Thursday Afternoon's News in Under 5 Minutes

We’ve rounded up the biggest news stories from Australia and the world – so you don’t have to go searching.

1. Bomb threat: Queensland AFP headquarters in lockdown

By ABC

The Australian Federal Police building in Brisbane was in lockdown this afternoon after a possible bomb threat, and the Queensland Police headquarters in the CBD also went into partial lockdown.

Sniffer dogs trained to detect explosives swept the AFP building, in the inner-city suburb of Spring Hill, which is also on heightened alert.

The AFP said the National Security Hotline received a call suggesting a bomb threat to its Brisbane headquarters.

The AFP said inquiries were continuing to identify the source of the call.

The Queensland Police lockdown at the Roma Street headquarters was ordered just before midday, a spokesperson said, without being able to give a reason.

It was reopened around 2pm.

This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on the ABC and is republished here with full permission. 

2. Tony Abbott says Sydney terrorists planned to “stab kidneys and strike necks.”

By ABC.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has alleged in Parliament that two men accused of planning a terrorist act in Sydney made a video saying they would carry out their attack by “stabbing the kidneys and striking the necks”.

The men were arrested during a raid on a converted garage in the back yard of a house in Fairfield, in Sydney’s west, on Tuesday.

Police alleged that during the raid they found a machete, a hunting knife, an Islamic State (IS) flag and a video with a recorded message in Arabic in which one of the men allegedly talked about carrying out an attack.

Mr Abbott said he had been briefed by Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin and ASIO Director-General Duncan Lewis about the attacks that had been prevented, saying the men had made a “pre-attack video”.

“Kneeling before the death cult flag with a knife in his hand and a machete before him, one of those arrested said this: ‘I swear to almighty Allah we will carry out the first operation for the soldiers of the caliphate in Australia.

“He went on to say, Madam Speaker, ‘I swear to almighty Allah, blonde people, there is no room for blame between you and us. We only owe you, stabbing the kidneys and striking the necks’.

“I don’t think it would be possible to witness uglier fanaticism than this – monstrous extremism than this – and I regret to say it is now present in our country.”

The two men will remain in custody for at least a month, after their lawyer told Sydney’s Central Local Court he was withdrawing their bail application.

The Immigration Department is conducting an urgent review into the men’s cases.

This article originally appeared on the ABC and was republished here with full permission. 

3. Report: 221 women and girls were raped within just 36-hours

A new report has revealed 221 women and girls in Darfur were victims of a mass rape that occured over 36-hours, yet their government claims it never happened.

The women in the town of Tabit, Darfur were all innocent victims in the nation’s ongoing war.

The report, released today by Human Rights watch, says the vicious attack against the women in Tabit was carried out by the Sudanese army.

In the ongoing conflict in Darfur, beating, raping and dishonouring women is a common form of undermining enemy camps.

Human Rights Watch has called on the United Nations and African Union to protect the civilians in the town from the attacks regularly inflicted upon them.

4. Australian Scientists warn of dire consequences of climate change

The Australian Academy of Science’s have warned Australia that man-made climate change is real, and the consequences will be dire if no action is taken to address it.

In an update to The Science of Climate Change booklet, a publication written and reviewed by 17 of Australia’s leading climate change experts, the Academy outlines the effects of rising average temperatures, and also proposes solutions to the nation’s climate change issues.

The Academy will hold an online briefing at 10.30 tomorrow, you can register here.

5. Tony Abbott hits out at Human Rights Commission for “blatantly partisan” report.

By ABC.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has attacked the Human Rights Commission (HRC) over its damning report into children in immigration detention, saying it should be ashamed of itself for conducting “a blatantly partisan politicised exercise”.

The HRC report, titled The Forgotten Children, has found immigration detention is a “dangerous place for children” and has called for a royal commission into the practice of putting asylum seeker children into mandatory detention.

From January 2013 to March 2014 the HRC found there were 233 assaults in detention involving children, 33 incidents of reported sexual assault, with the majority involving children, and 128 children who harmed themselves.

Some 330 children remain in indefinite detention and more than 167 babies have been born in detention within the last two years.

But Mr Abbott has told Parliament the Government will not set up a Royal Commission into the issue, telling the Opposition he was doing it a favour.

“There won’t be a Royal Commission into children in detention, because if there were a Royal Commission into children in detention, it would condemn them,” he said of the former ALP government.

“It would condemn them. Madam Speaker, frankly, they stand condemned already.”

Earlier he had said he felt no guilt “whatsoever” about holding children in detention.

And he questioned why the HRC did not launch an inquiry when the previous Labor government was in power and the number of children in detention reached a peak of almost 2,000.

“Where was the Human Rights Commission when hundreds of people were drowning at sea?” he said on Macquarie Radio.

“Where was the Human Rights Commission when there were almost 2,000 children in detention?

“This is a blatantly partisan politicised exercise and the Human Rights Commission ought to be ashamed of itself.”

Triggs ‘totally’ rejects suggestions of bias

HRC president Gillian Triggs “totally” rejected the suggestion the report was biased and said both sides of politics are responsible for breaches of Australia’s international obligations.

“The commission is doing its job, we are doing our job under our statute and according to the law that underpins our work,” she said this morning.

“This is not a politicised exercise. It is a fair-minded report.

“The evidence on which we rely is evidence which covers the period of the former government as well as the nearly 18 months of the current Government.

“The facts frankly speak for themselves.”

This article originally appeared on the ABC and was republished here with full permission.