BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents attacked cities across Iraq on Monday with car bombs, suicide blasts and gun battles that killed more than 70 people in unrest that has deepened fears of a return to civil war.

No group claimed responsibility for the day-long attacks, most of them in northern Iraq, but officials blame much of the violence that has killed nearly 2,000 people since April on Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al Qaeda's local wing.

Weeks of bloodshed have accompanied rising political tensions between Iraq's majority Shi'ite leaders and members of the Sunni community, who believe they have been marginalized since the fall of Saddam Hussein after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

But war in neighboring Syria, where Shi'ite Iran and the region's Sunni Gulf states are backing opposing sides, has also put pressure on Iraq's own balance among Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurds who share power in a fragile government.

Markets in two northern Iraqi towns were hit early on Monday, police said. Later attacks targeted security forces. In the northern city of Mosul, suicide bombers and rocket fire struck police headquarters, killing 24, many of them police and soldiers.

"I was selling watermelon and suddenly I heard a powerful blast at the entrance to the market. I fled from the dust and smoke when a second blast turned the place into hell," said Hassan Hadi, a farmer wounded in one of the market attacks.

"I was hit in my leg and lay down in shock."

Most of the apparently coordinated violence hit the north of the country and included at least eight suicide blasts and gun battles at military bases or checkpoints.

Two roadside bombs also exploded near a cafe, killing four people in the Shi'ite district of Sadr City, northeastern Baghdad, police said.

Suicide attacks are the signature of al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate, Islamic State of Iraq, and their growing frequency, in particular so many in one day, appears to indicate the extent to which Islamist insurgents are regrouping.

Invigorated by Syria's mostly Sunni revolt and tapping into bitter Iraqi Sunni discontent with the Shi'ite-led government, al Qaeda's local wing is regaining some ground lost during its war with U.S. troops, who left Iraq in December 2011.

Since December, thousands of Sunnis have protested against the government. But an Iraqi army raid on a Sunni protest camp in the town of Hawija in April reignited violence.

Monthly death tolls since then have been the worst since the inter-communal bloodletting five years ago that killed tens of thousands, partitioned Baghdad into districts based on religious sect and drove Iraq to the edge of civil war.

At the height of Iraq's sectarian violence, the monthly death count sometimes topped 3,000.

Iraqi military forces are better equipped and trained than at the peak of the conflict, but they lack the comprehensive intelligence resources and air cover capability to track insurgents that they enjoyed under U.S. military guidance.

(Reporting by Reuters correspondents in Baquba and Mosul, Gazwan Hassan and Mustafa Mahmoud, Suadad al-Salhy and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Xavier Briand)

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The star of HBO's "Behind the Candelabra" spoke about his throat cancer that was diagnosed in 2010 and its sometime association with the ubiquitous human papillomavirus, or HPV, and oral sex.

"Because without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV [human papillomavirus], which actually comes about from cunnilingus," today's edition of The Guardian newspaper .

But the actor's publicist, Allen Burry, told ABCNews.com today that his client "never said it was the cause of his particular cancer. They did discuss it. He did say oral sex is a suspected cause of certain oral cancers. He did not say it was his specifically."

About 63 percent of the estimated 11,726 cases of oropharyngeal cancers diagnosed each year in the United States are thought to be caused by HPV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 3,000 Americans are diagnosed each year with HPV-associated anal cancer and the rate of infection appears to be increasing.

"Right now in the United States only 2 percent of boys are vaccinated, which is shocking because by the time they are adults, these boys will be more likely to get cancer from HPV than girls," said , director of the University of Maryland's Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center.

"By the time they become adults, throat cancer from HPV in men is four times more likely than cervical cancer in women."

HPV spreads via oral, vaginal and anal intimacy, as well as through cunnilingus and fellatio. The virus does not live in the blood, semen or vaginal secretions. It takes about 20 years for exposure to the virus to develop into cancer.

Doctors say that-- earlier sex, more partners and especially oral sex -- are contributing to a new epidemic of orpharyngeal squamous cell cancers, those of the throat, tonsils and base of the tongue.

Similarly high rates have also been seen in Europe, where a 2010showed a strong correlation between oral cancers and oral sex.

