• Politics and Policy

    Albanese on the back foot on antisemitism


    Michelle Grattan |  January 24, 2025


    Anthony Albanese points to the array of measures his government has taken to tackle the scourge of antisemitism but he can’t escape the impression of seeming perennially on the back foot and often lacking adequate empathy and sensitivity in dealing with the issue.


  • Culture

    Song and dance man


    Open Forum |  January 24, 2025


    Bob Dylan once described himself as ‘just a song and dance man’ but he remains the greatest songwriter of our times and a new biopic – A Complete Unknown – does justice to his massive influence on music and youth culture.


  • America

    America first


    Elizabeth Buchanan |  January 24, 2025


    The litany of executive orders that have dropped on the White House website tell us plenty about what Australia can expect from a second Trump term’s foreign policies.


Latest Story

  • Delving into dementia

    Alan Stevenson     |      January 23, 2025

    Dementia affects nearly 60 million people around the world, and air pollution is emerging as a major contributing factor to this global scourge.

  • Analysing social media ‘clusters’

    Open Forum     |      January 23, 2025

    Analysing social trends, disaster responses or customer insights using large language models to organise short text clusters just got easier thanks to a new project at Sydney University.

  • Quantifying ‘life satisfaction’

    Open Forum     |      January 23, 2025

    Data on almost 57,000 people from 65 countries suggests that a widely used research tool – the Satisfaction With Life Scale – holds up well when applied across diverse groups of people, underscoring its potential value in research and policymaking.

  • Antisemitism on the agenda

    Michelle Grattan     |      January 22, 2025

    After months of rejecting calls to confront and combat the growing wave of antisemetic violence across the country, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has finally summoned a national cabinet meeting to discuss the problem.

  • The consolations of philosophy

    Oscar Davis     |      January 22, 2025

    A new book “Anxiety – a philosophical guide” outlines four strands of philosophical inquiry – Buddhism, existentialism, psychoanalysis, and critical theory – might offer comfort to the worried and distressed.

  • Revenge and retribution

    Emma Shortis     |      January 22, 2025

    In his inaugural address, Trump outlined a radical agenda to reshape American life and the United States’ role in the world.

  • The fact of the meta

    Mark Andrejevic     |      January 21, 2025

    A new Australian survey finds that people who rely on social media for news tend to have less regard for traditional civic values than those who rely on newspapers and non-commercial broadcasters such as the ABC.

  • Safeguarding Australia

    Joseph Zeller     |      January 21, 2025

    The government’s failure to address critical vulnerabilities in defence, energy security, and economic resilience exposes the nation to unprecedented risks.

  • Power and progress

    Marina Yue Zhang     |      January 21, 2025

    In their latest book, Nobel laureates Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson challenge the assumption that technology inevitably drives social welfare, contending that strong institutions and deliberate policy directions are just as important in shaping better outcomes.

  • Sphere of influence

    Belinda Davis     |      January 20, 2025

    Disaster resilience research highlights the importance of re-establishing daily routines, social networks and community identities as well as critical infrastructure in recovering from natural disasters.

  • The year of fake news

    Ika Trijsburg     |      January 20, 2025

    Mis- and disinformation have once again been named the top global risk of the immediate term in the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Risks Report 2025.

  • Trump’s new world order

    Stefan Wolff     |      January 20, 2025

    Donald Trump’s foreign policy ideas – from annexing Canada to surrendering Europe to Russia – sound like the plot of a Hollywood satire, but are about to become a reality.