Eight men have drowned and five others are missing after a boat loaded with 25 people believed to be from Afghanistan and Iraq overturned off southern Malaysia, police said Wednesday.

Police found the bodies of eight men on a beach in southern Johor state early Wednesday, said Che Mahazan Che Aik, a district police chief, while 12 others managed to swim to shore after their boat overturned.

Bomb squad officers were called to the French and Israeli embassies in Australia on Monday following the discovery of suspicious packages that were later found to be harmless.

Police said a bomb response team dispatched to the diplomatic posts in Canberra determined that the items were not suspicious and road closures around the embassies were lifted, a police spokeswoman said.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stumbled and was caught by a security guard as riot police helped her force a path through a crowd of rowdy protesters following a ceremony to mark Australia's national day Thursday.

Some 200 supporters of indigenous rights surrounded a Canberra restaurant and banged its windows while Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott were inside officiating at an award ceremony.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said on Tuesday his country would follow the European Union in banning Iranian oil imports, after talks with his British counterpart in London.

"The actions taken in Brussels yesterday on sanctions by the European Union, we in Australia will undertake precisely the same parallel action for Australia," Rudd said after talks with William Hague.

Many male birds use their flashy colored feathers to lure females, but the great bowerbird of Australia has mastered the art of illusion to captivate the ladies, researchers said Thursday.

Part architect, part magician, the great bowerbird constructs an elaborate arched walkway called a bower made from twigs.

Australia urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down on Thursday and said he should be tried before the International Criminal Court for "atrocities" against his people.

"Our view in Australia is that Assad must go," Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters at the French foreign ministry in Paris, at a joint appearance with his counterpart Alain Juppe.

An Australian family spoke of their fright Sunday after waking to find a 1.7 meter (five-foot seven-inch) crocodile lurking in their living room.

Jo Dodd said she was first alerted to the reptilian intruder by the frantic barking of their family dog on Saturday morning.

Australian scientists hailed what they described as a world-first discovery of two shark species interbreeding Tuesday, a never-before-seen phenomenon which could help them cope with warmer oceans.

Lead researcher Jess Morgan said the mating of the local Australian black-tip shark with its global counterpart, the common black-tip, was an unprecedented discovery with implications for the entire shark world.

An Australian infant was attacked by a python which wrapped itself around his body and attempted to suffocate him, his terrified mother said Thursday, recalling his "blood-curdling scream".

The two-year-old boy was chasing a ball around his Port Douglas backyard in Australia's tropical north when the snake struck, biting his leg before looping itself around his body, his mother told the local Cairns Post newspaper.

Three men who plotted a suicide attack against an Australian army base because they believed Islam was under threat from Western nations were sentenced Friday to more than 13 years in prison.

The men — Australian citizens originally from Somalia and Lebanon — were convicted last year of conspiring to plot a terrorist attack against Holsworthy Barracks, an army base on the outskirts of Sydney. Officials said the group planned to send a team of men with automatic rifles into the base in a bid to kill as many soldiers as possible.