 million are non-Muslim, including sizeable minorities of Christians, Buddhists and Hindus.

Complaints of religious discrimination have mounted along with the turn towards Islamic conservatism.

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Hillary Clinton has reportedly accepted an offer to become Barack Obama's secretary of state / AFP

NEW York Senator Hillary Clinton has accepted an offer from President-elect Barack Obama to become US secretary of state, The New York Times says.

The newspaper quoted two Clinton associates who said she came to her decision after more discussions with Mr Obama about the nature of her role as the top US diplomat and his foreign policy plans.

“She’s ready,” one of the sources told the newspaper, which posted the report on its website.

Senator Clinton emerged as a frontrunner for the secretary of state job late last week, transfixing a country which had seen her compete hard against Mr Obama to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency.

Mr Obama clinched that nomination in June and then beat Republican John McCain in the November 4 election.

Democratic Party sources have recently said Senator Clinton, was on track to be nominated, with an official announcement expected after the November 27 Thanksgiving holiday.

Senator Clinton has a global profile both as a political leader in her own right and as the wife of former US President Bill Clinton.

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A TEENAGER has apparently committed suicide in front of a live webcam after being encouraged by people online.

19-year-old Florida resident Abraham K. Biggs, who went by the screen names “CandyJunkie” and “Mr Biggs”, told users on a bodybuilding forum he would be committing suicide that night and invited them to watch the live video.

The forum moderators allegedly ignored the post – assuming it was a prank – while other users posted insults and even egged him on.

The teen used the “lifecasting” website Justin.tv – designed to let users share the minutiae of their everyday lives – to stream footage from his bedroom.

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Internet ... Senator Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy / Michael Potter

AUSTRALIA’S mandatory internet filter is being primed to block 10,000 websites as part of a blacklist of unspecified “unwanted content”, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy revealed in Federal Parliament.

The 10,000 blocked websites would include 1300 websites already blacklisted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Senator Conroy revealed details of the Rudd Government’s proposed web filter as he called for expressions of interest from internet service providers for a live trial of the technology.

As part of the trial, ISPs will test different methods of filtering the web with subscribers who volunteer. The trial is expected to last six weeks and will start before Christmas.

“The pilot will specifically test filtering against the ACMA blacklist of prohibited content, which is mostly child pornography, as well as filtering of other unwanted content,” Senator Conroy told Parliament.

“While the ACMA blacklist is currently around 1300 URLs, the pilot will test against this list as well as filtering for a range of URLs to around 10,000 so that the impacts on network performance of a larger blacklist can be examined.”

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Before and after ... Hang Mioku, whose addiction to cosmetic surgery led her to inject oil into her face

A WOMAN addicted to cosmetic surgery is unrecognisable after injecting cooking oil into her face.

The Daily Telegraph in London reports Korean woman Hang Mioku, 48, had her first cosmetic surgery procedure at 28 and was hooked, moving to Japan for more.

Eventually surgeons refused to carry out any more work and she returned home, where her face had changed so much her family didn’t recognise her.

Ms Hang’s parents took her for treatment for her addiction, but it didn’t last. She soon found a doctor who would give her silicone injections and he even gave her a syringe and silicone so she could self-inject, the paper said.

When her supply ran out, she used cooking oil.

Her face became so large compared to her small body that local children called her “standing fan”, the newspaper reported.

After appearing on Korean TV, viewers sent donations so she could have surgery to reduce the size of her face. The first of several operations removed 60g of oil from her face and 200g from her neck.

Her face has been left scarred and disfigured, and Ms Hang said she would like her old looks back.

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A MAN had sex with his wheelchair-bound mother because no other women wanted him, a court has been told.

The 26-year-old man asked his mother “why don’t women want me” as they watched a movie at their Darwin home in September this year, the Northern Territory Supreme Court was told.

The man, who moved from Western Australia to Darwin last year, allegedly told his mother: “I can’t get no women here,” the Northern Territory News reported.

Prosecutor Paul Usher said the mother reassured him: “You’ll find the right one”.

But Mr Usher said the son pulled the mother’s “knickers down with one hand” and took a condom out of his wallet, and had sex with his mother on the futon she had been lying on.

Mr Usher said the son had sex again with his mother later, and afterwards she managed to get into her wheelchair to get to her bedroom.

He said the woman, who has been in a wheelchair for seven years due to a debilitating disease, reported the incident to her GP the next day and police arrested the son that afternoon.

The man pleaded guilty to two counts of having sex with a person, knowing that the person was his mother.

The maximum penalty is 14 years’ jail.

Defence lawyer Michelle Swift said the man maintained that it was his mother who made the “initial sexual contact”.

She said he felt “incredibly ashamed” about what had happened and had been “reading the Bible and doing as much sport as he can”.

Justice Sally Thomas adjourned the case for sentencing on November 13.

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