A Victorian Supreme Court jury has found a Ballarat man not guilty of murder and attempted murder.

An intellectually disabled man has avoided jail in Victoria after assaulting his baby daughter.

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown has accused Rupert Murdoch's media empire of using criminals to obtain his private documents.

The mothers of two disabled children who were sexually abused say they feel abandoned by the South Australian justice system.

A 23-year-old man in Perth has been sentenced to nine-and-a-half years jail for sex attacks on women while they were walking home from train stations.

The half-brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has been assassinated at his home in Kandahar.

The head of Queensland's reconstruction authority says six months on from the summer of disaster, there are still too many families "living rough" while they wait for their homes to be repaired.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy says France will withdraw a quarter of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is adamant her plan to close coal-fired power stations will not threaten Australia's energy supply.

Authorities have confirmed another horse has died from the hendra virus, this time in far north Queensland.

A diving instructor on Christmas Island has told a coronial inquest how he tried to use a long aluminium ladder to rescue asylum seekers from a shipwrecked boat.

Early analysis shows transport and building materials companies are likely to feel the biggest earnings impact from the carbon tax.

A man has been arrested while protesting at the site of the proposed James Price Point gas hub, north of Broome.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon says South Australian authorities have made no attempt to have cult leader Rocco Leo extradited from Fiji.

The Federal Government's sales pitch on its carbon pollution policy is getting a boost from an unlikely source - the world's biggest privately-owned coal miner.

Australians in many remote communities will miss out on the intended health and education benefits of the National Broadband Network (NBN) because of slow upload speeds and low take-up rates, according to communications experts and a new study.

A 24-year-old man from Queensland's Gold Coast has been jailed over the manslaughter of his newborn daughter.

Five senior British police investigators discovered their mobile phones were targeted after Scotland Yard opened an initial criminal inquiry into phone hacking by News of the World in 2006, The New York Times reports.

Business confidence slid in June, as the gap between the strongest and weakest industries neared record levels.

The Royal Commission inquiring into the Pike River coal mine tragedy has been told there is a future for underground mining in New Zealand.