About 50 percent of all girls are vaccinated against HPV-related cervical cancer, a number which is slowly increasing because of strong CDC recommendations, Dr. Cullen said. Women do get HPV-related throat cancer, but at a much lower rate than men.

"The take home message is this virus is out there and virtually everyone is exposed as they become sexually active ... no matter what point in life," he said. "And boys are at greater risk than girls."

The CDC recommends two licensed vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, to protect against cervical, anal and oral cancers, but those guidelines have never been fully embraced by parents or young adults.

"Why not prevent what's preventable? HPV infects both sexes," Austin, Texas, pediatrician Dr. Ari Brown said. "And, while the biggest benefit for boys to get this shot is prevention against spreading it to girls, boys are at risk for other types of HPV-related cancers as well as genital warts."

But even as HPV-related head, neck and throat cancers are on the rise -- by more than 225 percent between 1988 and 2004, according to one study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology -- vaccination rates remain low.

"I think the public was spooked and once people are scared, it is hard to unscare them," Brown said. "However, the vaccine has been out for seven years now. Over 40 million doses have been given. Hopefully, people will become more accepting of the vaccine over time and we will be able to reduce the number of illnesses caused by HPV."

Aboutand about 14 million become newly infected each year, according to the CDC. The virus is so common that nearly all sexually active men and women will get at least one kind of HPV in their lifetimes.

Cervarix is recommended for females 10 through 25 years of age. . It is also for 9- through 26-year-old males.

Some parents have objected to giving their sons and daughters a vaccine that presumes they will be sexually active.

"What I always tell parents is that you don't have to have intercourse to get HPV," Dr. Brown said. "There are other forms of intimacy that can spread this virus. So, just because you believe your child will not have sex until they are 30 or married, etc., it is possible that having a physical relationship with a partner will lead to HPV infection."

The virus can be spread via skin-to-skin contact with an infected partner, although thin genital skin is the most easily infected.

Others have expressed safety concerns about the vaccine.

A government report released in 2009 , as well as incidents of blood clots and neurological disorders.

Cullen said looking back at reports, researchers have concluded that there were "no excess deaths" directly attributed to the vaccine.

"The vaccine has been given to hundreds of thousands, if not millions worldwide," oncologist Cullen said. "We have more than 10 years experience and it has been looked at carefully. We can now say with complete confidence that it is very safe and the reactions we have seen are usually very mild, as you would see with any injection."

Because of the growing acceptance of vaccination among girls, cervical cancer rates among women are beginning to decline, Cullen said. "All this is very good news," he added.

But HPV rectal and anal cancers are "going up significantly."

Each year, more than 30,000 new cases of cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx are diagnosed, and more than 8,000 people die from oral cancer, according to the CDC.

There are more than 100 strains of the virus. Some cause genital warts, but others can result in cell changes that decades later can become cancerous. Each strain is identified by a number; oral and cervical cancers are caused by HPV sub-types 16 and 18.

HPV can also cause cancers of the vulva, vagina and penis, and there is some evidence it is associated with lung cancers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Employers stepped up hiring a bit in May in a show of economic resilience that suggests the Federal Reserve could begin to scale back its monetary stimulus later this year.

The United States added 175,000 jobs last month after adding only 149,000 in April, the Labor Department said on Friday.

The pick up in hiring came despite tax hikes and sweeping budget cuts earlier in the year. The unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a point to 7.6 percent, which economists called encouraging because more Americans were began to hunt for jobs.

"The labor market continues to trudge forward," said Jim Baird, an investment officer for Plante Moran Financial Advisors in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Even so, the jobless rate remains well above pre-recession levels and May marked the third straight month that U.S. payrolls increased by less than 200,000.

The report showed an economy still in need of the Fed's pedal-to-the-metal support, but one which could be strong enough by September for the U.S. central bank to ease up on its bond-buying stimulus, many economists said.

"It's constructive enough to support the notion that bond buying should be curtailed as we go into the late third (or) early fourth quarter," said Ian Lyngen, a bond strategist at CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Connecticut.

Officials at the U.S. central bank, who next gather on June 18-19, have intimated they could be close to reducing their $85 billion in monthly bond purchases even though the recovery is not expected to pick up steam until late in the year when the sting from government spending cuts begins to fade.

