Among the 138 recommendations of the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry’s final report to parliament was a clear call: remove the legal time limits that prevent survivors of historic abuse from seeking justice in civil court.
Without that reform, survivors of historic abuse remain vulnerable to being turned away by the legal system – not because their experiences aren’t credible, but because the law still treats them as being out of time.
The royal commission heard from thousands of survivors of childhood abuse in the care of state and faith-based institutions between 1950 and 1999. What stood out was how often that harm was made worse by silence, disbelief and legal systems that failed to respond.
Limitation periods in abuse cases
Under New Zealand law, people generally have six years from the time a harm occurs to bring a civil claim. That limit is set out in the Limitation Act 2010 for events after 2011, and in the Limitation Act 1950 for events before that.
For survivors of historic abuse, particularly childhood abuse, that six-year window rarely reflects how trauma actually works. Survivors often take decades to feel sufficiently safe and supported to come forward and name what happened to them.
The 1950 law allowed limitation periods to be paused if a claimant was under a “disability” – a legal term meaning they were either a child or, in the language of the time, of “unsound mind”. In practice, this meant the six-year clock usually didn’t start for children until they reached adulthood.
The 2010 law clarified this by explicitly saying the limitation period for children begins at 18. It also introduced a new “incapacitated” exception, allowing the clock to pause for adults who are unable to make decisions or take legal action because of trauma or other conditions.
But in practice it’s a narrow doorway. Courts require survivors to prove not just trauma, but a high legal incapacity threshold.
This means that even when the abuse is acknowledged, and even when survivors have strong evidence, civil cases are often barred. The bar is not that the harm didn’t happen, but that it happened “too long ago”.
How civil time limits deny justice
In 2019, former Air Force servicewoman Mariya Taylor brought a civil claim against the sergeant who had sexually abused her in the 1980s while both were stationed at the Whenuapai base.
The court accepted the abuse had occurred. But because Taylor was not legally considered “disabled” by trauma, and the six-year window had closed, her case was struck out under the Limitation Act 1950. Adding insult to injury, she was ordered to pay costs to her abuser.
At 18, Taylor had entered a rigid military hierarchy where power and discipline made reporting abuse nearly impossible.
Her case shows how limitation periods can block even well-evidenced claims, and how institutional dynamics such as silence, shame and obedience often delay disclosure.
These same patterns were pivotal to the royal commission’s findings.
Survivors can now bring civil claims regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred. In landmark case in 2023, GLJ v. The Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church for the Diocese of Lismore, the High Court of Australia rejected a request to shut down proceedings even though the alleged abuser and other witnesses had died. The court said the case could still go ahead using available evidence.
The GLJ decision is important for New Zealand courts. It shows that while removing time bars doesn’t guarantee victory for survivors, it does give them the chance to be heard.
Delayed but not denied
Removing time limits for civil claims involving historic abuse, as the royal commission recommended, is now overdue.
A first step would be for the government to clearly commit to amending the Limitation Act 2010 to exclude claims of historic abuse – especially child sexual abuse – from the six-year deadline.
This would bring New Zealand into line with Australia and recognise what we now know about the delayed nature of disclosure, trauma and institutional silence. It would also honour the spirit of the royal commission’s work.
As courts and commissions have recognised, removing limitation periods doesn’t guarantee a win for survivors. But it does mean they’re at least allowed to try.
For years, survivors have been told they’ve spoken too late. Reforming limitation laws won’t undo the harm they suffered. But it will show their testimony matters, and that justice delayed does not have to mean justice denied.
Zoë Prebble does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Late in the evening, the Antarctic sky flushes pink. The male leopard seal wakes and slips from the ice into the water. There, he’ll spend the night singing underwater amongst the floating ice floes.
For the next two months he sings every night. He will sing so loudly, the ice around him vibrates. Each song is a sequence of trills and hoots, performed in a particular pattern.
In a world first, we analysed leopard seal songs and found the predictability of their patterns was remarkably similar to the nursery rhymes humans sing.
We think this is a deliberate strategy. While leopard seals are solitary animals, the males need their call to carry clearly across vast stretches of icy ocean, to woo a mate.
Solitary leopard seals want their call to carry. Ozge Elif Kizil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Leopard seals are especially vocal during breeding season, which lasts from late October to early January. A female leopard seal sings for a few hours on the days she is in heat. But the males are the real showstoppers.
Each night, the males perform underwater solos for up to 13 hours. They dive into the sea, singing underwater for about two minutes before returning to the water’s surface to breathe and rest. This demanding routine continues for weeks.
Within a leopard seal population, the sounds themselves don’t vary much in pitch or duration. But the order and pattern in which the sounds are produced varies considerably between individuals.
Our research examined these individual songs. We compared them to that of other vocal animals, and to human music.
Listening to songs from the sea
The data used in the study was collected by one author of this article, Tracey Rogers, in the 1990s.
Rogers rode her quad bike across the Antarctic ice to the edge of the sea and marked 26 individual male seals with dye as they slept. Then she returned to record their songs at night.
The new research involved analysing these recordings, to better understand their structure and patterns. We did this by measuring the “entropy” of their sequences. Entropy measures how predictable or random a sequence is.
What stood out was the similarity between the predictability of human nursery rhymes and leopard seal calls. Nursery rhymes are simple, repetitive and easy to remember — and that’s what we heard in the leopard seal songs.
The range of “entropy” was similar to the 39 nursery rhymes from the Golden Song Book, a collection of words and sheet music for classic children’s songs, which was first published in 1945. It includes classics such:
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
Frère Jacques
Ring Around a Rosy
Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
Humpty Dumpty
Three Blind Mice
Rockabye Baby.
For humans, the predictable structure of a nursery rhyme melody helps make it simple enough for a child to learn. For a leopard seal, this predictability may enable the individual to learn its song and keep singing it over multiple days. This consistency is important, because changes in pitch or frequency can create miscommunication.
Like sperm whales, leopard seals may also use song to set themselves apart from others and signal their fitness to reproduce. The greater structure in the songs helps ensure listeners accurately receive the message and identify who is singing.
Male leopard seals produce high-pitched cricket-like trills.
An evolving song?
Leopard seals sound very different to humans. But our research shows the complexity and structure of their songs is remarkably similar to our own nursery rhymes.
Communication through song is a very common animal behaviour. However, structure and predictability in mammal song has only been studied in a handful of species. We know very little about what drives it.
Understanding animal communication is important. It can improve conservation efforts and animal welfare, and provide important information about animal cognition and evolution.
Technology has advanced rapidly since our recordings were made in the 1990s. In future, we hope to revisit Antarctica to record and study further, to better understand if new call types have emerged, and if patterns of leopard seal song evolve from generation to generation.
Tracey Rogers receives funding from ARC.
Lucinda Chambers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Jason Momoa’s historical epic Chief of War, launching August 1 on Apple TV+, is a triumph of Hawaiians telling their own stories – despite the fact their film and TV production industry now struggles to be viable.
The series stars Momoa (Aquaman, Game of Thrones) as Kaʻaina, an ali’i (chief) who fights for – and later rises against – King Kamehameha I during the bloody reunification of Hawaii.
Already receiving advance praise, the nine-episode first season co-stars New Zealand actors Temeura Morrison, Cliff Curtis and Luciane Buchanan, alongside Hawaiian actors Kaina Makua, Brandon Finn and Moses Goods.
A passion project for Momoa, the Hawaiian star co-created the series with writer Thomas Pa’a Sibbett after years in development. With a reported budget of US$340 million, it is one of the most expensive television series ever produced.
It is also a milestone in Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) representation onscreen. Controversially, however, the production only spent a month in Hawaiʻi, and was mostly shot in New Zealand with non-Hawaiian crews.
Momoa has even expressed an interest in New Zealand citizenship, but the choice of location is more a reflection of the troubled state of the film industry in Hawaiʻi. On the other hand, it is a measure of the success of the New Zealand screen industry, with potential lessons for other countries in the Pacific.
Ea o Moʻolelo – story sovereignty
Set at the turn of the 19th century, Chief of War tells the moʻolelo (story, history) of King Kamehameha I’s conquest of the archipelago.
Hawaiʻi was historically governed by aliʻi nui (high chiefs), and each island was ruled independently. Motivated by the threat of European colonisation and empowered by Western weaponry, Kamehameha established the Hawaiian Kingdom, culminating in full unification in 1810.
The series is an important example of what authors Dean Hamer and Kumu Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu have called “Ea o Moʻolelo”, or story sovereignty, which emphasises Indigenous peoples’ right to control their own narrative by respecting the “the inalienable right of a story to its own unique contents, style and purpose”.
Chief of War is also the biggest Hawaiian television series ever produced. Although Hawaiʻi remains a popular setting onscreen, these productions have rarely involved Hawaiians in key decision-making roles.
Sea of troubles
The series hits screens at a time of major disruption in Hollywood, with streaming services upending established business models.
“Linear” network television faces declining viewership and advertising revenue. Movie studios struggle to draw audiences to theatres. The consequences for workers in the the industry have been severe, as the 2023 writers strike showed.
Those changes have had a catastrophic impact on the Hawaiʻi film industry, too.
Long a popular location – Hawaii Five-O (1968-1980, 2010-2020), Magnum P.I. (1980-1988, 2018-2024) and Lost (2004-2010) were all shot on location in Hawaiʻi – it is an expensive place to film.
Actors, crew and production equipment often have to be flown in from the continental United States, and producers compete with tourism for costly accommodation.
Kaina Makua as King Kamehameha and New Zealand actor Luciane Buchanan as Ka’ahumanu in Chief of War. Apple TV+
An industry in transition
These are not uncommon problems in distant locations, and many governments try to attract screen productions through tax incentives and rebates on portions of the production costs.
New Zealand, for example, offers a 20-25% rebate for international productions and 40% for local productions. Hawaiʻi offers a 22-27% rebate.
But this is less than other US states offer, such as Georgia (30%), Louisiana (40%) and New Mexico (40%). Hawaiʻi also has an annual cap of US$50 million on rebates.
To make things even harder, Hawaiʻi offers only limited support for Indigenous filmmakers. Governments in Australia and New Zealand provide targeted funding and support for Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Māori filmmakers.
By contrast, the Hawaiʻi Film Commission doesn’t provide direct grants to local filmmakers or producers (Indigenous or otherwise). Small amounts of government funding have been administered through the Public Broadcasting Service, but this is now in jeopardy after US President Donald Trump recently cut federal funding.
The Hawaiʻi screen industry faces a perfect storm. For the first time since 2004, film and TV production has ground to a halt. Many workers now doubt the long-term sustainability of their careers.
Lessons from Aotearoa NZ
While there are lessons Hawaiʻi legislators and industry leaders could learn from New Zealand’s example, there should also be a measure of caution.
The Hawaiʻi tax credit system is out of date. But despite industry lobbying, legislation to update it failed to reach the floor of the legislature earlier this year. New tax settings would help make local production viable again.
Secondly, decades of investment in Māori cinema have seen it become diverse, engaging and creatively accomplished. Hawaiʻi could benefit from greater direct investment in Hawaiian storytelling, respecting its cultural value even if it doesn’t turn a commercial profit.
On the other hand, New Zealand has a favourable currency exchange rate with the US which can’t be replicated in Hawaiʻi. And New Zealand film production workers have seen their rights to unionise watered down compared to their American peers.
But if Hawaiʻi can get its settings right, a possible second season of Chief of War may yet be filmed there, which could mark a genuine rejuvenation of its own film industry.
Duncan Caillard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Without even realising it, your world sometimes gradually gets smaller: less walking, fewer days in the office, cancelling on friends. Watching plans disintegrate on the chat as friends struggle to settle on a date or place for a catch-up.
You might start to feel a bit flat or disconnected. Subtle changes in habit and mood take hold. Could you be … lonely?
It’s not a label many of us identify with easily, especially if you know you’ve got friends, or are in a happy relationship.
But loneliness can happen to us all from time to time – and identifying it is the first step to fixing it.
So, what is loneliness?
Loneliness is the distress we feel when our relationships don’t meet our needs – in quality or quantity.
It’s not the same as being objectively alone (otherwise known as “social isolation”).
You can feel deeply lonely even while surrounded by friends, or totally content on your own.
Loneliness is subjective; many people don’t realise they’re lonely until the feeling becomes persistent.
What are some of the signs to look for?
You may feel a physicalcoldness, emptiness or hollowness (I’ve heard it described as feeling like you are missing an organ). Some research shows social pain is experienced similarly in the brain to physical pain.
In the past, being separated from your tribe meant danger and risk from predators, so our brains developed a way to push us back towards connection.
The pain of loneliness is designed to keep us connected and safe.
Why is it often hard to recognise loneliness?
Sadly, there’s still a lot of stigma around admitting loneliness, especially for men.
Many people resist identifying as lonely, or feel this marks them as a “loser”.
But this silence can make the problem worse.
When no one talks about it, it becomes harder to break the cycle of loneliness, and the stigma remains.
While passing loneliness is normal, chronic or persistent loneliness can hurt our health.
Research shows chronic loneliness is associated with:
depression
anxiety
weakened immunity
heart disease
earlier death.
Loneliness can also become self-reinforcing. When loneliness feels normal, it can start to shape how you see the world: you expect rejection, withdraw more and the cycle deepens.
The earlier you notice you’re lonely, the easier it is to break.
But I’m in a relationship, have loads of friends and a rewarding job
Yes, but you can still be lonely.
Most of us need different kinds of relationships to thrive. It’s not about how many people you know, but whether you feel connected and have a meaningful role in these relationships.
You may feel lonely even with strong friendships if you are lacking deeper connection, shared identity or a sense of community.
This doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful, or a bad friend.
It just means you need more or different kinds of connection.
OK, I’ve realised I am lonely. Now what?
Start by asking yourself: what kind of connection am I missing?
Is it one-to-one friendships? A partner? Casual social interactions? A shared purpose or community?
Then reflect on what’s helped you feel more connected in the past. For some, it’s joining a choir, a book club or a sports group. For others, it may be volunteering or just saying “yes” to small social moments, like chatting with your local barista or learning the name of the local butcher.
If you’re still struggling, a psychologist can help with tailored strategies for building connection.
The structural causes of loneliness
It’s also important to remember loneliness is often not because of personal failings or overall mental health.
We are also learning more about how climate change can disrupt social connection and worsen loneliness due to, for example, higher temperatures or bushfires.
Loneliness is normal, common, human and completely solvable.
Start by noticing it in yourself and reach out if you can.
Let’s start talking about it more, so others can feel less alone too.
Marlee Bower receives funding from the Henry Halloran Urban and Regional Research Initiative, the BHP Foundation, AHURI and NHMRC. She is affiliated with the University of Sydney Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use and Australia’s Mental Health Think Tank.
The money is easy to trace. Scroll back through tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s political donations and you’ll soon hit US$15 million worth of transfers sent to Protect Ohio Values, JD Vance’s campaign fund. The donations, made in 2022, are a staggering contribution to an individual senate race, and helped put Vance (Thiel’s former employee at tech fund Mithril Capital) on a winning trajectory.
But if money matters, so do ideas. Scroll back through Vance’s speeches, and you’ll hear echoes of Thiel’s voice. The decline of US elites (and by extension, the nation) is supposedly a result of technological stagnation: declining innovation, trivial distractions, broken infrastructure. To make the nation great again, Thiel believes, tech should come first, corporates should be unshackled, and the state should resemble the startup. For Vance, who has now risen to the office of US vice-president, a Thiel talk on these topics at Yale Law was “the most significant moment” of his time there.
