As the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into child abuse looms, Archbishop Denis Hart and three of his bishops have forewarned their Victorian flock of imminent disturbing reports about past failures of…
The immediate information emerging in the aftermath of James Holmes’ murder rampage in Aurora, Colorado, makes a good case for the idea that media violence begets the real thing. A closer look, however…
The recent unprovoked killing of a young reveller named Thomas Kelly by a male stranger in Sydney’s Kings Cross has set off extensive community and political debate about the violence that is associated…
Why has West Papua’s non-violent student movement the West Papuan National Committee (KNPB) become the latest target of a campaign of terror in West Papua? Calls for a referendum Since Indonesia’s 1963…
Young Australians are exposed to a range of risks from alcohol, both from drinking themselves and other people’s use. According to the most recent National Drug Strategy Household Survey: A third of 14…
Is there an explicit link between playing violent videogames and becoming a deadly killer? If we are to take seriously a new study published in the journal Communication Research, there seems to be. Cue…
The ongoing trial of Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Breivik has generated a great deal of media coverage, public debate and analysis. Much of this has focused on claims made by Breivik that he used…
“Violent videogames cause people to become violent in real life”. It’s a familiar refrain for anyone who has read a newspaper in the last 15 years. Today, the media reporting surrounding the trial of accused…
The death of 21-year-old Brazilian national, Roberto Laudisio Cruti, on a Sydney street after being tasered by police has ignited questions about the safety and police use of these weapons. Tasers, the…
The film adaptation of the first of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy, The Hunger Games, will premiere nationally tomorrow. The books and film are set in a post-apocalyptic America, where teenagers are forced to…
Hard though it may be to believe, there has been a long-term, very significant decline in all kinds of violence around the world. In his most recent book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Harvard evolutionary…
The late Johnny Warren deftly described some Australians’ attitude to football as being a game for “sheilas, wogs, and poofters”. Whilst public interest has increased markedly following successive World…
Many young people in Europe think violent protest can be a legitimate response to the political system they feel no connection to. They believe government pays very little attention to them and have very…
There is a threat to Nato forces in Afghanistan which the world is ignoring. Violent gangs have been killing indiscriminately in Karachi, the Pakistani city vital to the supply chain which sustains ISAF…