AUSTRALIA: Plan to Tackle Domestic Violence Wins Support

Kelly Johnson was just 28 when she was murdered by a former boyfriend at her Adelaide home last year. The mother of one was hit on the head with a frying pan and stabbed repeatedly with "startling ferocity", according to Justice Trish Kelly, who handed down a mandatory life sentence to Johnson's killer, Daniel Hall, in February.

ENVIRONMENT: Coral Reefs Lucky – This Time

Scientists have been surprised by the rapid recovery of coral reefs from mass bleaching on Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef, but they warn that reefs remain particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

AUSTRALIA: Asylum Seekers at Centre of Political Squabble

Australia’s opposition and governing parties have been admonished for attempting to make ‘political capital’ out of the recent spike in asylum seekers trying to reach the nation’s shores by boat.

AUSTRALIA: Forgotten Victims of Bushfires’ Fury

The fires which swept across 400,000 hectares of bush in the south-eastern Australian state of Victoria in February left 173 people dead and ruined more than two thousand homes. But while they razed businesses, schools and kindergartens to the ground, wildlife and their habitats were also destroyed.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Parliament Tightens Protest Ban at Spy Base

Despite ongoing community concerns over the highly secretive Pine Gap spy station in central Australia, the nation’s parliament has moved to effectively ban protest at the joint Australia-United States base.

AUSTRALIA: Government Urged to Conduct Iraq War Probe

The U.K. government’s recent announcement that it will conduct an inquiry into Britain’s involvement in Iraq has led to calls here for Australia to review its own participation in the controversial war.

AUSTRALIA: Concerns Rise Over Leak at Uranium Mine

The revelation that a substantial amount of contaminated water is leaking each day from a tailings dam at a uranium mine, located in a World Heritage Site, has sparked protests from environment activists.

AUSTRALIA: ‘Chinese Asylum Seekers’ Rights Were Violated’

A yet-to-be released report by Australia’s human rights watchdog into the 2005 treatment of a group of Chinese asylum seekers held at the immigration detention here has concluded that serious breaches of civil and political rights were made by the immigration department.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Tough Terror Laws Part of Routine Policing?

Civil libertarians are concerned that significant powers wielded by authorities in order to conduct investigations into terrorism-related activities are being normalised and made available for less serious crimes.

AUSTRALIA: Pressured to Do More in Afghanistan

With the internecine battle among some of the 42 contributing nations to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) over burden-sharing in Afghanistan continuing, the Australian government is giving little away about its intentions regarding an expected request for more troops.

AUSTRALIA: African Resources Behind Growing Links

With hundreds of Australian mining companies now involved in the extraction of natural resources in Africa, the Rudd government is also aiming to play a bigger role in the continent’s affairs.

AUSTRALIA: Indigenous Languages Under Threat

Language in Australia revolves around the nation’s main tongue, English, and the likes of Italian, Greek, Cantonese and Arabic, used by hundreds of thousands of Australians. There are also about 100 indigenous languages still spoken here, though most face a bleak future.

Q&A: Gitmo Uighurs Highlight a Complex Ethnic Problem

Although United States President Barack Obama was quick to order the closure of the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay soon after assuming office, the question of what to do with the roughly 175 current inmates who are unlikely to be prosecuted by the U.S. remains.

ASIA PACIFIC: Know Your Indonesia – Australians Urged

One is cohesive, has a relatively small population and has been democratic since its foundation; the other is fragmented, is one of the world’s most-populous nations and only emerged from years of authoritarian rule a decade ago.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: New Drive Against Racism

With new figures showing that 44 percent of Australians were either born overseas or have at least one parent who was, community organisations have welcomed a stepped-up government programme to tackle racial, cultural and religious intolerance.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Year Later Apology to Lost Generations Looks Hollow

One year after the historic apology made to indigenous Australians by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on behalf of the nation, conjecture remains over whether enough has been done to support the acknowledgement of wrongs inflicted on the first Australians.

ENVIRONMENT-AUSTRALIA: Bushfires Highlight Global Warming Danger

While the bushfires which ravaged parts of the state of Victoria earlier this month - the most devastating in the nation’s history - are not being blamed directly on the effects of climate change, it is clear that global warming was indeed a factor.

FIJI: South Pacific’s Burma?

There are concerns that the behaviour of Fiji’s interim government indicates the possibility of a Burma-style dictatorship emerging in the Pacific nation.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Change National Day Say Indigenous People

Australia's national day is celebrated annually with much fanfare. But Jan.26, which marks the establishment of the colony of New South Wales more than 200 years ago, is viewed by many indigenous activists as the anniversary of the European invasion of their land.

CLIMATE CHANGE: New Findings Show Antarctic Warming

Although Antarctica has hitherto been believed to be the only continent to buck the global trend of warming, new findings by United States-based scientists indicate that the coldest continent is indeed hotting up in a similar way to the rest of the world.

AUSTRALIA: Complicit in East Timor Occupation – Records

Recently declassified government records from 1978 are a further indictment of Australia’s complicity in Indonesia’s 24-year occupation of East Timor.