An Australian defence lawyer was revealed to be a police informant, which has made the convictions of some of Australia's most high-profile criminals cast into doubt.

Court documents show the defence barrister, who represented notorious organised crime figures, gave information to Victoria Police between 2005-2009.

The High Court's decision to lift injunctions on the case means they could appeal against their convictions, having their sentences reduced, or convictions quashed altogether.

Ukraine has begun calling up reservists and deploying troops to the border to counter what it says is a growing threat of Russian invasion.

President Petro Poroshenko, who last week declared martial law in 10 regions, announced the military actions on Monday in response to what he said was a, “sharp increase in Russian forces forces along our borders and in occupied Crimea.”

He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who claimed to have created the world’s first gene-edited babies has gone missing after his former employees denied that he was detained over the weekend, the South China Morning Post reports.

He apparently hasn’t been seen publicly since he made an appearance at a scientific summit on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for his former workplace denied reports that he was being detained. Telling the newspaper “right now nobody’s information is accurate, only the official channels are.”

After ten days of significant firefighting operations, more than 100 blazes continue to burn across Queensland, but authorities believe the state's unprecedented bushfire crisis won't drag on for much longer.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Katarina Carroll said after a marathon effort, the end was now in sight.

Since August three million hectares has been burnt by bushfire across Queensland, an area the approximate size of Belgium.

A replanting program for Queensland farms could stop sediments and contaminants from reaching the Brisbane river.

The Queensland project to be launched by the Port of Brisbane and Queensland Urban Utilities this month will stop 16,000 tonnes of sediment containing 11 tonnes of nitrogen and 22 tonnes of phosphorus each year.

This comes after reports that the Brisbane River has reached a tipping point in nitrogen and phosphorus levels and the project will help slow storm flow and reduce up to a meter off potential flood levels.

There is a one-in-ten chance power will be switched off for South Australians this summer to cope with demand.

The threat of load shedding was revealed in the latest national energy market operator's report, and the high price is a factor hurting many businesses.

Government is working on building another electricity interconnector across the border. Energy Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan says the New South Wales' interconnector is necessary to get South Australia back to where it needs to be with regards affordable, reliable electricity.

Queensland women seeking a pregnancy termination will be shielded from protesters as abortion law reform comes into effect.

Abortion is no longer criminalized as of yesterday and women are now able to have a termination on request up to 22 weeks or after that gestation with consent from two doctors.

Safe access zones of 150 metres around clinics will come into effect to shield women from harassment from anti-choice protesters, while filming people entering or leaving the clinics will be banned.

A 69 year old Dutch Motivational Speaker, has fought to legally change his age so that he may have a better chance in the dating scene.

Emile Ratelband informed the court that he felt 20 years younger and should therefore legally be able to change his age, a request that was rejected by the court in the Netherlands.

The court ruled that given age is closely linked with the legal system and legal rites of passage, affording people the opportunity to change their age would set a dangerous precedent.

Social networking platform, Tumblr, has announced plans to ban all pornographic content off the site, effective from the 17th of December.

This policy comes after their app was pulled from Apple’s store after images of child abuse were discovered to have made it through the websites filters.

New community guidelines states that users cannot upload real-life human genitals or anything deemed to be so photorealistic that it would be genuine.