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The government’s social media ban for kids will exempt ‘low-risk’ platforms. What does that mean?
In a speech to the New South Wales and South Australian government social media summit today, Federal Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland announced more details of how the federal government’s proposed social media ban would actually work. The government first announced the ban last month, shortly after SA said it will ban children under 14 from social media. But experts have heavily criticised the idea, and this week more than 120 experts from Australia and overseas wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and state and territory premiers urging a rethink. Despite this, the government appears to be...
What is pelvic organ prolapse and how is it treated?
As a urogynaecologist I care exclusively for women with pelvic floor problems. These are the women with leaking bladders and weak supporting tissues allowing the vaginal walls to bulge outside. Pelvic organ prolapse can be distressing or embarrassing and interfere with everyday activities. But it’s also common. For many women treatment is simple, effective and doesn’t involve surgery. What is pelvic organ prolapse? Pelvic organ prolapse occurs when the supporting muscles and ligaments holding up the vagina are weakened, allowing the vaginal tissues to sag or stretch. The pelvic organs behind the vaginal walls – such as the bladder, bowel and...
Why hurricanes like Milton in the US and cyclones in Australia are becoming more intense and harder to predict
Tropical cyclones, known as hurricanes and typhoons in other parts of the world, have caused huge damage in many places recently. The United States has just been hit by Hurricane Milton, within two weeks of Hurricane Helene. Climate change likely made their impacts worse. In Australia, the tropical cyclone season (November to April) is approaching. The Bureau of Meteorology this week released its long-range forecast for this season. It predicts an average number of tropical cyclones, 11, are likely to form in the region. Four are expected to cross the Australian coast. However, the risk of severe cyclones is higher than average....
Hope returns to Kashmir after elections, but the ultimate power still belongs to Narendra Modi’s government
This year’s local elections in India’s northernmost territory of Jammu and Kashmir were the first since the national government controversially stripped the region of its semi-autonomous status in 2019. It’s also the first local election in Muslim-majority Kashmir since 2014. It was a significant moment for the region. The election will restore, at least partially, some degree of self-rule five years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took it away. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) was delivered a resounding defeat when the official results were released this week. The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) and Congress alliance won 48 seats in the...
As its conflict with Israel escalates, could Iran now acquire a nuclear bomb?
As Israel continues its assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran appears increasingly backed into a corner. Israel’s efforts to weaken Iran’s proxy network have focused on a number of objectives: eliminating key Hezbollah leaders, destroying their weapons and other military sites, and targeting large numbers of fighters and sympathisers. Hezbollah has undoubtedly been weakened over the past few weeks, which presents a dilemma for Iran. Could this sustained pressure on its main militant proxy group push Iran towards finally acquiring a nuclear weapon? Iran’s deterrence strategy The use of armed proxy networks as a deterrence strategy is a well-known approach employed by countries...
‘My novels explore human suffering’: Nobel Prize winner Han Kang writes with empathy for vulnerable lives
South Korean writer Han Kang has won the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature, “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. The 53-year-old is the first South Korean writer to win the prize, and only the 18th woman (of 121 winners to date). She is also a musician, and interested in visual art. Her best known novel, The Vegetarian (published in Korea in 2007), was her first to be translated into English, in 2015. It won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, with the prize split between Han Kang and her translator,...
Are you over 75? Here’s what you need to know about vitamin D
Vitamin D is essential for bone health, immune function and overall wellbeing. And it becomes even more crucial as we age. New guidelines from the international Endocrine Society recommend people aged 75 and over should consider taking vitamin D supplements. But why is vitamin D so important for older adults? And how much should they take? Young people get most vitamin D from the sun In Australia, it is possible for most people under 75 to get enough vitamin D from the sun throughout the year. For those who live in the top half of Australia – and for all of us...
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and its harrowing, visceral impact has been rarely matched, 50 years on
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a product of a unique time in American filmmaking, when independent exploitation films were nastier than ever, and equally capable of piercing the mainstream consciousness. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film arrived in a recently transformed exhibition landscape. The 1967 outcry over onscreen violence in Bonnie and Clyde marked the end of Hollywood’s Motion Picture Production Code and the introduction of film ratings. Films like Easy Rider (1969) elevated the standing of formerly disreputable exploitation fare within Hollywood. By 1973, The Exorcist was packing out cinemas and producing lines around city blocks with the promise of...
‘Violence at all levels’: UN report into the abuse of women and girls in sport is a wake-up call for Australia
This week the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls presented a report detailing the violence experienced by women and girls in sport globally. The report provides a global snapshot of the abuse women athletes experience, who is most likely to perpetrate the violence, and makes recommendations on what should been done to promote safety of women and girls. Off the back of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic games, where Australia cheered on the record-breaking success of women athletes, the report should be a wake-up call for Australian sports and clubs. Abuse of women and girls in sport Drawing...
Friday essay: ‘I claimed our data’ – confronting the colonial archive is ‘intense Aboriginal love’ in action
This is my data. And this is my sovereign right. No more whitewashing. Let Truth be told. — Data Sovereignty Words I am a Wajarri, Badimaya and Wilunyu woman from the Yamaji Nation who has grown up on country with family in the small rural inland community of Mullewa, in Western Australia. In this story, I weave together some of my journey through the space of colonial archive violence, silences, and the creation of family stories where there was once a void, filling it with family love. Love is often defined as an intense feeling of deep affection and a great interest in something...
