Top World News

Mar 31, 2026 - World

Practice of using apartments to store relatives’ ashes has risen as rapid urbanisation and ageing population increases competition for cemetery plotsChina is introducing a law to stop people storing the ashes of their dead relatives in empty high-rise flats rather than paying steep costs for increasingly scarce cemetery plots.China’s new funeral management legislation will prohibit the use of “residential housing specifically for the purpose of storing cremated remains” and the burial of corpses or construction of tombs in “areas other than public cemeteries”. Continue reading...

Mar 31, 2026 - World

Greens amendments to force new watchdog to scrutinise uni fees and the Jobs-Ready Graduates scheme rejected by federal governmentFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe federal government is being accused of dodging promised reforms to bring down soaring university fees, after rejecting efforts to have them scrutinised by a new watchdog.On Monday, legislation to establish the independent Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) passed the Senate with a number of amendments, including to improve its resourcing and ensuring it had a focus on research. Continue reading...

Mar 31, 2026 - World

This blog is closed – our live coverage continues on a new blog here Donald Trump is weighing a military operation to extract nearly 1,000 pounds (454kg) of uranium from Iran, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing unnamed US officials.The mission would likely put American forces inside the country for days or longer, the report says.But the president remains generally open to the idea, according to the officials, because it could help accomplish his central goal of preventing Iran from ever making a nuclear weapon.The combined effect of both waterways being shut to commercial traffic from countries that neither the Iranians nor Houthis favour would be devastating.Napoleon Bonaparte’s remark that “the policy of a state lies in its geography” has never seemed more apt. Continue reading...

Mar 31, 2026 - World

Asian nations are increasingly competing for Russian crude oil as an energy crisis mounts amid the U.S. and Israeli war in Iran, which has choked off roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply

Mar 31, 2026 - World

Indonesian search teams rescued 21 people from a raft a day after their boat sank in rough seas