Officials sound optimistic during the first round of negotiations while peace talks resume with the Taliban, but the Taliban says it's confident it can still win on the battlefield. 

Peace talks began in Qatar on Saturday, marking what US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo heralded as a "truly momentous" occasion in nearly two decades of gruelling conflict. 

Mr Pompeo states they will “undoubtedly encounter many challenges in the talks over the coming months” but is determined for the warring sides to seize the opportunity to secure peace.

A heatwave in one of the coldest locations in the world, Siberia, has sparked concerns after exceeding air quality controls by 40 times the safety limit due unprecedented forest fires causing the worst fire seasons in recorded Russian history. 

Global warming has caused a month of an intense smoke haze that Siberian officials have now begun removing young children to safer locations. 

Total wildfire carbon emissions from Sakha Republic have reached 65 megatonnes so far this year with almost two months left of the fire season.

A bridge named after now disgraced former Ipswich City mayor Paul Peeze- a sale should be renamed after Ipswich-born tennis champion Ash Barty, according to a new online petition.  

On the change.org petition, Ms Weston wrote the bridge should be named after "an Indigenous woman, a sporting legend, a woman of character who is proud to call this community her hometown".

More explicit and age-appropriate education on consent and reporting sexual assaults will be delivered in Queensland schools, following a state government review of its respectful relationships program.

This comes after a review aimed to examine whether the state's Respectful Relationships Education Program "adequately addresses issues of sexual consent and reporting in schools".

Resources for teachers are set to be released at the end of 2021 for use in schools at the beginning of 2022

Australian Foreign Affairs minister, Marise Payne, told the ABC she remains “inclined to returning to Afghanistan in the next few months”.

A spokesman for Senator Payne said Australia's diplomatic arrangements in Afghanistan "were always expected to be temporary, with the intention of resuming a permanent presence once circumstances permit.

 Payne has been largely vocal in the past about her reluctance to remove soldiers from Afghanistan and opposed the bill to remove the last soldiers earlier this year.

Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is expected to push his government into working towards a 2050 net zero commitment this weekend at the Annual Convention of the Liberal National Party in Brisbane after facing criticism from other world leaders at the G7 Summit earlier this year. 

Experts anticipate the party members will continue to oppose making any commitments or setting a time-frame in order to maintain job security, despite the job opportunities in renewable energy.

The Queensland Veterinary Researcher who developed the test that can rapidly check for Chlamydia in Koalas has now advanced the technology to test for Hendra Virus in horses to prevent the spread to humans. 

There have been 7 reported cases of Hendra in humans with a death rate of 57%, however, the virus is almost fatal in horses with an 80% death rate once contracted.

A fire in Oregon has grown to a scathing 483 Kilometres yesterday afternoon, which half the size of the Australian Capital Territory, says United States officials. 

The nicknamed “Bootleg Fire” has caused the evacuation of over 2000 homes and another 5000 are considered at risk. 

There have been no related deaths to the fire as the area is mostly uninhabited.

Brisbane Company and known Liberal Party Donor, Canstruct International, has secured an uncontested contract extension of $180M over the next six months to continue running Australia’s offshore processing regime on Nauru.

This brings the total revenue from island contracts over the past five years to more than $1.5bn, and even though no new asylum seeker arrivals have been sent to Nauru since 2014, the regime there will cost Australia more than $400m this year.