The World Today

In a bid to reduce youth suicide rates, the Upper Hunter region of New South Wales has launched a campaign to become the first district in the country to introduce mental health education into all of its schools.

Residents in South Australia's mid-north say they're furious nothing has been done to stop ash from a decommissioned coal power station from blanketing their city. The Port Augusta power station closed in May, and while ash has blown from the site since, it's worsened over the last couple of days, sparking health fears. The Environment Protection Authority says testing found the ash contains minimal toxins, but warnings have been issued about the harm dust can pose regardless of its makeup.

Turkish police are hunting a man who gunned down party goers at an Istanbul nightclub in the early hours of New Years day. Authorities say over half of the 39 people killed were foreigners and close to 70 were injured. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack as eyewitness details of the shooting begin to emerge.

The attack on the Reina nightclub was highly symbolic in that it was known as a popular spot for the fashionable and rich of Istanbul's secular society, according to a former Pentagon Official. Michael Rubin, now Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute with a focus on Turkey and the Middle East, says that no Turk can now pretend that the country's terror problem doesn't affect them, and as the last in a series of attacks, the Reina shooting raise questions about President Erdogan's ability to offer security to his people.

Authorities in Indonesia fear the death toll will grow, after fire destroyed a passenger ferry on seas north of Jakarta. The over-crowded ferry is thought to have been carrying around 240 people when it burst into flames as people made their way to nearby islands on New Year's Day. Police believe the blaze was started by a short circuit on a power generator. Divers will spend the day scouring murky waters for bodies.

Another blackout in South Australia has many seeing red. A severe storm which hit the state last week knocked out power to thousands of properties, leaving some in the dark for up to five days. Electricity has finally been restored, but after a string of outages last year, it's once again raised questions about the security of the state's network.

Human rights lawyers are weighing up another challenge to the Victorian Government's youth justice policy. The government is accommodating some youths in an adult prison unit, after riots meant a youth detention centre was partly trashed.

More than 5,000 people drowned while making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean in 2016. Another 361,000 asylum seekers arrived in Europe by sea, with more than half of them arrived in Italy. The country's anti-mafia prosecutors conduct the investigation into and prosecution of the criminal networks that smuggle people into Europe. The World Today spoke to Doctor Gery Ferrara about his job.

Buses in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo are continuing to transport thousands of civilians out of the warzone. A ceasefire appears to have held, but international pressure is mounting on the Syrian Government and its allies to ensure that it continues to hold.

There have been comparisons made between the siege of Aleppo and the atrocities committed in Rwanda in 1994 and Bosnia in 1995. What evidence is there of war crimes?