By Laurent Bossard. Mobile populations, transhumance and nomadic herding, a valley at the interface between the desert and the savannah, cultural diversity between Arab-Berber and sub-Saharan worlds, everything in northern Mali reminds you that this area is a transition zone between Mali and Algeria. More...

By Suzi Tart. More than 150 countries have submitted their post-2020 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Such contributions are vital to the #COP21 climate change conference in Paris this December. More...

By Jen T. Kwok. At a Geelong product launch on 7 October, Christopher Pyne professed that the new Prime Minister had asked him to release his ‘inner-revolutionary’. Turnbull had said, ‘Let me worry about the money, you get on with the ideas.’ This insight signals that the new PM wants a shift on national innovation policy, something Labor has sought to own since Bill Shorten’s Budget reply speech in May. More...

By Grahame McCulloch. The new Prime Minister and his ministry are economically dry and have much more socially liberal views than those of the paleo-Liberals associated with the former Prime Minister.  Many have backgrounds with merchant banks and traders, resource and energy companies and international corporate, legal and accounting services.  By and large they are a well- educated, cosmopolitan and cultured group.  They are independently wealthy and some are a little detached from reality. More...