Penny Wong

Vehicles drive past a huge banner showing the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, left, who was killed in an assassination last week, joining hands with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (R) speaks as India's External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (L), Japan's Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa (2nd-L) and Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong (2nd-R) listen during a joint press conference at Iikura Guest House in Tokyo on July 29, 2024

China's top diplomat capped his trip to Australia Thursday with one of the most controversial meetings on his agenda, hosting outspoken ex-prime minister Paul Keating at the Chinese consulate in Sydney.

China and Australia claimed to have stabilised long-strained relations after talks in Canberra on Wednesday, despite tensions over a high-profile prisoner, trade and China's crackdowns in Hong Kong and elsewhere remaining evident.

Chinese-Australian dissident writer Yang Jun has been handed a suspended death sentence for espionage in China, Beijing and Canberra said Monday, five years after he was arrested on a rare visit to his homeland.

The Chinese-born Australian citizen has been in jail in China since 2019 on spying allegations and is said to be in ill health.

Several key donor countries have said they will halt funding to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees following Israel's allegations that staff members took part in Hamas's Oct. 7 attack.

The UNRWA has fired several people and promised a thorough investigation into the claims, which were not specified, while Israel has vowed to stop the agency's work in Gaza after the war.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday rejected calls for him to publicly demand the United States drop its prosecution of WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen Julian Assange.

China and Papua New Guinea held talks on a free-trade deal on June 3, as Beijing's foreign minister wrapped up a landmark tour of the Pacific Islands with a stop in the resource-rich nation.    

Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape said discussions in the capital Port Moresby had focused on economic cooperation and a long-mooted trade agreement.    

Australia's upper house of parliament, or the Senate, has rejected a government plan to hold a public vote on recognizing gay marriage.

The Senate voted by a margin of 33 to 29 late Nov. 7 against the non-binding public plebiscite on same-sex marriage which Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's conservative government had planned to hold on Feb. 11.

British Marco and David Bulmer-Rizzi exchanged vows in front of family and friends on the isle of Santorini, Greece, after registering their marriage in South London in June 2015 following five years of being together. Soon after their marriage, the newlyweds visited friends in Adelaide when David fell down a flight of stairs and cracked his skull.