Australia's highest court Wednesday dismissed a challenge to the government's policy of sending asylum-seekers to Papua New Guinea, ruling detention at an island immigration camp legal.

An Iranian who arrived at Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island by boat in July 2013 brought the case after he was transferred to PNG's Manus Island.

Families of asylum-seekers killed in a shipwreck off Australia's Christmas Island in 2010 are suing the government, arguing it breached its duty of care in a move Canberra Tuesday blasted as "shameful".

Fifty people died when a rickety fishing boat crowded with nearly 100 Iraqi, Kurdish and Iranian asylum-seekers was dashed against jagged rocks in dangerous seas at the remote Indian Ocean outpost.

Australia has decided to remove the term "occupied" when referring to East Jerusalem in a move blasted by an opposition party leader Friday as "inflammatory" and "at odds with the peace process.”

The issue flared in the upper house Senate this week with Attorney-General George Brandis issuing a statement to clarify Canberra's stance on the controversial question of the legality of settler homes.

A long-standing Australian senator on Monday brought what he said could be a pipe bomb to the national parliament to demonstrate his view that new security regulations are unsafe.

Senator Bill Heffernan, a member of the ruling conservative Liberal Party, held up the pipe and what appeared to be some sticks of dynamite during a committee hearing in Canberra.

Australia has damaged its human rights record by persistently undercutting refugee protections, including a "draconian" policy to send asylum-seekers to Pacific island camps, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

In its annual World Report, the group said successive Australian governments had prioritized domestic politics over international legal obligations towards asylum-seekers, who faced "draconian new policies in Australia" diverting them to third countries.

A majority of Lebanese asylum-seekers detained in the Pacific will choose to return home, a Lebanese member of the council advising the Australian government on asylum-seekers said.

Australian media reports said on Tuesday that Dr. Jamal Rifi, a prominent member of Sydney's Lebanese community, visited the detention centers in the islands of Papua New Guinea and Nauru last week.

Anti-whaling activists said Thursday there would be demonstrations in Tokyo and eight other cities around the world this weekend against Japan's hunt.

Protesters are expected to gather in the Japanese capital to call for an end to the annual state-sponsored whaling mission to the Southern Ocean, due to start in the next few weeks, and to the capture and slaughter of dolphins in the town of Taiji.

Rescuers were on Saturday making a final search for survivors from a refugee boat accident off Australia's Christmas Island, with two more bodies found and little hope for around 90 people still missing.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said overnight and morning searches of the sea north of remote Christmas Island had failed to find any more survivors, with the last living person found late Thursday night.

Bomb squad officers were called to the French and Israeli embassies in Australia on Monday following the discovery of suspicious packages that were later found to be harmless.

Police said a bomb response team dispatched to the diplomatic posts in Canberra determined that the items were not suspicious and road closures around the embassies were lifted, a police spokeswoman said.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stumbled and was caught by a security guard as riot police helped her force a path through a crowd of rowdy protesters following a ceremony to mark Australia's national day Thursday.

Some 200 supporters of indigenous rights surrounded a Canberra restaurant and banged its windows while Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott were inside officiating at an award ceremony.