An unattended package left on a Sydney ferry that sparked a lockdown of Australia's iconic harborfront was Friday revealed to be training equipment used by the transport company.

The incident came just over a month after Australia was rocked by a cafe siege in central Sydney that left two hostages and a gunman dead, prompting a huge outpouring of emotion, and reflected heightened concerns about terrorist activity.

A Malaysian police officer sentenced to hang over the killing of a Mongolian model in a sensational scandal linked to corruption allegations has been detained in Australia, a report said Wednesday.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said Sirul Azhar Umar, convicted of the 2006 killing of 28-year-old Altantuya Shaariibuu, had been picked up by immigration officials in the state of Queensland.

Australia on Tuesday raised the terrorism threat level against the police force to high for the first time, saying there were small but growing numbers of citizens involved with jihadist groups and intent on attacks.

Australian Federal Police said the decision had been taken based on intelligence-gathering and discussions with partners and was in line with the broader threat for the country, also raised to high in September.

Asylum-seekers in a detention center in Papua New Guinea said Sunday that Canberra was holding them "hostage" in an effort to deter others from paying people-smugglers to bring them to Australia.

After days of hunger strike protests on PNG's Manus Island, refugee advocates said asylum-seekers were continuing to protest against their 18 months of detention in the offshore location.

Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Friday he was worried about the "volatile situation" at a Papua New Guinea asylum-seeker camp after reports that detainees were swallowing razor blades and washing powder.

Australia sends asylum-seekers who try to enter the country by boat to offshore detention centers on Papua New Guinea and Nauru in the Pacific with no prospect of being settled on the mainland, even if they are genuine refugees.

Some 15 asylum seekers hoping to make it to Australia and detained in Papua New Guinea have sewn their lips together and 400 are on hunger strike, a report said Thursday.

A spokesman for Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton did not comment on the scale of the protest, while conceding that some asylum seekers at a detention center had harmed themselves. He insisted that the protest was "peaceful."

The government faced calls Tuesday to bolster free speech amid concern that French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo could not be published in Australia under existing race discrimination laws.

Canberra last year abandoned plans to repeal a section of the Racial Discrimination Act that makes it illegal to "offend, insult or humiliate another" because of their race after concerns from ethnic communities.

Thousands of people on Saturday flocked to the funeral of eight children found dead at their home in the northern Australian city of Cairns, in a crime that shocked the country.

The mother of seven of the children and aunt to the other has been charged with murder after their bodies were found, reportedly with stab wounds, at her house a few days before Christmas.

An Australian newspaper Saturday published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed arguing with Jesus, as it urged support for free speech in the wake of the deadly attack on a French satirical weekly.

Twelve people were killed in Wednesday's attack by extremists on magazine Charlie Hebdo's office in Paris, prompting cartoonists around the world to put pen to paper in solidarity with their French colleagues.

Two men have been arrested after counter-terrorism raids in Sydney, Australian officials said Saturday, following long-running investigations into those backing fighters involved in conflicts such as in Syria and Iraq.

Officers arrested one man on Friday following raids at four properties in Sydney's southwest that police said were "part of a long-running investigation and not as a result of any specific terrorism threat".