Iranian Kurdish poet Behrouz Boochani, a long term detainee on Manus, wrote about the cruelty he witnessed in detention in his book, No Friend but the Mountain. Amnesty International via AAP

Cruel, and no deterrent: why Australia’s policy on asylum seekers must change

It's critical that the Australian government take a new direction in refugee policy and move beyond its tired rhetoric of deterrence as a justification for detaining refugees on Nauru and Manus.
This 13-year-old boy from India’s Bihar state who worked 15 hours a day making bread was rescued by the workers of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan or Save Childhood movement in 2014. India’s far-right BJP is taking aim at NGOs. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

NGOs need international protection from Hindu nationalism in India

Narendra Modi's BJP views NGO activists as defiant because they challenge conventional notions of power, social structures and hierarchies that conflict with the idea of Hindu majoritarianism.
Livestock, like these goats in the Rift Valley of Tanzania, are critical to household economies in East Africa. Katherine Grillo

Ancient DNA is revealing the origins of livestock herding in Africa

Pastoralism is a central part of many Africans' identity. But how and when did this way of life get started on the continent? Ancient DNA can reveal how herding populations spread.

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Just a thought

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them. Sir William Bragg