A Brisbane vet has surgically implanted feathers into an injured Tawny Frogmouth, saving the bird from certain death, in a miraculous surgery.

The bird was found caught in barbed wire outside Jimboomba last week with little chance of surviving; however, through the process of ‘imping’ the bird was saved.

The surgery is not regularly practiced in Australia; however, the vet recently returned from Dubai where this is more common.

Woolworths have admitted to monitoring the activities of gamblers at a number of venues across their Australian Leisure and Hospitality group pokies arm.

Staff were instructed to note down descriptive information on customers, including what football team they support, in an effort to identify how to ensure customers stayed for longer at pokies machines.

ALH group have pledged to ensure disciplinary action is taken, and training would be boosted.

Calls to increase payments for those on Newstart have ramped up in South Australia, as a South Australian social services group compares the cost of a $75-a-week increase to that of a submarine.

Currently, unemployed single Newstart recipients receive $273 a week, or just below $40 a day.

Indonesian officials are coordinating relief efforts for residents and tourists on Lombok after an earthquake left 98 dead and many more missing.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency says they expect the death toll to rise when the rubble of more than 13,000 houses is cleared away.

More than 10,000 people have already been evacuated from the island.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar have signed a ceasefire and power-sharing agreement, ending the nation’s five year civil war.

South Sudan became independent from Sudan in 2011, and the civil war fuelled by personal and ethnic rivalries broke out two years later.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced an estimated quarter of South Sudan's population of 12 million and ruined its oil-reliant economy.

Queensland microbiologist Pardraig  Strappe and a small team of CQ University researchers says crocodile cartilages could hold the key for treatment of joint injuries and arthritis.

The team has been working to perfect a process that extracts valuable growth factors from the cartilage of crocodiles and removes proteins that trigger an immune response in humans.

The government’s new mining rehabilitation bill will allow a loophole for existing mines to not have to justify plans to leave “non-use management areas” such as pit voids, waste rock and water dumps.

In contrast, new mines must produce evidence including environmental reports to ensure they are safe, cause no environmental harm and can be used for something else after mining.