GREENPEACE will continue to stage oil rig protests despite having 30 activists taken prisoner by the Russian authorities, one of the Britons freed from detention says.
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MOVES to slap GST on overseas online shopping purchases worth less than $1000 will be on the agenda when Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey meets his state and territory counterparts this week.
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THE Vatican has for the first time publicly unveiled a handful of disputed bone fragments said by some to belong to the first pope, St Peter.
The eight or so pieces of bone sat nestled like rings in a jewel box inside a big bronze display case on the side of the altar during a mass commemorating the end of the Vatican's "Year of Faith".
The "Year of Faith" is a Benedict XVI initiative which began on October 11, 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of the start of the Vatican II Council, which approved key Catholic Church reforms.
Pope Francis prayed before the fragments, blessing them with incense, at the start of Sunday's service.
No pontiff has ever definitively declared the fragments to belong to the Apostle Peter, but Pope Paul VI in 1968 said fragments found in the necropolis under St Peter's Basilica were "identified in a way that we can consider convincing".
Ben Dorries HAVING landed in Brisbane declaring it a boring city that no one had heard of, a humbled England will leave today never forgetting the place.
IMAGINE tasting what you wanted and never gaining weight. That's the reality with a new 'digital lollipop' that allows users to taste flavours without actually eating them.
PRINCE Harry has been getting used to life in the sub-zero conditions of the Antarctic ahead of his charity trek with wounded servicemen and women.
IT WAS a plan that backfired, badly. Two shop owners tried to convince a Lotto winner his $1 million ticket was worth just $1000. Find out what he did next.
THE national union peak body wants special leave for domestic violence victims to be included as a minimum workplace award entitlement from next year.
To coincide with White Ribbon Day, Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Dave Oliver said unions will support a special resolution on the issue at an ACTU executive meeting on Tuesday.
He said 1.2 million workers already have access to domestic violence leave but it should be extended to cover more people.
"Victims of domestic violence are often vulnerable, traumatised and left with little support," he said.
"The last thing they need is to risk losing their jobs."
THE alert status for one of Indonesia's most active volcanoes has been raised to the highest level after it repeatedly sent hot clouds of gas down its slope following a series of eruptions in recent days.
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TENS of thousands of demonstrators have marched through central Kiev to demand the Ukrainian government reverse course and sign a landmark agreement with the European Union in defiance of Russia.
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UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova has been elected to a second four-year term as head of the UN's cultural agency.
Speaking after her re-election on Tuesday by UNESCO's general conference, the native of Sofia, Bulgaria, said she was working to streamline UNESCO operations while avoiding major cuts caused by a lack of funds.
The US suspended donations, which made up nearly a quarter of UNESCO's budget, after the agency's decision to admit Palestine as a member in 2011.
The US lost its UNESCO vote last week over the funding dispute and did not take part in Tuesday's ballot.
UNESCO may be best known for its program to protect the world cultures via Heritage sites, which include the Statue of Liberty and Mali's Timbuktu.
Its core mission was to be an anti-extremist organisation.
DEFENCE Department secretary Dennis Richardson says fugitive US defence contractor Edward Snowden should be regarded as a common criminal, not a whistleblower.
Mr Richardson, the former head of the Australian Security intelligence Organisation (ASIO), said he became irritated every time he saw a reference to Snowden's disclosure of US intelligence information as whistleblowing.
"I thought whistleblowers revealed things that were illegal," he told an Australian Strategic Policy Institute dinner in Canberra on Tuesday.
"As far as I am concerned Snowden is probably nothing more than a garden-variety criminal."
Mr Snowden, a former US defence contractor, revealed details of secret US surveillance programs that were later published worldwide. He's currently in hiding in Russia, where he has been granted asylum for a year.
THE government can achieve its target five per cent emissions reduction through its direct action scheme at a cost of $7-10 billion, an economist says.
Danny Price, managing director of Frontier Economics Australia, said on Tuesday the task would depend on the difficult issues of scheme penalties and baselines which the government had yet to announce.
Initially the coalition proposed a $10.5 billion direct action fund out to 2020 but has now revised that down to $2.55 billion to 2018.
Mr Price said there would certainly be funds beyond this initial four year forward estimates period, although he couldn't say just how much more would be needed.
"It will depend very much on where the government sets the baselines and the nature of the penalties that are applied, but in the order of $7-10 billion, but probably on the lower end of that range. That includes the $2.55 billion," he told ABC television.
Mr Price is one of a small group of economists who favour direct action rather than a carbon tax to reduce carbon emissions.
He said a couple of years ago the then opposition invited Frontier Economics to review costings and assess whether their proposed range of abatement measures were consistent with the literature.
"In both cases we concluded that the costs were reasonable and the level of abatement was very consistent, probably on the conservative side of the evidence available at the time," he said.
Mr Price said a carbon tax worked as a stick whereas direct action was a carrot.
But it also included penalties.
"Direct action comprises both a reward and also a penalty. So if any producer comes along and starts to emit at a much higher rate than they did before, that penalty could cut in," he said.
"Very much, the focus is on encouraging greater quantities of cleaner energy or cleaner forms of production."
