By Amnesty International
Amnesty International strongly condemns the Zambian government for open-endedly “postponing” RightsCon – the largest global tech and human rights conference, which was due to start today in Lusaka and online – after allegedly being pressured by Chinese diplomats. Conference organizers Access Now have confirmed they believe “foreign interference” was behind the last-minute postponement. According to their statement, officials from Zambia’s Ministry of Technology and Science had communicated that they were under pressure from Chinese diplomats over, among others, the participation of Taiwanese civil…
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By Amnesty International
Reacting to reports that Azat Miftakhov, a mathematician and anarchist activist, was subjected to torture, including sexualized abuse, in a Russian penal colony, Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said: “The authorities must urgently launch an independent and effective investigation into these allegations, hold all those suspected to […] The post Russia: Urgently investigate torture allegations of imprisoned anarchist Azat Miftakhov appeared first on Amnesty International. ]]>
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By Nathan Murray, Assistant Professor, Department of English and History, Algoma University
Elisa Tersigni, Senior Research Associate, University of Toronto
Imagine two identical spoons. One is hand-wrought from silver by a skilled metalworker. The other, a base-metal facsimile, was mass-produced by a machine. Which would you value more? Most of us would say the handmade spoon.
In 1899, more than a century ago, American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen used this very example to explain how we assign value, or his theory of conspicuous consumption, in which he contended that bourgeois consumption was driven…
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By Olga Dodd, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Auckland University of Technology
Adrian Fernandez-Perez, Assistant Professor in Finance, University College Dublin
NZ today stands as the only International Energy Agency member whose public oil reserves lie entirely offshore. How can it now rebuild its domestic fuel resilience?
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By Vivek Krishnamurthy, Associate Professor of Law, University of Colorado Boulder
Iran’s decision to levy tolls on ships passing through the crucial choke hold has an unlikely connection to the site of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet.’
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By Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Australian National University; The University of Western Australia; Victoria University
Amitav Acharya, Distinguished Professor of International Relations, American University
At every difficult moment in their long history, the Persian people have fought to preserve what is theirs. The Trump administration may have underestimated this.
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By Thea van de Mortel, Professor Emerita, Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University
Is it the flu, COVID or something else? That old rapid antigen test sitting in your cupboard may tell you. But this is what you need to know.
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By Marie-Claire Beaulieu, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Tufts University
Anna Jarvis founded Mother’s Day in 1908 to honor women’s collective work for peace. Today, the celebration is largely detached from its political origins.
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By Renske Jongen, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney
Ezequiel M. Marzinelli, Associate Professor, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney
Paul Gribben, Professor, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney
On the western side of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, Australia, sits Myuna Bay, a quiet bay with meadows of seagrass waving beneath the water. The most common marine plant species you find there is Zostera muelleri. It has long ribbon-like leaves that grow from stems (called rhizomes) buried beneath the sediment and provides important shelter for small fish, shrimp and crabs.
Although Myuna Bay looks quite normal, it is actually a bit unusual. For decades, the nearby Eraring power station released…
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By Hannah Kirk, Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology, Monash University
Sashka Samarawickrama, PhD Candidate (Clinical Psychology), Monash University
Even quite young children are watching, thinking and feeling things about the future of the environment. Those feelings deserve to be taken seriously.
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