Latest Story
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The last man
Eileen Hunt | October 11, 2026Mary Shelley’s “The Last Man” was published in 1826 but is set in the late 21st century, and with wars and climate catastrophes hitting a world still reeling from 7 million deaths caused by COVID-19, Shelley’s pandemic novel has perhaps never felt so relevant.
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The Social Reckoning
Tony Sampson | October 11, 202616 years after The Social Network delved into the creation of Facebook, Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning traces Mark Zuckerberg’s mutation into from a creepy nerd into a sinister billionaire.
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The X factor
Antoine Victor Marie | October 11, 2026The European Union has sanctioned Xenia Fedorova, the former head of the French arm of Russia Today (RT), for her role in spreading Russian propaganda in the guise of critical thinking against “official” sources.
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Everybody knows
Bernard Paul Corden | October 10, 2026The Australian Labor Party was not elected solely to manage capitalism and has an obligation to transform society and define its finer values through a relentless focus on the basic human rights of health, welfare, shelter and education.
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The God Delusion at 20
Jamie Roberts | October 10, 2026Science writer Richard Dawkins remains a controversial figure two decades after the publication of “The God Delusion”.
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The right Norma
Alexander Howard | October 10, 2026In the footsteps of Bob Dylan and Louise Gluck, 76-year-old Canadian poet, essayist, translator and classicist Anne Carson is the latest well deserved winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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The closing of the Russian mind
Robert Wihtol | October 9, 2026Bogged down in Ukraine, with the economy in a shambles and Ukrainian drones penetrating ever deeper into the heartland, Vladimir Putin’s position is increasingly tenuous but a new book argues his self-serving brand of chauvinistic neo-imperialism is unlikely to be swept aside by a resurgence of democracy.
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Looking for life
Luke Barnes | October 9, 2026New research published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has scoured thousands of simulated universes to find the friendliest locations for life.
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Australia in the Middle East
Alex Bristow | October 9, 2026The three years since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel have tested Australian statecraft but the nation will have to step up and be more hardheaded to get the outcomes it needs in the years ahead.
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Citizenship education and the struggle over values
Bede Harris | October 8, 2026The concept of citizenship should encompass both individual liberty and communal responsibility and be taught in schools to inform and elevate political debate.
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Rapid reaction
John Coyne | October 8, 2026Armies have measured advantage through industrial capacity, force structure and technological superiority since the American Civil War but advantage in the future may depend increasingly on how quickly a land force can regenerate combat effectiveness after circumstances, technology or adversaries have invalidated its assumptions.
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Safeguarding agency IT from AI intrusion
Rajiv Shah | October 8, 2026The Government has asked its agencies to identify and manage the security risks posed by intrusive AI agents to legacy IT systems but the hard part will be acting on what the stocktake finds.