Thiel’s influence on politics is at once financial, technical and ideological. In the New York Times, he was recently described as the “most influential right-wing intellectual of the last 20 years”. And his potent cocktail of networks, money, strategy and support exerts a rightward force on the political landscape. It establishes a powerful pattern for up-and-coming figures to follow.
To “hedge fund investor” and “tech entrepreneur”, Thiel has recently added a new label: Republican kingmaker.
Who is Peter Thiel?
Thiel was born in Germany but grew up in the United States, with a childhood sojourn in apartheid South Africa. Max Chafkin’s critical but balanced biography, The Contrarian, claims Thiel was bullied growing up and protected himself by becoming resolutely “disdainful”. He studied philosophy and then law at Stanford, where he founded The Stanford Review, a libertarian–conservative student paper that signalled his early interest in controversial politics and culture wars.
While difficult to pin down precisely, Thiel’s Christianity shapes his belief in a declining or even apocalyptic world that can only be countered with unapologetic interventions and technological innovations. God helps those who help themselves – but could always use additional help from ambitious tech elites.
In 1998, Thiel cofounded his first tech company, Confinity, which launched its flagship product PayPal in 1999 and merged with Elon Musk’s X.com in 2000. In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion and Thiel became a multimillionaire. He invested in several startups, including Facebook, and established his hedge fund, Clarium, and his venture capital firm, Founders Fund.
In their own ways, each of these developments is a response to Thiel’s thesis that the world is stuck. In his 2011 essay The End of the Future, he decries the “soft totalitarianism of political correctness in media and academia” and the “sordid world” of entertainment. The result is “50 years of stagnation” that has transformed humanity “into this more docile kind of a species”.
Thiel’s answer is more risk, more tech and more ambition. It’s exemplified most clearly by Palantir Technologies, the data analytics firm he cofounded in 2004.
Palantir has worked closely with US armed forces and intelligence agencies for 14 years. It is currently working closely with the Trump administration to create a “super-database” of combined data from all federal agencies, and building a platform for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “to track migrant movements in real time”.
Investing in right-wing politics
Thiel’s political interventions have ramped up over time. Libertarianism generally takes an arms-length approach to politics in favour of individual freedom and market determination. But even in “purely” financial spaces, politics creeps in.
Clarium’s macroeconomic approach meant the political landscape had to be factored in: “high-conviction, directional investments based on key drivers of the global economy and fundamental themes underappreciated by the marketplace”.
If politics, like technology, had stagnated – into a non-choice between similar parties – how could it be “disrupted”? Thiel began making political donations in December 2011, with contributions totalling at least $2.6 million, to the third presidential campaign of Ron Paul, a longstanding conservative congressman in Texas.
While Paul would ultimately be unsuccessful, Thiel recognised something others had missed. Voters had not been attracted to some idealistic libertarian, as the media portrayed him, but to the old Ron Paul, a neoconservative whose newsletters published in his name in the 1980s and ‘90s suggested 95% of Black men in Washington DC were criminals. (He denied writing them in 2011, calling the statements “terrible”.) His appeal was never “merely” about economic freedom, but about race and class, fear and grievance.
Donald Trump took this dark undercurrent, a strain that has always underpinned parts of US politics, and ran with it. Dog-whistles were dispensed with in favour of overt claims that most illegal immigrants were rapists, certain Latin American countries were shitholes, women were bitches, and white supremacists were “very fine people”. Trump, noted one article, was “weaponizing the conservative id”.
In these visions, multiculturalism and progressivism are not just cultural threats, but economic ones. They undermine the ability of company founders to exploit labour, blow past regulations, and obey the brutal logic of the market.
“A world safe for capitalism is presumably one of monopoly companies and patriarchal networks,” note media scholars Ben Little and Alison Winch in their profile of Thiel. It’s a world “where ‘the multiculture’ has been transformed into racialised domination”.
Thiel has certainly contributed to the rise of Trump and the new breed of right-wing politicians through his vast wealth. In 2016, Thiel contributed $1.25 million to Trump’s campaign, thinking “he had a 50-50 chance of winning”. This earned him a speaking slot at the Republican convention. But his influence extends beyond mere money.
Thiel’s endorsement of Trump at the 2016 Republican convention was hugely significant for garnering support. So was his famous declaration there that he was proud to be gay, Republican and American. After Trump won his first term, Thiel continued to be involved. He joined the transition team and recommended aligned individuals for key positions, such as Michael Kratsios, who would become chief technology officer.
So, Thiel’s support of Trump should be understood as an investment, just like his early investments in PayPal and Facebook. As Chafkin notes, Thiel’s bet on Trump is a wager with high upsides and low risk. Thiel’s outspoken views in favour of “seasteading” (floating independent city-states) and against immigration and women’s emancipation had already alienated the more progressive sectors of Silicon Valley.
If the bet paid off, Thiel and his empire could benefit handsomely. And this is exactly what has played out. Since Trump has taken office in his second term, Palantir has already netted more than $113 million in federal government spending.
Palantir: from information to domination
Palantir’s origin story reflects its blend of technical expertise and political ambition. To combat rising fraud, members of PayPal developed a software tool that could mine vast amounts of transactions and find the connections between them, homing in on a handful of culprits in a deluge of data.
Thiel was prescient in spinning this core idea from finance to intelligence, where analysts were searching for patterns and anomalies amid the noise – a needle in a haystack. Palantir commercialised and expanded this concept, bringing a leaner, data-driven Silicon Valley approach to a sector dominated by established Washington incumbents.
Thiel and Palantir chief executive Alex Karp believe Silicon Valley has lost its way, frittering away its vast talents and ingenuity on trivial pursuits: advertising, gaming, social media. For them, the era of ambitious scientific projects and unapologetic military industrial collaborations – the Manhattan Project, the Moon landing — needs to be revived.
In his book, the Technological Republic, Karp calls for a state that looks more like a startup – lean, technology-driven, and led authoritatively by a founder-like figure who is not afraid to “move fast and break stuff” (the Silicon Valley motto), especially when it comes to dominating enemies and ensuring the safety of a nation’s citizens.
Palantir, of course, answers this call. It combines machine learning with military spending, data-driven “intelligence” with naked violence. This is most clear in its longstanding collaboration with ICE, which is now carrying out notorious immigration raids at the behest of the Trump administration. “On the factory floor, in the operating room, on the battlefield,” states a recent Palantir recruitment ad placed across US college campuses, “we build to dominate.”
Palantir’s blueprint has been emulated by a growing array of others. Anduril, Skydio and Shield AI are all founded on developing information technologies for military and intelligence use. Last week, Rune Technologies closed a $24 million Series A round of funding to move warfare logistics away from the “Excel era” and towards AI-augmented tools.
Answering Karp’s call, these startups are unapologetic in leveraging engineering expertise for more substantial, authoritarian and historically controversial areas.
Playing the scapegoat
One of the clearest outlines of Thiel’s political philosophy is laid out in the Straussian Moment, a 30-page essay he published in 2007.
For Thiel, the spectacular violence of the September 11 terrorist attacks was a wake-up call, rousing the citizenry from that “very long and profitable period of intellectual slumber and amnesia that is so misleadingly called the Enlightenment”.
In Thiel’s view, the Enlightenment project – to advance knowledge, cultivate tolerance, and elevate humanity as a whole – rested on a naive understanding of human nature. Like Curtis Yarvin and other influential Silicon Valley political thinkers, he asserts that humanity is brutal and a shift from Enlightenment optimism to Dark Enlightenment pessimism is required.
It is unsurprising, then, that Thiel looks to René Girard (once called “the new Darwin of the human sciences”) for inspiration; he even organised a symposium at Stanford with Girard in attendance. Girard begins from a bleak view of human nature, a Hobbesian world where life is nasty, brutish and short. For Girard, mimesis or imitation is at the heart of the human. This mirroring quality means violence is always threatening to escalate, to constantly ramp up with no inherent limit.
To corral this violence, ancient cultures created the scapegoat, a sacrificial system where all-against-all was replaced by all-against-one. Yet the scapegoat is no longer viable – the revelation of Christ is that the scapegoat is an innocent victim.
Thiel takes Girard’s insights and twists them to his own ends. First, Thiel asserts that even if violence begets more violence, nonviolence is not an option. Enemies must not be allowed to prevail. In the face of uncompromising adversaries, such as the 9/11 attackers, who threaten to dismantle some idealised way of life, preemptively responding to violence is “urgently demanded”.
Second, Thiel takes the concept of the scapegoat and flips it. In this judo-like manoeuvre, the real victims are not the marginalised or the minority, but the hegemonic class (whites, males, liberals, conservatives), who are being pressured by cancel culture, political correctness, diversity initiatives and so on.
Shortly after graduating, Thiel coauthored a book, The Diversity Myth, about alleged political intolerance at Stanford. In it, he rails against a rampant multiculturalism that he claims stifles freedom of speech and derails education and entrepreneurialism. Here, scapegoating is weaponised. It’s mobilised toward a conservative advance in the ongoing cultural wars, which are always also political wars.
Contradiction or evolution?
Thiel is a walking paradox. He bemoans cancel culture and political correctness, while waging a highly expensive and clearly personal war to bankrupt a media outlet that offended him. (After Gawker printed the “open secret” of Thiel’s gay status in 2007, Thiel funded lawsuits against them until they were shut down.)
He calls himself a libertarian, but has founded a company that derives millions in contracts from the bloated budgets of the many military agencies (the National Security Agency, the FBI, the US Army) that now comprise the sprawling state.
He celebrates capitalism and the free hand of the market, but always stresses that the path to business success rests on establishing monopolies with no real competition. He is a German-born immigrant who actively supports technologies (Palantir) and candidates (Trump) that establish xenophobic environments and seek to deport those deemed “other”. And, most personally, he is both a conservative Republican and an openly gay man.
At a purely logical level, these elements are incompatible. There is a perceived gap between Thiel’s words and actions, a gulf between his ideologies and his activities. For staunch libertarians at Thiel’s companies, his manoeuvrings at the state level make no sense. For queer scholars, Thiel’s exclusionary rather than liberatory politics mean he is a man who has sex with other men, rather than being gay.
For these critics, both things cannot be true; therefore, some labels, identities and activities are fake, marginal or impossible. Yet one of Thiel’s many lessons is that contradiction is a strength rather than a weakness.
Thiel’s philosophy, which journalists have called techno-fascism, recalls philosopher Umberto Eco, who described fascism as a “beehive of contradictions” and “a collage of different philosophical and political ideas”. The radical right, in particular, has no problem mashing together many views that at face value should not fit: scavenger ideologies that are opportunistic in grabbing elements that work for them.
Instead of contradictions, these hybrid forms need to be understood as evolutions. They are tensions, held within the body and the mind of the subject, that push monolithic frameworks like conservatism beyond their existing limits. Thiel’s power – and his political blueprint for others – is insisting you can be a philosophical entrepreneur, an illiberal patriot, and a queer conservative.
Luke Munn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samara McPhedran, Principal Research Fellow, Violence Research and Prevention Program, Griffith University
Almost every day, it seems we read or hear reports another family is grieving the murder of a loved one in a street brawl, another business owner is hospitalised after trying to fend off armed robbers, or shoppers simply going about their business are confronted by knife-wielding thugs.
The way media and politicians talk, it seems as if we are in the middle of an unprecedented violent crime crisis.
But are we?
The short answer is: no.
Comparing today with the past
Although the numbers fluctuate from year to year, Australia is less violent today than in previous years.
It is difficult to make direct comparisons over decades, because the way crimes are defined and recorded changes (especially for assault).
Weapons and violence are rarely out of the media cycle in Australia, leading many to fear this country is becoming less safe for everyday people. Is that really the case, though? This is the first story in a four-part series.
For crimes like domestic violence, the statistics are extremely hard to compare over time but even so, prevalence appears to have declined (although only about half of all women who experience physical and/or sexual violence from their partners seek advice or support).
However, if we consider homicide and robbery (which have been categorised much the same way over time), the numbers have been falling for decades.
Interestingly, this seems to have nothing to do with the weapons themselves. For instance, armed robbery and unarmed robbery both rise and fall in about the same way, at about the same time. Homicide follows a similar pattern.
Relative to ten years ago, Australians now are less likely to say they have experienced physical or threatened face-to-face assault in the previous 12 months.
Places with greater socioeconomic disadvantage typically experience more violence. In Queensland, for instance, Mt Isa has higher violent crime rates than affluent areas of Brisbane.
Despite differences between places, there is generally less violence than there used to be.
Why is violence declining?
Nobody knows quite why violence is decreasing. This is not just happening in Australia butacross many developednations.
Suggestions include better social welfare, strong economies, improved education, low unemployment, women’s rights and stable governance. Also, new avenues have opened up that carry less risk than violent crime – such as cyberfraud instead of robbing a bank.
Evidence shows these types of reactions achieve little, but in an environment of endless “crisis” it is almost impossible to make good decisions. This is made even harder in circumstances where victims and activists push politicians to implement “feel-good” policies, regardless of how ultimately fruitless those will be.
Who are the people being violent?
One thing remains the same: violent crime is primarily committed by younger men (who are also likely to be victims).
Ethnicity/migration history data is not always recorded in crime statistics, but the information we do have suggests a more complex picture.
Factors such as exposure to warfare and civil strife can certainly play a role in people’s use of violence.
However, unemployment, poverty, poor education and involvement with drugs and/or gangs tend to play a much larger part.
Reactions versus reality
If society is less violent, why are public reactions to violence seemingly becoming more intense?
Incidents that would have received little attention a decade ago now dominate public debate and single incidents – no matter how rare or isolated – are enough to provoke sweeping legislative and policy changes.
This is also about psychology: the better things get, the more sensitive people tend to be to whatever ills remain and resilience can crumble when something bad does happen.
Pandering to this by rushing to make people feel safer – while politically irresistible – has unintended consequences. When another incident occurs, as it always does, people feel even more vulnerable because they were led to believe the problem had been “fixed”.
This creates a never-ending cycle of superficial responses while underlying issues are ignored.
We cannot legislate or politicise our way out of violence. The best responses are ones that identify and address actual root causes and look at the circumstances that surround violence – rather than fixating on the violence itself.
This means moving away from emotional reactions and taking a clear look at why violence occurs in the first place.
Until this happens, any further reductions in violence are more likely to be good luck than good management.
Samara McPhedran has received funding from various Australian and international government grant programs, including the Australian Research Council and Criminology Research Council, for a number of projects relating to violence. She has been appointed to various advisory panels and committees, including as a member of the Queensland Ministerial Advisory Panel on Weapons. She does not receive any financial remuneration or other reward for these activities. She is the Executive Director (Analysis, Policy and Strategy) of the Violence Prevention Institute Australia. She is not, and has never been, a member of any political party. The views expressed are those of the author alone.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Martin, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, School of Biomedical Sciences, Pathology and Laboratory Science, The University of Western Australia
It’s a cold, crisp evening and the air carries a chill that bites. As temperatures drop and houses get colder, we turn to trusted sources of warmth such as wood fires, heaters, hot water bottles and warm drinks.
But these winter comforts come with the risk of burns.
Staying warm in winter is important, but so is staying safe. So, a little caution can go a long way to prevent serious injury.