The May job growth figure was just above the median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists, and U.S. stock prices rose sharply on the report, with the blue chip Dow Jones industrial average closing up nearly 1.4 percent.

The dollar also firmed and yields on U.S. government bonds climbed modestly in anticipation of Fed action later this year.

Of economists polled by Reuters after the data, 42 of 48 said they expected the central bank to trim bond purchases before year-end. Of those, 21 said a reduction would likely occur in the third quarter; 19 specified September.

Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser told Reuters the jobs figures showed that fears were overdone of how hard a tightening of fiscal policy would hit the economy. He repeated his call for the central bank to start easing up on its stimulus sooner rather than later.

"We would all like it to be stronger but there's no reason for us to feel bad about the numbers that came out," he said.

LASTING DAMAGE

Many analysts expect Washington's austerity drive to slow the economy to a growth pace of around 1.5 percent in the second quarter from a 2.4 percent annual rate in the first quarter.

Budget cuts have prompted hiring freezes at government agencies. Government payrolls declined by 3,000 in May.

May's pace of job growth is right around the average for the prior 12 months. Over that period, the jobless rate fell about half a percentage point and the ranks of the long-term unemployed declined by about 1 million people.

"From a worker point of view, of course, you'd like to see a more robust recovery," said Rick Meckler, president of LibertyView Capital Management in Jersey City, New Jersey.

The report added evidence that U.S. factories have felt the pinch from budget cuts in Europe stemming from the debt crisis. U.S. manufacturing employment declined by 8,000 jobs last month.

"The politics of austerity still hold the world in a vise-like grip," said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO labor organization.

While total hours worked in the U.S. economy ticked higher, average hourly earnings were essentially flat. Over the past 12 months, earnings have risen just 2 percent, extending a years-long trend of lackluster income growth.

The biggest job gains were in professional and business services, with temporary jobs up 26,000 in a sign employers might add full-time staff in coming months. The leisure and hospitality industry also showed strength, as did retail and construction.

One strong economic signal was that the jobless rate rose slightly because a flood of people entered the workforce.

In May, 420,000 people entered the workforce, defined as a person either be employed or looking for work. Economists consider that good news because some of the recent drop in the jobless rate had been due to discouraged workers dropping out of the labor pool.

The share of the population in the labor force rose to 63.4 percent.

In another positive sign, the government's household survey, used to calculate the unemployment rate, showed even stronger job growth than the payroll survey of employers. Those figures, however, can be volatile month to month.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Additional reporting by Chris Reese, Luciana Lopez, Herb Lash and Ellen Freilich in New York, and Jonathan Spicer in Philadelphia; Editing by Neil Stempleman and Tim Ahmann)

MUMBAI (Reuters) - After dominating Indian cinema for more than four decades, Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan is gearing up for his television acting debut this year.

Bachchan is no stranger to television, having hosted several seasons of the Indian version of the quiz show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" but this will be his first role in a TV fiction series.

It comes after Bachchan made his Hollywood debut last month in Australian director Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby", walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival with Leonardo DiCaprio.

"Never done serials before, so apprehension plays hard .. but .. better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all," the 70-year-old actor said on Twitter on Wednesday.

Bachchan is arguably the biggest name in Indian cinema and also patriarch of an acting dynasty that includes son Abhishek and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai, a former Miss World.

His role and the content of the TV series, which will have a finite number of episodes, is still a closely guarded secret. It will be directed by Bollywood filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and is slated to go on air later this year.

"This series will change the way India sees television and will open the doors for a new genre in television entertainment," Kashyap said in a statement.

Bollywood stars are increasingly turning to television for more visibility and as an alternative to a movie career, hoping to cash in on an audience hungry to see more of their favorite actors. Several reality TV shows in India are hosted by movie stars.

Another leading Indian actor, Anil Kapoor, who played the quiz show host in "Slumdog Millionaire", is to star in the lead role of the Indian version of the American action series "24" that goes to air later this year.

