Israel has threatened to attack Iranian military targets in Syria after Damascus and Tehran reached a new accord on security cooperation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his country would take strong and determined action against Iran’s attempts to station forces and advanced weapons systems in Syria.

Iran’s military attache states the nation’s military will remain in Syria under the defense agreement signed the previous day.

The Northern Territory could be transformed into a multi-billion food producing region under a new CSIRO plan handed to the Morrison government.

The research identifies 370,000 hectares suitable for agricultural crops and 710,000 hectares of coastal land for aquaculture.

The CSIRO estimates the development to create 15,000 jobs and generate $5.3 million annually, in the parts of Australia above the Tropic of Capricorn.

Western Australia has simultaneously had one of its wettest and driest winters in years, having both a historic drought and record breaking rainfall in the past 3 months.

Ravensthorpe and other areas south-east of Perth experienced a dry season, with the township recording 60mm, significantly short of its winter average of 145mm.

Meanwhile, Perth saw its wettest season in fifteen years, with Mount Lawley recording 178mm of rain this season.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszuzuk says her government is closing the gap in for equal gender representation within government boards.

Ms Palaszczuk states 47% of representatives on government boards and associated bodies were women and the government is just shy of its gender targets of 50% by 2020.

She went on to state they can reach this target by 2020. Other sectors such as business, community and other organisation would follow suit.

A Gold Coast City Council report reveals one of South-East Queensland’s largest koala populations is likely to decline by nearly half within 20 years, to a point of unviability within 50 years.

These forecasts come from redacted pages of an East Coomera koala population report, which was released last November, but are now in the hands of the Coomera Conservation Group.

While the population has remained steady over the past decade, it is now facing reduced habitat due to development and deaths by car strike, disease and dog attacks.

All state primary students will be taught vital swimming and survival skills as part of a new State initiative, following the success of the Save our Schoolkids campaign which revealed a decline in swimming ability.

Education Minister Grace Grace is set to announce the plan today. Under the new plan, students at all state primary schools will have a water safety and/or learn-to-swim program from 2019.

A Milton cafe housed in a World War Two-era air raid shelter has been granted protection from the Brisbane City Council.

City planning chairman Matthew Bourke states the concrete shelter has been identified as a potential local heritage place which may have significance.

The TLPI for the Milton shelter was passed unanimously by the city council.

The Australian Council of Social Services has found the nations employment services are failing due to an overemphasis on social security compliance and inadequate investment.

The councils senior adviser Peter Davidson says programs designed to help people find a job are more focused on enforcing Newstart requirements to the point where two thirds of people on Newstart have been on the program for over 12 months.

The Australian Government is preparing to ban American whistleblower Chelsea Manning from coming to Australia ahead of her planned speaking tour.

Suzi Jamil of Think Inc, the Australian organiser of Ms Manning’s tour, said the government issued them a notice of intent to refuse her visa on grounds of character.

Ms Manning, a former soldier, spent 7 years in prison for releasing nearly 750,000 (seven hundred and fifty thousand) classified military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks.