LAW

The man who assaulted a woman with a rope and chained her to the bed in the style of Fifty Shades of Grey has been freed of charges with sexual assault.

Australian Bruce Griffiths, who was charged with outrage of modesty for swearing onboard Tiger Airways, is facing penalties plus caning in Singapore.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard will retain religious rights law which legally allows gay discrimination in Australia. Reports said that she has assured religious groups that a new rights bill will keep current law that permits faith-based organisations to refuse employment to people they view as sinners, including gays and lesbians.

Ibtimes.com.au gives tribute to these believers, wonderers, achievers, whose extraordinary hopes and dreams give new meaning to "inspiration" breathing life to change in the age of social media.

In a very rare coincidence, the troubles that more than wrecked havoc in the United States had also begun occurring in China which brings into fore the dangers of mental instability leading to violence.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is now preparing to step in and investigate the hoax call made by radio presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian of Aussie radio station 2Day FM's if they have violated the Commercial Radio Code Practice.

It was a glimpse to the worsening problem of security in New York subways these days for thousands of daily commuters. To others this may serve as a warning or even a lesson in Media Ethics 101.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Monday that she will recommend to the governor-general the formation of a royal commission that would investigate child sex abuse by Catholic clergy and other religious groups, especially those committed in child institutions.

A 32-year-old male Australian who is an Islam convert recounted on Sunday before the Burwood Local Court the physical ordeal he suffered under the hands of four fellow Muslims for drinking alcohol and taking drugs.

Will Australia re-enter the UN Security Council after more than two decades of absence? Foreign Minister Bob Carr would love to think so but he admitted that the result of the rather late Aussie bid could never be known until the last vote is cast.

The state government of West Australia on Monday has launched the Community Protection Website, a portal which contains a list of names as well as photographs of the most dangerous and high-risk sexual offenders living within and nearby WA.

Sydney Archbishop George Pell denied on Thursday a claim by the lawyer representing a sex abuse victim that he was present when the boy, then a Grade 3 student, recounted his rape by a Christian Brother.

Cardinal George Pell, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Sydney, was present when a Grade 3 male student in a Ballarat school, recounted he was raped by a Christian brother in the late 1960s.

Another Australian couple is facing genital mutilation charges after they were accused of organising the illegal circumcision of their baby daughter in Bali.

A landmark Australian High Court ruling released on Wednesday ruled against Qantas's pocketing $34 million in general sales tax (GST) that passengers forfeited when they did not push through with their flights.

A doctor and his pharmacist-wife from Sydney, New South Wales, denied participating in the genital mutilation of their two daughters. The couple, who belong to a small Islamic sect, appeared on Wednesday at the Parramatta Local Court to face two charges of female circumcision.

The Anglican Church in Newcastle has imposed punishment on four priests for engaging in sexual trysts with a teenage male in the 1970s and 1980s. The New South Wales (NSW) police initially investigated the charges but filed no charges; however, the church held its own probe which led to the defrocking of the clergy.

Some 40,000 teachers took part in what could be Victoria state's biggest teachers' strike that forced 400 schools to close and left thousands of school kids to stay home these past days.

The South Australian police busted the illegal operation of a group believed to be responsible for the $2 million theft of car parts owned by GM Holden, which were pilfered from the carmaker’s Salisbury East assembly facilities in Elizabeth.

Online job trends now favor what the technology landscape dictates, according to the latest Freelancer.com data collating some 190,000 jobs posted on its site creating some 2.3 million projects in the first six months of 2012.

In spite of promises by Coalition leader Tony Abbott to repeal the carbon tax if the Opposition wins in the 2013 election, big polluters in Australia believe otherwise.

There is another apparent cover-up in an investigation made by three senior Catholic clergy of a sexual abuse complaint at a priest in New South Wales. The priest was accused of sexual assault by five young altar boys in the 1980s.

Fifteen days to the carbon tax's implementation, its $23 per tonne price is being used as scapegoat by different groups for pending increases in prices such as rent and electricity prices.

The government does not intend to hide from the public eye wrongdoings, past and present, committed by officers of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), as alleged in the review conducted by law firm DLA Piper.

Courage was the main armour that Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton had relied on for the past three decades that her family lived in fear and anxiety following the mysterious disappearance of her infant daughter Azaria back in 1980.

The Coalition assailed the incompetence displayed by the Labor-led government in handling the latest human smuggling controversy that led to the shocking flight of an Iraqi national tagged by media reports as a major operator in the illegal activity.

The long-arm of the law triumphed anew as Japanese authorities revealed on Monday the arrest and detention of a female suspect tagged as one of the principal perpetrators in the 1995 nerve gas attack that killed 13 people in Tokyo.

While many motorists have been fined by different police forces in key cities for using their mobile phones while driving, a 25-year-old Brisbane man was penalised $250 for eating McDonald's hotcakes while behind the wheels.

A Chinese woman residing in the New South Wales has admitted before the state Supreme Court that she had indeed castrated her former boyfriend last year, in an apparent pit of rage following their breakup.