It can take decades for critics to catch up with the great reads of the century. Even a cursory glance at the history of literary awards will confirm that cosy, comfortable, safe, or merely popular books…
Despite the importance of Remembrance Day in marking the end of the ‘war to end all wars’, it sits below Anzac Day in the estimation of most Australians.
AAP/Julian Smith
For all its importance, Remembrance Day, November 11, does not capture the Australian imagination in the way that Anzac Day does, despite the sustained efforts of successive governments to promote the…
The G20 might seem like a tasty target for hackers, but any real threats will come from elsewhere.
Imaginary Museum Projects: News Tableaus/Flickr
You might have seen reports that the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) has issued cyber security advice ahead of the G20 Leaders Summit in Brisbane this weekend. So under the watchful eye of the media…
Cattle bound for live export in the Northern Territory.
AAP Image/Grenville Turne
The number of animals exported live out of Australia is set to increase as Australia prepares to enter into a A$1 billion trade agreement with China. Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce has claimed up to…
Shifting bank risk to taxpayers is deeply unpopular, and there is an alternative.
Lisa Norwood/Flickr
In the last decade or so, the global financial landscape has endured two major shocks - the first with the 2007 collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the United States, and the second emanating…
The G20 of today faces a different type of crisis to the one it was founded on.
Jason Hargrove/Flickr
To understand this week’s G20 Summit being held in Brisbane, Australia, and measure its success, requires a sense of the history of economic crisis and change. Recurring crises have shaped global institutions…
People will always want to know more about humanity: the past, the present and the future. Fee deregulation won’t change that.
Flickr/Trey Ratcliffe
As I travel around the nation, it pains me to find much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth in the senior common rooms of our universities. The academic union reports that morale has never been lower…
The new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, criticised Australia in his opening address to the UN Human Rights Council.
EPA/Salvatore di Nolfi
The Australian government is being examined on Monday evening by the United Nations Committee against Torture. Before the independent committee of experts, an Australian government delegation has to answer…
Leaked documents reveal how multinational companies use PwC in Luxembourg to shift profits and avoid tax.
Nicolas Bouvy/AAP
Hundreds of advance tax agreements between Luxembourg and more than 300 taxpayers were leaked and published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists last week. The taxpayers involved…
How do the products we buy affect the world’s rainforests? In the lead up to the Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit held in Sydney this week, The Conversation is running a series on rainforest commodities…
Plants use photosynthesis to build molecules and energy they can use. By copying plants, humans can make cleaner fuels.
Ranjit Bhatnagar/Flickr
Most of the energy that fuels our lives comes from plants. Whether it is a fossil fuel that was formed hundreds of millions of years ago or the food we eat, all carbon-borne energy has its ultimate origins…
Most women are just happy to have an orgasm, any old way.
Ares Tavolazzi/Flickr
Controversy over vaginal versus clitoral orgasm is nothing new; it’s a debate that has consumed sexologists and psychoanalysts for the last 100 years. Now, new research has added fresh fuel to the controversy…
Helen Morse and Yomal Rajasinghe as Anne and Majid in Dreamers, a play that feels of another world.
Jeff Busby
More than ten years after the last production by the Keene/Taylor Theatre Project (KTTP), playwright Daniel Keene and director Ariette Taylor have reunited to produce the Australian premiere of Dreamers…
Can social media keep you safe from disasters?
Flickr/Jim
Given the popularity of Facebook and Twitter, it’s not surprising so many people use social media in crises such as floods, fires and earthquakes. Facebook has introduced Safety Check, a new tool for users…
Each of the 888,246 ceramic poppies in the Tower of London’s moat represent a British or Commonwealth first-world-war casualty.
EPA/Andy Rain
Tom Gregory, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Every year on Remembrance Day, we pause to look back on old wars and recount the tallies of the dead, including 16 million killed in the first world war and 60 million in the second world war. And every…
Politics was very much on display during last week’s memorial service for former prime minister Gough Whitlam.
AAP/Brendon Thorne
Last week, I was one of a sea of Australians who rose to remember Gough Whitlam. Fitting its subject, the Whitlam memorial was sweeping. It was as much a grand story of Australia’s evolution since the…
Rio Tinto’s West Angelas mine, a joint venture with Japanese interests, is facing a new record low iron ore price.
Alan Porritt/AAP
The world’s biggest iron ore producer, Vale, has announced its intention to expand production despite a falling price. This follows similar announcements by Rio Tinto and BHP. This expansion in production…
Tony Abbott is meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Forget shirt-fronting Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s most challenging task this week will be breaking an uncomfortable silence with Chinese President Xi Jinping. And he…
Australia’s standard of living is under threat.
Scott Woodman/Flickr
When the G20 finance ministers agreed in February to significantly raise global growth, they locked in a goal of lifting collective GDP by more than 2%. This was a cumulative goal - that is a total of…
Dr Andrew Stephenson and Dr Anthony Jacko examine the longest running laboratory experiment in the world.
Something strange is happening within the world-famous pitch drop experiment with the latest drop forming much faster than the last couple of drops. There have been nine drops so far and all attention…
A military campaign against Islamic State forces will offer no long-term resolution to Iraq’s extremist problem.
YouTube/VICE News
To explain the disaster befalling Iraq, as well as the rise of Islamic State (IS), you have to go back a century – before modern Iraq even existed. That’s not to discount the shared culpability of Iraq’s…
Ebola is less infectious than other diseases but has a high fatality rate.
EPA/Ahmed Jallanzo
The West African outbreak of Ebola has claimed more than 4,800 lives and this number is sure to rise. There is understandably a lot of fear about Ebola, but how does it actually compare with other fast-spreading…
Both sides of government have shown commitment to bringing back tech schools. If they’re so great why did we get rid of them in the first place?
Turning and Fitting class Collingwood Technical School 1914 - Victorian Collections
When Prime Minister Abbott went to the United States in June this year, he visited a P-Tech High school in Brooklyn. He said such schools were a “valuable education model for us to consider in Australia…
China’s embrace of technologies like solar roofs has seen it become the world’s biggest renewable energy investor.
Climate Council
Climate change, now belatedly added to the agenda for this month’s G20 meeting in Brisbane, is a perennial topic whenever leaders gather for international summits. That’s understandable, given that countries…
Is one of President Obama’s SS agents a shape-shifting alien humanoid?
katiew
While it’s tempting to dismiss conspiracy theorists as nothing more than a loopy minority, on a growing range of contemporary issues they in fact make up a loud and vocal majority. Consider the nearly…