A soldier has been awarded a higher-than-average costs payment after a long battle with internet company Orcon.

Internet company Orcon has paid an army soldier $25,000 after a long-running battle over a bogus debt.

A soldier who found it nearly impossible to rent a home or obtain credit because of a bogus debt is now facing a battle to claim his compensation.

Israeli forces and Hamas may have committed war crimes during their 50-day conflict in Gaza last northern summer, a widely anticipated United Nations report said.

Tabby Besley is ready to meet the Queen - complete with her trademark brightly-coloured hair.

As president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs represents the nation's conscience. And when our conscience pricks, it's not always welcome.

The commercial mindset that measures well-being in terms of GDP can be insidious, writes Tim Hazledine. Even the welcome focus on reducing child poverty gets justified (by some) as an "investment" in more reliable future workers.

Women seeking an abortion are being offered easier access to the procedure with a free, national telephone consultation service that started this week.

The survivor of a camp recounts her 25 terrifying days late last year near the southern Thai town of Padang Besar, where she saw people die every two or three days.

The Syrian Air Force dropped barrel bombs on a market and another civilian area of Aleppo province, killing 71 people.

Italy is now the only western European country that does not recognise either same-sex marriage or civil unions.

A cross-party working group is to look at and advocate for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people.

A disputes resolution expert says the $25,000 penalty handed down to Orcon this week should be a wake-up call to other companies on how the Privacy Act operates.

Ahead of Lecretia Seales' euthanasia legal battle, two experts say there's a strong case the law here doesn't stop doctors helping mentally competent, terminally ill people to die.

The Privacy Commissioner has criticised Orcon as "ignorant" after a decision against the internet provider saw thousands of dollars in damages awarded to a young soldier.

Unless we take steps to ensure freedom of expression is protected, our way of life is threatened, warns David Rutherford.

Egyptian Islamists have warned that the world should brace itself for a backlash after the country's first freely elected President Mohamed Morsi was given a death sentence.

Five years after he was arrested for helping his mother to die, a NZ-born doctor has won a landmark victory allowing assisted suicide in South Africa.

A coalition opposed to legalising euthanasia has welcomed the latest legal development in the case of terminally-ill Lecretia Seales.

A British grandmother on death row in Indonesia says executed Australian Andrew Chan was a hero to her.

Hopefully, Chan and Sukumaran's deaths will be a deterrent to other baby gangstas looking to make a quick buck. Then Chan and Sukumaran won't have died in vain, writes Kerre McIvor.

Jack Tame writes: As human beings in 2015, what aspects of our lives today will we reflect on in the future with befuddlement and awe?

The Saudi Arabian visit was a return to the old Key model of jet setting, glad-handing and grandstanding, which we can now see has never worked, writes Paul Little.

After years of objection from right-wing Israeli groups, the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee last month approved initial plans for 2500 houses on 150ha of land in the Kidron Valley in Al Sawahra.

The deaths of vulnerable people who are in state care or custody could have less independent scrutiny if proposed law changes go ahead.

I looked back through the archives to see whether Minister for Women, Louise Upston, had ever, in fact, said or done anything actually worthwhile for the women of NZ, writes Dita De Boni.