Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari has revealed plans to negotiate the release of 110 girls abducted from a school last month rather than use military action to free them by force.

The girls were allegedly abducted by jihadist group Boko Haram, with the group accused of kidnapping the girls on February 9th.

The kidnapping is one of the largest since Boko Haram abducted more than 270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014; approximately 100 are yet to be released.

Police are calling for males that resided in a Sydney boys home from 1965 to 1985 to come forward after a sixty-seven year old man was arrested following sexual assault allegations.

Twenty-five staff members have also been linked to the assaults as persons of interest.

An investigation into the school has found that eighty boys aged ten to fourteen had endured significant sexual abuse.

Detective Superintendent Brett McFadden has advised victims to come forward to have an opportunity to be heard.

A recent study showing high rates of STDs in Aboriginal children has lead Federal Children’s Minister, David Gillespie to discuss relaxing adoption rules for Aboriginal children.

While acknowledging concerns of a new stolen generation, Gillespie said he thinks it is more important to place children in a safe environment rather than one with a shared culture.

Gillespie also said his concern with the overall low rate of adoption, with only 143 out of nearly 48000 children in foster care  adopted.

The Noosa Festival of Surfing started Tuesday and will continue to run through the week at First Point, Noosa.

Now in its twenty-seventh year, the festival is the biggest surfing event in the world by participation with nine-hundred entries last year.

The festival’s professional division attracts some of the best surfers from around the world, but the festival caters to all age divisions from ‘grommets’ to ‘grandpas’ plus team divisions for family generations and clubs.

An online skin cancer test developed by Queensland researchers is said to identify people with high risk of melanoma within 90 seconds.

The tool, which consists of questions and comparative pictures allows the user to perform a self assessment on the risk of developing cancerous moles.

The simple test has proven to be effective and Professor David Whiteman of the institute said the test is the most robust instrument that they have ever been able to develop for predicting the risk of melanoma.  

China has completed the aerodynamic design of a mars probe which is now planned to be tested ahead of the scheduled launch date of 2020.

According to Chinese media, the mars probe will attempt to complete a 3 stage mission, that is to orbit the planet, land and then start patrolling the surface.

If successful, China would be the fifth country to orbit mars, behind the United States, Russia, Europe and India.

Oskar Groening, an Auschwitz bookkeeper and one of the last people to be convicted for Nazi war crimes during the Holocaust, has died.

The 96-year old was dubbed as the ‘accountant of Auschwitz’ and went on trial in April 2015 for his role as an accessory for the murder of at least 300,000 Jewish prisoners at the concentration camp.

Oskar Groening died in hospital before serving his jail sentence.

Computer technology initially designed to track the spread of viral outbreaks has been used by scientist to visualise the path Aboriginal languages took across Australia.

The study investigated how the language family "Pama-Nyungan" came to dominate 90% of the country and 75% of Australia’s roughly 400 indigenous languages.

Researchers found the language family originated in an area south of the Gulf of Carpentaria. It indicates a change in climate around that time allowed speakers of the language to rapidly spread across the country.

Students of a Sydney Boys Grammar School will dress in brown arm bands and ‘smart casual’ clothing to protest the dismissal of their vice principal, Mr Rohan Brown, after he cut a student’s hair .

The students of the school voted on the action via social media on the weekend to express their dissatisfaction alongside a petition to reinstate Mr Brown which has received 3700 signatures.  

Students believe that the long serving vice principal’s dismissal was political and are concerned with the direction the school is heading in.