Let’s start with children
Young children are naturally curious, and in winter, their explorations often take them dangerously close to sources of heat. One common scenario involves toddlers reaching out to touch a glowing wood-fired heater.
These are attractive to curious children because they are bright, warm and often within reach. Tragically, these burns can cause significant injuries to small hands and fingers, often requiring long recovery times and specialist care.
Scalds from hot drinks are also very common in young children. These accidents tend to happen during everyday moments, such as when a parent is trying to juggle a hot drink with a sick, unsettled child on their lap.
Seasonal colds and viruses mean children often need more comfort and physical contact, increasing the likelihood of accidents. A hot drink, even one that has cooled slightly, can cause deep burns to a child’s skin if spilled.
In many parts of Australia at this time of year, bonfires, fire pits and campfires become common. Extinguishing a fire with sand may seem safe, but embers underneath can retain enough heat to burn skin hours later.
Children running in light shoes can be unaware of where a fire has been and step directly onto it, resulting in severe burns to their feet.
Hot water bottles can cause scald burns from spills when being filled, can leak or burst if cuddled or rolled on, or cause contact burns if placed directly on the skin. Always check the bottle for wear, use hot tap water instead of boiling water, and keep a layer between the bottle and the skin.
Wheat bags can also cause burns over winter, particularly when overheated or applied directly to skin without a cover. Rarely, wheat bags have caught fire, especially when overheated or re-heated repeatedly without allowing them to fully cool between use.
Older people can also be at risk
Elderly people face a unique set of risks in winter. For some, underlying health issues, such as diabetes or poor circulation, can reduce sensitivity to heat, making them unaware they have been burnt.
A classic example is burns to the lower legs caused by sitting too close to a bar heater for extended periods. These burns may go unnoticed until they become painful or infected.
In some cases, financial strain plays a role. Many older adults live on fixed incomes and may hesitate to heat their entire home to save on energy bills. Instead, they may rely on small portable heaters in closed rooms or heated blankets and hot water bottles. These workarounds are cost-effective, but can increase the risk of burns.
How can I stay safe?
Burns are preventable injuries. Here’s how to reduce the risk:
use a barrier around heaters to protect exploring hands
keep hot drinks out of reach when holding a child, and consider using mugs with lids for added safety
supervise young children closely around campfires, bonfires and fire pits, and extinguish with water not sand
ensure hot water bottles are in good condition. Never fill a hot water bottle with boiling water, use the hot tap, and do not use if there are signs of wear or damage. Don’t overheat wheat bags
regularly check your heater is safe and is working as it should. Sit at least a metre away.
When should I seek medical care?
If a burn happens, run the burn under cool running water for at least 20 minutes, while keeping the person warm. Don’t apply ice, creams or ointments, as they can cause more damage by trapping in the heat. Remove tight clothing or jewellery. Cover the burn with a loose, clean cloth or non-stick dressing.
looks leathery, or there are patches of brown, black or white
if the person has trouble breathing.
Lisa Martin receives funding from Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation, Perron Foundation, The Kids Research Institute, and is employed by The Fiona Wood Foundation.
Transparency is vital to our democratic system of government.
It promotes good government, spurring those in power into better practice. Even when what is revealed is pretty revolting, transparency means those transgressions are known, and accountability for them can follow.
Transparency is particularly important for people who otherwise do not have access to government, who are not “in the room” or “at the table”, whether that be directly or through lobbyists or other connections.
But recent data reveal government transparency in Australia is on the decline. Given the connection between transparency and a well-functioning democracy, this is deeply concerning.
The Albanese government’s compliance rate with Senate orders for documents is the lowest of any government since 2016, and the second-worst of any government since 1993. Disclosures under freedom of information laws have dropped dramatically over the past decade.
The problem isn’t a lack of solutions, but that governments appear perpetually unwilling to open up.
How should transparency work?
In Australia, there is a complex system of institutions and laws that provide government accountability and transparency.
Outside of the blunt instrument of electoral accountability through the ballot box, the parliament, and in particular the non-government-dominated Senate, plays a key role in providing accountability and transparency.
The transparency work of the Senate is supplemented by a number of regimes, chief among them freedom of information. Under freedom of information, members of the public can request specific information from government departments and agencies, and this is supported by a “freedom of information champion”, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.
To work properly, these schemes and regimes need the ongoing support, cooperation and buy-in (literally in the form of funding) from government. This has, at times, been less than forthcoming, which can hobble their operation in different ways.
There are also several reasons why a government might refuse to publicly disclose what it is doing. Former High Court Chief Justice Harry Gibbs said “government at a high level cannot function without some degree of secrecy”.
But limits and exceptions to transparency regimes are controversial. Does there need to be an exception at all? Does a particular document fall within the exception?
The government holds the upper hand in asserting whether a document falls within an exception, because they are the ones who know what the documents are. This gives rise to cynicism that these exceptions can be and are being abused.
Documents remaining buried
This cynicism may be warranted, as two recent reports by the Centre for Public Integrity show successive governments lack true commitment to transparency.
The first report was about Senate orders for the production of documents and how often the government complies with them.
One of the Senate’s most powerful tools in holding the executive to account is its ability to order the production of government documents.
But governments have a long history of avoiding compliance with Senate orders. They either outright refuse to respond, or offer broad claims of “public interest immunity” over sensitive documents, such as those relating to national security, Cabinet, federal relations or law enforcement.
While the Senate can sanction ministers who refuse to comply with its orders, such as through suspending them from the chamber, it has historically done little in response to government insouciance.
This means we don’t know whether the public interest immunity claims being made over the documents are valid, and there is currently no mechanism to find out.
The recent data show the government’s compliance rates with Senate orders to produce documents have fallen from 92% in 1993–96, to approximately 33% for the current parliament.
This is a low that only the Abbott/Turnbull government in the 44th parliament has the ignominious record of beating in the past 30-odd years.
It is coupled with the government increasingly claiming public interest immunity. Public interest immunity rejections as a proportion of non-compliance sat at 61% over the 46th Parliament, this rose to almost 68% over the Albanese government’s first term.
These averaged roughly one claim per week under Albanese, compared with about one claim every three weeks under by the Morrison government in the 46th parliament.
What about freedom of information?
The second report is on the operation of the Commonwealth’s freedom of information (FOI) regime.
The Albanese government’s performance on delivering transparency this way is a mixed bag.
First, the good news: the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner is better resourced, first-instance processing times have improved, and more of the reviews received by the OAIC are being finalised.
But the plaudits end there.
Whereas the proportion of requests granted in full stood at 59% in 2011–12, by 2023–24 it had fallen to just 25%.
Over the same period, outright refusals have ballooned from 12% to 23%.
The precipitous decline in the “refusal gap” (the difference between the proportion of requests granted in full and those refused) is alarming.
Moreover, it’s difficult to have confidence in the correctness of these refusals. In 2023–24, almost half of initial decisions were found to be flawed following internal review.
Processing timeframes are also cause for significant concern. Average processing time for Office of the Australian Information Commissioner reviews has blown out from 6 months in 2016-17, to 15.5 months in 2023-24.
Fixing the mess
Of course, numbers are not a full story. But they also cannot be denied, and these tell a damning story for government.
So how could they be addressed?
The Senate should adopt an independent legal arbiter to oversee claims for public interest immunity. This would discourage secrecy by providing an independent review mechanism for parliament to check the government’s immunity claims.
For this reform to work, the Senate must not shy away from flexing its enforcement muscles either. The government must know that lack of transparency has consequences.
In response to the freedom of information crisis, there’s a number of reforms that could improve transparency. These cover:
legislative changes such as clarifying that existing applications are not invalidated with a change in minister or portfolio title
greater resourcing to support information officer training and ongoing monitoring
and increasing parliamentary oversight of the regime.
Transparency is not an elite concern, but one of those who are otherwise not in the room. It is the peoples’ concern. Governments, however, have incentives to keep the status quo.
So even though Labor spoke a big transparency game in opposition, they have done little in government. We need to demand that they do.
The author would like to thank Catherine Williams, Executive Director of the Centre for Public Integrity, for her contributions to this article.
Gabrielle Appleby is a Director of the Centre for Public Integrity.
The announcement this week by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the recognition of a Palestininian state has been welcomed by many who want to see a ceasefire in Gaza and lasting peace in the region.
In contrast to other recent statements on the status of Palestine, however, the UK has said it will recognise Palestine as a state in September
unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza and commits to a long term sustainable peace, including through allowing the UN to restart without delay the supply of humanitarian support to the people of Gaza to end starvation, agreeing to a ceasefire, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.
Until this week, the UK’s position had been that recognition would only follow a negotiated two-state solution in Israel-Palestine. Other countries have now begun to shift from that position, too.
The latest UK statement was preceded by announcements from France on July 25 and Canada on July 31 that they too would recognise Palestine as a state in September.
But the UK position is different in one important way: it is conditional on Israel failing to comply with its international humanitarian obligations in Gaza and the West Bank.
In other words, recognition of Palestine as a state by the UK is being used as a stick to persuade Israel to agree to a ceasefire. Should Israel agree to those conditions, the UK will presumably not recognise Palestine as a state in September, but will revert to its original position on a two-state solution.
Conditional recognition subject to action by Israel – a third state – represents an unwelcome and arguably dangerous departure from international practice.
While recognition (or otherwise) of states is inherently political – as demonstrated by the unique status of Taiwan, for example – it is not and should not be made conditional on the action or inaction of third states.
How states are recognised
According to the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, a state must have a permanent population, territory, an independent government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states, as well as self-determination.
Palestine has arguably met all these criteria, with the possible exception of an independent government, given the level of Israeli intervention in the West Bank and the current situation in Gaza.
Although recognition by other states is arguably not a formal criterion of statehood, it is very difficult to function as a state without reasonably widespread recognition by other states.
Some 147 countries – two-thirds of UN members – now recognise the State of Palestine, including Spain, Ireland and Norway, which made announcements in 2024.
Those choosing not to formally recognise a Palestinian state are now in a small minority, including Australia and New Zealand. This is inevitably leading to calls in those countries to change position.
Australia is considering such a shift, subject to conditions similar to those set out by Canada – including the release of Israeli hostages, the demilitarisation of Hamas, and reform of the Palestinian Authority.
New Zealand is currently maintaining its longstanding position of recognising Palestine within the context of a two-state solution. On July 30, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and 13 of his counterparts issued a joint statement – the “New York Call” – demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and reiterating “unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-State solution”.
The statement also asserted that “positive consideration” to recognise the state of Palestine is “an essential step towards the two-state solution”.
Better options are available
The UK’s position, however, introduces another dynamic. By using recognition of Palestine as a tool to punish Israel for its actual and alleged breaches of international law in Gaza, it is implicitly failing to respect Palestine’s right to self-determination.
If Palestine deserves statehood, it is on its own terms, not as a condition of Israel’s policies and actions.
But it is also setting a dangerous precedent. Countries could choose to recognise (or not recognise) states to pressure or punish them (or indeed other states) for breaches of international law. Such breaches may or may not be connected to the state actually seeking recognition.
This is important, because the post-colonial settlement of geographical boundaries remains deeply insecure in many regions. As well, low-lying island nations at risk of losing territory from sea-level rise may also find their status challenged, as territory has traditionally been a requirement of statehood.
The UK’s apparent conditional recognition of Palestine is only likely to increase this international instability around statehood.
While the UK’s announcement may be “clever politics” from a domestic perspective, and avoids outright US opposition internationally, it has conflated two separate issues.
The better option would be for the UK to recognise Palestine as a state, joining a growing number of countries that plan to do so in advance of the UN General Assembly meeting in September. It could make this subject to conditions, including the release of hostages and exclusion of Hamas from Palestinian governance.
And it should continue to press Israel to agree to a ceasefire in addition to the other demands set out in its announcement, and hold Israel accountable for its gross breaches of international law in Gaza. It can back up those demands with appropriate diplomatic and trade sanctions.
New Zealand, too, has a range of options available, and can help increase the pressure on Israel by using them.
Karen Scott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Roman baths at Sabratha, Libya, were damaged in the earthquake and tsunami of 365 ADReza / Getty Images
The Greek poet Crinagoras of Mytilene (1st century BC–1st century AD) once addressed a little poem to an earthquake. He asked the quake not to destroy his house:
Earthquake, most dread of all shocks … spare my new-built house, for I do not know of any terror equal to the quivering of the earth.
Like us, ancient people had many things to say about natural disasters. So, what information did they leave behind for us, and what can we learn from them?
The story of Nicomedia
One of the most vivid ancient accounts of an earthquake is found in the writings of the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330–395 AD).
On August 24 358 AD, there was a huge earthquake at Nicomedia, a city in Asia Minor.
A terrific earthquake completely overturned the city and its suburbs … since most of the houses were carried down the slopes of the hill, they fell one upon another, while everything resounded with the vast roar of their destruction.
The human effect was devastating.
The palace of the emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia was damaged in the quake of 358 AD. G. Berggren / Getty Images
Most people were “killed at one blow”, says Ammianus. Others, he tells us, were “imprisoned unhurt within slanting house roofs, to be consumed by the agony of starvation”.
Hidden in the rubble “with fractured skulls or amputated arms or legs”, injured survivors “hovered between life and death”, but most could not be recovered, “despite their pleas and protestations” resounding from beneath the rubble, according to Ammianus.
Famous natural disasters in the ancient world
A number of natural disasters involving earthquakes and tsunamis were especially famous in ancient Greek and Roman times.
In 464 BC, in Sparta, there was a huge earthquake. People at the time said it was greater than any earthquake that had ever occurred beforehand.
According to the Greek writer Plutarch (c. 46–119 AD), the earthquake “tore the land of the Lacedaemonians into many chasms”, collapsed the peaks of the surrounding mountains, and “demolished the entire city with the exception of five houses”.
In 373–372 BC, the Greek coastal cities of Helice and Buris were destroyed by tsunamis. They were permanently submerged beneath the waves.
An anonymous Greek poet evocatively wrote that the walls of these cities, which had once been thriving with many people, were now silent under the waves, “clad with thick sea-moss”.
But arguably the most famous ancient tsunami occurred on July 21 365 AD on the northern coast of Africa, at that time controlled by the Romans.
Again according to Ammianus, early in the morning there was a huge earthquake. Then, not long after, the water retreated from the shore:
the sea with its rolling waves was driven back and withdrew from the land, so that in the abyss of the deep thus revealed people saw many kinds of sea-creatures stuck fast in the slime … and vast mountains and deep valleys, which nature had hidden in the unplumbed depths.
Then, suddenly, the sea returned with a vengeance. As Ammianus tells us, it smashed over the land destroying everything in its path:
The great mass of waters killed many thousands of people by drowning … the lifeless bodies of shipwrecked persons lay floating on their backs or on their faces … great ships, driven by the mad blasts, landed on the tops of buildings, and some were driven almost two miles inland.
Earthquakes were famous for their sound. The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) explained that earthquakes have a “terrible sound” – like “the bellowing of cattle or the shouts of human beings or the clash of weapons struck together”.
Ancient ideas about what causes earthquakes and tsunamis
Like today, ancient people wanted to know what caused these phenomena. There were various different theories.
Some people thought Poseidon, god of the sea, earthquakes and horses, was responsible.
As the Greek writer Plutarch (c. 46–119 AD) comments, “men sacrifice to Poseidon when they wish to put a stop to earthquakes”.
