Queensland’s economy is in the middle of a slump worsened by natural disasters according to the latest Deloitte Access Economics report on Australia’s finances.

The state government already announced $1.3 billion for damage caused by droughts and floods, but the independent Deloitte report estimates the figure will be closer to $6 billion.

Queensland Deputy Premier and Treasurer Jackie Trad said Deloitte is basing that figure on multiple metrics over different timeframes with a broader perspective than the Queensland government’s assessment.

Australia's military has warned of a possible influx of climate refugees and an increased potential for conflict because of the effects of climate change.

Australia Defence Force briefing notes obtained by the ABC suggested droughts and rising sea levels in the Indo-Pacific region are causing refugees to relocate.

Former Defence Force chief Chris Barrie said those affected by climate change would see Australia as a “land of opportunity”.

Egypt opened the 4,600 year old Bent Pyramid to visitors for the first time since 1965 to help boost tourism at the World Heritage site. 

The Bent Pyramid is one of Egypt’s oldest structures built during the Fourth Dynasty and is a precursor to the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Tourists will be able to climb down a narrow 79-metre tunnel to reach two chambers deep inside the pyramid.

The Nara Deer Preservation Foundation in Western Japan said 14 deer have died at Nara Park since March, nine of which were found to have consumed plastic.

Nara Park is famous for having more than 1000 deer reside inside its bounds, where visitors can feed the deer special crackers.

Vet Rie Maruko said the deer that died were very skinny and should not have been fed anything other than the senbei snacks.

Lime has raised the hire cost of its city scooters despite a new scooter competitor set to arrive on Brisbane streets next month.

Lime public affairs manager Nelson Savanh said prices were raised by eight cents per minute to ensure a safe premium service.

Competitors Neuron Mobility will be operating 600 orange scooters on Brisbane streets by August following Brisbane City Council approval last month.

The main online portal for government services MyGov was offline for four hours last Friday disrupting tax returns and Centrelink users.

Affected Australians took to social media to raise their anger regarding the outage, which meant Australians couldn’t report their income to Centrelink.  

General Manager Hank Jongen said investigations are underway to determine the cause of the outage.

A Telstra outage which caused issues for shoppers and bank customers around the country is been blamed on an "unusually large volume of traffic" in NSW.

The nation’s four big banks and major supermarkets were affected by the outage, which inhibited some EFTPOS terminals and access to ATMs on Thursday. 

Telstra apologised for the outage and says it worked as quickly as possible to restore the disruption to its data services.

A New York City power outage plunged Times Square into darkness on Saturday after a blackout knocked out power to more than 7,300 homes and businesses.

People caught in the outage were stuck in elevators and subways, while Broadway theatre performances were cancelled. 

John Mcavoy, executive chief of energy firm Con Edison, said the cause of the outage is unclear and does not appear related to excessive load.

A magnitude-6.6 earthquake in the Indian Ocean has been felt across large parts of Western Australia.

The quake struck about 200 kilometres off the coast, between Broome and Port Hedland at 1:39pm on Sunday. 

Geoscience Australia seismologist Phil Cummins said this event may happen every 20 years and people should be aware aftershock earthquakes may be triggered.