Aspiring autocrats are increasingly pressuring businesses to co-operate with their quest for wealth and power, such as by demanding they direct corporate funds towards their personal enrichment or fire personnel who are critical of them.
William West/AFP via Getty ImagesThe Australian sharemarket has had a remarkably strong run since December 2023, when the S&P/ASX 200 index was around 7,000. In recent weeks the index topped 9,000 for the first time, a rise of about 16% on an annualised basis over this 21-month period.
Many top-performing companies say they are committed to supporting women in the workplace, and there’s reason to believe most men want to be better allies to women as well. They just don’t know how.
KTStock/Getty ImagesWhen artificial intelligence (AI) enters the classroom, the focus is often on the risk of plagiarism or shortcuts.
In its quest to lower electricity prices for New Zealand households, the Electricity Authority may inadvertently make the situation worse.
This week, the authority announced plans to require New Zealand’s “gentailers” – firms that both generate electricity and retail it to consumers – to offer the same supply terms to independent retailers as they do to their own retail arms.
When more than 1,300 people at the U.S. State Department lost their jobs in a mass firing this summer, most headlines focused on what it meant for American diplomacy. But the layoffs are about more than embassies and foreign policy – they could also make it harder for U.S. companies to compete in global markets.
Since 2024, pushback against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has gathered momentum across North America. This year, that retreat has taken on a new form: the rebranding of “equity” with softer, less contentious terms like “belonging” or “community.”
On Monday, the Federal Court of Australia handed Qantas a record fine of A$90 million for breaching the Fair Work Act by unlawfully terminating the employment of 1,820 ground workers during the pandemic.
It’s the defining technology of an era. But just how artificial intelligence (AI) will end up shaping our future remains a controversial question.
For techno-optimists, who see the technology improving our lives, it heralds a future of material abundance.
That outcome is far from guaranteed. But even if AI’s technical promise is realised – and with it, once intractable problems are solved – how will that abundance be used?
Early in his eight-year tenure, in 2017, then Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo declared a moratorium on all small-scale gold mining. He established an inter-ministerial committee on illegal mining and a joint military-police taskforce – Operation Vanguard – to enforce the ban.
