By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Anna, 80, shows a notebook containing detailed records of monthly expenses, for herself and her sister Erika, 84, in their home in Budapest, Hungary, October 2025. © 2025 Kartik Raj/Human Rights Watch The Hungarian government is failing to ensure older people’s rights to social security and an adequate standard of living, including access to sufficient food, medicine, and energy.The rise in poverty among older people, which became evident during sharp inflation in 2022 and 2023, highlights longstanding structural problems with the Hungarian pension and social security…
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Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Conflict-related sexual violence in Sri Lanka remains largely unaddressed more than 15 years after the end of the civil war, with survivors still denied justice, recognition and reparations, according to a new report by the UN human rights office, OHCHR, on Tuesday.
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By Dara Conduit, ARC DECRA Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Thousands of Iranians have been killed in the current protests. But the longer the regime maintains its blackout, the more people will be driven onto the streets.
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By Keiran Hardy, Associate Professor, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University
The draft hate speech bill includes the biggest terrorism reforms in years, but it raises more questions than it answers.
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By Peter Edwell, Associate Professor in Ancient History, Macquarie University
Depictions of the eccentricities of Roman leaders were (and remain) interesting. But such leaders were often also dangerous, unpredictable and frightening.
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By Hossein Asgari, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Adelaide University
The dire social and political landscape of Sadeq Hedayat’s time contributed to the existential despair and pessimism of his writing.
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By Xiangyu Liu, Research Fellow, School of Environment and Science and Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University
It’s 7:45am. You grab a takeaway coffee from your local cafe, wrap your hands around the warm cup, take a sip, and head to the office.
To most of us, that cup feels harmless – just a convenient tool for caffeine delivery. However, if that cup is made of plastic, or has a thin plastic lining, there is a high chance it’s shedding thousands of tiny plastic fragments directly into your drink.
In Australia alone, we use a staggering 1.45…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to brief senators at the US Capitol, Washington DC, January 7, 2026. © 2026 Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Photo New reporting that US forces used an aircraft painted to appear civilian for a lethal strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea on September 2, 2025—killing 11 people—raises new questions about the erosion of internal safeguards on US military operations.According to The New York Times, officials briefed on the strike said the aircraft had no visible military markings and carried its weapons concealed inside its fuselage.…
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By Shukriya Bradost, Ph.D. Researcher, International Security and Foreign Policy, Virginia Tech
The demands of Iran’s ethnic minorities differ from many of those in Tehran, and they have reason to fear the return of the Pahlavi monarchy.
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By Jane Kelsey, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Under Donald Trump, the US is fundamentally remaking the rules of the global trade system, provoking an existential crisis in the WTO.
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