By: Daniel Hurst and Paul Karp Two Liberal MP have backed calls for the Australian government to seek Julian Assange’s return to Australia “as quickly as possible”, after Barnaby Joyce said the US extradition request was unfair. Liberal backbenchers Jason Falinski and Bridget Archer called for diplomatic action to secure the Wikileaks co-founder’s return to his home country after the ...

By: Manal Al-Ani As a multiculturalism officer at a secondary school in the regional Victorian city of Shepparton, the Iraqi-Australian is accustomed to celebrating the fusion and acceptance of different cultures. It is a job that goes hand in hand with his love for gardening, a childhood passion that has blossomed since he arrived in Australia as a refugee from ...

By: AP Rome: National Geographic magazine’s famed green-eyed “Afghan Girl” has arrived in Italy as part of the West’s evacuation of Afghans following the Taliban takeover of the country, the Italian government said. The office of Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Italy organised the evacuation of Sharbat Gula after she asked to be helped to leave the country. The Italian ...

By: Daniel Hurst Scott Morrison has urged state premiers to “not get spooked” by the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and hold their nerve on internal border closures, while attempting to assure Australians their plans for a more normal Christmas remain on track. The prime minister will meet with premiers and territory chief ministers at a national cabinet meeting on Tuesday ...

By: Lisa Visentin Telco companies will intensify their efforts to block scam text messages aimed at defrauding Australians, with regulatory changes enabling them to use more sophisticated technology to stop the messages at scale. Australians have lost more than $87 million through scam calls and text messages this year, as the number of reports to watchdog website Scamwatch more than ...

By:  Gareth Browne The car park of a monastery on the slopes of Mount Lebanon has been turned into a temporary reservoir. Every few minutes, a helicopter swoops in, filling a tank dangling below it from a large pool fed by firefighters’ hosepipes.The aircraft’s updraft soaks a dozen onlooking soldiers, and in an instant, it is sauntering off into the ...

By: Tiffanie Turnbull and Maureen Dettre The NSW premier has put off a call on extending the state’s emergency pandemic powers until next year, as protesters in Victoria rally over similar laws being considered by its parliament. The NSW government this week considered a proposal for some emergency powers to be extended until the next election in March 2023, according ...

    By: David Wu and Crystal Wu   Western Australia Police confirmed they have found four-year-old girl Cleo Smith inside a locked home in the early hours of Wednesday morning after going missing for 17 days.A team of officers broke into a Carnarvon home on Tonkin Crescent around 1am where they found Cleo in one of the rooms.Cleo was ...

  By: Sarah Gerathy   The NSW government has changed its COVID-19 roadmap again, bringing forward several freedoms for people who are fully vaccinated. A number of restrictions that were due to be eased on December 1 will instead be scrapped next Monday.However, people who are not vaccinated will face an even longer wait before they can enjoy more privileges. Here’s everything ...

  By: Michelle Grattan   Scott Morrison weighed whether to go to the G20 and COP26. The political hard heads will be thinking maybe it would have been wiser to have stayed at home.Important as it is internationally, the Glasgow conference is billed as a harm-minimisation assignment for the Prime Minister. And the G20 wasn’t expected to yield much that ...