(Editing by Tony Tharakan and Belinda Goldsmith)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook, which once seemed poised to take over the Internet, is showing its limitations: a host of newer services are gaining ground among trend-setting youth; a much-hyped smartphone app has received a tepid response; and grand ambitions such as taking on Google in the search business seem ever more fanciful.

In a volatile Internet industry where companies can rise and fall almost overnight, one might even say that the nine-year-old Facebook Inc is suffering a mid-life crisis.

Yet even if the social network falls short of its goal of becoming an all-encompassing Web destination that consumers turn to for everything from messaging to shopping, experts say Facebook has likely achieved enough scale and ubiquity to assure its staying power.

"They've gotten so big that it's one of those things you have to use," said Dan Niles, chief investment officer of tech-focused hedge fund firm AlphaOne Capital Partners, which does not have a Facebook position. "You may not like the electricity company but I guarantee you you're still getting electricity."

Concerns that Facebook is losing its grip on consumers, underscored by a recent report from Pew Research that showed declining enthusiasm among some teens, have kept a lid on the company's share price even as stock markets rallied. Facebook shares closed at $23.52 on Tuesday, near their six-month low and almost 40 percent below the company's May 2012 IPO price.

With 1.11 billion users, a rich trove of data on those users' interests and relationships, vast personal collections of photos and online identity profiles that serve as the log-in for many other services, Facebook faces little near-term risk that consumers will abandon it in large numbers.

Consumers spend significantly more time on Facebook than on competing online properties such as Google, Microsoft or Yahoo, according to Nielsen Media Research. And the number of Facebook users who visit the site every day increased to 59.9 percent in the first quarter, compared to 58.3 percent in the fourth quarter.

"The newer, exciting stuff is coming from startups, but Facebook is really going to be the glue at the middle," said Bill Lee, an entrepreneur who has started several Web companies.

For that reason, he said, Facebook is not going to "pull a MySpace," referring to the one-time social networking leader that was bought by News Corp before it all but collapsed when users lost interest and decamped to Facebook.

DEATH BY A THOUSAND SNAPCHATS?

Teens use Facebook more than any other social service, according to the Pew report. But in focus groups that were part of the same study, many mentioned waning enthusiasm for the site, citing the increasing number of adults on the service and the flood of frivolous posts shared by friends. (See http://r.reuters.com/caf68t for report)

The most immediate threat to Facebook, analysts say, comes from a new crop of mobile apps designed for messaging and photo sharing that are attracting millions of users and threatening to siphon some of their time away from Facebook. Japan's Line has racked up 140 million users since launching two years ago, for example, while SnapChat, which allows users to send photos that disappear after a few seconds, said in December that 50 million photos are shared every day.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg dismissed the notion that teenagers were leaving for newer services. She noted during a recent talk at the AllThingsDigital conference that Facebook continued to grow even as other social services were expanding.

But Facebook has acknowledged in regulatory filings that some younger users have reduced their engagement with the site to spend more time on other products such as Instagram, a photo-sharing app which Facebook bought in September.

If Facebook is not able to keep improving its own product, the horde of smaller services could start to chisel away at usage on the social network, said Chuck Jones, founder of technology research firm Sand Hill Insights. But he said it would be a slow process.

"Death by a thousand SnapChats could happen in three-to-five years, but not in the next six-to-12 months," he said.

Meanwhile, other online activities that not long ago seemed destined to move inside the walls of Facebook's social network have stayed independent.

"People imagined that Facebook would become the Internet," said John Caplan, the CEO of OpenSky, an online shopping service that operates a standalone social network. But while Facebook's core functionality of photo-sharing and connecting with friends is unparalleled, there are few signs that it is dominating other types of online activity.

"The reason why we didn't build it on Facebook is that you're not on Facebook to go shopping," Caplan said of his service.

Similarly, job-seeking and other forms of professional networking are largely dominated by LinkedIn. Twitter has thrived as a more popular way to get up-to-the-second breaking news and updates from favorite celebrities and other public figures. Google continues to own the critical Internet search business.

Net Jacobsson, a former Facebook executive, says a narrower scope and ambition for the company is not necessarily bad.

"If you try to be everything, you somehow lose your mission," said Jacobsson. "You try to grab too much, it becomes too bloated and people feel that," he said.

