An Adelaide school teacher is stranded in Lebanon despite days of desperate attempts to make it onto a flight out of the escalating conflict zone.

Her worried husband says they're struggling to get help from the Australian government and it's rapidly becoming too dangerous for her to leave the home she's staying in.

"We hear the planes flying in the sky and sometimes they are very very low and the sound is scary," Josiane Vekas said from near the capital of Beirut. 

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"Plus, when they are bombing or attacking we hear the explosions."

The 49-year-old teacher from Klemzig, who travelled to Lebanon six weeks ago to visit family, now finds herself trapped in the dangerous conflict zone.

"There's nothing left, no buildings, no cars, no home… nothing… kids are injured," she said. 

"It's like you can see the war in front of you and you can't do anything."

Vekas has had two flights cancelled, but even getting to the airport is a challenge. 

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"Even the taxi is afraid to take me to the airport… no one will take me to the airport…but even if I go to the airport, there's no flights," she said

"You sit at home, and you wait. When will it be our turn? It's so frustrating. Just sitting and waiting to die."

Another option for Vekas is to take a boat from Beirut to Cyprus, but even that journey poses significant risks. 

"The captain told me if there's waves, and high waves… it's for the safety of everyone…we don't take this trip, so it's cancelled," she said.

It's left her waiting, holding onto hope for an end to the conflict and a safe return home. 

"We have hope. We have hope that they will finish this soon, please," she said.

This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.

‘Risk of flooding, slips are high. Follow the advice of local authorities’ – MetService

Exclusive: Telecommunication companies will be put to the test when postal workers hit the road to check phone signals around the nation.

The nation's first-ever independent audit of mobile coverage will get under way in October, aimed at finding black spots and building a clear picture of the network.

"Sometimes it really differs from what the mobile carriers say is available," Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said.

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"For the first time, consumers are really going to have something they can rely on."

Australia Post vans, and eventually long haul trucks, will help Accenture carry out the audit, which will cover 180,000 kilometres of regional roads every year until 2027.

Each vehicle will contain mobile phones from Australia's major carriers – Telstra, Optus and TPG – carrying out a range of functions on a loop including making phone calls, sending text messages, uploading or downloading to test signal strength and quality.

"The telcos coverage maps use predictive algorithms to identify areas where they believe there should be phone signal," RMIT Associate Professor Mark Gregory said.

"There's often situations where there may not be coverage in areas where it says there's coverage."

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Seventy post offices in regional towns will also be fitted with measuring devices.

"It's about safety, particularly in the regions, people rely on coverage more than ever before," Rowland said.

"It's patchy … depending on where you are in Australia, it can be very good."

Our capital cities mostly enjoy world-class 5G coverage, but even in busy, suburban areas, residents might notice their phone dropping out in certain pockets.

"In a city or an urban environment, wherever you have buildings, hills, trees, freeways – these are all going to block the mobile signal," Gregory said.

The national network will face another major challenge when 3G is turned off by Telstra and Optus on October 28, previously delayed over concerns Australia wasn't ready.

"There hasn't been enough testing," Gregory said.

"We don't fully know the extent of the problems that will occur when we turn 3G off… there will be people that end up with no coverage."

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Telcos say 3G-only areas will have no loss of coverage as a result of the switchover, but there are also concerns for other technology that relies on 3G including some medical devices and farm equipment.

"Get ready, don't delay, make sure you check your tech," Rowland said.

"It's very important for carriers to not only listen to concerns from consumers but also act on them."

You can check your own device by texting "3G" to 3498.

Telstra and Optus are carrying out a national campaign which is expected to reach 90 per cent of Australians before the switch off.

Both telecommunications companies say they are committed to improving the network in regional areas and have invested billions of dollars in recent years to address blackspots.

The largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere has powered up for the first time today.

The massive project a few hours west of Brisbane will produce enough energy to supply 600,000 homes.

"To see it doing what it's meant to be doing, exporting clean, renewable energy to the grid, is such an important achievement," Acciona Energia director Andrew Tshaikiwsky said.

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"They first came to us 12 years ago and we had the attitude of 'we'll believe it when we see it'," landowner Jono Carson said.

That vision was brought to life with 162 turbines now scattered across the hills of the state's granite belt region, each piece transported painstakingly from the port of Brisbane to the bush.

"As far as the turbines go it's good use of this country because you can't farm it but you still run sheep and you can still run goats," Jane Carson said.

The farm covers an area of more than 3600 hectares, with landowners compensated for hosting turbines on their properties.

"Well that's the best thing about it, it's a guaranteed income, we're not relying on the weather," Carson said.

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Each blade is 80 metres long and weighs more than 26 tonnes. 

It took the team between two and three days to complete the installation of a single turbine.

From the top tip of the blades to the ground is almost 230 metres, allowing the turbines to be exposed to winds you can't feel on the ground below.

Using those gusts the farm will produce 920 megawatts of power – enough energy to supply 600,000 homes.

It will effectively double the amount of renewable energy being generated by wind farms injected into the grid in Queensland.

The farm was developed by the Spanish company Acciona and the Queensland government's renewable energy generator CleanCo.

It's hoped the new wind farm could help push down power prices by as early as next year.

"This is an enormous milestone and we are looking forward to having more cheap and clean energy coming into the grid to put downward pressure on our power prices," Labor MP Lance McCallum said.

This track ends a seven year journey and is the final addition to his trilogy.

It is the first red warning issued for Otago since MetService started the system in 2019.

One person described their actions as “Disappointing but not at all surprising”.

A group of anti-youth-vaping lobbyists have performed their own nationwide sting.

Australia would benefit from an overhaul of its tax system, including scrapping billions in capital gains and superannuation concessions, according to one of the world's leading economic bodies.

In its yearly report on the Australian economy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the breaks should be removed in order to ease our high level of personal income tax and company tax rates.

"Tax reforms should target system efficiency and fairness, reducing reliance on direct taxes and high capital costs that hinder growth," it wrote.

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"Tax breaks, including from capital gains tax discount and superannuation concessions, could be phased out to generate a more equitable and efficient tax system."

Those two breaks alone are worth slightly over $70 billion a year – Australians claim about $19 billion in capital gains tax and $52 billion in superannuation concessions.

Capital gains is a particularly hot topic at the moment, following reports last week that Treasury is modelling the cost of a potential overhaul to tax breaks provided to investment property owners.

Often used alongside negative gearing, the capital gains discount was introduced in 1999 and critics say it is one of the leading contributors to surging home prices.

The IMF said it supported a review of those tax breaks, provided it came as part of a wider strategy to tackle the housing prices.

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"A comprehensive strategy is essential, focusing on increasing construction worker supply, relaxing zoning and planning restrictions, supporting the built-to-rent sector, expanding public and affordable housing, and reevaluating property taxes (including tax concessions to property investors) and stamp duty to promote efficient land use," it said.

The wide-ranging report also supported the Reserve Bank's current interest rate settings.

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It warned the federal government against injecting too much cost-of-living relief into the economy, saying it could risk inflation going in the wrong direction and causing interest rates to stay higher for longer.

But the IMF also welcomed the government's second-straight budget surplus, and said the current economic slowdown will likely be reversed in 2025 on the back of increased growth, improving real wages, and inflation coming back to target by the end of the year.

2 Cheap Cars has now admitted it didn’t do the battery repairs it said it had.