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Welcome back to the first of our weekly roundups of the decade. Our goal is to give you an easily digestible, fact-packed update straight in your email, and with that to present a good fact, a bad fact and content from FairPlanet's diverse coverage around the topic.

As we kick off the new year and a new decade, this roundup is dedicated to diversity. At FairPlanet our focus is to bring our readers local reporting from across the world. We believe that the future of good media lays in its diversity, and in local coverage of global issues.

So here's to a new decade. And remember to always Read, Debate: Engage.

The good

Diversity makes profit

The past decade has been monumental for progress across identity politics, inclusion and diversity. And it didn't take long for companies to realise that diversity not only allows them to capture larger market shares and speak to more people, but it also improves company culture and reduces costs of employee turnover.

While often labelled as tokenism, or purely riding the wave to increase profits, the rise in diversity we are witnessing might be driven by profit on the higher level, but it is also pushing diversity forward and making real progress in inclusion in the corporate and working world.

In Canada alone, publicly listed companies must report on their practices on diversity and inclusion through Corporate Responsibility Statements. And in Finland, women hold 29.9 per cent of board seats. There is indeed a long way ahead of us, but diversity and the benefits it brings with it is making serious waves.

diversity-2020
The bad

Women's voices are still not heard enough

Across the world, women are being discriminated against in the media through under-representation and the perpetuation of stereotypical narratives about them.

According to research, women currently make only 26 per cent of news media leaders globally. Furthermore, 46 per cent of news coverage reinforces gender stereotypes. Women’s views, expertise and experiences are too often ignored in the media.

Internews is a non-profit organisation working to uplift marginalised voices in the media and deliver trustworthy, quality news that propels people to take action in their communities. Established 35 years ago, the organisation has worked on projects in over 100 countries so far.

internews

Internews amplifies women’s voices in the news and media

by Yair Oded

Internews is a non-profit organisation empowering women to assume leadership position in media and cover issues critical to them.
Women's Rights
India women empowerment

"Women empowerment is a gradual process"

by Magdalena Rojo

Priyanka Jain is a part of the research program of the Indian non-governmental organization Ajeevika Bureau that works in communities dependent on migration in the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. While migration is usually approached from a perspective of a male migrant facing challenges in the city, Jain together with her team also made a study on the situation of families left behind in the communities of the Adivasi people, or Scheduled Tribes, in Southern Rajasthan.
Sonia Guajajara

We must all join indigenous women for climate action!

by Ellen Nemitz

"Not one more drop of indigenous blood. The Amazon is not for sale”. Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women's Earth & Climate Action Network
AbortionIreland

Abortion Laws in Ireland and North Ireland

by Ama Lorenz

The Offences against the Person Act of 1861 was applied across the whole of Ireland. However, Criminal and Civil law were devolved to Northern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act of 1920. Subsequently, the Northern Irish parliament enacted the Criminal Justice Act of 1945.
Meanwhile in Australia

Making Coal Uninsurable

by Peter Bosshard

Peter Bosshard of the Unfriend Coal campaign details the critical role insurance companies play in exacerbating climate change, which often goes unnoticed.
Merry Crisis Australia Scott Marsh Cropped

Happy fireworks Australia: the show must go on

by Murat Suner

Australian leaders are letting the world down again. COP25 and the wildfire disaster shows their disregard for the climate crisis and their moral duties.
Country focus
Australia
AUSTRALIA

Australia comprises the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.

The population of 26 million is highly urbanised its capital is Canberra, and its largest city is Sydney.

Indigenous Australians inhabited the continent for about 65,000 years prior to European discovery, and in the 18th century Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain, and as a consequence Indigenous peoples were dispossessed from their land by Britain.

Initially, Indigenous Australians were in most states deprived of the rights of full citizenship of the new nation on grounds of their race and restrictive immigration laws were introduced to preference white European immigrants to Australia.

A 1967 Referendum regarding Aboriginal rights was carried with over 90% approval by the electorate. Legal reforms from the 1970s have re-established Aboriginal Land Rights under Australian law, 200 years after the arrival of the First Fleet.

Contemporary Australia is the product of Indigenous peoples of Australia combined with multiple waves of immigration, predominantly from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Indigenous Australians account for around 2.5% of the population, owning outright around 20% of all land - largely in the sparsely inhabited central Australian desert rather than the resource-rich coastlines.

Australia maintained hardline policies by confining people seeking asylum in offshore processing centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru and turning back those attempting to reach Australia by boat.