Monday, December 15, 2025
The UN human rights chief said on Monday the antisemitic attack on the Jewish community in Sydney which left fifteen dead at the weekend, including a 10-year-old girl, was “a moment of deep sadness.”
(Full Story)
|
By Jessica Russ-Smith, Associate Professor of Social Work and Chair, Indigenous Research Ethics Advisory Panel, Australian Catholic University
Immaculate Motsi-Omoijiade, Senior Research Fellow – Responsible AI Lead, AI and Cyber Futures Institute, Charles Sturt University
Michelle D. Lazarus, Director, Centre of Human Anatomy Education, Monash University
Earlier this month, Australia’s long-anticipated National AI Plan was released to a mixed reception.
The plan shifts away from the government’s previously promised mandatory AI safeguards. Instead, it’s positioned as a whole-of-government roadmap for building an “AI-enabled economy”.
The plan has raised…
(Full Story)
|
By Siobhan McHugh, Honorary Associate Professor, Journalism, University of Wollongong
Quality narrative podcasts experienced a downturn this year, with industry layoffs in key networks including Pineapple Street Studios and Wondery. But commercial cutbacks have reinvigorated the artistic spirit of the genre.
In a class of its own is a soaring audio biography of Fela…
(Full Story)
|
By Mark Kenny, Professor, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University
It became clear that “Team Dutton” was running on little more than bloke-energy, an unaffordable nuclear policy and, crazily, higher taxes.
(Full Story)
|
By Paul Harpur, Associate Professor, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland; Syracuse University
Lisa Stafford, ARC Future Fellow, Inclusive Futures Centre, Griffith University
“Welcome”, the sign at the supermarket entrance says, above a drawing of a shopper walking in and pushing a trolley.
But for many shoppers – especially those with wheelchairs, walkers or pushing kids in prams – it looks anything but welcoming.
Ten white batons stretch into the middle of the entryway, which you have to push through to enter. A Reddit user snapped the photo at a Woolworths store in suburban Melbourne this month and it soon
(Full Story)
|
By Lorne Michael Hartman, Associate Faculty, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto; York University, Canada
Consider the following scenario. You’re facing pressure to meet quarterly targets, but the numbers aren’t quite where they need to be. With a deadline looming, you “round up” a figure just slightly to make the results look better.
This kind of thinking is far more common than many realize. Research in behavioural ethics shows these subtle choices are exactly how unethical behaviour takes root in organizations.
Most people see…
(Full Story)
|
By Steeve Côté, professeur d'écologie animale, Université Laval
Christian Dussault, Chercheur en écologie terrestre, Université Laval
Jean-Pierre Tremblay, professeur titulaire en écologie de la faune terrestre, Université Laval
Julien H. Richard, Professionnel de recherche en biologie, Université Laval
As climate change profoundly alters ecosystems in North America, a small parasite is wreaking havoc: the winter tick. This tick, now more prevalent due to milder environmental conditions, is severely affecting the winter survival of young moose in eastern Canada.
Climate change is allowing species such as the winter tick — an external parasite that feeds on the blood of large deer — to spread to new regions. Once rarer in eastern Canada, the tick is now well established there and is causing high mortality, especially among young moose.
The winter tick completes its entire…
(Full Story)
|
By Bruce Glavovic, Professor in Natural Hazards Planning and Resilience, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University
Derrylea Hardy, Research Officer in Environment and Planning, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University
Huhana Smith, Professor in Creative Arts, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University
Martin Garcia Cartagena, Lecturer in Environmental Planning, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University
Discussions about how New Zealand should adapt to a changing climate have been going on for more than two decades.
While both major political parties agree on the need for a nationally coherent adaptation plan, there is an impasse between the previous Labour government’s Treaty-based, equity-centred approach and the current National-led coalition’s fiscal discipline and burden-shifting logic.
The recently released National Adaptation Framework aimed to close this gap,…
(Full Story)
|
By Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin, Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs, Boise State University
Powerful men connected to Jeffrey Epstein are named, dissected and speculated about. The survivors, unless they work hard to step forward, remain a blurred mass in the background.
(Full Story)
|
By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, one of released Belarusian prisoners, smiles as he arrives at the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, on December 13, 2025. © 2025 Mindaugas Kulbis/AP Photo On December 13, Belarusian authorities released 123 prisoners following negotiations led by the US administration, which had agreed to lift sanctions on Belarusian potash. The majority were sent to Ukraine, and a group of nine to Lithuania. Most of those released had been prosecuted and imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their human rights.Among those released…
(Full Story)
|