HOME TROUBLES

Facebook shares are down about 12 percent this year, compared to a 16 percent rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite's 14 percent increase.

Part of the pressure, say analysts, has come from the disappointing performance of the Facebook Home mobile app.

Despite an advertising blitz, the app scored an average 2.5 stars out of five stars in the Google Play store, with many users complaining that what Facebook sees as a feature they see as a bug: Home puts Facebook front-and-center on the phone and shunts other apps to the background.

AT&T Inc slashed the price of a smartphone model that came pre-loaded with Facebook Home from $99 to 99 cents just a few weeks after it was released.

Josh Elman, a former Facebook manager who now works at venture capital firm Greylock Partners, said the flaws with Home raise questions about whether Facebook's product team has become too insular and is not in touch with the way the general public uses products. He added, though, that there was merit in the broader concept of a social networking-oriented phone.

Improving the core service, rather than simply trying to match every competitive product, could be the key to Facebook's future success as it tries to stay on top of a more crowded field, say analysts.

And one of the biggest black eyes the social network has suffered - a botched initial public offering that results in billions of dollars in losses for investors - may end up looking a lot better in hindsight.

That is because the IPO succeeded in maximizing the amount of money the company raised. Now, with $9 billion in cash and securities in the bank, Facebook can acquire any fast-growing threats, as it did with Instagram, said Joe Beninato, general manager of digital wallet initiatives at Urban Airship, a startup that helps businesses develop mobile services.

"If something comes along that really looks like it could cause them an issue, they have some pretty big assets to fall back on," he said.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Leslie Gevirtz)

Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said three men who were exercising were killed at the scene and the fourth man, identified as the gym owner, died later in the hospital.

The shooting happened in the Body Extreme gym in Tepito, one of Mexico City's most dangerous neighborhoods.

Mancera said the gunfire appeared to be targeted at the first three men, and the business owner was shot after confronting the armed men. Agents found six bullet shells inside the building.

"It was a direct attack. There were about 30 people at this place," he said.

Police later detained two people who were armed and in the same neighborhood. They opened fire on police, without hitting them.

Josefina Ramirez said her nephew was one of the four killed, along with two friends and an instructor.

"Two masked men came and just started shooting," she said. "He had no enemies."

Tepito is the main clearinghouse for millions of dollars of contraband, from guns and drugs to counterfeit handbags that come through Mexico City.

A dozen people from the neighborhood were kidnapped nearly two weeks ago from an after-hours bar in the city center. Three people have been detained in the kidnapping, but there is still no sign of the 12 who were taken in broad daylight May 26 by heavily armed and masked men.

It was not immediately clear if the shooting Thursday had anything to do with the kidnapping. The mayor said he did not want to speculate on whether the two attacks were related.

The disappearance of the 12 has been linked to a murder May 24 outside another Mexico City bar, according one public security official who was not authorized to speak on the record. Both crimes may have had to do with a dispute over street drug sales, the official said, something that organized crime groups in Tepito have controlled for decades.

The shooting Thursday so close to the two other crimes raised fears that an organized crime battle could be breaking out in Mexico's capital, which has been mostly spared from the cartel wars that have caused so much violence along the U.S.-Mexico border and in other parts of the country.

"We are going after those who carried out these attacks, those who have sought to cause unrest in Tepito," Mancera said.

The shooting brought an enormous police operation, including helicopters flying over the mostly residential street.

One woman crying at the scene said her boyfriend was killed, but wouldn't give her name, only claiming his innocence and shouting "you know who did this."

De acuerdo con un estudio del Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center de la Universidad de California en Los Angeles (UCLA) dado a conocer esta semana, intensificar los esfuerzos durante los dos primeros aos tras el diagnstico podra ser un factor determinante en la recurrencia de la enfermedad.

"Aunque el 80 por ciento de los pacientes de cncer de vejiga no mueren a causa de la enfermedad en los primeros cinco aos, la mayora de estos pacientes van a morir de cncer de vejiga u otras causas, van a necesitar tratamientos agresivos o tendrn recurrencia de la enfermedad", declar Karim Chamie, profesor del Departamento de Urologa de UCLA y uno de los autores del estudio.

