The World Today

The United Nations’ Syria envoy has appealed directly to hundreds of jihadist fighters in the city of Aleppo to leave, saying he will personally accompany them out of town. Staffan de Mistura says their departure would be the only way to halt the ongoing bombardment of Aleppo by Syrian and Russian forces.

The head of the fledgling Future Generation Global company is urging wealthy Australians and corporates to donate more to the not-for-profit sector - but not through traditional means. The company listed last year and has donated one per cent of the company's assets, almost $2.5 million, to charity. The company's CEO, Louise Walsh, is calling for greater innovation in the corporate sector so it can contribute more to philanthropic work, especially in the field of youth mental health.

People are living for longer on average, but not necessarily in better health. The Global Burden of Disease study, published today in the Lancet journal, shows life expectancy is increasing at a greater rate than what's known as 'healthy life expectancy'. That means people are spending longer periods than ever before living with illness and disability at the end of their lives.

A prominent Indigenous athlete says that bolstering the role of Aboriginal health workers in communities is the best way to tackle high suicide rates. This week political and health leaders have been debating how to manage the escalating problem in the Kimberley, which has the highest rates in the world. But rugby and boxing star Joe Williams says it's just another example of non-Indigenous people taking control.

Workers at Ford in Victoria and Holden in South Australia have experienced the end of an era in car-manufacturing. About 600 Ford jobs are being lost today as the company exits car production in Australia. The Prime Minister says today is not the end of Australia's automotive industry but it marks a new chapter. However the manufacturing union is continuing to blame politicians for the downturn.

The former head of Mitsubishi Australia, Graham Spurling, is worried about a brain drain as a result of production winding up at Ford. He was the boss of the car company from 1980-'90, and it shut up shop in Adelaide in 2008. Mr Spurling believes the car industry is Australia's university for engineers, and says the country should've been thinking of a 'plan B' 16 years ago.

The Japanese Government is funding research into a fault line called the Nankai Trough, fearing it could become the site of a major earthquake. Scientists are divided over whether this is creating panic in one area of the earthquake-prone country.

The head of the National Australia Bank Andrew Thorburn says no senior executive was sacked over its financial planning scandal where 750 customers received bad or no advice. Chief executive Andrew Thorburn told the parliamentary inquiry into the Big Four banks that while more than 40 planners were dismissed some senior executives only lost their bonuses. Mr Thorburn says he's not proud of some of the NAB's bad behaviour but has once again committed to put things right.

The US security establishment could be facing yet another serious breach with a contractor suspected of stealing highly classified information. Fifty-one-year-old Harold Martin, a contractor for the National Security Agency, has been arrested for allegedly taking computer code designed to break into networks of countries such as Russia and China. Mr Martin works for the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton - the same company Edward Snowden worked for before he fled to Russia with volumes of classified information.

A Melbourne real estate agent has been fined for underquoting properties in what could be a win for aspiring home-owners. The Federal court handed down a $330,000 penalty to Hocking Stuart in Richmond for misleading consumers. The decision could have wider implications for the property market.