An ancient statue of Poseidon, god of the sea and earthquakes, from the island of Milos. Sepia Times / Getty Images
However, other people looked beyond divine explanations.
One interesting theory held by the philosopher Anaximenes (6th century BC) was that the earth itself was the cause of earthquakes.
According to Anaximenes, huge parts of the earth beneath the ground can move, collapse, detach or tear away, thus causing shaking.
“Huge waves”, said Anaximenes, are “produced by the weight [of falling earth] crashing down into the [waters] from above”.
Ancient people knew nothing of tectonic plates and continental drift. These were discovered much later, mainly through the pioneering work of Alfred Wegener (1880–1930).
Preparing for natural disasters
Ancient Greeks and Romans had little way of predicting or preparing for earthquakes and tsunamis.
Pherecydes of Samos (6th century BC) was said to have predicted an earthquake “from the appearance of some water drawn from a well”, according to the Roman statesman Cicero (106–43 BC).
For the most part, though, ancient people had to live at the mercy of these occurrences.
As the anonymous author of a treatise titled On the Cosmos once wrote, natural disasters are part of life on earth:
Violent earthquakes before now have torn up many parts of the earth; monstrous storms of rain have burst out and overwhelmed it; incursions and withdrawals of the waves have often made seas of dry land and dry land of seas…
While our understanding of these events (and our ability to prepare for them, and recover afterward) has improved immeasurably since ancient times, earthquakes and tsunamis are things we will always have to deal with.
Konstantine Panegyres does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Roman baths at Sabratha, Libya, were damaged in the earthquake and tsunami of 365 ADReza / Getty Images
The Greek poet Crinagoras of Mytilene (1st century BC–1st century AD) once addressed a little poem to an earthquake. He asked the quake not to destroy his house:
Earthquake, most dread of all shocks … spare my new-built house, for I do not know of any terror equal to the quivering of the earth.
Like us, ancient people had many things to say about natural disasters. So, what information did they leave behind for us, and what can we learn from them?
The story of Nicomedia
One of the most vivid ancient accounts of an earthquake is found in the writings of the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330–395 AD).
On August 24 358 AD, there was a huge earthquake at Nicomedia, a city in Asia Minor.
A terrific earthquake completely overturned the city and its suburbs … since most of the houses were carried down the slopes of the hill, they fell one upon another, while everything resounded with the vast roar of their destruction.
The human effect was devastating.
The palace of the emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia was damaged in the quake of 358 AD. G. Berggren / Getty Images
Most people were “killed at one blow”, says Ammianus. Others, he tells us, were “imprisoned unhurt within slanting house roofs, to be consumed by the agony of starvation”.
Hidden in the rubble “with fractured skulls or amputated arms or legs”, injured survivors “hovered between life and death”, but most could not be recovered, “despite their pleas and protestations” resounding from beneath the rubble, according to Ammianus.
Famous natural disasters in the ancient world
A number of natural disasters involving earthquakes and tsunamis were especially famous in ancient Greek and Roman times.
In 464 BC, in Sparta, there was a huge earthquake. People at the time said it was greater than any earthquake that had ever occurred beforehand.
According to the Greek writer Plutarch (c. 46–119 AD), the earthquake “tore the land of the Lacedaemonians into many chasms”, collapsed the peaks of the surrounding mountains, and “demolished the entire city with the exception of five houses”.
In 373–372 BC, the Greek coastal cities of Helice and Buris were destroyed by tsunamis. They were permanently submerged beneath the waves.
An anonymous Greek poet evocatively wrote that the walls of these cities, which had once been thriving with many people, were now silent under the waves, “clad with thick sea-moss”.
But arguably the most famous ancient tsunami occurred on July 21 365 AD on the northern coast of Africa, at that time controlled by the Romans.
Again according to Ammianus, early in the morning there was a huge earthquake. Then, not long after, the water retreated from the shore:
the sea with its rolling waves was driven back and withdrew from the land, so that in the abyss of the deep thus revealed people saw many kinds of sea-creatures stuck fast in the slime … and vast mountains and deep valleys, which nature had hidden in the unplumbed depths.
Then, suddenly, the sea returned with a vengeance. As Ammianus tells us, it smashed over the land destroying everything in its path:
The great mass of waters killed many thousands of people by drowning … the lifeless bodies of shipwrecked persons lay floating on their backs or on their faces … great ships, driven by the mad blasts, landed on the tops of buildings, and some were driven almost two miles inland.
Earthquakes were famous for their sound. The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) explained that earthquakes have a “terrible sound” – like “the bellowing of cattle or the shouts of human beings or the clash of weapons struck together”.
Ancient ideas about what causes earthquakes and tsunamis
Like today, ancient people wanted to know what caused these phenomena. There were various different theories.
Some people thought Poseidon, god of the sea, earthquakes and horses, was responsible.
As the Greek writer Plutarch (c. 46–119 AD) comments, “men sacrifice to Poseidon when they wish to put a stop to earthquakes”.
An ancient statue of Poseidon, god of the sea and earthquakes, from the island of Milos. Sepia Times / Getty Images
However, other people looked beyond divine explanations.
One interesting theory held by the philosopher Anaximenes (6th century BC) was that the earth itself was the cause of earthquakes.
According to Anaximenes, huge parts of the earth beneath the ground can move, collapse, detach or tear away, thus causing shaking.
“Huge waves”, said Anaximenes, are “produced by the weight [of falling earth] crashing down into the [waters] from above”.
Ancient people knew nothing of tectonic plates and continental drift. These were discovered much later, mainly through the pioneering work of Alfred Wegener (1880–1930).
Preparing for natural disasters
Ancient Greeks and Romans had little way of predicting or preparing for earthquakes and tsunamis.
Pherecydes of Samos (6th century BC) was said to have predicted an earthquake “from the appearance of some water drawn from a well”, according to the Roman statesman Cicero (106–43 BC).
For the most part, though, ancient people had to live at the mercy of these occurrences.
As the anonymous author of a treatise titled On the Cosmos once wrote, natural disasters are part of life on earth:
Violent earthquakes before now have torn up many parts of the earth; monstrous storms of rain have burst out and overwhelmed it; incursions and withdrawals of the waves have often made seas of dry land and dry land of seas…
While our understanding of these events (and our ability to prepare for them, and recover afterward) has improved immeasurably since ancient times, earthquakes and tsunamis are things we will always have to deal with.
Konstantine Panegyres does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The announcement this week by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the recognition of a Palestininian state has been welcomed by many who want to see a ceasefire in Gaza and lasting peace in the region.
In contrast to other recent statements on the status of Palestine, however, the UK has said it will recognise Palestine as a state in September
unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza and commits to a long term sustainable peace, including through allowing the UN to restart without delay the supply of humanitarian support to the people of Gaza to end starvation, agreeing to a ceasefire, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.
Until this week, the UK’s position had been that recognition would only follow a negotiated two-state solution in Israel-Palestine. Other countries have now begun to shift from that position, too.
The latest UK statement was preceded by announcements from France on July 25 and Canada on July 31 that they too would recognise Palestine as a state in September.
But the UK position is different in one important way: it is conditional on Israel failing to comply with its international humanitarian obligations in Gaza and the West Bank.
In other words, recognition of Palestine as a state by the UK is being used as a stick to persuade Israel to agree to a ceasefire. Should Israel agree to those conditions, the UK will presumably not recognise Palestine as a state in September, but will revert to its original position on a two-state solution.
Conditional recognition subject to action by Israel – a third state – represents an unwelcome and arguably dangerous departure from international practice.
While recognition (or otherwise) of states is inherently political – as demonstrated by the unique status of Taiwan, for example – it is not and should not be made conditional on the action or inaction of third states.
How states are recognised
According to the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, a state must have a permanent population, territory, an independent government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states, as well as self-determination.
Palestine has arguably met all these criteria, with the possible exception of an independent government, given the level of Israeli intervention in the West Bank and the current situation in Gaza.
Although recognition by other states is arguably not a formal criterion of statehood, it is very difficult to function as a state without reasonably widespread recognition by other states.
Some 147 countries – two-thirds of UN members – now recognise the State of Palestine, including Spain, Ireland and Norway, which made announcements in 2024.
Those choosing not to formally recognise a Palestinian state are now in a small minority, including Australia and New Zealand. This is inevitably leading to calls in those countries to change position.
Australia is considering such a shift, subject to conditions similar to those set out by Canada – including the release of Israeli hostages, the demilitarisation of Hamas, and reform of the Palestinian Authority.
New Zealand is currently maintaining its longstanding position of recognising Palestine within the context of a two-state solution. On July 30, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and 13 of his counterparts issued a joint statement – the “New York Call” – demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and reiterating “unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-State solution”.
The statement also asserted that “positive consideration” to recognise the state of Palestine is “an essential step towards the two-state solution”.
Better options are available
The UK’s position, however, introduces another dynamic. By using recognition of Palestine as a tool to punish Israel for its actual and alleged breaches of international law in Gaza, it is implicitly failing to respect Palestine’s right to self-determination.
If Palestine deserves statehood, it is on its own terms, not as a condition of Israel’s policies and actions.
But it is also setting a dangerous precedent. Countries could choose to recognise (or not recognise) states to pressure or punish them (or indeed other states) for breaches of international law. Such breaches may or may not be connected to the state actually seeking recognition.
This is important, because the post-colonial settlement of geographical boundaries remains deeply insecure in many regions. As well, low-lying island nations at risk of losing territory from sea-level rise may also find their status challenged, as territory has traditionally been a requirement of statehood.
The UK’s apparent conditional recognition of Palestine is only likely to increase this international instability around statehood.
While the UK’s announcement may be “clever politics” from a domestic perspective, and avoids outright US opposition internationally, it has conflated two separate issues.
The better option would be for the UK to recognise Palestine as a state, joining a growing number of countries that plan to do so in advance of the UN General Assembly meeting in September. It could make this subject to conditions, including the release of hostages and exclusion of Hamas from Palestinian governance.
And it should continue to press Israel to agree to a ceasefire in addition to the other demands set out in its announcement, and hold Israel accountable for its gross breaches of international law in Gaza. It can back up those demands with appropriate diplomatic and trade sanctions.
New Zealand, too, has a range of options available, and can help increase the pressure on Israel by using them.
Karen Scott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The world’s oceans are being rapidly transformed as climate change intensifies. Corals are bleaching, sea levels are rising, and seawater is becoming more acidic – making life difficult for shellfish and reef-building corals. All this and more is unfolding on our watch, with profound consequences for marine ecosystems and the people who depend on them.
In response, scientists, governments and industries are trying to intervene.
People all over the world are experimenting with new ways to capture and store more carbon dioxide, or make up for damage already done.
Ocean-based climate actions include breeding more heat-tolerant corals, restoring mangroves, and farming seaweed. Such interventions offer hope, but they’re also inherently risky. Some may be ineffective, inequitable or even harmful.
The pace of innovation is now outstripping the capacity to responsibly regulate, monitor and evaluate these interventions. This means current and future generations may not be getting value for money, or worse – the chance to avoid irreversible change may be slipping away.
In our new research, published in Science, we reviewed the latest evidence on known and perceived risks of new ocean-based climate interventions. We then gathered emerging ideas on how to reduce those risks.
We found the risks aren’t being widely considered, and the benefits are unclear. But there are emerging assessment tools and planning frameworks we can build on, to plan ocean-based climate actions that meet humanity’s climate goals.
The promise and peril of marine climate interventions
Marine climate interventions vary in scope and ambition. Examples can be found all over the world. These include:
Each has its own set of benefits, costs and risks. For example, making the ocean more alkaline may help to squeeze in more carbon from the atmosphere, but it’s difficult to verify how much carbon has been removed. This makes it hard to justify the costs and the potential damage to ecosystems, such as effects on local fish populations.
Seaweed farming at scale would occupy thousands if not millions of square kilometres of oceans, displacing fishing, shipping and conservation. Harvesting 1 billion tonnes of seaweed carbon would require farming more than 1 million square km of the Pacific Ocean, and would deliver just 10% of the annual atmospheric carbon dioxide removal required to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
It’s doubtful whether seaweed farming would actually remove carbon from the atmosphere. But seaweed farming can – if well-planned – produce a range of other climate-related benefits.
Moreover, interventions often overlap in space and time, creating cumulative impacts and unintended consequences. In some cases, the projects may displace other users, undermine Indigenous rights, or erode public trust in climate science and policy. Without careful understanding and planning, these efforts could exacerbate the very problems they aim to solve.
Governance gaps and ethical dilemmas
One of the most pressing challenges is the lack of regulation and oversight suited to the scale and complexity of marine climate interventions.
Ethical dilemmas abound. Who decides what constitutes a “healthy” ocean? Who bears responsibility if an intervention causes harm? And how do we ensure benefits — such as improved livelihoods or climate resilience — are equitably distributed?
Currently, scientists, funding bodies and non-government organisations do the bulk of the decision-making. There is limited input from governments, local communities and Indigenous Peoples. This imbalance risks perpetuating historical injustices and undermining the legitimacy of many ocean-based climate actions.
Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement has been proposed for St Ives in Cornwall. diego_torres, pixabug, FAL
Toward responsible marine transformation
We identified opportunities for scientists, policymakers, and funding bodies to work together more effectively on more comprehensive assessments of interventions.
Guidelines and insights are emerging from experimental-scale research into capturing and storing “blue” carbon in ocean and coastal ecosystems. Similarly, a non-profit organisation in the United States has developed a code of conduct for marine carbon dioxide removal. However these guidelines are yet to be integrated into broader governance frameworks.
Awareness of the urgent need to ensure intervention is done responsibly is also growing. Many high-level policy documents now recognise the importance of transitioning to more sustainable, equitable, and adaptive states. For example, the Samoa Climate Change Policy 2020 recognises the need to adapt coastal economies and communities to warming oceans, while also working to reduce carbon emissions.
We can use the ocean in our fight against climate change (United Nations)
Proceed with caution
The ocean is central to our climate future. It absorbs heat, stores carbon, and sustains life. But it is also vulnerable — and increasingly, a site of experimentation. If we are to harness the promise of ocean-based climate action, we must do so with care, humility, and foresight.
Responsible governance is not a barrier to innovation — it is its foundation. By embedding ethical, inclusive, and evidence-based principles into our marine climate strategies, we can chart a course toward a more resilient and equitable ocean future.
Emily M. Ogier receives salary support from the Australia Research Council. She receives funding from The Nature Conservancy, the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and the Blue economy Centre for Research Excellence. She is affiliated with the Centre for Marine Socioecology.
Gretta Pecl receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Department of Agriculture Water and the Environment, Department of Primary Industries NSW, Department of Premier and Cabinet (Tasmania), the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, The Ian Potter Foundation and has received travel funding support from the Australian government for participation in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change process. She is affiliated with the Biodiversity Council and the Centre for Marine Socioecology.
Tiffany Morrison receives funding from the Australian Research Council Laureate and Discovery Programmes, WorldFish-CGIAR ( (formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research), and The Nature Conservancy Science for Nature and People Partnership.
Driven by a desire to explore Nigeria’s literary and cultural history beyond the metropolis of Lagos, I took a road trip to Ibadan, once the most important university town in the country. Ibadan, in Oyo State, was the first city in Nigeria to have a university set up in 1948.
