Mar
27
2024
University courses in health-aligned subjects were again among the most popular choices of postgraduate students this year, according to a university and government data. But cost-of-living pressures and a post-pandemic desire for better work/life balance appear to be biting, with enrolments for some areas of study well down on their pre-COVID-19 peaks.
Mar
27
2024
Simon Wood held down a full-time job as a paralegal during most of his full-time post-graduate law degree. “They were definitely the hardest years of my life,” he says. “It was quite a juggle, but I managed to make it through by having that set-up, the three semesters that RMIT offered.” With the increasing timetable flexibility …read more
Jul
16
2022
Alexis Clarke’s strawberry-blonde hair is pulled back from her face, and she’s wearing no-nonsense black leggings, black running shoes and an olive-green puffer jacket on this chilly day in Thirroul, a northern suburb of the NSW coastal city of Wollongong. Glowing slightly, she looks as though she’s just arrived from the gym (and in fact …read more
Jun
30
2016
More than a million migrants arrived in Europe last year: a surge of humanity that made its way over land and water. From the war zones of the Middle East and the poverty of parts of Africa and Asia, they streamed towards a dream of peace and wealth.
Jun
10
2016
On Thursday, June 23, Britons will vote to determine their nation’s future: either to remain a part of the 28-nation grouping of the European Union, with its economic heft and its tangle of rules and regulations, or to forge a different destiny as a country apart.
Jun
22
2015
Democracy, with all its enormous benefits and unsettling drawbacks, was born in Greece. The least worst of government systems, as Winston Churchill categorised it, democracy has been the foundation of stable, peaceful, independent and economically-thriving nations.
Mar
8
2015
A few hours before bullets ripped through his body and stilled forever a brave voice, the Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was, yet again, tempting fate. Like few others in Russia, Nemtsov was willing to publicly excoriate the policies of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, to call into question Putin’s designs and more importantly, his veracity. …read more
Feb
20
2015
With the jailing of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim last week, Malaysia appears to have again resorted to dubious law to eliminate political challenges. This unfortunate practice has been seen in many Asian nations: Thailand, Myanmar and Singapore are in the unsavoury line-up. All too often, the courts are used to shape the course of politics. Opponents …read more
Jan
27
2015
In the aftermath of the Sydney siege and the Paris shootings, and in light of the growing might and reach of Islamic State, Boko Haram, and other terror movements, US President Barack Obama is talking tough. In his State of the Union speech last week, President Obama said the US stands united with all those …read more
Apr
17
2010
Thaksin Shinawatra’s face is on their red T-shirts. His voice, broadcast on loudspeakers at their encampment in Bangkok’s upmarket shopping district, has been in their ears. His words are on their banners. But is his money in their pockets?