The Canadian government has approved a $5.5 billion oil pipeline project after a federal court sent it back for review last year.

Environmentalists and First Nations groups successfully challenged the Trans Mountain project last year, with a federal court ruling the government had failed to adequately consult First Nations community over the project’s impact on endangered killer whales.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the project will fund Canada’s “transition to a green economy”, and ease its reliance on US oil markets.
 

South African two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya says athletics’ world governing body “used” her as “a human guinea pig,” after the IAAF insisted the 800m runner either take medication to control her testosterone or compete over a different distance.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport determined the new rules for athletes with differences of sexual development were discriminatory, but concluded the discrimination was “neccessary, reasonable and proportionate” to protect “the integrity of female athletics.”

Children as young as 10 have been kept in adult maximum-security watch houses while the government upgrades a Brisbane youth detention centre.

Queensland’s two youth detention centres usually have a capacity of 258 beds, but the upgrades, which began in April last year, caused a loss of 38 beds in the youth detention system.

A staffer at the Office of the Public Guardian says youth are being disadvantaged by the decision and placing children in maximum-security watch houses is a breach of Queensland law.

The LNP has endorsed Lisa Atwood as the replacement councillor for the east Brisbane ward of Doboy, after councillor Ryan Murphy moved to Chandler ward to replace new Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner.

Ms Atwood is one of four new LNP members of Brisbane City Council after former Lord Mayor Graham Quirk resigned and former Walter Taylor councillor Julian Simmonds was elected to federal parliament in the seat of Ryan.

A scientific study has revealed the first arrival of Indigenous Australians to the continent was deliberately planned using complex technologies, with large groups first arriving over 50,000 years ago.

According to the research, at least 1300 people might have arrived in either a single migration event or smaller with successive waves averaging at least 130 people every 70 years over the course of about 700 years.

Terminally ill Victorian adults can legally ask for their doctor’s assistance to access legal euthanasia drugs from today, in an Australian first.

The assisted dying scheme will be available to patients suffering intolerable pain with fewer than six months to live and 12 months for neurodegenerative patients, providing they meet 68 conditions.

The Victorian government anticipates around 12 people will access assisted dying services under the new laws this year, increasing to about 150 each year thereafter.

161 people have been killed and almost 300,000 displaced by a resurgence of inter-ethnic conflict in northeastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The United Nations’ refugee agency says displacement centres in the region are in dire need of supplies, with humanitarian groups unable to access most of the areas affected by the violence.

The DRC has one of the world's largest numbers of displaced people, with almost 4.5 million fleeing various conflicts across the vast central African nation.

Facebook plans to launch a cryptocurrency called Libra next year as part of its wider efforts to expand beyond social networking into e-commerce and global payments.

Facebook will join with 28 partners to form Libra Association, a Geneva-based entity governing its new digital coin, which will be launched in the first half of 2020.