It’s the city where celebrated Nigerian artist and architect Demas Nwoko imagined and built his utopias. Where the Oxford University Press and Heinemann Educational Books established their west African headquarters.
Books have always been a form of cultural currency in Ibadan. The presence of major publishers meant that bookshops were not just retail outlets, but intellectual salons, sites of encounter and exchange.
So while in Ibadan I visited cultural spaces and independent bookshops but it was the charms of the University campus that mostly captured my imagination. And my favourite place was the University of Ibadan Bookshop. At this campus bookshop I lingered the most, in awe and wonder. Its eclectic range of books, journals, public lecture pamphlets, novels, poetry collections and monographs excited me.
Today, when the global publishing economy has increasingly digitised and centralised, the bookshop feels almost radical just by existing. It’s a reminder that intellectual life in Africa is not peripheral or derived from the west. It is present, prolific and profoundly local. To walk through the shelves of this bookshop was to encounter a history of African thought written and produced on its own terms.
As a scholar of African literature and archives, my research traces the hidden lives of spaces that have shaped publishing and archives. University bookshops have been overlooked but are essential nodes in the continent’s intellectual history.
A snapshot of Nigeria
This campus bookshop gives a snapshot of Nigeria as a print country. Here we witness the nation through its printed matter. A nation of prolific publishing. I found the literary output in the Ibadan campus bookshop not only vast but exuberant and unrelenting. It reflects the texture of the Nigerian personality: loud, boisterous, layered and insistent. Stacks upon stacks of books.
In these stacks, it dawned on me that beneath the surface lies a vibrant, ongoing literary discourse that is unmistakably Nigerian, and sadly not resonant far beyond its borders. These are books you don’t see on reference lists of “popular” and “influential” scholarship that privileges work produced and imported to Africa from the Euro-American academy.
I was especially intrigued with how the Nigerian academic and writer does not tire in producing academic and cultural journals. There are journals for every subject under the sun.
While the critical framework of African literature is too often shaped by the global north (see critiques by Ato Quayson, Biodun Jeyifo, Simon Gikandi and Grace Musila) in Ibadan, I saw a distinctly local and deeply African critical discourse rooted in place, language and lived experience. To walk into the University of Ibadan Bookshop is to step into legacy. Its shelves bear the weight of decades of African thought, theory and storytelling.
Despite being housed in an ageing building, it has stayed defiant. Even though floods destroyed books and computers worth a small fortune in 2019, the bookshop is still standing proudly. And there was pride too among the staff who were eager to help or answer any questions about the books.
More than bookshops
The University of Ibadan bookshop reminded me of the bookshop from my undergraduate days in Zimbabwe. Even though our campus bookshop was much smaller, I used to find pleasure going there in between lectures. It often felt like walking into a vault of African knowledge and memory.
Our bookshop at Midlands State University stocked old, canonical books alongside current literature. On occasion, rare, out-of-print secondhand books would appear on the shelves. The bargain sales also meant I spent most of my money there.
But to call these spaces on African university campuses “bookshops” hardly does them justice. They are hybrid cultural ecosystems that function as part bookshop, part print shop, stationer, library and sometimes even archive. They have long served as vital nodes in the circulation of African knowledge and thought.
Yet this ecosystem is rapidly eroding, undermined by the rise of internet culture, artificial intelligence, piracy and harsh economic conditions. The result is a slow but devastating disappearance of African intellectual memory. As scholars remind us, digital platforms are not neutral. They are structured by algorithms that often marginalise black and African knowledge. So, the loss of these analogue spaces is more than nostalgic, it is epistemic erasure.
In this digital age, there is something vital about the physical presence of bookshops on African campuses. Thanks to them, as a student, for me literature was the serendipity of discovery, the tactile feel of books, the beautiful persistence of a local knowledge system that was relatable and produced by people like me.
On the way out of the city, we stopped at Bower’s Tower. From there you can see Ibadan’s sprawling layout, the ancient hills from which the settlement was built, and its red roofs.
The view reflected the complexity and density of ideas the city has nurtured. And despite shifts in Nigeria’s publishing geography from here to Lagos and Abuja, Ibadan still matters. It’s a city that remembers, that archives, that holds on to knowledge.
Tinashe Mushakavanhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Beneath churchyards in London and Lincolnshire lie the chemical echoes of famine, infection and survival preserved in the teeth of those who lived through some of the most catastrophic periods in English history.
In a new study, my colleagues and I examined over 270 medieval skeletons to investigate how early-life malnutrition affected long-term health and life expectancy.
We focused on people who lived through the devastating period surrounding the Black Death (1348-1350), which included years of famine during the little ice age and the great bovine pestilence (an epidemic that killed two-thirds of cattle in England and Wales). We found that the biological scars of childhood deprivation during this time left lasting marks on the body.
These findings suggest that early nutritional stress, whether in the 14th century or today, can have consequences that endure well beyond childhood.
Children’s teeth act like tiny time capsules. The hard layer inside each tooth, called dentine, sits beneath the enamel and forms while we’re growing up. Once formed, it stays unchanged for life, creating a permanent record of what we ate and experienced.
As our teeth develop, they absorb different chemical versions (isotopes) of carbon and nitrogen from our food, and these get locked into the tooth structure. This means scientists can read the story of someone’s childhood diet by analysing their teeth.
A method of measuring the chemical changes in sequential slices of the teeth is a recent advance used to identify dietary changes in past populations with greater accuracy.
When children are starving, their bodies break down their fat stores and muscle to continue growing. This gives a different signature in the newly formed dentine than the isotopes from food. These signatures make centuries-old famines visible today, showing exactly how childhood trauma affected health in medieval times.
We identified a distinctive pattern that had been seen before in victims of the great Irish famine. Normally, when people eat a typical diet, the levels of carbon and nitrogen in their teeth move in the same direction. For example, both might rise or fall together if someone eats more plants or animals. This is called “covariance” because the two markers vary together.
But during starvation, nitrogen levels in the teeth rise while carbon levels stay the same or drop. This opposite movement – called “opposing covariance” – is like a red flag in the teeth that shows when a child was starving. These patterns helped us pinpoint the ages at which people experienced malnutrition.
Lifelong legacy
Children who survived this period reached adulthood during the plague years, and the effect on their growth was recorded in the chemical signals in their teeth. People with famine markers in their dentine had different mortality rates than those who lacked these markers.
For example, babies born small, a possible sign of nutritional stress, seem to be more prone to illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes in adulthood than the population at large. These characteristics can also be passed to future offspring through changes in how genes are switched on or off, known as “epigenetic effects” – which can endure for three generations.
Epigenetics explained.
In medieval England, early nutritional deprivation may have been beneficial during catastrophic times by producing adults of short stature and the capacity to store fat, but these people were much more likely to die after the age of 30 than their peers with healthy childhood dentine patterns.
The patterns for childhood starvation increased in the decades leading up to the Black Death and declined after 1350. This suggests the pandemic may have indirectly improved living conditions by reducing population pressure and increasing access to food.
The medieval teeth tell us something urgent about today. Right now, millions of children worldwide are experiencing the same nutritional crises that scarred those long-dead English villagers – whether from wars in Gaza and Ukraine or poverty in countless countries.
Their bodies are writing the same chemical stories of survival into their growing bones and teeth, creating biological problems that will emerge decades later as heart disease, diabetes and early death.
Our latest findings aren’t just historical curiosities; they’re an urgent warning that the children we fail to nourish today will carry those failures in their bodies for life and pass them on to their own children. The message from the medieval graves couldn’t be clearer: feed the children now or pay the price for generations.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
Julia Beaumont receives funding from Arts and Humanities research council, British Academy/Leverhulme.
Over a fifth of people in the UK have tried to access a weight loss drug in the last year, according to a recent poll.
Weight loss jabs such as Mounjaro (tirzepatide) and Wegovy (semaglutide) are very effective in managing obesity. Clinical trials have shown that some people lose up to 26% of their body weight while using these drugs.
With this impact, it’s no wonder a growing number of people are seeking out these products – often buying them in private clinics or online. But with plans to expand access to these drugs through NHS prescriptions, there are concerns that supply may not meet demand – especially for those people in most need.
In the UK, NHS prescriptions for weight loss jabs are only approved for people who meet strict eligibility requirements. For example, to qualify early for Mounjaro from your GP, you must have health problems due to your weight and a body mass index greater than 40 (adjusted for ethnicity). People assessed by the NHS and given prescriptions will also have access to additional support – such as advice about diet and physical activity.
Weight loss drugs can be prescribed by specialist clinics and, increasingly, local GPs. But a lack of time and resources means even those who are eligible are left waiting. Consequently, people who can afford to do so are approaching private providers for access to these medicines – despite the potential risks to their health.
Demand for weight loss jabs is about to grow, as the provision of Mounjaro via GPs is imminent, pending the creation of an infrastructure to support safe local prescribing.
The number of monthly GP prescriptions in England for Mounjaro has already risen from under 3,000 in March 2024 (on introduction) to over 200,000 in May 2025. Mounjaro (also marketed in the US as Zepbound) is widely considered to be the best weight loss jab currently available and a great commercial success.
GP prescriptions of all forms of semaglutide (the active ingredient in Wegovy) are more stable, at around 130,000 items per month (including generics and products to treat diabetes).
While a number of GLP-1 drugs faced shortages last year (including Wegovy and Mounjaro), these shortages have now been resolved. Shortages were spurred by a spike in global demand for these drugs alongside stockpiling by private clinics to feed requests.
Still, there were reports early this year that certain strengths of Mounjaro were difficult to access. The reasons for this are not clear, but may be due to the novelty of access to this new medication or a lack of access to alternatives.
Wider NHS access to this drug is being phased to manage staff workload and ensure good support for patients. Phased rollout may also help to ensure there is enough supply for those who need to be prescribed one of these medications.
Future access
It’s likely that demand for these weight loss drugs will only continue to grow in the UK, so it’s important that supply is readily available.
Regulatory agencies have taken some steps to tighten controls of online prescribing of weight loss drugs and prevent misuse. Registered online pharmacies must seek independent verification of key clinical information (such as from a GP or through a person’s medical records) instead of relying on questionnaires or phone calls.
However, weight loss products remain easy to access for people with money and savvy search skills, but who may be clinically ineligible. The scale of demand from this group is difficult to quantify, but it’s clear more needs to be done to keep patients safe and manage demand.
Several new weight loss drugs are undergoing trials in the UK. These drugs will work similarly to those already available but may be administered differently (such as an oral tablet). The trials for these and subsequent approvals will not only increase market competition, but also improve patient access and choice.
Key patents for the manufacture of semaglutide are also due to expire in 2026 and 2031. Once a pharmaceutical product is outside of its patented time frame, other companies can be approved to manufacture it as a generic product.
A generic product is approved on the basis that it works in the same manner and has equal benefits to the original product. The generics market allows new entrants and new versions of these very popular products onto the market.
Generic products are usually less expensive and so are bought (where still clinically safe and effective) by the NHS. This change could provide greater access to weight loss medications and save the NHS and patients money in the long term.
Generic semaglutide products will probably be available in the UK from 2032 but will be initially authorised to treat diabetes rather than weight loss. Still, this should have a positive impact on the availability of prescription drugs used for both diabetes and weight management.
Generic liraglutide is already available on the NHS for the treatment of diabetes. The liraglutide brand Saxenda is also marketed for weight management. However, liraglutide is less effective than Wegovy or Mounjaro and requires daily injections.
The number of monthly NHS prescriptions for liraglutide has fallen from over 40,000 in July 2020 to 1,000 in May 2025. This fall was most likely influenced by the discontinuation of the Victoza brand for type 2 diabetes in late 2024. Shortages of all types of GLP-1 drugs, which lasted until the end of 2024, may also have impacted demand for liraglutide.
For now, NHS staff can report on known demand for these products to inform manufacturing quantities and procurement. What isn’t known is the future demand for online or private purchases of weight management drugs. It’s this “unknown” demand that may mean supply security is challenged and unsustainable.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ioanna Stamataki, Senior Lecturer in Hydraulics and Water Engineering, University of Greenwich
In recent years, I have all too often found myself passing over an active wildfire when flying from London to my family home in Greece during the summer months. The sky glows an eerie, apocalyptic red, and the scent of smoke fills the cabin. Silence falls as we become unwilling witnesses to a tragic spectacle.
Now wildfires are again raging across the Mediterranean. But the flames themselves are only part of the story. As wildfires become more intense and frequent, they’re setting off a dangerous chain reaction – one that also includes a rising risk of devastating floods.
Author’s photo from a plane landing in Athens last summer. Ioanna Stamataki
In January 2024, Nasa reported that climate change is intensifying wildfire conditions, noting that the frequency of the most extreme wildfires had more than doubled over the past two decades. While some of this is driven by natural weather variability, human-induced warming is clearly playing a major role. Decades of rising temperatures combined with longer and more severe droughts have created ideal conditions for wildfires to ignite and spread.
This year, another brutal Mediterranean wildfire season is unfolding right before our eyes, with numerous active wildfire fronts across the region. As of July 22 2025, 237,153 hectares have burned in the EU – an increase of nearly 78% from the same period last year. The number of fires rose by about 45%, and CO₂ emissions increased by 23% compared to 2024. These are terrifying statistics.
Climate phenomena are closely interconnected
The fires themselves are bad enough. But they’re also closely connected to other climate-related extremes, including floods.
Natural hazards often trigger chain reactions, turning one disaster into many. In the case of floods, wildfires play a big role both through weather patterns and how the land responds to rain.
On the weather side, higher temperatures lead to more extreme rainfall, as warmer air can hold more moisture and fuels stronger storms. Intense wildfires can sometimes get so hot they generate their own weather systems, like pyrocumulus clouds – towering storm clouds formed by heat, smoke and water vapour. These clouds can spark sudden, localised storms during or shortly after the fire.
The damage doesn’t end when the flames die down. Satellite data shows that burned land can remain up to 10°C hotter for nearly a year, due to lost vegetation and damaged soil.
As the world warms, the atmosphere is able to hold about 7% more moisture for every extra degree. Recent temperatures of 40°C or more in Greece suggest a capacity for more downpours and more flooding.
Wildfires also make the land itself more vulnerable to flooding. Burnt areas respond much faster to rain, as there is less vegetation to slow down the water. Wildfires also change the soil structure, often making it water-repellent. This means more water runs off the surface, erosion increases, and it takes less rain to trigger a flood.
Under these conditions, a storm expected once every ten years can cause the sort of catastrophic flooding expected only every 100 to 200 years. Water moves much faster across scorched landscapes without plants to slow it down. Wildfires also leave behind a lot of debris, which can be swept up by fast-moving floodwaters.
While EU-wide data on post-wildfire flood risk is still limited, various case studies from southern Europe offer strong evidence of the connection. In Spain’s Ebro River Basin, for example, research found that if emissions remain high and climate policy is limited, wildfires will increase the probability of high flood risk by 10%.
Nature’s ability to regenerate is nothing short of magical, but recovering from a wildfire takes time. Burnt soil takes years to return to normal and, during that time, the risks of extreme rainfall are higher. Beyond the impact of wildfires on soil and water, it is important not to overlook the devastating loss of plant and animal species or even entire ecosystems, making the natural world less biodiverse and resilient.
To reduce the frequency and severity of extreme events, we must focus on repairing climate damage. This means moving beyond isolated perspectives and adopting a multi-hazard approach that recognises how disasters are connected.
