Amsterdam has opened the first plastic-free supermarket aisle, with over 700 products including meat, rice, sauces, dairy, chocolate, cereals, fruit and vegetables now available without plastic packaging at Dutch chain Ekoplaza.

The introduction of the compostable biomaterial packaging is a result campaigning by the group A Plastic Planet and the group’s co-founder Sian Sutherland is calling on other supermarkets to to follow Ekoplaza’s lead.

Ekoplaza is set to roll out plastic-free aisles across all 74 branches by the end of the year.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Education Minister Simon Birmingham have penned a letter to school principles nationwide urging them to take action on bullying.

They have called on Australian schools to commemorate a National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence on the 16th of March.

This letter comes during a period of intense dialogue surrounding the safety and misconduct of secondary and tertiary students.

A same-sex couple in Sydney are shredding posters and signage from the campaign against same-sex marriage to turn into confetti for their wedding at Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras this weekend.

Stuart Henshall proposed to his partner James Brechney  the moment the ‘Yes’ result for the Same Sex survey was announced and the couple has been rushing to prepare everything in time for the big day.

They will be married during the Parade on a float designed to look like a gigantic wedding cake.

Townsville has been lashed with heavy rain overnight. More than 150 millimetres have fallen since tuesday, prompting the SES to spend the night sandbagging residences.

The town of Giru, south of Townsville is expecting the Haughton River to break its banks past the town record level of 3.09 metres.

The Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Rick Threlfall said Townsville weather will continue its instability through to Friday, as the low pressure system moves inland.

The Queensland Police Service is warning children to be careful when walking to and from school after a woman approached at least three children in the South Brisbane area late last month.

The incidents occurred on the 19th and 23rd of February when the woman approached school students aged 12 to 17, stating she was a teacher at their school and offering them a lift as they walked in Runcorn and MacGregor.

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.