Malaysia's highest court has acquitted Sydney grandmother Maria Exposto, who was sentenced to hang for drug trafficking after her lawyers argued she was the "perfect text book dummy" and victim of an online romance scam.

The 55-year-old woman was convicted last year of trafficking more than one kilogram of crystal methamphetamine, discovered in a black backpack by customs officials at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in December, 2014.

Thousands of residents in southern California were forced to flee their homes on Tuesday due to a wind-driven wildfire burning in mountains near Santa Barbara.

County officials declared a “local emergency” after the fire erupted, and spread quickly on Monday, scorching thousands of hectares of land in the process.

Santa Barbara county fire spokesman, Mike Eliason said that as many as 6,300 people had been evacuated and about 2,400 structures were being currently threatened by the blaze.

A koala that was saved from a New South Wales bushfire by a woman using the shirt off her back, has been put down in a koala hospital due to his extensive burns.

“Lewis” the koala was found and rescued in raging bushfires at Long Flat, near Port Macquarie.

The injured marsupial was initially taken to the Koala hospital in Port Macquarie with severe burns to large parts of his body, before hospital staff confirmed his fate today.

A government push to expand the cashless welfare card to areas of Cape York and the Northern Territory faces a roadblock in the Senate, with crossbenchers saying they will need to analyse the bill closely before they can support it.

NT Labor Senator, Malarndirri McCarthy, has expressed concerns over the move, saying there is no clinical evidence to say that income control helps to reduce addiction.

Queensland's peak mining association has thrown its weight behind a proposed bill that could hold companies and bosses criminally responsible for workers' deaths, as the state reels from its seventh fatality in just 18 months.

Pressure has been mounting on the state to improve mine safety after the death of 57-year-old Ipswich man Brad Duxbury was killed at the Carborough Downs mine site in central Queensland on Monday night. 

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has said that emergency plans to build a pipeline to a town that could run out of water within months could take about two years to complete.

The state government is studying whether an 87-kilometre pipeline could connect the drought-stricken community of Warwick to southeast Queensland's water supply network.

However, the Liberal National Party says the study will take too long and that the pipeline should already be under construction, due to the fact that the Leslie dam is expected to run dry by August 2020. 

The United Nations says that the world will miss its chance to reduce the impact of global warming without an immediate and all-but-impossible fall in fossil fuel emissions.

The world body says that even taking into account current Paris Agreement pledges, the world is on track for a 3.2C temperature rise, something scientists fear could tear at the fabric of society.

The World Meterological Organisation said on Monday that atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations hit an all-time record in 2018.

At least 21 people have been killed and more than 300 people are injured after the most powerful earthquake to hit Albania in decades rocked the capital and surrounding region, causing several buildings to collapse and bury residents in the rubble.

Residents, some carrying babies, fled apartment buildings in Tirana and the western port of Durres after the 6.4 magnitude quake struck shortly before 4am local time.

Hundreds of climate activists are set to blockade a resources conference in Perth, with police planning a major security operation in response.

Environmental groups including Extinction Rebellion, are planning a significant presence at Perth Convention Centre today where attendees will include the chief executives of BHP, Woodside Energy and Chevron Australia.