New Samoan prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa has been sworn into office in a marquee outside Parliament House after her political rival locked her out of parliament house.

Police barred Mata’afa from entering the legislative hall on her arrival and the parliament clerk announced he would only allow parliament to sit on the orders of outgoing Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi.

Mali’s interim president and prime minister have been arrested and taken to a military base outside the capital Bamako following a controversial reshuffle announced yesterday.

Reports say interim vice president Colonel Assimi Goita, who engineered the coup last year which installed the interim government, ordered the arrests.

A Noosa advocacy group has been formed to fight Noosa council efforts to prepare the area for the effects of climate change and is bringing in an Adani-linked lobby group to help.

The Eastern Beaches Protection Association opposes the Noosa Shire Council’s Coastal Hazard Adaptation Plan which aims to set out long-term mitigation strategies to reduce the effects of rising sea levels on coastal communities.

Queensland Police Acting Assistant Commissioner Keiryn Dermody says hate crimes have risen as much as 30 per cent in Queensland in the last five years.

Dermody’s claim was part of his evidence at a parliamentary committee hearing investigating the need for stronger responses to hate and vilification crimes.

WIN News says it will axe many of its regional television news bulletins in Queensland and Victoria and replace them with statewide bulletins, prompting community outrage.

The move could cost as many as 20 regional journalists their jobs and will affect the Mackay, Bundaberg and Hervey Bay regions in Queensland.

A number of venues have been added to the list of COVID exposure sites in Victoria after four new locally acquired cases were recorded in Melbourne overnight. 

The four cases include a woman in her 70s, a pre-school aged child and two males in their 30s and 70s. 

Several airlines are set to redirect their flights away from Belarusian airspace after Belarusian authorities diverted a RyanAir flight flying from Greece to Lithuania in order to arrest a dissident journalist.

Israeli police say they will arrest hundreds of Palestinians living in Israel over the coming days for their participation in uprisings in support of thirteen Palestinian families set to be evicted from East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood.