The Dutch national railway company is investigating how it can pay individual reparations for its role in mass deportations of the Jewish by Nazi occupiers during WWII.

The rail company said in a statement published late on Tuesday that its involvement in the deportations is a black page in the history of their country and company.

This decision has come following French railway company SNCF’s expression of regret for its role transporting Jews during the war, with the French Government paying over $6 billion euros in reparations to French citizens and deportees.

Today the ACT Government announced it is cutting ties with the Teach for Australia (TFA) program, introduced in 2009 by then-education minister Julia Gillard, citing concerns over value for money and retention rates.

ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry said she was concerned about the low retention of participants in the teaching workforce compared to the investment required to collaborate with the program.

Mining corporation Rio Tinto has approved a $3.5b investment in its futuristic Koodaideri iron ore mine in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques said Koodaideri is a game-changer for Rio Tinto, being the most technologically advanced mine they have ever built, featuring robotic trains and advanced analytics.

Construction is set to begin next year, with the first iron ore expected in 2021.

Gold Coast residents are waking up to another day without power due to a number of outages across the region following thunderstorms and strong winds which lashed the city.

The Gold Coast Hinterland is among the worst affected today with over 300 homes on Tamborine Mountain remaining without power due to a trampoline colliding with power lines.

Pimpama was the hardest hit, with residents losing power, causing a shopping centre and food outlets to close.

After a difficult recovery in a maternity ward following the stillbirth of their child, a south-east Queensland couple may be one of the last as the state continues to roll out purpose-built facilities to help with the traumatic event of stillbirth.

Sunshine Coast University Hospital has opened its doors with a purpose-built ‘butterfly suite’, designed by midwives for mothers and families of stillborn babies to aid their experiences.  

Google is facing a growing staff revolt, including in its Australian quarters, over plans to build a censored search engine in China.

There is little known about the program, currently named Project Dragonfly, but is reported to blacklist sensitive queries and filter websites blocked by the Chinese Government.

Kenyan police have been accused of committing the majority of sexual violence reported during last year’s opposition protests over election results, says the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

The report says sexual assault was used as punishment in certain areas, with both opposition and ruling party neighbourhoods targeted, in over 200 cases.

Kenya’s national police said it rejects in totality the reports ‘sensational, preposterous, assertions’ and urged anyone sexually assaulted by an officer to report this for investigation.

The body of the US missionary killed on the remote North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean is yet to be recovered.

John Chau was killed by the ancient Sentinelese tribe while attempting to convert the hunger-gatherer tribe to Christianity.

Calls are mounting for Indian authorities to abandon efforts to recover Mr Chau’s body as activist groups argue for the tribe to be left alone.

Australia’s first HIV home-testing kit has been approved by the regulator, in a move that has been welcomed by health advocates as a key weapon in the fight to eradicate the virus.

Health Minister Greg Hunt will announce the approval of the kits by the Therapeutic Goods Administration on Thursday morning.

AIDS organisations have been lobbying for home testing, which is already in use overseas, as they regard stigma as the final frontier in prevention and treatment - particularly for those living in the regional and rural areas.