Estudios previos haban ya demostrado la subutilizacin de recursos de cuidado en este tipo de pacientes, aunque segn los investigadores, "lo que este estudio espera hacer es destacar la necesidad de ajustarse a las directrices con respecto a tratamiento existentes y dar seguimiento ms de cerca a los pacientes en los primeros dos aos tras el diagnstico".

De acuerdo con el investigador, los hallazgos del estudio demuestran una sola instilacin de quimioterapia en la vejiga puede minimizar la recurrencia de la enfermedad y que seis instilaciones pueden disminuir la recurrencia y progresin de este cncer.

La investigacin encontr que cerca de tres cuartos de los pacientes que tienen un cncer de vejiga de alto grado no invasivo a nivel muscular van a experimentar una remisin de la enfermedad en los prximos 10 aos.

Asimismo, un 33 por ciento de los pacientes van a ver su cncer progresar a una fase ms avanzada que requerira la extraccin de la vejiga, terapia de radiacin o quimioterapia sistmica.

Tambin, los investigadores encontraron que en un 41 por ciento de los casos el cncer va recurrir pero sin experimentar una mayor propagacin de la enfermedad.

El estudio adems encontr que los pacientes mayores, las mujeres y los afroamericanos tienen mayores probabilidades de morir a causa de cncer de vejiga que los pacientes ms jvenes, hombres y blancos respectivamente.

El tabaquismo constituye el factor de riesgo ms importante para desarrollar el cncer de vejiga, hbito que causa cerca de la mitad de los casos de cncer de vejiga tanto en hombres como en mujeres, de acuerdo con la Sociedad Americana contra el Cncer (ACS).

Los fumadores tienen hasta tres veces ms probabilidades de padecer de la enfermedad que los no fumadores y es ms comn entre las personas blancas que entre las negras, hispanas, asiticas e indgenas.

Otros factores que aumentan el riesgo de cncer de vejiga son los antecedentes familiares, la exposicin al arsnico en el agua y la edad, aproximadamente nueve de cada diez personas con la enfermedad tienen 55 aos o ms, segn informacin de ACS.

El estudio analiz datos de una encuesta que se llev a cabo a nivel nacional entre beneficiarios de Medicare que tenan cncer de vejiga de alto grado no invasivo a nivel muscular.

El informe fue patrocinado por la Sociedad Americana contra el Cncer, Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, los Institutos Nacionales de Salud y el Instituto Nacional de Diabetes y Enfermedades Digestivas y de Rin.

Un paciente de cncer recibe visitas en un hospital de EE.UU. EFE/Archivo

The hefty blond-haired flanker, who won his single test cap in a defeat to Samoa in 2011, is likely to feature for the Queensland Reds against the Lions on June 8 before the Country fixture at Hunter Stadium on June 11.

"Just got the call to say I'm in the Country team to play Lions in Newy... Couple of big weeks ahead! Very exciting times ahead," the 26-year-old tweeted.

Alice Springs-born Robinson, who qualifies for the team because he once played in the New South Wales country city of Dubbo, was one of 10 Super Rugby players included in the 23-man squad.

Coach Cam Blades said for most of the team, this would their only chance to play such a high-profile match.

"It's a great opportunity for the guys who are still actively playing in the bush and for those born in the country or have a playing history in the country, whatever playing level they're at," Blades said.

"We have plenty of guys in the squad at amateur level who will get the once in a rugby lifetime chance to pit themselves against professionals that are all hardened rugby players.

"It'll be a massive occasion and a massive challenge."

The Lions open their tour against the Barbarians in Hong Kong on Saturday before moving on to Perth, where they face the Western Force on Wednesday.

Country squad: Nathan Trist, Dale Ah-Wong, Lewie Catt, Tom Cox, Alex Gibbon, Ben Greentree, Tereta-Junior Siakisini, Angus Roberts, Adam McCormack, Michael Snowden, Jarrad Butler, Tim Davidson, Trent Dyer, Beau Robinson, Phoenix Battye, Blake Enever, Richard Stanford, Rikki Abraham, Dylan Evans, Haydn Hirsimaki, Tim Metcher, Tom Kearney, Josh Mann-Rae. (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney; Editing by John O'Brien)