A United Nations spokesperson says the UN is sending a humanitarian team to Nagorno-Karabakh this weekend as more than 100,000 refugees have now arrived in Armenia from neighbouring Nagorno-Karabakh. It comes after Azerbaijan retook control of the enclave in a military offensive.

Baku

More than 100,000 flee Nagorno-Karabakh region

Well, this would be a grassroots volunteer effort, and I'm just going to step to the side so you can see the kind of the hub of activity behind me. People have been dropping off food and diapers and toiletries, toys, I see toothbrushes there. These are all volunteers from individuals and companies, and it's an effort that's organized by a local actress, somebody who's quite influential on Instagram in Armenia. I'm going to bring her in here, she's going to talk to me now. Hello. Her name is Ines Sargaryan. If you could just tell me what's going on here. I mean, where are these donations coming from and where are they going? Okay. Because I started collecting charity for our people, our nation in 2020, when the 44 Days War is starting. I have many volunteers who can help me, and now they come here too in these days, and here we collected a charity for our nation, for our people who are coming, for babies. You know, maybe we haven't Artsakh now, and then people all coming here and all this hungry baby crying, they haven't home, they haven't chateaus, and they have anything, and it's little what we can do for them now. I can see you're very emotional by all of it. What do you think of your country's response to this crisis? Can I say nothing for this? Because I don't know what maybe they're doing and I don't, so maybe I don't know about that. Because all day, all night, me and my all volunteers working here, but I don't know what they're doing now. Because you maybe saw people and babies come here and say, we're hungry, we don't shelter ourselves, we don't can help them all because now we say, okay, wait two days because we have a list, we have a, you know, we have 100 volunteers, but 100,000 and 20,000 people who coming, we don't, we can't help them in one day all, yes? But they want and they saw and they look at your eyes and say, can you help my baby? But you can't say, yes, your baby is good baby, but that baby not good. I help you, but that baby I don't help. Just overwhelming demand. And I thank you, sorry, please for my bad, bad English. Oh, no, no, your English is wonderful. Thank you very much for all the work you're doing and for speaking with us. I'm just going to show viewers upstairs because the other part of this volunteer effort is the drivers. So you have drivers that are coming here, volunteer drivers, they are picking up all of this aid, excuse me, excuse me here. And they are basically picking it up and they're dropping it off at hotels across the city where you have families staying. And we know that Armenia said that they can only host about 40,000 refugees and many more than that have come in. So it's really a lot of average residents, local citizens that are helping out and they're hosting some of these refugee families. So you have cars that are parked here and they pick up donations as they're ready to send them out. Raya, we heard there, you know, the passion, the pain as well, and the need that we're seeing from people there. We know the United Nations is sending a mission to the region. This is going to be the first time it's done so in decades. How can we expect their work to focus on? Well really that mission is all about assessing the humanitarian need because it's a sealed off area essentially right now. There's not a lot of verified information about how great the need is inside or also really how many people are there because we know that more than 100,000 have already left. It's estimated that there were about 120,000 people in there. There is a small team from the Red Cross on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh now, but certainly the UN mission will be able to provide a lot of clarity as to the state of the situation. Briar, thank you so much. That is Briar Stewart reporting from Yerevan, Armenia.

Hong Kong's first district elections saw a turnout of 27.5 percent, the government said Monday, a record low for a race that had shut out all opposition candidates. China has barred pro-democracy candidates from entering the race this year, reserving the ballot for "patriots."

Sha Tin

Hong Kong elections witness record low turnout

Elon Musk has reinstated far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on the social media platform X, a year after vowing never to let him return. Jones, who claimed that a December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six educators was a hoax, was banned from the platform in 2018 for violating its "abusive behavior policy."

Mountain View

Elon Musk lifts X ban on far-right conspiracist Alex Jones

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is warning the escalation in hostilities along the Israeli border could widen. The Israeli army has carried out multiple air strikes on frontline villages in some of the fiercest bombardment yet. The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah is also stepping up attacks against Israeli military outposts. 

Beirut

Israel-Gaza War

Violence escalates between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah

The Federal Government has announced its new migration strategy, which plans to reduce migrant intake by raising requirements for international students and some workers to get a visa, including minimum English language requirements.

Canberra

Government announces crackdown on migration

As Israeli troops move closer to the centre of Khan Younis, Gaza, and residents attempt to find safety, the UN warns that half of Gaza’s population is starving.



Sderot

More people flee Gaza as UN warns of mass starvation

In the final days of COP28, finding greener ways to produce clean drinking water is a big topic of conversation, but the pressure is on for an official statement about fossil fuels.

