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Unlike the East Timor independence fight, the long-simmering conflict in nearby West Papua has gone relatively unnoticed by the outside world. This is due, in part, to Indonesia’s move to ban foreign media from West Papua. This has made it very difficult to verify crackdowns and violence committed against Papuans agitating for independence. In an effort to draw more attention to West Papua, academics in Australia have undertaken a new research project to map the killings that have occurred in the region dating back to the 1970s. Their hope is the world will start to take notice - just as it did in East Timor.
Ethiopia was planning to hold elections in August. But these have been postponed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. As Mulugeta G Berhe writes, Ethiopia’s divisive ethnic and political landscape meant that the planned poll was always going to be a tricky affair. The postponement has increased tensions, and uncertainties, in the country.
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BAGUS INDAHONO/EPA
Camellia Webb-Gannon, University of Wollongong; Jaime Swift, University of Oxford; Michael Westaway, The University of Queensland; Nathan Wright, The University of Queensland
To bring attention to the renewed conflict in West Papua, Australian researchers are going back decades to document incidents of violence in a new mapping project.
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Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed.
Minasse Wondimu Hailu/Anadolu Agency via GettyImages
Mulugeta G Berhe (PhD), Tufts University
A delayed election could balkanise the country along ethnic lines and become the most severe political crisis in Ethiopia's modern history.
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Health + Medicine
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Jane Parker, University of Reading; Carl Philpott, University of East Anglia; Tristram Wyatt, University of Oxford
There is abundant evidence that a sudden loss of smell is related to COVID-19.
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Ben Garrod, University of East Anglia
Illegal wild animal meat is found in cities right across the world and poses a very real threat of infecting people.
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Politics + Society
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Andrew Thomson, Queen's University Belfast
US denies backing failed raid to remove Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro – but it has a long history of sponsoring private armies elsewhere.
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Tyson Mitman, York St John University
Street artists offer us momentary respite from the psychological weight of the global crisis.
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