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.

The Victorian Labor government is introducing new laws allowing trans, gender diverse and Intersex Victorians the option to change the sex on their birth certificate without undergoing gender reassignment surgery.

If passed by parliament, the laws will allow applicants to self-nominate the sex listed on their birth registration as male, female or any other gender diverse or non-binary descriptor of their choice.

The southern Indian city of Chennai is facing a water shortage crisis after its four main water reservoirs ran completely dry.

Residents have queued for hours to get water from government tanks, with the situation prompting clashes to break out between residents over water-sharing in the neighbourhood.

The city’s water department is identifying and extracting water from quarries in an attempt to resolve the dire situation, but officials say only rainfall can bring an end to the crisis.