AFP - US oil giant ConocoPhillips will pay up to 9.6 billion dollars (8.0 billion US dollars) for a half share of a coal seam gas (CSG) venture with Australia's Origin Energy in a deal that could thwart a hostile bid by Britain's BG Group.

Reuters - Hurricane Ike pounded northeastern Cuba with 120 mile per hour (195 kph) winds, torrential rains and massive waves that rolled through coastal towns on Monday on a path toward the Gulf of Mexico oil fields and possibly New Orleans.

AFP - Iran said on Sunday that OPEC members should cut output to the agreed target quotas in the face of falling oil prices, two days before the cartel meets in Vienna, state-run IRNA news agency reported.

AFP - Australian koalas are dying by the thousands as a result of land clearing in the country's northeast, while millions of birds and reptiles are also perishing, conservation group WWF said Sunday.

AP - Ike ripped off roofs, swept away boats and collapsed a bridge on the last road into a flooded Haitian city on Sunday as it roared over the southern Bahamas as a ferocious Category 4 hurricane. The Florida Keys evacuated and Cuba prepared for a direct hit.

AP - President Bush says if Congress doesn't permit offshore drilling to increase U.S. oil supplies and possibly ease gasoline prices, lawmakers should not expect voters to support them in November.

AFP - Hurricane Ike lashed the Turks and Caicos Islands early Sunday and threatened to unleash its fury on the Bahamas, Cuba and the US Gulf Coast, as Tropical Storm Hanna continued to batter the US East Coast.

AP - A super-sharp Earth-imaging satellite that can detail an area the size of a baseball diamond's home plate from space has been launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central California coast.

AP - President Bush says if Congress doesn't permit offshore drilling to increase U.S. oil supplies and possibly ease gasoline prices, lawmakers should not expect voters to support them in November.

AFP - A European robot freighter decoupled from the International Space Station (ISS), positioning itself for a fiery, suicide descent into Earth's atmosphere.