By Robert Davis, Associate Professor in Wildlife Conservation, Edith Cowan University
For months, a flood of mice has engulfed Western Australia’s agricultural regions.
For people living through it, this latest mouse plague is all-consuming. Houses, sheds, paddocks and roads are blanketed with mice. And the smell of mice, both dead and alive, is impossible to escape.
It may well be the worst plague the region has ever seen, with scientists recording up to 8,000…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image A protester sits on the street with his arms up in front of federal agents and Minneapolis Police on W. 27th St and Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis after Alex Pretti was fatally shot by federal agents in the area early Saturday morning, January 24, 2026. © 2026 Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images The Trump administration’s deployment of thousands of federal immigration agents to Minnesota led to widespread human rights violations, terrorized residents, and spotlighted the deeply abusive patterns in US immigration enforcement.In…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Javokhir Muminov (left) and Djura Akbarov (right) at the Kashkadarya Regional Prosecutor's Office, Uzbekistan. © 2025 Elena Urlaeva (Berlin, June 18, 2026) – Uzbek authorities should release a local human rights activist accused of extortion and investigate his allegations of abuse in police custody, Human Rights Watch said today. Javokhir Muminov, the activist, told his lawyer on June 10, 2026, that following his arrest, police officers had beaten and suffocated him.“This criminal investigation into Javokhir Muminov, coupled with his allegations of abuse, is…
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By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
The departing Liberal frontbencher also said it’s ‘mad’ to be talking about doing deals with One Nation so far from an election.
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By Human Rights Watch
© 2026 Glenn Harvey for Human Rights Watch (Brussels, June 18, 2026) – The Bulgarian government between 2018 and 2023 licensed exports of surveillance equipment to countries that were likely to use it for internal repression or to commit serious human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said today.Human Rights Watch previously reviewed data that shows that European Union governments often seem to issue such licenses. Human Rights Watch urged EU institutions to tighten enforcement of laws intended to restrict the export of surveillance technology to places where there is a credible…
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By Jaimie Veale, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Waikato
Anti-trans policies are often described as protective, but they follow a documented pattern that creates conditions to make exclusion and harm easier to justify.
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By John Freebairn, Professor, Department of Economics, The University of Melbourne
The federal government’s cut to the fuel excise is due to expire at the end of June, meaning the cost of filling up a 65-litre petrol vehicle could rise by about A$19 from July 1.
This week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese left the door open to extending the temporary cut for petrol or for diesel.…
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By Dana McKay, Associate Dean, Interaction, Technology and Information, RMIT University
Michael Cowling, Professor & Director, Hub for Apple Platform Innovation (HAPI), School of Computing Technologies, RMIT University
Social apps like Instagram, TikTok and Facebook are designed to be addictive. What would they look like if we removed the worst features?
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By Charlotte Elliott, PhD Candidate in English (Horror Studies), Flinders University
There’s a new trend in horror fiction: the female cannibal. In Monika Kim’s The Eyes are the Best Part (2025), a college student eats the eyeballs of the men who fetishise her. In Delilah S. Dawson’s Bloom (2023), the love interest, who appears to be living a fantasy version of cottage life, is actually including body parts in her organic homemade goods. In Chelsea…
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Wednesday, June 17, 2026
As online platforms continue to fuel a surge in real-world violence against vulnerable communities, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is warning that freedom of expression must never be used to justify hate speech.
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