By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Protestors outside of Georgia’s parliament in support of those arrested at a pro-EU rally earlier, Tbilisi, Georgia, April 8, 2025. © 2025 Sebastien Canaud/NurPhoto via AP Photo (Berlin, December 4, 2025) – Georgian authorities have adopted a series of laws that unjustifiably interfere with the right to peaceful assembly and are being used to suppress dissent, Human Rights Watch said today. Combined with abusive policing and steep fines, these measures violate Georgians’ right to peaceful protest, making dissent increasingly risky and leaving critics vulnerable to…
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By Peter Hoar, Senior Lecturer, School of Communications Studies, Auckland University of Technology
For a supposedly obsolete music format, audio cassette sales seem to be set on fast forward at the moment.
Cassettes are fragile, inconvenient and relatively low-quality in the sound they produce – yet we’re increasingly seeing them issued by major artists.
Is it simply a case of nostalgia?
Press play
The cassette format had its heyday during the mid-1980s, when tens of millions were sold each year.
However, the…
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By Samantha Hepburn, Professor of Law, Deakin University
Gas shortages loom as Bass Strait wells run dry and Queensland gas is sold overseas. A mandatory new reservation scheme is coming.
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By Kevin John Brophy, Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
At the centre of this novel is a lonely man, the son of a Greek migrant cafe-owning family, who finds a home in a newsroom at a time of turbulence.
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By John Tibby, Associate Professor in Environmental Change, University of Adelaide
Conway Burns, Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous Knowledge
Harald Hofmann, Principal Hydrogeologist, CSIRO
K'gari island is renowned for its natural beauty and unique lakes. But new research reveals there was a time when some evaporated. Could this happen again?
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By Brooke Nickel, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, University of Sydney
Nehmat Houssami, Professor of Public Health, University of Sydney
Imagine a 57-year-old woman, let’s call her Maria, who’s just opened a letter about her mammography results. She’s had several mammograms before, but this time reads new information: “Your breasts are dense”.
While the letter assures her that dense breasts are common, it also indicates it could make it harder to see breast cancer on the mammogram.
Maria is confused about what to do next and wonders if she should be worried. Does she need to see her GP?
Maria may be fictional but she reflects the findings from the first trial of its kind we…
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By Tim Harcourt, Industry Professor and Chief Economist, University of Technology Sydney
It is now (almost) official: Tasmania will finally take its place in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Tasmania, a foundation state of the nation’s homegrown game of Australian rules football, has trod a tortuous route, with great drama, over its plan for a 23,000-seat indoor stadium precinct at Macquarie Point on Hobart’s picturesque waterfront.
The state is now on the cusp of realising a dream many footy-loving Tasmanians had long hoped for.
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By Misha Ketchell, Editor-in-chief, The Conversation
In September this year, the Nobel prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa gave a powerful speech to the National Press Club about the ways in which authoritarians manipulate social media. She called for the Australian government to bolster the regulation of technology platforms and issued a stark warning.
“The greatest threat we face today isn’t any individual leader or one government,” she said. “It’s the technology that’s amplifying authoritarian tactics worldwide, enabled by democratic governments that abdicated…
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By Inge Gnatt, Psychologist, Lecturer in Psychology, Swinburne University of Technology
Kathleen de Boer, Clinical Psychologist, Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Swinburne University of Technology
If you’ve ever been on the sidelines at an under-12’s team sport, you will know that some children are fiercely competitive, while others are there simply to socialise.
In the workplace, two colleagues might respond differently to the same piece of feedback, where one will go into overdrive to prove themselves, while the other will easily move on.
And we all know what happens on family Monopoly nights. It’s the ultimate reminder that competitiveness can test even the closest relationships.
Being more or less competitive has advantages and disadvantages, and these…
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Wednesday, December 3rd 2025
The deadly legacy of conflicts old and new – from Gaza to Sudan and beyond – continues to kill and maim civilians on a near-daily basis, mine action workers said on Wednesday, as they appealed for greater support for their lifesaving work in the face of deep funding cuts.
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