Australia is emerging as the latest hotspot for casino operators as they look to attract Asia's high rollers to the gaming tables as well as its pristine beaches and popular centers like the Great Barrier Reef.

With a mining boom slowing, the prospect of thousands of new jobs and billions in tourist dollars has convinced Queensland and New South Wales to back four new casinos, despite fears over their potential environmental and social impacts.

Refugee campaigners said Saturday that a boat carrying 153 asylum-seekers was in trouble off a remote Australian island, but the government said there were no significant incidents at sea to report.

The 72-foot (22-meter) boat carrying mostly Tamil asylum-seekers, including women and children, left India two weeks ago and was 175 nautical miles west of Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island, the Refugee Action Coalition said.

An Al-Jazeera journalist whose jailing triggered global outrage has donated 15,000 Egyptian pounds to a fund initiated by the president to boost Egypt's ailing economy, his brother said on Thursday.

Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, who was sentenced to seven years in jail along with two other Al-Jazeera journalists for allegedly aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood, made the donation to Tahya Misr (Long Live Egypt), an initiative of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Australia announced further tough reforms to its asylum-seeker policy on Wednesday, saying refugees should have to prove a higher risk of danger than before to avoid being sent home.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the changes would also put the onus on asylum-seekers to prove their claims, while visas would be denied to people who threw away their documents.

Dethroned champions Spain bowed out of the World Cup with a 3-0 win over Australia thanks to goals from David Villa, Fernando Torres and Juan Mata in Curitiba on Monday.

Villa, who is next set for a three-month spell in Australia with Melbourne City, became the fourth Spanish player to score in three World Cups when he backheeled home Juanfran's cross for his 59th international goal in his 97th and final appearance for La Roja nine minutes before half-time.

Reforms proposed to lift global growth in line with a target set by the world's biggest economies earlier this year are so far falling short, Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey said Monday.

In February, the G20 economies vowed to boost global growth by more than U.S.$2 trillion over five years, shifting their focus away from austerity as a fragile recovery takes hold. 

North Korea Sunday condemned Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop as a U.S. "stooge" after she criticized its leader Kim Jong-Un in an interview.

The North's foreign ministry described Bishop as "no more than a stooge carrying out the U.S. hostile policy" toward it.

Australia's immigration minister has described an incident in which an asylum-seeker sent himself on fire as "distressing" but said it would not change the way the government handles refugee claims.

Scott Morrison said late Saturday he was waiting to be briefed about the case.

Australia is offering asylum-seekers in its Pacific immigration camps financial support if they voluntarily return to their home country with the Lebanese offered the highest amount of $10,000 (US$9,400).

Fairfax Media reported that those returning to Lebanon from detention centers on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and the tiny Pacific state of Nauru were offered the highest amount of $10,000.

Australian jihadists fighting overseas who are "trained killers" and "hate our way of life" should be stopped from returning home and detained if they do, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Friday.

Australia has concerns that its citizens are fighting alongside Sunni militants in Iraq and Syria, including with the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.