Flooding after wildfires is just one example of how one crisis can trigger another. We need to recognise these cascading risks and focus on long-term resilience over short-term fixes.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
Ioanna Stamataki currently receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust and the Royal Society for ongoing flood research. Previous research has been supported by the EPSRC and the Newton Fund (via the British Council) for career development and international collaboration.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Kenneth Paranada, Curator of Art and Climate Change, University of East Anglia
Water is at the heart of the disruption wrought by climate change. The seas, once seen as vast and stable, are now unpredictable and restless.
That tidy, looping diagram of the water cycle once pinned up in primary school classrooms – clouds, rivers, evaporation and rain – now reads more like a fragmented recollection than a dependable process. Human impact has cracked that once-stable loop wide open.
Sea levels inch upward year on year. Droughts grow more prolonged and severe. Rainfall becomes erratic and violent. What was once spoken of in future tense is now present and pressing.
In Norfolk, land and sea have long coexisted in an uneasy truce. Here, the threat of sea level rise is not a speculative concern, it is data-backed, visible and accelerating.
According to research from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, vast swathes of Norfolk risk being submerged by rising seas if global temperatures rise by even two degrees celsius. It is one of the most at-risk areas in the UK.
Against this backdrop comes the Sainsbury Centre’s exhibition, A World of Water (part of the Can the Seas Survive Us? season). In the show, water is explored as subject, medium and metaphor. It is both agent and witness, shaping civilisations, sustaining life, and now challenging our ability to coexist with it.
Curated through an interdisciplinary lens, the exhibition was shaped by deep collaboration with scientists, artists, ecologists, activists and coastal communities. Rooted in lived experience, from a two-day walk along the Wherry Man’s Way to a 36-hour sail aboard a 1921 fishing smack, the curatorial process traced fragile coastlines and the North Sea’s rapid transformation into an industrial nexus of energy infrastructures.
Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.
The curatorial approach to the show embraces the multifaceted nature of water by weaving together maritime history, Indigenous knowledge and contemporary works rooted in the artists’ experiences.
Many of the participating artists hail from communities already wrestling with rising tides and the realities of climate disruption. Their contributions form three thematic currents: Mudplume, Water Water Everywhere and In a State of Flux.
These overlapping threads investigate how water connects, nourishes and imperils. Rather than positioning the sea as a line of division, the exhibition reframes it as a living, connective tissue linking culture, history and ecology.
A curatorial geomorphology of the sea
Guidance for the exhibition’s conceptual framework came, fittingly, from water itself. Its mutable nature – solid, liquid, vapour – shaped the rhythm of the curatorial process. Rather than impose a rigid thesis, the exhibition offers an ever-shifting constellation of perspectives.
The exhibition journey begins with sound. Visitors are welcomed by a low murmur, tides lapping, water dripping, echoing through the museum entrance. This leads to Spiral Fosset (2024), a sculptural work by the Dutch collective De Onkruidenier.
Mirroring the central staircase of the museum, the piece suggests the brackish confluence where fresh and saltwater mingle. From here, the viewer descends into the lower galleries, reimagined as an estuary.
Within the lower galleries, artworks unfold like coastal mudflats at low tide. Seventeenth-century Dutch seascapes hang alongside photographs, video works and sculptures made from plastic waste. Sands from the beaches of Cromer, Happisburgh and Cley are featured, anchoring the exhibition in local terrain.
East Anglia’s centuries-old ties with the Low Countries form a steady through line. Hendrick van Anthonissen’s View of Scheveningen Sands (1641) shares space with works by Norwich School masters such as John Sell Cotman, John Crome and Robert Ladbrooke.
This approach privileges resonance over chronology. The exhibition avoids a linear march through time in favour of prioritising association, connection and drift. For instance, Shore Compass by Olafur Eliasson (2019) sits in subtle dialogue with Jodocus Hondius’s 1589 Drake Map an early cartographic rendering of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the world.
Created during the height of European maritime expansion and colonialism, the map illustrates the interplay between empire, navigation and power. Time, like tide, is allowed to meander.
The exhibition adopts what might be called a “curatorial geomorphology”: a way of curating that draws on the sculpting force of water. In the natural sciences, geomorphology examines how landscapes are formed and reshaped by flowing water, storms and tides, while hydrology traces water’s movement through the environment.
This curatorial approach translates those scientific ideas into a cultural and creative practice. Like a river, it flows through histories, stories and meanings. What unfolds is a tidal narrative, an estuary of thought where time loosens, the present deepens and new futures begin to surface.
Visitors to A World of Water can expect something different from a traditional gallery experience. It invites you to think with the seas, to tune into their rhythms, tensions and secret lives.
As you wander through the galleries, you enter a realm shaped by flux, expect to feel and reimagine a world where land, water and life move as one. And perhaps, by moving as water does, we may begin to sense an answer to the question: Can the Seas Survive Us? Not in certainty, but through our collective and individual actions toward a more regenerative and sustainable future.
A World of Water is at the Sainsbury Centre Norwich until August 3. It’s part of a six-month season of interlinked exhibitions and events that explore the question: “Can the seas survive us?”
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
John Kenneth Paranada received funding from the John Ellerman Foundation; the Art Fund’s Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grant; the Association of Art Museum Curators’ EPIC Curatorial Fellowship Award; the Mondriaan Fund’s International Art Presentation Grant; the Kingdom of the Netherlands’ Cultural Diplomacy Grant; and Arts Council England’s National Lottery Fund for the project A World of Water: Can the Seas Survive Us? at the Sainsbury Centre.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Blackett, Reader in Physical Geography and Natural Hazards, Coventry University
After a massive earthquake off the coast of Kamchatka, a peninsula in the far east of Russia, on July 30 2025, the world watched as the resultant tsunami spread from the epicentre and across the Pacific Ocean at the speed of a jet plane.
In some local areas, such as in Russia’s northern Kuril Islands, tsunami waves reached heights of over three metres. However, across the Pacific there was widespread relief in the hours that followed as the feared scenario of large waves striking coastal communities did not materialise. Why was this?
Not all underwater earthquakes result in tsunamis. For a tsunami to be generated, the Earth’s crust at the earthquake site must be pushed upwards in a movement known as vertical displacement. This typically occurs during reverse faulting, or its shallow-angled form known as thrust faulting, where one block of the Earth’s crust is forced up and over another, along what is called a fault plane.
It is no coincidence that this type of faulting movement occurred at a subduction zone on “the Pacific ring of fire”, where the dense oceanic Pacific plate is being forced beneath the less dense Eurasian continental plate.
These zones are known for generating powerful earthquakes and tsunamis because they are sites of intense compression, which leads to thrust faulting and the sudden vertical movement of the seafloor. Indeed, it was the ring of fire that was also responsible for the two most significant tsunami-generating earthquakes of recent times: the 2004 Indonesian Boxing Day and March 2011 Tohoku earthquakes.
Why did the Indonesian and Japanese earthquakes generate waves over 30 metres high, but the recent magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Kamchatka (one of the strongest ever recorded) didn’t? The answer lies in the geology involved in these events.
In the case of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, the sea floor was measured to have risen by up to five metres within a rupture zone of 750,000 sq km.
For the tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, estimates indicate the seafloor was thrust upwards by nearly three metres within a rupture zone of 90,000 sq km.
Preliminary data from the recent Kamchatka event has been processed into what geologists call a finite fault model. Rather than representing the earthquake as a single point, these models show where and how the crust ruptured, including the length of that rupture in Earth’s crust, its depth and what direction it followed.
The model results show that the two sides of the fault slipped by up to ten metres along a fault plane of 18°, resulting in about three metres of vertical uplift. Think of it like walking ten metres up an 18° slope: you don’t rise ten metres into the air, you only rise about three metres, because most of your movement is forward rather than upward.
However, since much of this occurred at depths greater than 20km (over an area of 70,000 sq km) the seabed displacement would probably have been reduced as the overlying rock layers absorbed and diffused the motion before it reached the surface.
For comparison, the associated slippage for the Tohoku and Indonesian events was as shallow as 5km in places.
An added complication
So, while the size of sea floor uplift is key to determining how much energy a tsunami begins with, it is the processes that follow – as the wave travels and interacts with the coastline – that can transform an insignificant tsunami into a devastating wall of water at the shore.
As a tsunami travels across the open ocean it is often barely noticeable – a long, low ripple spread over tens of kilometres. But as it nears land, the front of the wave slows down due to friction with the seabed, while the back continues at speed, causing the wave to rise in height. This effect is strongest in places where the sea floor gets shallow quickly near the coast.
The shape of the coastline is also important. Bays, inlets and estuaries can act like funnels that further amplify the wave as it reaches shore. Crescent City in California is a prime example. Fortunately however, when the wave arrived in Crescent City on July 30 2025, it reached a height of just 1.22 metres – still the highest recorded in the continental US.
So, not every powerful undersea earthquake leads to a devastating tsunami — it depends not just on the magnitude, but on how much the sea floor is lifted and whether that vertical movement reaches the ocean surface.
In the case of the recent Russian quake, although the slip was substantial, much of it occurred at depth, meaning the energy wasn’t transferred effectively to the water above. All of this shows that while earthquake size is important, it’s the precise characteristics of the rupture that truly decide whether a tsunami becomes destructive or remains largely insignificant.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
Matthew Blackett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura Elin Pigott, Senior Lecturer in Neurosciences and Neurorehabilitation, Course Leader in the College of Health and Life Sciences, London South Bank University
Your dog tilts its head when you cry, paces when you’re stressed, and somehow appears at your side during your worst moments. Coincidence? Not even close.
Thousands of years of co-evolution have given dogs special ways to tune in to our voices, faces and even brain chemistry. From brain regions devoted to processing our speech to the “love hormone” or oxytocin that surges when we lock eyes, your dog’s mind is hardwired to pick up on what you’re feeling.
The evidence for this extraordinary emotional intelligence begins in the brain itself. Dogs’ brains have dedicated areas that are sensitive to voice, similar to those in humans. In a brain imaging study, researchers found that dogs possess voice-processing regions in their temporal cortex that light up in response to vocal sounds.
Dogs respond not just to any sound, but to the emotional tone of your voice. Brain scans reveal that emotionally charged sounds – a laugh, a cry, an angry shout – activate dogs’ auditory cortex and the amygdala – a part of the brain involved in processing emotions.
Dogs are also skilled face readers. When shown images of human faces, dogs exhibit increased brain activity. One study found that seeing a familiar human face activates a dog’s reward centres and emotional centres – meaning your dog’s brain is processing your expressions, perhaps not in words but in feelings.
Dogs don’t just observe your emotions; they can “catch” them too. Researchers call this emotional contagion, a basic form of empathy where one individual mirrors another’s emotional state. A 2019 study found that some dog-human pairs had synchronised cardiac patterns during stressful times, with their heartbeats mirroring each other.
This emotional contagion doesn’t require complex reasoning – it’s more of an automatic empathy arising from close bonding. Your dog’s empathetic yawns or whines are probably due to learned association and emotional attunement rather than literal mind-mirroring.
The oxytocin effect
The most remarkable discovery in canine-human bonding may be the chemical connection we share. When dogs and humans make gentle eye contact, both partners experience a surge of oxytocin, often dubbed the “love hormone”.
In one study, owners who held long mutual gazes with their dogs had significantly higher oxytocin levels afterwards, and so did their dogs.
This oxytocin feedback loop reinforces bonding, much like the gaze between a parent and infant. Astonishingly, this effect is unique to domesticated dogs: hand-raised wolves did not respond the same way to human eye contact. As dogs became domesticated, they evolved this interspecies oxytocin loop as a way to glue them emotionally to their humans. Those soulful eyes your pup gives you are chemically binding you two together.
Beyond eye contact, dogs are surprisingly skilled at reading human body language and facial expressions. Experiments demonstrate that pet dogs can distinguish a smiling face from an angry face, even in photos.
Dogs show a subtle right-hemisphere bias when processing emotional cues, tending to gaze toward the left side of a human’s face when assessing expressions – a pattern also seen in humans and primates.
Dogs rely on multiple senses to discern how you’re feeling. A cheerful, high-pitched “Good boy!” with a relaxed posture sends a very different message than a stern shout with rigid body language. Remarkably, they can even sniff out emotions. In a 2018 study, dogs exposed to sweat from scared people exhibited more stress than dogs that smelled “happy” sweat. In essence, your anxiety smells unpleasant to your dog, whereas your relaxed happiness can put them at ease.
Bred for friendship
How did dogs become so remarkably attuned to human emotions? The answer lies in their evolutionary journey alongside us. Dogs have smaller brains than their wild wolf ancestors, but in the process of domestication, their brains may have rewired to enhance social and emotional intelligence.
Clues come from a Russian fox domestication experiment. Foxes bred for tameness showed increased grey matter in regions related to emotion and reward. These results challenge the assumption that domestication makes animals less intelligent. Instead, breeding animals to be friendly and social can enhance the brain pathways that help them form bonds.
In dogs, thousands of years living as our companions have fine-tuned brain pathways for reading human social signals. While your dog’s brain may be smaller than a wolf’s, it may be uniquely optimised to love and understand humans.
Dogs probably aren’t pondering why you’re upset or realising that you have distinct thoughts and intentions. Instead, they excel at picking up on what you’re projecting and respond accordingly.
So dogs may not be able to read our minds, but by reading our behaviour and feelings, they meet us emotionally in a way few other animals can. In our hectic modern world, that cross-species empathy is not just endearing; it’s evolutionary and socially meaningful, reminding us that the language of friendship sometimes transcends words entirely.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
Laura Elin Pigott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
China’s already vast infrastructure programme has entered a new phase as building work starts on the Motuo hydropower project.
The dam will consist of five cascade hydropower stations arranged from upstream to downstream and, once completed, will be the world’s largest source of hydroelectric power. It will be four times larger than China’s previous signature hydropower project, the Three Gorges Dam, which spans the Yangtse river in central China.
The Chinese premier, Li Qiang, has described the proposed mega dam as the “project of the century”. In several ways, Li’s description is apt. The vast scale of the project is a reflection of China’s geopolitical status and ambitions.
Possibly the most controversial aspect of the dam is its location. The site is on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo river on the eastern rim of the Tibetan plateau. This is connected to the Brahmaputra river which flows into the Indian border state of Arunachal Pradesh as well as Bangladesh. It is an important source of water for Bangladesh and India.
Both nations have voiced concerns over the dam, particularly since it can potentially affect their water supplies. The tension with India over the dam is compounded by the fact that Arunachal Pradesh has been a focal point of Sino-Indian tensions. China claims the region, which it refers to as Zangnan, saying it is part of what it calls South Tibet.
At the same time, the dam presents Beijing with a potentially formidable geopolitical tool in its dealings with the Indian government. The location of the dam means that it is possible for Beijing to restrict India’s water supply.
This potential to control downstream water supply to another country has been demonstrated by the effects that earlier dam projects in the region have had on the nations of the Mekong river delta in 2019. As a result, this gives Beijing a significant degree of leverage over its neighbours.
One country restricting water supply to put pressure on another is by no means unprecedented. In fact in April 2025, following a terror attack by Pakistan-based The Resistance Front in Kashmir, which killed 26 people (mainly tourists), India suspended the Indus waters treaty, restricting water supplies to Pakistani farmers in the region. So the potential for China’s dam to disrupt water flows will further compound the already tense geopolitics of southern Asia.
