Ethiopian Jews are staging a hunger strike to pressure the Israeli parliament into continuing to fund reunion by migration of Ethiopian Jews with family members in Israel.

In 1991 Israel evacuated 15,000 Jewish people from then conflict torn Ethiopia, separating many families in the process.

However the Israeli parliament has recently put it’s ongoing family reunification program on hold, an action that the head of the Israeli parliament's Absorption and Diaspora (DI-AS-PRA) Committee has described as discriminatory.

Fighting in Syria continues despite a temporary ceasefire resolution from the united nations.

The ceasefire motion was passed to allow humanitarian convoys and aid workers to move safely through the embattled country.

Humanitarian organisations and many western governments have criticised Russian forces in the region for limiting their capacity for aid work, despite Russia’s support for the ceasefire resolution.

The Victorian Fixated Threat Assessment Centre aimed at identifying and responding to ‘high-risk individuals’ has been deemed ‘illogical’.

Professor of Human Security at RMIT University, Joseph Siracusa said the new centre is unlikely to assist with the discovery of radicalists as there is little evidence that there is a set of criteria for identifying lone attackers or terrorists.

Australian National University Criminologist Clark Jones, also criticised the centre, suggesting the program should extend its services to preventing youth crimes in Victoria.

It’s been revealed in a Senate Estimates hearing that the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet intervened in order to secure for Malcolm Turnbull a 100 megabits per second NBN connection at his Point Piper mansion.

Consumer advocate Allan Asher has penned an article in the conversation and called the NBN an “expensive white elephant” and warned it will “faces irrelevance in cities” after South Australian premier Jay Weatherill announced 35 million dollars for a fibre network in Adelaide if re-elected.

Work has commenced this morning on the second runway for Sunshine Coast Airport, tipped to generate 2 200 jobs and $4 billion in revenue for the region.

Sunshine Coast Mayor Mark Jamieson said the new runway will accommodate larger aircrafts and open up direct access to the Sunshine Coast from Australian cities, and international markets in Asia in turn driving significant economic growth.

The new two-and-a-half kilometre runway built by the civil infrastructure giant, John Holland Group, will cost $225 million with completion due in 2020.

A film based on the Battle of Long Tan begins production in Queensland later this year.

The film, provisionally titled Danger Close, is produced by former special forces commando Martin Walsh.

It is expected to create around 860 jobs, and will employ approximately 200 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans as extras.

Danger Close’s Vietnam sequences will be principally filmed in areas near Kingaroy and Nerang.

Thousands of Venezuelans continue to flee the country every day seeking asylum in Colombia as the country’s economic collapse continues to worsen with stifling hyperinflation.

President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government continues to oppress his people following a decision to allocate $2 billion to bondholders rather than food imports.

Venezuelans face dire life and death decisions; Migrant Yeraldine Murillo said It’s migrate and give it a try or die of hunger there. Those are the only two options.

Civil-rights group the Council on American-Islamic Relations has labelled as “contrary to our nation's values” an Idaho bill banning the implementation of “foreign law” in the State.

The group says the bill, known as HB - 419, fits into a wider pattern of “unconstitutional” bills demonising Muslims by barring Sharia Law as similar legislation is considered in Montano, Oregon, and Wisconsin.

On Thursday the Federal Government launched a smart volunteering campaign, working alongside universities and state authorities to ensure students are not unintentionally visiting or volunteering in programs that exploit young children.

A UNICEF report released last year found that most orphans living in Cambodia were neither orphans nor abandoned and were at risk of being exploited to attract funding and donations from tourists, including being forced to beg, interact and play with visitors.