Private schools in Queensland are pushing back against the rollout of a new law that allows female students to wear pants or shorts as an alternative to skirts.

Queensland education minister Grace Grace says the government has no say in the policy of private schools, but wants students to be free to choose the type of clothing that best fits their school curriculum and activities.

Three survivors have been found in the wreckage of a migrant refugee boat in the Mediterranean sea.

Rough waters caused the boats to sink after 11 hours at sea and the majority of the 120 migrants on board are now feared dead.

Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Salvini, says Italian ports will remain closed to humanitarian boats in an effort to deter human traffickers.

52 Al-Shabaab militants have been killed by a US airstrike in Somalia on Sunday.

The strike is in retaliation for Al-Shabaab’s attack on a luxury hotel complex in Nairobi that saw a 25 year old suicide bomber kill 21 civilians.

The US has significantly increased its offence against the terrorist organisation, launching 47 airstrikes in the last year to combat the spread of Islamic law in the region.

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation has funded its first project after being awarded  the controversial $443m grant. The project is a 25-day health survey of remote parts of the reef by the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

Eighteen scientists and crew are on board the research vessel RV Solander and are surveying more than 20 reefs to check for signs of coral recovery since bleaching as a result of high ocean temperatures caused mass coral mortality in 2016 and 2017.

3000 marchers rallied in Sydney on Sunday as part of a worldwide women’s rights movement.

The Hyde Park event demanded a safer space for women in Australia following the alleged murder of Israeli student Aiia Maasarwe.

Presenter and campaigner Yumi Stynes told the crowd Australia’s culture of violence against women is in crisis as the values, roles and rights of men are seen as more important than those of women.

A 6-year-old boy has been bitten on the leg by a dingo on Fraser Island.

On Saturday evening the boy ran ahead of his family to the top of a sand dune where he met a pack of four dingoes.

Queensland Ambulance Service paramedics treated and stabilised the boy for transport before he was airlifted from the Eurong helipad.

The Department of Environmental Science website urges parents to stay within arm's length of their children at all times and avoid letting children run ahead.

The Palaszczuk government’s anti bikie laws of 2016 have failed to convict anyone of consorting in the last financial year.

Over 700 warnings were issued statewide for people habitually consorting with two or more convicted offenders.

LNP leader Deb Frecklington says the laws, once described as ‘the toughest and most effective’ disestablishment laws in the country, are too ‘soft on crime’.

Charity T shirts sold by British pop group The Spice Girls to raise funds for Comic Relief’s ‘Gender Justice’ campaign are revealed to have been created under poor working conditions in Bangladesh.

The female factory machinists say they work in inhuman conditions where they are paid 35 pence an hour, work over 16 hours a day and are verbally abused by their superiors.

The Zimbabwe government warns the country’s violent crackdown on protesters last week are merely a taste of things to come, according to a new statement by president spokesman George Charamba

12 were killed and over 600 were detained in rallies protesting a 250% increase in the cost of fuel, pricing out much of the population and creating further financial strain on citizens that already struggle to purchase basics such as food and healthcare.

Research shows invasive pests are the greatest threat to Australia’s most endangered species.

Andy Sheppard, a senior principal research scientist at CSIRO working on invasive species management, says foxes and feral cats have spread rapidly and are threatening the extinction of native species.

As Australia continues to grow its international trade in commerce and tourism,  the challenge for Australia’s biosecurity system to keep out unwanted plants, animals and pathogens grows ever greater.