Australian retailers are being urged to do more to ensure their imported seafood is not being produced by slave labour.

While stricter Australian laws and policing ensure Australian-made products are mostly free from the influence of slave labour, Thailand, Indonesia and China’s fishing industries are reported to be rife with forced labour.

They frequently use stateless or illegal workers who can’t complain to authorities about being forced to work as slaves in brutal conditions.

In a victory for China's Government, the final three of 44 international airlines told to change the way they refer to the self-governing island of Taiwan have complied just before a deadline expired.

American Airlines, Delta and United Airlines all dropped references to "Taiwan" on their websites to meet the July 25 deadline imposed by Beijing — a demand previously described by the US government as "Orwellian nonsense".

Time is running out to sway undecided voters in the Queensland seat of Longman, with up to 34,000 votes already decided while One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, retires to a luxury cruise in the British Isles.

About 22,000 voters in Longman have pre-polled at six polling centres, while another 12,000 have applied for postal votes that might be counted by the Australian Electoral Commission as late as August 10.

A city with an urban bat problem hopes to lure a large flying fox colony from the CBD to nearby swampland by appealing to the animals' maternal instincts.

More than 1,100 baby spectacled flying foxes were found dead or orphaned in the Cairns CBD last breeding season amid increased construction activity contributing to stressed mothers abandoning their young.

A builder with a passion for live music is taking a loss in order to see Brisbane remain an incubator for live music in Australia.

Scott Hutchinson is spending $43 million to fill the void left by the iconic Festival Hall, yet the new venue will only be valued at $25 million.

Work has begun on the project at 312 Brunswick Street in Fortitude Valley under the working title of Fortitude Hall.

Narrow streets are commonplace in city centres throughout Australia; now urban planners are paving the way for skinny roads in the suburbs.

Vehicle speeds, cost and stormwater drainage are all factors pushing councils to make their streets more slender.

Neil Sipe, a professor of planning from the University of Queensland, said narrow streets were the way of the future.

A man with a pickaxe has vandalised United States President Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame before surrendering to police.

The star was nearly completely destroyed, and there was graffiti scrawled on it. Installed in 2007, Trump's star has been frequently vandalised since he was elected president in 2016.

The suspect, 24-year-old Austin Clay, was in custody at the Los Angeles County Jail on a charge of felony vandalism with a bail of $US20,000.