SBS News In Depth

The diamond industry is facing an identity crisis. Natural diamond prices have tumbled as lab-grown diamonds surge in popularity. Physically and optically identical, they can cost around a tenth as much and can now be produced at mass scale. Their rise is challenging one of the world's most successful marketing stories.

Have you ever thought about how much it costs to run a small business? New research shows the cost has risen by almost 25 per cent since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and it's expected to keep increasing, topping out at 27-per cent by year's end. It comes as a surprise lift in household spending in June complicates the outlook for interest rates, ahead of the Reserve Bank's meeting next week. Reporter Natalie Poyhonen spoke to Sydney cafe owner Gerardo Barios, who serves up coffee grown from his homeland Honduras. He starts by explaining the biggest costs to his business in the last 12 months or so.

A chunk of a SpaceX rocket hurtled into the moon this week, putting renewed attention on the issue of space junk. Alan Duffy is an astronomer at Swinburne University of Technology. He told SBS Reporter Josie Harvey that space is becoming dangerously crowded, and the increasing amount of debris could soon limit our capacity for space travel.

A widespread cyclosporiasis outbreak - which causes explosive diarrhoea - has grown into the largest on record in the United States and this week caused its first known deaths. Medical experts are warning that recent regulatory rollbacks have contributed to the infection's historic scale. The outbreak—now spanning at least nine states—has been sourced to iceberg lettuce from privately held Taylor Farms operations in central Mexico and served at Taco Bell restaurants. Cyclosporiasis, caused by an intestinal parasite, is generally not life-threatening, and the people who died had significant underlying health conditions that were exacerbated by severe dehydration. Gastroenterologist Dr Rabia De Latour is from the New York University Grossman School of Medicine and spoke to the Associated Press

The Democratic Republic of Congo is struggling to contain the world's fastest-growing Ebola outbreak, with aid workers warning the response is falling behind the virus. More than two months after the outbreak was declared, health officials are battling security concerns, frontline workers remain unpaid, and there are fears the disease could spread into new communities.