By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Protesters march in downtown Tehran, Iran, on December 29, 2025. © 2025 Fars News Agency/AP Photo Iranian authorities are brutally cracking down on nationwide protests with lethal force, killing at least 27 protesters and bystanders, including children, and injuring many more in just over a week, while carrying out mass detentions of protesters. Human Rights Watch is investigating the government’s violent repression of the protests and related human rights violations.Protests began on December 28 in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and rapidly spread to at least 27 provinces…
(Full Story)
|
By Jorge H. Sanchez-Perez, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta
Successful American action in Venezuela and threats against Greenland suggest the rules-based international order that emerged following the Second World War is now on life support.
(Full Story)
|
By Andrew Latham, Professor of Political Science, Macalester College
The U.S. mission to seize Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro has pushed the concept of regime change back into everyday conversation. “Regime Change in America’s Back Yard,” declared The New Yorker in a piece that typified the response to the Jan. 3 operation that saw Maduro exchange a compound in Caracas for a jail in Brooklyn.
Commentators
(Full Story)
|
By Mesbah Sharaf, Professor of Economics, University of Alberta
Abdelhalem Shahen, Associate professor, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University
Digital payments are often presented as a way to bring more people into the financial system. Mobile wallets, online transfers and app-based payment systems are now central to how governments, banks and technology firms talk about expanding access to financial services.
This is particularly significant today. Around the world, governments are investing heavily in digital finance as part of broader development and sustainability strategies. In Canada,…
(Full Story)
|
By Gayani Gunasekera, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Sessional Academic, Work and Organisational Studies, University of Sydney
As many head back to work, fresh starts can open the door to change. But maintaining lasting momentum depends on what we build after the novelty wears off.
(Full Story)
|
By Nick Lomb, Adjunct Professor, Centre for Astrophysics, University of Southern Queensland
In 2026 we will see a total eclipse of the Moon, a blue Moon, a supermoon and the two brightest planets close together in the sky.
(Full Story)
|
By Samuel Chalmers, Senior Lecturer in Human Movement, Adelaide University
Yuri Hosokawa, Associate Professor, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University
Exercise can feel more difficult in the heat, but when does it become unsafe? Two experts explain how you can check your risk, at your location.
(Full Story)
|
By Liza-Mare Syron, Indigenous Scientia Senior Lecturer, UNSW Sydney
The new ABC mini-series Goolagong is a rags-to-riches story about a small-town girl with a ball and a piece of 2 x 4 who dreams of one day winning Wimbledon.
(Full Story)
|
By Belinda Medlyn, Distinguished Professor, Ecosystem Function and Integration, Western Sydney University
Laura Williams, Postdoctoral research fellow, Hawksbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University
Ruiling Lu, PhD candidate, Ecology, Western Sydney University
The warming climate is killing Australia’s forest trees at a faster rate. This offers a glimpse of what may lie ahead for forests globally.
(Full Story)
|
By Lisa Bennett, Associate Professor, Flinders University
Most stories of the Vikings and their gods focus on men. It’s time for the women to take centre stage: from giantesses to bad-arse shieldmaidens.
(Full Story)
|