OFF THE SHELF

Shark David Owen Allen & Unwin, $35 Reviewer Dianne Dempsey

Peace talks ramp up

NICOSIA. Cyprus' rival leaders have agreed to intensify talks aimed at reunifying the divided island, in a move seen as key to achieving a possible peace deal in 2010.

CANDLES BURN BRIGHT FOR HANNUKA IN WARSAW

The candles of an eight-metre menorah burn in front of the Palace of Culture, Warsaw, in a rare public observance of a Jewish holiday. Right: an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man stands in front of a menorah at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, in Jerusalem. The festival is an eight-day commemoration of the Jewish uprising in the second century, BC, against the Greek-Syrian kingdom, which tried to put statues of Greek gods in the Jewish Temple.