Feb
17
2023
The New Zealand pilot kidnapped by independence fighters in Indonesia’s restive eastern-most province of Papua is now living in the jungle with the separatist fighters and eating what they eat, a separatist spokesman has told Crikey. Independence fighters from the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) seized Susi Air’s small propeller plane when it landed at …read more
Feb
9
2023
Separatists in Indonesia’s eastern-most area of West Papua have taken guerrilla warfare to another level by kidnapping a New Zealander pilot in the rugged mountainous terrain of Nduga. History suggests this desperate bid to win some autonomy from Jakarta will not end well.
Jan
17
2023
It took Indonesian president Joko Widodo nearly a decade to make good on his 2014 election promise to address the nation’s historic gross human abuses – most of them the bloody work of the police and the military. Last week he listed 12 of the historic atrocities that have blighted the nation’s human rights record. …read more
Nov
30
2022
Increasing numbers of Australians are leaving the nation’s capital cities and moving to the regions, encouraged by proliferating work-from-home options and the digital wave revolutionising healthcare and education. The shift has slowed since the peak of the pandemic, yet the push is still there, raising questions of how rural Australia will cope with an inflow of …read more
Nov
25
2022
The worldwide convulsions of the Covid pandemic focused attention on health management and health logistics – particularly on the knotty problems of providing for those unable or unwilling to visit health professionals in person. Expanding fast into this field is Glenn McKay’s Medical Rescue Group, which provides a range of medical and evacuation services to Australians …read more
Nov
23
2022
With bachelor’s degrees in law and economics from the University of Queensland and a University medal under his belt, James Rigby looked further afield for his postgraduate study, choosing a Bachelor of Civil Law at Oxford University as the course that best suited his interests. Recognised as one of the world’s leading master’s degrees in common …read more
Nov
22
2022
Australia’s male-dominated supply chain and logistics industry is currently dealing with a workforce crunch exacerbated by limited range of a large proportion of the workers: mostly aging men. Hermione Parsons, appointed Australian Logistics Council chief executive officer four months ago, is working hard to drag the industry into the modern age. She is gathering a team …read more
Nov
9
2022
A much-awarded bio-materials scientist and a leader in the field of bio-medical technology, Cuie Wen began her academic career at the institution then called the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, but she long ago shifted her gaze from aeroplanes to the human body. Now a professor of bio-materials engineering at RMIT, she says that as …read more
Nov
9
2022
Evatt Hawkes has turned his childhood pyromania to good account – investigating fire and combustion at an elevated level of science. Now a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of NSW, he uses computational modelling to further the global understanding of combustion in renewable energy technology.
Nov
9
2022
With the world’s first public post of the Covid-19 genome sequence in January 2020, Eddie Holmes launched a global avalanche of scientific endeavour and cooperation as nations everywhere rushed to come to grips with a pandemic that has so far killed at least 6.5 million people. The Sydney University biologist had been working on a project …read more