India-Pakistan conflict over water reflects a region increasingly vulnerable to climate change

| Insights & Views

In an unprecedented move, India recently suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, citing cross-border terrorism. This was one of a series of escalations between the two countries which now find themselves on...

Homer’s Iliad is a rap battle

| Insights & Views

Homers Iliad is one of the foundational stories of European civilisation. The Iliad is a long poem an epic thought to have first been put down in writing in the eighth century BC, though the story is set several hundred...

From pulpit to pitch: Pope Francis used sport to get his message to a wider world − that could continue with baseball-loving Leo XIV

| Insights & Views

The world of sport is a constellation of many stars, Pope Francis told La Gazzetta dello Sport, the Italian daily sports newspaper, during a wide-ranging interview in January 2021. On April 21, 2025, that world lost, if...

Insect trafficking poses a risk to wildlife and human health

| Insights & Views

Four men were recently arrested and fined for attempting to smuggle more than 5,000 ants out of Kenya. Aiming to sell them as part of the exotic pet trade, these ants were being stored in individual test tubes and syringes...

Is Pope Leo XIV liberal or conservative? Why this label doesn’t work for popes

| Insights & Views

The 133 cardinal electors sequestered in the Sistine Chapel elected a new pope May 8. The choice was a surprise Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost, who has carried out most of his ministry in Peru, before being elevated...

India-Pakistan ceasefire shouldn’t disguise fact that norms have changed in South Asia, making future de-escalation much harder

| Insights & Views

India and Pakistan have seen the scenario play out before: A terror attack in which Indians are killed leads to a succession of escalatory tit-fot-tat measures that put South Asia on the brink of all-out war. And then...

Dumped minister Ed Husic labels Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles ‘factional assassin’

| Insights & Views

Industry Minister Ed Husic, dumped from the frontbench ahead of Anthony Albaneses announcement of his new ministry, has made an excoriating attack on Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, describing him as a factional...