Tony Abbott

SYDNEY: Australia will expand a crackdown on Islamist militant groups with more tough security legislation, the attorney general told a regional summit aimed at combating violent extremism on Friday.

SYDNEY: Prime Minister Tony Abbott lashed out at criticism over Australia's treatment of asylum-seekers on Monday, saying the country was "sick of being lectured" by the United Nations.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott agrees to return the famous Indian sculpture of Buddha to his Indian counterpart.

SYDNEY: Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Wednesday offered sympathy to Pakistan after a deadly Taliban raid on a school, as Australia deals with the fallout from a cafe siege by a deranged Islamic gunman.

SYDNEY: Tearful Sydney office workers and Muslim women in hijabs laid flowers Tuesday at the scene of a deadly siege, as an outpouring of grief and shock gripped the usually easy-going harbour city.

SYDNEY: Heavily armed Australian police stormed a Sydney cafe early on Tuesday morning and freed terrified hostages being held there at gunpoint, in a dramatic end to a 16-hour siege in which two captives and the attacker were killed.

SYDNEY: An Iranian-born gunman who took hostages in a Sydney cafe was infatuated with extremism and mentally unstable, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Tuesday, calling the siege a "brush with terrorism".

SYDNEY: A lone gunman kept terrified staff and customers captive into Monday night in a downtown Sydney cafe, brandishing an Islamic flag, as five of his hostages managed to flee for their lives.

SYDNEY: Australia's conservative government on Friday further tightened immigration laws by introducing controversial temporary visas for refugees which do not allow them to settle permanently in the country.

MACKSVILLE: Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes, who died from an injury suffered in a domestic match in Sydney last week, will be buried in his home town on the New South Wales coast later on Wednesday.