Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

International students, so-called “visa hoppers” and backpackers will be targeted under stricter rules announced by Australia on Thursday in a bid to curb immigration.Foreign students will no longer be able to bring their families with them and those who want to extend their stay must choose a higher qualification.Rules will also be stricter for working holiday visas – commonly used by backpackers and a crucial labour source for the agricultural sector – with a ballot system although these changes will not affect the UK.The new rules were revealed by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke who said that while immigration was…

Rekordpreise an den Zapfsäulen und der Kanzler versucht sein Standing zu retten, auch indem er Entlastung verspricht. Doch die Koalition streitet über das richtige Rezept zur Entlastung.Während SPD-Finanzminister Lars Klingbeil auf eine saubere Gegenfinanzierung pocht, will Friedrich Merz direkte Auszahlungen an die Bevölkerung. Für ihn steht nach bitteren Wahlniederlagen in Sachsen-Anhalt viel auf dem Spiel: Er braucht dringend einen politischen Befreiungsschlag, um seine Handlungsfähigkeit zu beweisen. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview spricht Rasmus Buchsteiner mit dem CSU-Fraktionschef im bayerischen Landtag, Klaus Holetschek über die Lage, wer wie zum Kanzler hält und warum Markus Söder den Unterstützerbrief der Ministerpräsidenten nicht unterschrieben hat. Das Heidelberger…

The UK should introduce a ban on almost all gambling advertising to protect public health, a cross-party group of peers has urged, prompting fury from the lobby group for bookmakers and casinos.In a 173-page report, the House of Lords liaison committee said the government had been “too passive” in response to an explosion of digital advertising and social media influencers promoting the gambling sector.British bookmakers, slot machine venues and casinos won £12.6bn from customers in Great Britain last year, while up to 1.4 million people have a gambling problem, according to official statistics.The report found that a tobacco-style blanket ban…

Voice AI has emerged as one of the hottest sectors in AI, with investors pouring in billions of dollars to serve use cases ranging from automating customer support and sales calls to creating meeting notetakers and developing AI smart glasses that use voice as the primary interaction surface. Meanwhile, AI labs are quickly releasing models, and hardware makers are trying to create the best experience for consumers to interact with devices. All of this new technology needs testing and a feedback loop for improvement. An Iceland-based startup, Treble, is positioning itself to be at the center of the voice AI…

Stealthy attacks on South Korean automotive and media firms have given an espionage group access to victims’ networks — operating, in some cases, since early 2025.In an analysis this week, Rapid7 attributed the attack to North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) groups — although only with medium confidence — because of the targets of the attacks, the use of simple obfuscation, and a list of command-and-control (C2) servers that matches those used by APT37, also known as InkySquid, ScarCruft, and Ricochet Chollima. The focus on media companies could give the attackers access to source networks, unpublished reporting, and journalist communications,…

In brief Independent researcher Jonas Wiedermann-Moeller found that OpenAI’s rogue agents hijacked two Hugging Face accounts and probed the platform’s network as early as May 13 -This would be nearly two months before the July breach went public. OpenAI’s own incident report last month disclosed only a narrower slice of the activity—a stolen credential used to grab one biology-related file—while the new findings point to sustained reconnaissance. OpenAI’s rogue AI agents hijacked two Hugging Face user accounts and probed the platform for weaknesses as early as May 13, nearly two months before the July breach that made the incident a…

Mesothelioma is a rare and aggressive cancer that is most often linked to asbestos exposure. When asbestos fibers are inhaled, they can become trapped in the lungs, where they trigger chronic inflammation that may eventually lead to cancer decades later. About 30,000 people worldwide are diagnosed with mesothelioma every year. Treatment options remain limited. Immunotherapy and chemotherapy can help some patients, but the disease is still extremely difficult to control. Patients, many of whom are men who previously worked in industries such as shipbuilding, oil refining, and asbestos manufacturing, have a median survival of about 12 months. The five year…

Wild grass now grows around the abandoned wooden houses of Tengjhih, a high-mountain hamlet in southern Taiwan, once a key settlement of the Bunun Indigenous people. Now, little remains except for the memories it holds. Around 150 Bunun Indigenous residents of Tengjhih were permanently resettled in lowland areas after the deadly Typhoon Morakot in 2009 destroyed the only access road to their village, contributor Aylin Ho reports for Mongabay. Typhoon Morakot killed 755 people across Taiwan, triggering catastrophic floods and landslides. While Indigenous peoples represented just 2.1% of Taiwan’s population at the time, approximately 70% of the land…

Where is lawbreaking not just visible, but designed to be seen? Where is antisocial behaviour worn as a badge of honour? Where is pleasure gained directly from causing distress? And where is reckless endangerment often ignored by the police or treated with the mildest of punishments? The answer is on the roads.Last month, three men in the West Midlands were convicted of street racing. Two were driving at over 80mph in a 40mph zone. The third clocked over 90mph in a 30mph zone. The West Midlands has long been blighted by organised racing, sometimes involving 200 cars or more and…

Thousands of women in England with incurable breast cancer will get access to a life-extending drug on the NHS after negotiations over its cost proved successful.About 1,000 women a year with HER2-low advanced breast cancer will be able to obtain Enhertu from Thursday after ministers and the drug’s makers struck a deal on its price.About one in seven of the 60,000 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed every year in the UK are HER2-positive.Clinical trials have shown that Enhertu almost doubled median progression-free survival compared with normal chemotherapy, from 5.1 months to 9.9 months. Median overall survival among people who…