LATEST ARTICLES

Myanmar’s infrastructure deficit outpaces the world

Myanmar's infrastructure deficit outpaces the world

A wide-ranging assessment of Myanmar’s infrastructure deficit and its ability to start closing the gap has found that the country is likely to meet only half of those investment needs by 2040, dampening hopes that it can lift the estimated 54 million population out of poverty by then.

Mining billionaire ‘Twiggy’ Forrest follows Buffett and Gates

Mining billionaire 'Twiggy' Forrest follows Buffett and Gates

Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest and his wife Nicola were the first Australians to sign up to the “Giving Pledge,” a plan pioneered by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett to encourage the very rich to donate more than half their accumulated wealth to worthy causes. Now the Forrests have fulfilled at least part of …read more

Film highlights ‘enfant terrible’ of Australian art world

Film highlights 'enfant terrible' of Australian art world

Internationally acclaimed Australian artist Brett Whiteley died alone from an overdose of drugs, including heroin, in a seaside motel 70km south of Sydney in 1992. Coming to fame in the hedonistic 1960s, Whiteley painted Bob Dylan and shared a New York building with Janis Joplin. He lived and worked with fierce energy in wildly different …read more

Australia struggles with moves to legalize cannabis use

Australia struggles with moves to legalize cannabis use

Australia is in the throes of allowing the medicinal use of cannabis, following the trail blazed by a number of U.S. states, as well as Canada, Israel and the Netherlands.

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef under bleaching threat

Australia's Great Barrier Reef under bleaching threat

Teeming with neon-colored fish and encompassing vast ranges of branching, bulging, sculptural coral, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the world’s natural wonders. Running down Australia’s north-east coast for roughly 2300 kilometres, the reef covers an expanse of ocean bigger than Japan: home to vast numbers of fish, hard and soft corals, turtles, whales, …read more

Fairfax Media job cuts trigger industrial action

Fairfax Media job cuts trigger industrial action

Journalists at one of Australia’s best-known newspaper publishers, Fairfax Media, plan to strike for seven days in protest at the company’s plans to cut the equivalent of 125 full-time journalist positions, or one in four from the already depleted newsrooms. The cuts are aimed at saving 30 million Australian dollars ($22.2 million) annually.

Australia mulls ways to dilute foreign demand for property

Australia mulls ways to dilute foreign demand for property

Real estate in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s biggest cities, is appreciating at such a rate that some experts are warning of a bubble that could soon burst. House and apartment prices in these two cities increased by about 19% and 16% respectively in the year to March 31, according to analysis by data company CoreLogic, …read more

Australia steps up battle against toxic cane toads

Australia steps up battle against toxic cane toads

Toxic, prolific, and much hated: Invasive cane toads are on the march from Australia’s eastern seaboard, westward through the tropics of the Northern Territory and on towards the Indian Ocean. Experts now believe the toads will have traversed the entire continent of Australia within the next five years, traveling about 4,000 km — a remarkable …read more

Campaign seeks return of Aboriginal artist’s lost copyright

Campaign seeks return of Aboriginal artist's lost copyright

A racist injustice that blighted much of the Australian artist Albert Namatjira’s life may soon be at least partially rectified. Internationally esteemed during his lifetime, the Aboriginal watercolorist sold his lambent paintings of the central Australian desert around the world. He became one of Australia’s best-known artists, and was presented to Queen Elizabeth II, Australia’s …read more

Australia’s unique wildlife among victims of ‘angry summer’

Australia's unique wildlife among victims of 'angry summer'

Record-breaking summer heat waves in recent months have left Australians sweating and uncomfortable and killed thousands of animals, graphically illustrating the climate change dangers faced by the world’s driest inhabited continent.