Millionaire David Duffield, the former computer software magnate, plans to revise blueprints to build a huge mansion after neighbours complained the hotel-sized home was out of character with the area.

IRAQI and US forces, acting on a tip-off, raided a dangerous Sunni neighbourhood yesterday and freed an Australian hostage.

The family of an Australian engineer being held hostage in Iraq offered a “donation” to the Iraqi people today, as Australia’s top Muslim cleric left for Baghdad in a last-ditch effort to win his release.

A SUICIDE car bomb exploded at the funeral of a Kurdish official in northern Iraq yesterday, killing 20 Iraqis and wounding more than 30 and bringing the death toll in three days of insurgent attacks to at least 100.

Iraqi militants have kidnapped an Australian man who pleaded for US-led coalition forces to leave Iraq in order to save his life, according to a video tape obtained today.