By Hasya Nindita
China's growing appetite for durian has mobilized investors in southeast Asia, and Indonesia is looking to get in on the action. But the move doesn't come without environmental and social risks.
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By Waya Quiviger, Professor of Practice of Gobal Governance and Development, IE University
Many observers, including NATO’s official communications site, hailed last month’s NATO summit as “historic”, primarily due to a landmark pledge by core member states to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 – a significant shift from the current target of 2%.
President Trump played a key role in pushing for this increase and has framed the summit as a major foreign policy win. “It’s a great victory for everybody, I think, and we will be equalised,” Trump…
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By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
Albanese is not the first Labor Prime Minister to feel the heat over Palestine but now internal pressure is mounting for the government to go further.
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By Malak Benslama-Dabdoub, Lecturer in law, Royal Holloway University of London
Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to formally recognise the state of Palestine will make France the first G7 country and member of the UN security council to do so. The question is whether others will follow suit. The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, is coming under mounting pressure from many of his MPs, and has recalled his cabinet from their summer recess to discuss the situation…
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Tuesday, July 29, 2025
“The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza,” UN-backed food security experts said on Tuesday, in a call to action amid unrelenting conflict, mass displacement and the near-total collapse of essential services in the war-battered enclave.
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image A food delivery driver in Lone Tree, Colorado, March 30, 2020. © 2020 David Zalubowski/AP Photo The gig economy runs on hidden rules. Every day, millions of workers in the United States log into apps like Uber, DoorDash, and Amazon Flex to earn a living, without knowing how much they’ll be paid, how jobs are assigned, or if they might be kicked off a platform and why.A new bill in Congress could change that.On July 24, Senators Brian Schatz and Chris Murphy introduced the Empowering App-Based Workers Act, a landmark proposal to bring much-needed transparency and…
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By Amra Lee, PhD candidate in Protection of Civilians, Australian National University
States must exercise their full diplomatic leverage to pressure Israel to let aid in at the scale required to avert famine.
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By Geoff Isaac, Research Fellow, Design, Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney
What springs to mind when you’re asked to think of plastic chairs? Do you picture the ubiquitous lightweight, stackable polypropylene chair sold cheaply in hardware stores worldwide?
Or perhaps you picture something more glamorous, such as Shiro Kuramata’s Miss Blanche (1988). This limited-edition artwork, featuring imitation roses suspended in acrylic resin, now sells for more than US$500,000 at…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image The Sarsang oilfield operated by HKN Energy, after a drone attack, in Duhok province, Iraq, July 17, 2025. © 2025 Azad Lashkari/Reuters (Beirut) – Drone strikes on five oil fields in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) by unknown groups between July 14 and 16, 2025, significantly damaged the region’s energy production, Human Rights Watch said today.The drone strikes mark a dangerous escalation in a long-running dispute between Baghdad and Erbil over the control and distribution of oil revenues. As part of this dispute, Baghdad has been withholding funds for the…
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By Amnesty International
Pakistan’s authorities must ensure robust protections for sanitation workers both in law and practice against institutionalized religious and caste-based discrimination, Amnesty International said in a new report highlighting widespread human rights violations within the sector. “Cut Us Open and See That We Bleed Like Them”: Discrimination and Stigmatization of Sanitation Workers in Pakistan, documents how […] The post Pakistan: Sanitation workers facing systemic discrimination and other rights violations need better legal protection – new report appeared first on Amnesty International. ]]>
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