A patchwork of spinifex: how we returned cultural burning to the Great Sandy Desert
How can a desert burn? Australia’s vast deserts aren’t just sand dunes – they’re often dotted with flammable spinifex grass hummocks. When heavy rains fall, grass grows quickly before drying out. That’s how a desert can burn. When our Karajarri and Ngurrara ancestors lived nomadic lifestyles in what’s now called the Great Sandy Desert in northwestern Australia, they lit many small fires in spinifex grass as they walked. Fires were used seasonally for ceremonies, signalling to others, flushing out animals, making travel easier (spinifex is painfully sharp), cleaning campsites, and stimulating fresh vegetation growth ready for foraging or luring game when...
AI affects everyone – including Indigenous people. It’s time we have a say in how it’s built
Since artificial intelligence (AI) became mainstream over the past two years, many of the risks it poses have been widely documented. As well as fuelling deep fake porn, threatening personal privacy and accelerating the climate crisis, some people believe the emerging technology could even lead to human extinction. But some risks of AI are still poorly understood. These include the very particular risks to Indigenous knowledges and communities. There’s a simple reason for this: the AI industry and governments have largely ignored Indigenous people in the development and regulation of AI technologies. Put differently, the world of AI is too white. AI...
Use of AI in property valuation is on the rise – but we need greater transparency and trust
New Zealand’s economy has been described as a “housing market with bits tacked on”. Buying and selling property is a national sport fuelled by the rising value of homes across the country. But the wider public has little understanding of how those property valuations are created – despite their being a key factor in most banks’ decisions about how much they are willing to lend for a mortgage. Automated valuation models (AVM) – systems enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) that crunch vast datasets to produce instant property values – have done little to improve transparency in the process. These models...
It’s time to talk about how the media talks about sexual harassment
Sexual harassment is all too common in hospitality and tourism. One Australian survey found almost half of the respondents had been sexually harassed, compared to about one in three in workplaces more generally. Hospitality and tourism are marked by intense and close interpersonal interactions and dismissive treatment by some customers, including verbal and physical aggression, bullying and sexual suggestions. Workers who are young, female, low-paid and casual are especially vulnerable. The scandals at the Merivale Hospitality Group and Sydney’s Swillhouse restaurant are only the most recent. The widely held view that “the customer is always right” gives customers power. The power imbalance is magnified...
Grattan on Friday: Oil prices could be where the Middle East crisis collides with Australia’s cost-of-living crisis
Angry, accusatory partisan exchanges over the Middle East war have dominated federal politics this week. But for most ordinary voters the issue remains “over there”. Apart from the minorities for whom it has an immediate impact – Jewish people frightened by antisemitism, the Muslim community, those with families in Lebanon and elsewhere – it’s a tragedy without tangible relevance to their day-to-day lives. On Thursday however, Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned the foreign crisis could feed directly into the domestic cost-of-living crisis, via the price of oil. Midway through this week, oil was trading 11% lower than it was a year...
There’s a new school funding bill in parliament. Will this end the funding wars?
On Thursday, federal Education Minister Jason Clare introduced a school funding bill to parliament. The bill aims to set a new “floor” for how much the federal government contributes towards public school funding in Australia. It would mean the Commonwealth has to contribute at least 20% of the schooling resource standard (how much funding a school needs to meet students’ educational needs) for public schools each year in all states and territories from 2025. Clare argues it will provide “certainty” to schools, but it also comes in the middle of a standoff between the federal government and some states over...
China removes block on Australian lobster, in last big bilateral trade breakthrough
China has removed the last significant trade barrier it imposed on Australia, with a timetable to resume full lobster imports by the end of the year. Anthony Albanese announced the breakthrough after a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Vientiane, where the prime minister is attending the ASEAN-Australia summit. Albanese said the end of the barrier would be in time for the Chinese New Year. This would be welcomed by those in the lobster trade in places including Geraldton, Western Australia, and in South Australia and Tasmania, he said. The lobster decision means the Chinese over the last two ...
Australia’s child support system can put single mothers at risk of poverty and financial abuse
Australia’s child support system can not only increase women’s poverty, but can actually facilitate financial abuse, according to our recent research. Child support is an important system that aims to share the financial burden of raising children between separated parents. But there are some serious problems with the way it operates, putting already vulnerable women further at risk. Drawing on the experiences of 675 single mothers, we sought to examine women’s experience with the child support system from start to finish. Our research suggests four key changes could improve both women’s safety and financial wellbeing. How does child support work? Where deemed...
Is TikTok right? Can adding a teaspoon of cinnamon to your coffee help you burn fat?
Cinnamon has been long used around the world in both sweet and savoury dishes and drinks. But a new TikTok trend claims adding a teaspoon of cinnamon to your daily coffee (and some cocoa to make it more palatable) for one week can help you burn fat. Is there any truth to this? Not all cinnamon is the same There are two types of cinnamon, both of which come from grinding the bark of the cinnamomum tree and may include several naturally occurring active ingredients. Cassia cinnamon is the most common type available in grocery stores. It has a bitter taste and...
Space isn’t all about the ‘race’ – rival superpowers must work together for a better future
In recent years, a new “space race” has intensified between the United States and China. At a campaign rally last weekend, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump invoked this rivalry when declaring the US will “lead the world in space”, echoing Democratic counterpart Vice President Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, the president of China, Xi Jinping, has said becoming “a space power is our eternal dream”. But what is this latest “race” about, and are there pathways to common ground? History suggests these do exist. As a space governance specialist, I argue our future depends on it. The ‘race’ to the Moon Lunar missions have...
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