Protected areas of Brazils Amazon Rainforest are being illegally sold over Facebook marketplace.

Some of these plots are as large as 1000 football pitches, with many of these areas being home to Indigenous communities;  activists have begun urging the tech giant to do more to protect their land from exploitation.

Sellers do not have land certificates but continue to sell the plots allegedly being field by Brazils cattle industry.

Gold Coast Council CEO Dale Dickson has been replaced after serving as chief executive for the council after eighteen years. 

Mayor Tom Tate revealed the news to an email to council employees announcing the role has already been offered to someone else. 

Last week Mr Dickson was cleared by the Crime and Corruption Commission from allegations which have not been made public.

Human trials for a universal COVID vaccine are set to start later this year. While existing vaccines like Pfizer and Astra-Zeneca were developed in record time and are performing well, they may lose effectiveness as the virus mutates, or as new coronaviruses develop. 

A universal vaccine would be able to target a fundamental region of the virus that does not change across mutations.

A media release from federal Health Minister Greg Hunt today states that the Australian government is investing $100 million over five years into developing new technologies that can aid in the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses such as strokes, epilepsy, lung disease, and COVID.

Among the new projects being funded are lightweight brain scanners that can be carried in ambulances to facilitate earlier diagnosis of strokes, an artificial intelligence platform for epilepsy support, and revolutionary lung scanners.

A rare bee species has been found in Queensland and new south wales for the first time in one hundred years.  

The species Pharohylaeus Lactiferus has been facing increasing difficulty due to climate change and the loss of rainforest habitat.

The last recorded sighting of the species was of six individual bees in Queensland in nineteen twenty three; it’s only after a sampling of almost two hundred and fifty sites that three small populations were found.

Australia is free of avian influenza, which is a disease affecting poultry that is thought to have originated from wild birds. 

The final outbreaks in Victoria were contained, and the disease finally declared eradicated today by Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management, David Littleproud.

He commended government veterinarians across affected states like Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland for their cooperation. 

New estimates from The Guardian  suggest over 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar over the past 10 years, after relocating to the country to work on infrastructure for the FIFA World Cup next year. 

While many of the deaths are reportedly “natural”, research shows many of these are recorded without an autopsy, and fail to explain the underlying causes of death.

Greece and Austria are encouraging the European Union to implement vaccination ‘passports’ to support the struggling tourist industry.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz tweeted out "we're advocating a digital Green Pass, like Israel's".

"That should allow you to prove, on your mobile phone, that you've been tested, inoculated or have recovered. Our goal: to avoid a lengthy lockdown and finally enable freedom to travel again in the EU, and freedom to enjoy events and cuisine."

An LGBT community centre in Accra, the capital of Ghana, has been shut down following protests and police raids. 

Government ministers appealing to a largely homophobic population, and religious figures, have successfully called for the closure of the centre.

Same sex relations are criminalised in Ghana, though Human Rights Watch has found that this is rarely enforced.