Dubai

Climate Crisis

Drinking water, fossil fuels lead COP28 agenda in final days

Residents as far south as Mackay are being warned to brace for damaging winds as Cyclone Jasper continues to track toward the coast. It's expected to cross as a Category Two on Wednesday.

Mackay

North Queensland residents prepare for Cyclone Jasper landfall

The competition to follow Annastacia Palaszczuk as Queensland Premier is heating up after her announcement that she's retiring from politics at the end of this week. 

Brisbane

Race to replace Queensland Premier heats up

Israeli tanks battled their way to the centre of Khan Younis in a major new push into the heart of the main city in the southern Gaza Strip which is sheltering hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled other parts of the enclave. 

Israeli tanks reach center of Khan Younis

Three Hong Kong pro-democracy activists have been arrested, just before voting began in a "patriots only" district election that has marginalised formerly popular opposition figures in the city amid a national security clampdown.

Shenzhen

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Foreign investors who leave their homes vacant will be slugged with a six-fold increase to penalties as the Federal Government seeks to free up more housing stock.

Foreign investors to be penalised for leaving homes vacant

The Federal Government is set to unveil a major new migration strategy tomorrow that aims to dramatically cut Australia's intake.

Government plans to 'drastically cut' migration

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday approved two gene therapies for sickle cell disease, making one of them the first treatment in the United States based on the Nobel Prize-winning CRISPR gene editing technology.

Maryland

US approves two gene therapies for sickle cell disease

Israel bombing of the Gaza Strip has intensified in an expanded phase of its war against Hamas. This is after the United States wielded its U.N. Security Council veto to shield its ally from a global demand for a ceasefire.

Jerusalem

Intensified fighting in Gaza as U.S. vetoes ceasefire

EU lawmakers and policymakers have reached a deal on rules regulating the use of artificial intelligence, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on the X social platform.

Brussels

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The U.S. has vetoed an emergency resolution at the UN security council — triggered by the secretary-general with a rarely-used power to force a vote — for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and to allow more aid into the area.

New York

United States vetoes UN vote on immediate Gaza ceasefire

Israel's military says it has struck 450 targets in Gaza over the past 24 hours, roughly double the figure it's typically reported since the end of the truce with Hamas. It marks a new expansion of the war.

Israel ramps up airstrikes on Gaza targets amid new phase

Russians and Belarusians who qualify in their sport for the Paris 2024 Olympics can take part as neutrals without flags, emblems or anthems at the event next year, the International Olympic Committee has ruled.

Paris

IOC rules Russian athletes can compete at Paris Olympics

Cyclone preparations are underway in north Queensland. Communities in North Queensland are bracing for Category Four Jasper to approach mainland Queensland by mid-next week.

Townsville City

North Queensland braces for Category Four cyclone

The Hamas-run health ministry reported 40 dead in strikes near Gaza City on Friday, and dozens more in Jabalia and the main southern city of Khan Yunis. So far, the fighting in the Palestinian enclave has left 17,487 people dead, according to the ministry's latest published figures. 

Hamas health ministry says over 17,000 dead in Gaza

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday told soldiers who had fought in Ukraine that he would run for the top job again in the 2024 election - a move that will allow the former KGB spy to stay in power until at least 2030. 

Moscow

Ukraine Invasion

Russia's Putin tells soldiers he will run for president again

Ahead of a U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his strongest public criticism of Israel's conduct of the war on Hamas in south Gaza, said there was a gap between the government's declared intentions to protect civilians and the casualties.

Washington

U.S criticizes Israel over Gaza civilian toll

2023 has been declared the hottest year in recorded history a month earlier than scientists would usually confirm the evidence. Temperatures are now nudging one and a half degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, giving the UN climate talks in Dubai a heightened sense of priority.

Council of the City of Sydney

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The Department of Justice filed new criminal charges against U.S. President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, indicting him for allegedly failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes while spending millions of dollars on a lavish lifestyle. 

Delaware

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Two months since the initial Hamas attack on southern Israel, doctors in Gaza are treating many times the number of patients they are equipped to handle, and a UN official says there is no safe place for humanitarian operations to continue.

Israel pushes deeper south as war with Hamas passes 2 months

Emergency authorities are on alert as severe Tropical Cyclone Jasper intensifies in the Coral Sea. The category four system is continuing its gradual march towards the North Queensland coast, but its exact path remains uncertain.

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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan visited Greece and met with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday. The two leaders agreed to reboot their relations, establishing a roadmap designed to usher in a new era of closer ties between the two NATO allies but historical foes. 