Sunny Peter

Warren James Ross accused of murdering two-year-old Tanilla Warrick-Deaves was declared guilty by a jury in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon. The jury handed down its verdict in the Supreme Court in Sydney after a day-and-a-half of deliberations. In its ruling the jury said that the 30-year-old Mr Ross had relentlessly beaten the two-year-old girl, daughter of his then-girlfriend Donna Deaves, at her Watanobbi home on the NSW central coast in August 2011, leading to her death.

Over 100 protesters threw stones at the Australian embassy in Dili as they assembled outside the complex to express outrage over reports that Australian spies had bugged the East Timorese cabinet office in capital Dili in 2004 during negotiations on an oil and gas revenue-sharing deal between the two countries.

Seeking nullification of its 2006 treaty with Australia dividing undersea oil and gas reserves, East Timor has approached the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands where proceedings began Thursday, to set up the procedural guidelines for the dispute arbitration, which experts believe could last almost a year.

Labor on Thursday, charged the government on failing to uphold its promise to bring "discipline and focus" in the targeted military operation for managing the refugee issue, after reports emerged that around 28 Rohingya asylum seekers spent three days at Christmas Island beach unnoticed.

The police in Japan have arrested a 44-year-old woman in Sakai near Osaka and charged her for fraudulently obstructing their work, after she made more than 15,000 emergency calls over a period of six months. The police who ruled out a case of mental illness suspect the woman may have been suffering from loneliness.

Authorities in Mexico, on Wednesday, recovered the truck which was carrying dangerous radioactive isotopes and was reported stolen near Mexico City. The radioactive material laden truck was found after two days of search.

Reports say one person was stabbed to death and two other injured in a mosque at Dallas in northern Melbourne when a group of elderly men objected to a 22-year-old man trying to get inside the Broadmeadows Turkish Islamic Cultural Centre, where the elderly men and women were meeting.

Bound to cause further headache to the Tony Abbott government, already reeling under allegation of spying on Indonesia, latest reports noted U.S. Whistleblower and Former National Security Agency Contractor Edward Snowden may have accessed and leaked between 15,000 and 20,000 files containing Australian intelligence reports.

Timor Leste’s Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao called upon his Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott, Wednesday, to explain the allegation of spying in which it is reported that Australian Security Intelligence Service (ASIS) bugged the Timorese cabinet office in 2004, during sensitive negotiations for the Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMAT) treaty between the two countries.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has recruited a retired brigadier to oversee his government's crackdown on criminal bikie gangs in the state. Media reports say that the retired brigadier Bill Mellor, a former infantry platoon commander and army helicopter pilot, who is known for taking on violent warlords in Somalia in the 1990s, will now head the Queensland government crack team against the notrious bikie gangs.

The United States military has halted cargo movement through Pakistan after large scale protests in the country against U.S. drone strikes. The route, from Torkham Gate at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the Pakistani port city of Karachi, is the key route for ground transport of military cargo. Although there are other routes, reports say, they are significantly more expensive.

Australian authorities are investigating whether a Chinese postdoctoral student who recently worked at the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation laboratory in Melbourne actually accessed unauthorized sensitive data at the Organisation's nanotechnology laboratory. The laboratory works closely with Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation.

Secret service agents from the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) raided the homes of a lawyer and a former spy of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) in Canberra after it was revealed that they intended to approach an international court in The Hague, backing East Timor’s case that Australia had bugged the East Timorese Cabinet ahead of the sensitive oil and gas revenue-sharing negotiations between both countries.

The Sydney police have charged a 58-year-old man for filming women having sex without their consent and uploading the videos online. In a related case, Newcastle authorities nabbed an 82-year-old man over some alleged historical sex offenses.

Tough measures adopted by Australia may have helped the country slash the number of asylum-seekers landing on its shores; however, reports from Sri Lanka indicate that its measures have not succeeded in discouraging people from attempting to make the dangerous journey by boat.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he had no plan to reform the way ABC operates, in spite of accusing the country’s public broadcaster of “poor judgement” for publishing leaked NSA documents of Edward Snowden about Australia’s intelligence gathering operations in Indonesia.

Accusing Labor of giving the country’s voters the “two-fingered salute,” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott threatened to have the Parliament session extend well up to Christmas Eve unless the country’s opposition agrees to clear his government’s legislative agenda.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, on Tuesday, vowed to adopt measure to circumvent the Senate block on the government's proposed temporary protection visa (TPV). Reacting to Senate disallowance of the measure, he, however, did not specify what measure the government intended to adopt.

The Western Australia (WA) government’s efforts to build a new cosmopolitan city of Karratha in the traditional mining town on Pilbara got a fillip this weekend with the opening of a new main street, the town’s first ever with street lights. The town has been in the news recently for all the good reasons. Late November, mining major Rio Tinto approved the expansion of its iron-ore operations in the Pilbara to 360-million tonnes a year by 2017.

The police in Sydney arrested two men on Tuesday for their attempt to help fighters in the Syrian Civil war. A 39-year-old has been charged for being "actively involved in recruiting" Australian men and facilitating their travel to Syria; a 23-year-old was arrested for attempting to travel to Syria for participation in the ongoing civil war.

A UN panel of investigators have collected evidence showing the scale and viciousness of the human rights abuses being perpetrated by both sides in the Syrian conflict.

Posing a new challenge to the Abbott government, reports published in The Guardian Australia on Monday revealed that Australian intelligence agency, then known as the Defence Signals Directorate and now called the Australian Signals Directorate, offered a broader sweep of material to its partners - the U.S., UK, Canada and New Zealand.

Lawyers representing a family of asylum-seekers fighting to stay in Australia with their sick baby born on Nov 10 at the Brisbane’s Mater Hospital say the child is not an unauthorised maritime arrival and are "extremely confident" the court will clear the infant's a right to Australian citizenship. Judge Margaret Cassidy at the Federal Circuit Court is expected to decide on Friday whether the case falls within her jurisdiction. Commonwealth lawyers on the other hand argue the case be h...

Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrision has dismissed findings by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which reported that Australia's treatment of asylum-seekers fails to meet international standards.

Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has arrived in Australia. This is her maiden visit to the country. During her visit which will conclude on Dec 2, she will push to encourage global interest in furthering the democratic reform process currently underway in Myanmar. Ms Suu Kyi is scheduled to attend a host of public events in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, and also hold meetings with the Burmese community in Australia.

As 2015 approaches marking the expiry of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Australia is working with the international community to develop the next set of goals for global development. Setting out the country's priorities for future challenges in global development Senator Brett Mason, Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs, met with the UN Secretary General’s Special Adviser on Post-2015 Development Planning Ms Amina Mohammed.

As Fiji enters its six-month cyclone season from November to April, the Australian Government-funded Fiji Community Development Program has organized a three-day workshop, in Suva, in mid-November to develop a framework for collaboration and capacity building among civil society organizations in the country for disaster risk management.

Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison may land in some legal trouble with his aggressive policy to stop asylum-seeking-people through boats. The Australian Medical Association (AMA) of the Northern Territory (NT) says Mr Morrison is guilty of child abuse and is proposing to report him to the Department of Child Protection.

Diplomatic row between Indonesia and Australia following the spying scandal took a turn for the worst, after an Australian flag was burnt in the city of Yogyakarta and hardline “Red and White Brigade” organised a protest outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta. In a related incident Anonymous Indonesia and hacker group in the country, claimed credit for attacks that briefly shutting down the Australian Federal Police site and affected the Australian Reserve Bank.