How do we know the Zika virus will cost the world $3.5 billion?
Feb 24, 2016 09:34 am UTC| Insights & Views Health
The mosquito-borne Zika virus has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization. The virus not only appears to severely harm unborn children but is also hurting the...
How would post-Brexit trade deals actually work?
Feb 24, 2016 09:22 am UTC| Insights & Views
Lets consider a scenario. On leaving the European Union, Britain will make a Free Trade Agreement with the EU, or trade with it under World Trade Organisation most-favoured-nation (MFN) rules. It will also regain its WTO...
Economic forecasting: why it matters and why it's so often wrong
Feb 24, 2016 09:06 am UTC| Insights & Views
Anybody who has seen a convertible caught in a rainstorm understands the importance of weather forecasts. And the expectation that the forecast is in fact accurate and reliable. Economies, like weather systems, are...
How a comic character sparked our very modern privacy fears – 200 years ago
Feb 24, 2016 09:04 am UTC| Insights & Views
We live in a time where there is no longer any privacy. Everything is recorded and shared, permanently available to those who pry or, as they may think of it, research. While AS Byatt wrote this just recently, the...
The post-colonial caliphate: Islamic State and the memory of Sykes-Picot
Feb 24, 2016 08:59 am UTC| Insights & Views
Since announcing its arrival as a global force in June 2014 with the declaration of a caliphate on territory captured in Iraq and Syria, jihadist group Islamic State has shocked the world with its brutality. Our series...
How universities make inequality worse
Feb 24, 2016 08:57 am UTC| Insights & Views
In this, the first of a two-part series on inequality and university education in Australia, University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Stephen Parker argues that rather than redress inequality, universities actually...
Say what you like about BHP, it didn't squander the boom
Feb 24, 2016 08:24 am UTC| Insights & Views
During the commodity price boom from 2004-2011 BHP Billitons board raised the firms dividend to an unsustainable level. Now, in the commodity bust, the board has been forced to cut it by 75%. The board has been heavily...
South Africa’s plan to move away from coal: 8 steps to make it succeed
Germany lowers voting age to 16 for the European elections
IceCube researchers detect a rare type of energetic neutrino sent from powerful astronomical objects