All charges have been dropped against three commandos who faced Australian courts-martial over the deaths of five children and an adult during a night raid on a home in Afghanistan in 2009, officials said Tuesday.

The trio, whose names have not been made public, were the first Australian soldiers to ever be charged with manslaughter over civilian deaths in battle. The deaths came when the commandos stormed the home in Uruzgan province with gunfire and a grenade after coming under fire from the compound.

Australian police on Tuesday said they will investigate allegations that a government MP used a former employer's credit card to pay for prostitutes, in a move that could derail Labor's fragile rule.

Craig Thomson allegedly paid for sex workers and escorts with a card issued by the Health Services Union during his employment there in 2003 and 2005.

The Coral Sea off Australia's northeast coast is one of the last remaining places brimming with large predatory fish such as sharks and tuna, a study released Saturday found.

The study found the 972,000 square kilometer (388,800 square mile) zone stretching from the Great Barrier Reef to the waters of the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia, was home to many unique and endangered species.

Acclaimed actor Geoffrey Rush has been appointed founding president of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, a new Oscars-inspired honors system for Australian film.

The announcement was made by director George Miller -- best known for the Mad Max series -- on Thursday evening with the new academy created to improve national and international recognition of Australia's movie industry.

Oil prices retreated on Tuesday as the dollar strengthened, and traders digested downbeat European economic growth data and awaited news of any fresh plan to tackle the Eurozone debt crisis.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for delivery in September, fell 84 cents to $87.04 a barrel.

An Australian man has been arrested by an FBI SWAT team in the United States over a bizarre incident in which a fake bomb was strapped around the neck of a Sydney schoolgirl, police said Tuesday.

Madeleine Pulver, 18, a member of one of the city's wealthiest families, endured a horrifying 10-hour ordeal earlier this month when a masked man placed a device around her neck at her luxury home in leafy Mosman.

It's not all jeans, sneakers and sweatshirts packed in those duffel bags headed to college campuses in the coming weeks. There might also be a ripped-from-the-runway look from Zara or H&M that mimics Celine or Chloe, and maybe — just maybe — a bona fide Diane von Furstenberg dress or Alexander Wang jacket.

Dr. Martens are a must-have.

World Bank chief Robert Zoellick on Saturday warned of a "new and more dangerous" time in the global economy, with little breathing space in most developed countries as a debt crisis hits Europe.

Zoellick said the Eurozone's sovereign debt issues were more troubling than the "medium and long-term" problems which saw the United States downgraded by Standard and Poor's last week, sending global markets into panic.

The New South Wales State Library in Australia launched a "search and rescue" mission on Friday to revive lost indigenous languages, using the letters and diaries of early British settlers.

When the British first arrived on the shores of what became Sydney Harbour in 1788, an estimated 250 local languages were spoken in Australia, but many have been lost.

Bank stocks recovered their poise Friday and helped European stock markets push higher as investors assessed the impact of a short-selling ban on financial shares in four eurozone countries.

The advance in Europe follows big gains on Wall Street Thursday, which helped support most markets in Asia.