Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro has announced he is closing the border with Brazil as a row over foreign humanitarian aid continues.

The president denies any crisis and calls the aid delivery plans a US-orchestrated show.

More than three million Venezuelans have fled in recent years as the country grapples with hyperinflation and shortages of essentials like food and medicine.

Two young Saudi sisters say they have been intercepted by kingdom officials at Hong Kong airport while attempting to escape to Australia.

The sisters aged 18 and 20 say they suffered violent abuse and fled to Hong Kong in September from a family holiday in Sri Lanka and were planning to fly into Australia.

This comes a month after an 18-year-old Saudi women who drew global attention with her escape from an alleged family abusive, gained refugee status in Canada.

Deputy NSW opposition leader Penny Sharpe has been criticised for tweeting a sign depicting NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian as the “wicked witch of the fest”.

The photo was taken at last night's Don't Kill Live Music Rally in Sydney's Hyde Park, where protestors were rallying against the State Government's new music festival regulations.

The posters from last night's rally were critical of the Government's new music festival regulations, which musicians and festival organisers have said are too strict

Timber workers and businesses are sweating on their future, with the Victorian Government delaying the release of plans for industry to access native timber reserves for logging.

The timber release plan is a key strategy that dictates where native timber can be logged by the state-owned VicForests.

VicForests says it has been directed not to proceed with a new timber release plan "until further policy work has been completed".

An alarming number of natural disaster victims are turning to high-cost, short-finance loans to avoid going broke.

Legal Aid Queensland has called for better industry oversight and is concerned a lack of financial literacy in regional centres means many disaster victims saw no alternative to payday loans.

It is predicted that personal financial problems in drought and flood-affected areas will likely reach crisis point in six months' time once all avenues for compensation claims had been exhausted.

The Queensland Government has defended giving almost $3.5 million to the controversial Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

In May, Queensland Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch slammed the Federal Government's decision to hand over nearly half a billion dollars to the foundation, despite her government giving a large sum to the same organisation.

Minister Enoch has highlighted that the criticism of the federal government did not stem from the organisation itself, but the way that the funds were allocated without tender, consultation or discussion.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin warned the United States against deploying new missiles in Europe, threatening to retaliate in kind by targeting Western capitals with his own new weaponry.

Delivering a state of the nation address, Putin said the US abandoned a key arms control pact - the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty - to free its hands to build new missiles and tried to shift the blame for the move on Russia.

Many analysts say abandoning the treaty effectively signals the start of a new arms race.