Concrete titans
The Motuo mega dam is an advertisement of China’s prowess when it comes to large-scale infrastructure projects. China’s expertise with massive infrastructure projects is a big part of modern Chinese diplomacy through its massive belt and road initiative.
This involves joint ventures with many developing nations to build large-scale infrastructure, such as ports, rail systems and the like. It has caused much consternation in Washington and Brussels, which view these initiatives as a wider effort to build Chinese influence at their expense.
The completion of the dam will will bring Beijing significant symbolic capital as a demonstration of China’s power and prosperity – an integral feature of the image of China that Beijing is very keen to promote. It can also be seen as a manifestation of both China’s aspiration and its longstanding fears.
Harnessing the rivers
The Motuo hydropower project also represents the latest chapter of China’s long battle for control of its rivers, a key story in the development of Chinese civilisation.
France 24 report on the construction of the mega dam project.
Such struggles have been embodied in Chinese mythology in the form of the Gun-Yu myth. This tells the story of the way floods displaced the population of ancient China, probably based on an actual flooding at Jishi Gorge on the Yellow River in what is now Qinghai province in 1920BC.
This has led to the common motif of rivers needing human control to abate natural disaster, a theme present in much classical Chinese culture and poetry.
The pursuit of controlling China’s rivers has also been one of the primary influences on the formation of the Chinese state, as characterised by the concept of zhishui 治水 (controlling the rivers). Efforts to control the Yangtze have shaped the centralised system of governance that has characterised China throughout its history. In this sense, the Motuo hydropower project represents the latest chapter in China’s quest to harness the power of its rivers.
Such a quest remains imperative for China and its importance has been further underlined by the challenges of climate change, which has seen natural resources such as water becoming increasingly limited. The Ganges river has already been identified as one of the world’s water scarcity hotspots.
As well as sustaining China’s population, the hydropower provided by the dam is another part of China’s wider push towards self-sufficiency. It’s estimated that the dam could generate 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year – about the same about produced by the whole UK. While this will meet the needs of the local population, it also further entrenches China’s ability to produce cheap electricity – something that has enabled China to become and remain a manufacturing superpower.
Construction has only just begun, but Motuo hydropower project has already become a microcosm of China’s wider push towards development. It’s also a gamechanger in the geopolitics of Asia, giving China the potential to exert greater control in shaping the region’s water supplies. This in turn will give it greater power to shape the geopolitics of the region.
At the same time, it is also the latest chapter of China’s longstanding quest to harness its waterways, which now has regional implications beyond anything China’s previous dynasties could imagine.
Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox.Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.
Tom Harper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Duncan Caillard, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology
Jason Momoa’s historical epic Chief of War, launching August 1 on Apple TV+, is a triumph of Hawaiians telling their own stories – despite the fact their film and TV production industry now struggles to be viable.
The series stars Momoa (Aquaman, Game of Thrones) as Kaʻaina, an ali’i (chief) who fights for – and later rises against – King Kamehameha I during the bloody reunification of Hawaii.
Already receiving advance praise, the nine-episode first season co-stars New Zealand actors Temeura Morrison, Cliff Curtis and Luciane Buchanan, alongside Hawaiian actors Kaina Makua, Brandon Finn and Moses Goods.
A passion project for Momoa, the Hawaiian star co-created the series with writer Thomas Pa’a Sibbett after years in development. With a reported budget of US$340 million, it is one of the most expensive television series ever produced.
It is also a milestone in Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) representation onscreen. Controversially, however, the production only spent a month in Hawaiʻi, and was mostly shot in New Zealand with non-Hawaiian crews.
Momoa has even expressed an interest in New Zealand citizenship, but the choice of location is more a reflection of the troubled state of the film industry in Hawaiʻi. On the other hand, it is a measure of the success of the New Zealand screen industry, with potential lessons for other countries in the Pacific.
Ea o Moʻolelo – story sovereignty
Set at the turn of the 19th century, Chief of War tells the moʻolelo (story, history) of King Kamehameha I’s conquest of the archipelago.
Hawaiʻi was historically governed by aliʻi nui (high chiefs), and each island was ruled independently. Motivated by the threat of European colonisation and empowered by Western weaponry, Kamehameha established the Hawaiian Kingdom, culminating in full unification in 1810.
The series is an important example of what authors Dean Hamer and Kumu Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu have called “Ea o Moʻolelo”, or story sovereignty, which emphasises Indigenous peoples’ right to control their own narrative by respecting the “the inalienable right of a story to its own unique contents, style and purpose”.
Chief of War is also the biggest Hawaiian television series ever produced. Although Hawaiʻi remains a popular setting onscreen, these productions have rarely involved Hawaiians in key decision-making roles.
Sea of troubles
The series hits screens at a time of major disruption in Hollywood, with streaming services upending established business models.
“Linear” network television faces declining viewership and advertising revenue. Movie studios struggle to draw audiences to theatres. The consequences for workers in the the industry have been severe, as the 2023 writers strike showed.
Those changes have had a catastrophic impact on the Hawaiʻi film industry, too.
Long a popular location – Hawaii Five-O (1968-1980, 2010-2020), Magnum P.I. (1980-1988, 2018-2024) and Lost (2004-2010) were all shot on location in Hawaiʻi – it is an expensive place to film.
Actors, crew and production equipment often have to be flown in from the continental United States, and producers compete with tourism for costly accommodation.
Kaina Makua as King Kamehameha and New Zealand actor Luciane Buchanan as Ka’ahumanu in Chief of War. Apple TV+
An industry in transition
These are not uncommon problems in distant locations, and many governments try to attract screen productions through tax incentives and rebates on portions of the production costs.
New Zealand, for example, offers a 20-25% rebate for international productions and 40% for local productions. Hawaiʻi offers a 22-27% rebate.
But this is less than other US states offer, such as Georgia (30%), Louisiana (40%) and New Mexico (40%). Hawaiʻi also has an annual cap of US$50 million on rebates.
To make things even harder, Hawaiʻi offers only limited support for Indigenous filmmakers. Governments in Australia and New Zealand provide targeted funding and support for Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Māori filmmakers.
By contrast, the Hawaiʻi Film Commission doesn’t provide direct grants to local filmmakers or producers (Indigenous or otherwise). Small amounts of government funding have been administered through the Public Broadcasting Service, but this is now in jeopardy after US President Donald Trump recently cut federal funding.
The Hawaiʻi screen industry faces a perfect storm. For the first time since 2004, film and TV production has ground to a halt. Many workers now doubt the long-term sustainability of their careers.
Lessons from Aotearoa NZ
While there are lessons Hawaiʻi legislators and industry leaders could learn from New Zealand’s example, there should also be a measure of caution.
The Hawaiʻi tax credit system is out of date. But despite industry lobbying, legislation to update it failed to reach the floor of the legislature earlier this year. New tax settings would help make local production viable again.
Secondly, decades of investment in Māori cinema have seen it become diverse, engaging and creatively accomplished. Hawaiʻi could benefit from greater direct investment in Hawaiian storytelling, respecting its cultural value even if it doesn’t turn a commercial profit.
On the other hand, New Zealand has a favourable currency exchange rate with the US which can’t be replicated in Hawaiʻi. And New Zealand film production workers have seen their rights to unionise watered down compared to their American peers.
But if Hawaiʻi can get its settings right, a possible second season of Chief of War may yet be filmed there, which could mark a genuine rejuvenation of its own film industry.
Duncan Caillard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
As the cool nights continue, it’s the perfect time to cozy up with a new batch of captivating films and series.
This month’s streaming highlights bring a little bit of everything, from gripping true crime, to thought-provoking political drama, and a nostalgic music documentary on the life and times of piano man Billy Joel.
So grab a blanket (and maybe a snack or two). Your next binge-watch awaits.
One Night in Idaho: The College Murders
Prime Video
I remember seeing the gruesome 2022 murder of four college students in Moscow, Idaho, splashed all over the news in Australia. The world seemed momentarily gripped by the brutality of the killings, which happened in off-campus housing, while two other roommates slept downstairs.
The ensuing investigation was given significantly less attention, though. So when Prime Video dropped this four-episode limited series, well, that was my weekend sorted.
The docuseries features exclusive interviews with the friends and families of the victims, so it doesn’t feel gratuitous. It respectfully recounts the tragedy and explores its continued impact, while honouring the victims. It also builds the kind of tension and disquiet that is so beloved in the true crime genre, but not in a way that makes you feel gross watching it.
Notably, legal proceedings for the case were still underway when One Night in Idaho was released. And the series made it clear there was more to the story which couldn’t be shared with, or by, the producers.
However, the trial has since concluded, with more information now available for anyone wanting to dive deeper into the case. This makes the series an absorbing watch.
– Alexa Scarlata
The Night of the Hunter
Various platforms
In 1955, director Charles Laughton crafted The Night of the Hunter: one of the darkest, strangest fairy tales ever to come out of Hollywood.
Shortly before Ben Harper is hanged for robbing a bank and killing two men, he hides the $10,000 loot in the toy doll of his young daughter Pearl. Only Pearl and her brother John know the secret – until the deranged serial killer-priest Harry Powell hears about the money and sets out to recover it.
Harry marries Willa, Harper’s widow, and then, after killing her, pursues John and Pearl relentlessly across West Virginia.
Robert Mitchum’s depiction of pure evil is one of cinema’s most vivid creations, with LOVE and HATE tattooed on the fingers of each hand.
The film did not align with the mainstream tastes of the era. Audiences and reviewers didn’t know what to make of this abnormal mix of fairy tale logic, nightmarish imagery and biblical allegory.
Successive generations of critics and filmmakers have caught on to its brilliance. Critic Roger Ebert said it was “one of the greatest of all American films”. In 2008, French film magazine Cahiers du cinémavoted it as the second-best film of all time, behind only Citizen Kane (1941).
The Night of the Hunter remains unsettlingly modern, 70 years on.
The highest point in Denmark, Mollehoj, is 171 metres above sea level, so it is plausible to imagine the whole country being overrun by water due to rising sea levels, leading to mass evacuation. This is the basic premise of the Danish series Families Like Ours.
The cleverness of this premise is that it turns comfortable middle-class Danes into refugees, facing hostility, poverty and violence as they seek to resettle. Given Denmark’s hard line on refugees, this makes the series politically powerful, equally so for us in Australia.
The central figure is a young woman, Laura (Amaryllis August), who creates disaster for her family through what she believes is an act of huge empathy. The same is true of Henrik (Magnus Millang), who shoots an innocent man in what he believes is an act of self-defence.
Families Like Ours is not a comfortable series to watch, but it manages to raise central issues of our time, without ever seeming didactic or preachy. It succeeds in combining the personal and the political in a six-part show that is powerful – and leaves enough loose ends for a potential second season.
– Dennis Altman
The Man from Hong Kong
Various platforms
A cinematic firecracker of a film exploded onto international screens 50 years ago, blending martial arts mayhem, Bond-esque set pieces, casual racism – and a distinctly Australian swagger.
From its audacious visual style; to its complex, life-threatening stunts; to its pioneering status as an international co-production, Brian Trenchard-Smith’s The Man from Hong Kong has solidified its place as a cult classic.
A Sydney-based crime lord’s activities come under the scrutiny of a determined Hong Kong detective, Inspector Fang Sing Leng. A fiery East-meets-West martial arts showdown explodes across the Australian landscape, pushing both sides to their limits.
The movie is a playful pastiche that confidently combines martial arts action, police procedurals, spy thrillers, and Westerns, all filtered through a distinctly Australian “crash-zoom” lens.
The film was an influence to Quentin Tarantino and paved the way for films such as Mad Max (1979), particularly in what Trenchard-Smith and his partner in film, stunt legend Grant Page, might call its “cunning stunts”.
The elaborate car chases and explosive stunt setups in The Man from Hong Kong served as prototypes for iconic sequences that would inspire the Mad Max films, among others, a testament to a bygone era of practical effects and thrill seeking audacity.
The Man from Hong Kong remains an exhilarating piece of pure cinema, despite its relatively small budget. It’s an exemplar (and occasional cautionary tale) for filmmakers in terms of international co-production, its cunning stunts, and genre blending.
Based on the book series by Jussi Adler-Olsen, Dept Q is a gripping television adaptation for fans of Nordic noir and British crime drama.
In Edinburgh, Scotland, Detective Chief Inspector Carl Morck (Matthew Goode) has returned to work after a shooting which left him physically and psychologically wounded, his colleague partially paralysed, and another colleague dead.
With the dregs of a budget assigned to cold cases, and a team of misfit officers, Morck sets out to solve the four-year-old case of missing Crown prosecutor, Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie).
We follow Merritt’s story across various stages of her life. We see her as a teenager in the lead-up to a devastating crime that left her brother with a traumatic brain injury, as well as later in life, when she loses a major case involving a wealthy man on trial for his wife’s death.
Shortly after the devastating verdict, Merritt went missing on a ferry ride to her childhood home, on the fictionalised island of Mhòr. Returning to the present, we see she has been held captive inside a hyperbaric chamber for the past four years.
The pressure under which Merritt is kept makes Morck’s investigation high stakes from the start, while the movement between past and present highlights the impacts of past traumatic events on both characters.
Dept Q is a fast-paced, breathless thriller which will leave viewers craving its rumoured second season.
– Jessica Gildersleeve
Billy Joel: And So It Goes
HBO Max
Produced by Tom Hanks, this two-part documentary about singer/songwriter Billy Joel covers more than five decades of music. Created very much from Joel’s perspective, who is also the main narrator, the archival content is fascinating, and the music difficult to deny.
Discussion of Joel’s early suicide attempts are a shocking and terrible reminder of how different things might have been. From here, the role of the women in his life – his wives, daughters, and mother (“his champion”) – becomes vital. Beyond the headlines (particularly with his second wife Christie Brinkley), are partners who were muses, business supporters and emotional support pillars – some of whom gave Joel ultimatums when the time came to battle his alcohol addiction.
Brinkley, as well as Joel’s first wife, Elizabeth Weber, are particularly moving interviewees. They would wait at home, or stand nervously backstage as Joel “went to work” to earn, repair and rebuild against the odds. No spoilers, but let’s just say Joel ended up in trouble more than once.
On the other hand, the men in Joel’s life are often distant: Jewish grandparents who escaped Nazi Germany; a father who left when Joel was small; a half-brother discovered later in life. These losses are never really healed.
Billy Joel: And So It Goes is a five-hour epic, a story of survival and ultimately, of peace. It is, of course, also a reminder of an incredible catalogue of music – joyful, ordinary and wonderful – and the extraordinary life behind it.
– Liz Giuffre
If you or someone you know needs help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14
Gardening Australia, season 36
ABC iView
Since it first aired in 1990, Gardening Australia has offered tips and inspiration from every state and territory on a weekly basis. A perennial favourite, the show seems to possess perpetual appeal for world-weary viewers open to slowing down by growing plants.
The no-nonsense host Peter Cundall helmed the series until 2008 (Cundall died in 2021 at the age of 94). The honour of “King of Compost” now rests with the gregarious Costa Georgiadis, and a wider cast of presenters that has expanded to be more diverse and engaging. One stalwart from the start, Jane Edmanson, is still flourishing in season 36: her episode 4 segment titled “Fronds with Benefits” certainly caught my eye.
Topics covered this season range from small-space innovation and passion projects, to Indigenous knowledge and bush foods, through to permaculture and climate change. Episodes 6 and 20 – specials on native plants and NAIDOC Week, respectively – are both worth a watch.
While the series can distance renters, and might not be edgy enough for younger audiences, it has managed to stake out ground in the digital realm – with a blooming online presence for budding green thumbs.
One of the longest-running Australian shows still on air, it doesn’t look as though Gardening Australia will be pulling up roots anytime soon.
– Phoebe Hart
The Buccaneers, season two
Apple TV
Loosen your corsets, The Buccaneers is back for a second season of feminist sisterhood and fabulous gowns.
Adapted from Edith Wharton’s unfinished final novel, the series follows a group of outspoken young American women navigating the marriage market in 1870s Victorian England. Gleefully anachronistic with feisty girl power speeches and a contemporary pop music soundtrack, The Buccaneers is equal parts Bridgerton and Gossip Girl (complete with a character played by Leighton Meester).
Season two picks up where the first left off, with Jinny (Imogen Waterhouse) and Guy (Matthew Broome) fleeing the country to escape Jinny’s violent husband Lord James Seadown (Barney Fishwick).
Meanwhile, sister Nan (Kristine Froseth) is busy back home leveraging her position as Duchess of Tintagel to help facilitate Jinny’s return – a campaign that includes wearing a showstopping red gown to a black and white ball. In keeping with the series’ M.O., this might be narrative nonsense, but it looks exquisite.
While trysts and love triangles continue to provide escapist entertainment, Jinny’s abusive marriage dominates later episodes. If season one sought to expose the isolation and entrapment Jinny endured in her marriage, season two foregrounds her resistance in the face of it, intent on highlighting how perpetrators of violence manipulate legal and medical systems to tighten the noose around victims’ necks.
Season two’s veering between frothy excess and melodrama arguably results in some tonal patchiness. Nonetheless, it should be commended for its careful treatment of the corrosive impacts and dangers of coercive control. This – more than the downloadable soundtrack and dazzling costumes – makes it good viewing.
– Rachel Williamson
Dangerous Animals
Prime Video
Dangerous Animals is perhaps the most original and entertaining shark horror film we have seen since Jaws – incorporating traditional elements of the shark thriller genre, while challenging them at the same time.
The film starts with the primal fear of being eaten alive by monstrous sharks, with gruesome shock-thrill scenes of tourists being torn apart in a blood red ocean.
But later, the narrative reminds us it is the boat captain, not the great white, who is the real sadistic killer. Predictably, we see a young bikini-clad woman who gets horribly dismembered (just like the first unforgettable victim in Jaws).
However, it is also a fearless bikini-clad woman, Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) who turns the tables on the boat captain, outwits him, rescues her boyfriend and even makes friends with the shark.
Dangerous Animals includes some interesting subtext and commentary, such as when it compares women to fish – creatures hunted for sport – and when it highlights the inherent cruelty of fishing, and the hook that impales the prey.
The film delivers sophisticated special effects and gruesome eco-horror entertainment. It is a fun, self-aware and postmodern watch that will leave you thinking.
The Australian influence is delightfully evident in the irreverent humour. And for anyone who has been to the Gold Coast, there is much pleasure in seeing the film play out across its iconic locations.
This film will trigger your childhood fear of Jaws – but with a twist.
– Susan Hopkins
Shark Whisperer
Netflix
In Shark Whisperer, the great white shark gets an image makeover – from Jaws villain to misunderstood friend and admirer.
However the star of the documentary is not so much the shark, but the model and marine conservationist Ocean Ramsey (yes, that’s her real name).
The film centres on Ramsey’s self-growth journey, with the shark co-starring as a quasi-spiritual medium for finding meaning and purpose (not to mention celebrity status).
Whisperer and the Ocean Ramsey website tap into the collective fascination with dangerous sharks fuelled by popular culture. Many online images show Ramsey in a bikini or touching sharks – she’s small, and vulnerable in the face of great whites. As with forms of celebrity humanitarianism, what I have dubbed “sexy conservationism” leaves itself open to criticism about its methods – even if its intentions are good.
Globally at least 80 million sharks are killed every year. Thanks in part to the hashtag activism of Ocean Ramsey and her millions of fans and followers, Hawaii was the first state in the United States to outlaw shark fishing.
So, Ramsey may be right to argue her ends justify the means.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Late in the evening, the Antarctic sky flushes pink. The male leopard seal wakes and slips from the ice into the water. There, he’ll spend the night singing underwater amongst the floating ice floes.
For the next two months he sings every night. He will sing so loudly, the ice around him vibrates. Each song is a sequence of trills and hoots, performed in a particular pattern.
In a world first, we analysed leopard seal songs and found the predictability of their patterns was remarkably similar to the nursery rhymes humans sing.
We think this is a deliberate strategy. While leopard seals are solitary animals, the males need their call to carry clearly across vast stretches of icy ocean, to woo a mate.
Solitary leopard seals want their call to carry. Ozge Elif Kizil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Leopard seals are especially vocal during breeding season, which lasts from late October to early January. A female leopard seal sings for a few hours on the days she is in heat. But the males are the real showstoppers.
Each night, the males perform underwater solos for up to 13 hours. They dive into the sea, singing underwater for about two minutes before returning to the water’s surface to breathe and rest. This demanding routine continues for weeks.
Within a leopard seal population, the sounds themselves don’t vary much in pitch or duration. But the order and pattern in which the sounds are produced varies considerably between individuals.
Our research examined these individual songs. We compared them to that of other vocal animals, and to human music.
Listening to songs from the sea
The data used in the study was collected by one author of this article, Tracey Rogers, in the 1990s.
Rogers rode her quad bike across the Antarctic ice to the edge of the sea and marked 26 individual male seals with dye as they slept. Then she returned to record their songs at night.
The new research involved analysing these recordings, to better understand their structure and patterns. We did this by measuring the “entropy” of their sequences. Entropy measures how predictable or random a sequence is.
What stood out was the similarity between the predictability of human nursery rhymes and leopard seal calls. Nursery rhymes are simple, repetitive and easy to remember — and that’s what we heard in the leopard seal songs.
The range of “entropy” was similar to the 39 nursery rhymes from the Golden Song Book, a collection of words and sheet music for classic children’s songs, which was first published in 1945. It includes classics such:
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
Frère Jacques
Ring Around a Rosy
Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
Humpty Dumpty
Three Blind Mice
Rockabye Baby.
For humans, the predictable structure of a nursery rhyme melody helps make it simple enough for a child to learn. For a leopard seal, this predictability may enable the individual to learn its song and keep singing it over multiple days. This consistency is important, because changes in pitch or frequency can create miscommunication.
Like sperm whales, leopard seals may also use song to set themselves apart from others and signal their fitness to reproduce. The greater structure in the songs helps ensure listeners accurately receive the message and identify who is singing.
Male leopard seals produce high-pitched cricket-like trills.
An evolving song?
Leopard seals sound very different to humans. But our research shows the complexity and structure of their songs is remarkably similar to our own nursery rhymes.
Communication through song is a very common animal behaviour. However, structure and predictability in mammal song has only been studied in a handful of species. We know very little about what drives it.
Understanding animal communication is important. It can improve conservation efforts and animal welfare, and provide important information about animal cognition and evolution.
Technology has advanced rapidly since our recordings were made in the 1990s. In future, we hope to revisit Antarctica to record and study further, to better understand if new call types have emerged, and if patterns of leopard seal song evolve from generation to generation.
Tracey Rogers receives funding from ARC.
Lucinda Chambers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marlee Bower, Senior Research Fellow, Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney
Without even realising it, your world sometimes gradually gets smaller: less walking, fewer days in the office, cancelling on friends. Watching plans disintegrate on the chat as friends struggle to settle on a date or place for a catch-up.
You might start to feel a bit flat or disconnected. Subtle changes in habit and mood take hold. Could you be … lonely?
It’s not a label many of us identify with easily, especially if you know you’ve got friends, or are in a happy relationship.
But loneliness can happen to us all from time to time – and identifying it is the first step to fixing it.
So, what is loneliness?
Loneliness is the distress we feel when our relationships don’t meet our needs – in quality or quantity.
It’s not the same as being objectively alone (otherwise known as “social isolation”).
You can feel deeply lonely even while surrounded by friends, or totally content on your own.
Loneliness is subjective; many people don’t realise they’re lonely until the feeling becomes persistent.
What are some of the signs to look for?
You may feel a physicalcoldness, emptiness or hollowness (I’ve heard it described as feeling like you are missing an organ). Some research shows social pain is experienced similarly in the brain to physical pain.
In the past, being separated from your tribe meant danger and risk from predators, so our brains developed a way to push us back towards connection.
The pain of loneliness is designed to keep us connected and safe.
Why is it often hard to recognise loneliness?
Sadly, there’s still a lot of stigma around admitting loneliness, especially for men.
Many people resist identifying as lonely, or feel this marks them as a “loser”.
But this silence can make the problem worse.
When no one talks about it, it becomes harder to break the cycle of loneliness, and the stigma remains.
While passing loneliness is normal, chronic or persistent loneliness can hurt our health.
Research shows chronic loneliness is associated with:
depression
anxiety
weakened immunity
heart disease
earlier death.
Loneliness can also become self-reinforcing. When loneliness feels normal, it can start to shape how you see the world: you expect rejection, withdraw more and the cycle deepens.
The earlier you notice you’re lonely, the easier it is to break.
But I’m in a relationship, have loads of friends and a rewarding job
Yes, but you can still be lonely.
Most of us need different kinds of relationships to thrive. It’s not about how many people you know, but whether you feel connected and have a meaningful role in these relationships.
You may feel lonely even with strong friendships if you are lacking deeper connection, shared identity or a sense of community.
This doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful, or a bad friend.
It just means you need more or different kinds of connection.
OK, I’ve realised I am lonely. Now what?
Start by asking yourself: what kind of connection am I missing?
Is it one-to-one friendships? A partner? Casual social interactions? A shared purpose or community?
Then reflect on what’s helped you feel more connected in the past. For some, it’s joining a choir, a book club or a sports group. For others, it may be volunteering or just saying “yes” to small social moments, like chatting with your local barista or learning the name of the local butcher.
If you’re still struggling, a psychologist can help with tailored strategies for building connection.
The structural causes of loneliness
It’s also important to remember loneliness is often not because of personal failings or overall mental health.
We are also learning more about how climate change can disrupt social connection and worsen loneliness due to, for example, higher temperatures or bushfires.
Loneliness is normal, common, human and completely solvable.
Start by noticing it in yourself and reach out if you can.
Let’s start talking about it more, so others can feel less alone too.
Marlee Bower receives funding from the Henry Halloran Urban and Regional Research Initiative, the BHP Foundation, AHURI and NHMRC. She is affiliated with the University of Sydney Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use and Australia’s Mental Health Think Tank.
Imagine an area larger than the Australian Capital Territory, nearly twice the size of London and four times that of New York City covered in coca plantations.
Colombia produces an estimated 2,664 metric tonnes of cocaine annually. That is enough to fill 20 Boeing 747 cargo planes per year.
Not even during the darkest days of Pablo Escobar’s infamous empire did Colombia cultivate as much coca or produce as much cocaine as it does today.
In the past year alone, coca crops expanded by 10% and production capacity soared more than 50%.
So how did it come to this?
A worrying mix
Colombia did not arrive at this point overnight, nor by chance. A complex mix of radical and failed policy shifts, scientific innovation and global demand, among other factors, has shaped this trajectory.
For example, in 2015, Colombia’s Constitutional Court suspended aerial fumigation and banned the use of glyphosate. Despite the herbicide’s effectiveness in killing coca plants, the court cited concerns over its health risks and environmental impact.
Aerial spraying had allowed the government to reduce the risk that manual eradication brigades were exposed to over large areas.
In 2016, then-president Juan Manuel Santos introduced a scheme to substitute coca with non-illicit plants. Incentives were offered to farmers. However, it ended up encouraging many peasants who had never grown coca before to begin cultivating it, simply to qualify for the new subsidies.
It is no surprise that during Santos’ second term (2014–18), Colombia’s coca crops nearly doubled, from 96,000 hectares to more than 170,000.
More recently, in 2022, President Gustavo Petro announced his Paz Total (Total Peace) policy. This was designed to bring trafficking organisations – including Colombia’s second largest narco-terrorist group, the National Liberation Army (ELN) – to the negotiation table.
What happens in Colombia matters to Australia because criminal innovation is fuelling greater cocaine volumes and higher purity. This means more is flowing towards Australian shores.
Colombia’s coca production is being reshaped by enhanced cultivation techniques, more secure and autonomous smuggling methods, and an increasingly fragmented criminal landscape.
Production is now more efficient and profitable than ever. Growers are planting improved coca leaf varieties and achieve more harvest cycles per year with higher alkaloid yields per kilo.
Some networks are also transitioning from manned to unmanned operations.
Also, the growing presence and operational influence of Mexican cartels in Colombia has amplified the scope and scale of alliances between transnational organised crime groups across Europe, Asia and Oceania. International police investigations are even more complex.
Despite record-high seizure numbers and total volumes intercepted, Australia is still among the most attractive destination markets for drug trafficking organisations because of the high price users pay for the drugs.
Unless something radically changes in Colombia, Australia continues to face growing risks from maritime trafficking routes. There is also an increased threat of being used as a transit and money laundering hub in the global drug economy.
Some possible solutions
Even if conditions in Colombia were to change swiftly and drastically, supply-focused strategies alone are insufficient to mitigate the risks facing Australia.
After all, Colombia cannot simply fumigate its way out of this cocaine crisis, just as Australia cannot arrest its way out of it.
However, continued collaboration between the Australian Federal Police and the National Police of Colombia remains essential to keep drugs at bay.
The appointment of Colombia’s first police attaché to Australia will be a welcome and meaningful step forward. (While not yet formally announced, the Colombian embassy in Australia has informed me and several other experts the country is appointing the attaché.)
Both countries must deepen this relationship and collectively engage meaningfully and frequently to help solve the problem.
Cesar Alvarez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In 2024, the problem of deepfakes became a crisis in South Korea: more than 500 schools and universities were targeted in a coordinated wave of deepfake sexual abuse.
AI-generated sexualised images of students — mostly girls — were circulated in encrypted Telegram groups. The perpetrators were often classmates of the victims.
A new report from global child-protection group ECPAT with funding from the UK-based Churchill Fellowship takes a close look at what happened in Korea, so other countries can understand and avoid similar crises. Here’s what Australia can learn.
A glimpse into our future?
The events in South Korea were not just about deepfake technology. They were about how the technology was used.
Perpetrators created groups on the Telegram messaging platform to identify mutual acquaintances in local schools or universities. They then formed “Humiliation Rooms” to gather victims’ photos and personal information so they could create deepfake sexual images.
Rooms for more than 500 schools and universities have been identified, often with thousands of members. The rooms were filled with deepfake imagery, created from photos on social media and the school yearbook.
Bots within the app allowed users to generate AI nudes in seconds. One such bot had more than 220,000 subscribers. The bot gave users two deepfake images for free, with additional images available for the equivalent of one Australian dollar.
Telegram screenshots show an automated deepfake bot that charges users to produce images. Telegram
This wasn’t the dark web. It was happening on a mainstream platform, used by millions.
And it wasn’t just adult predators. More than 80% of those arrested were teenagers. Many were described as “normal boys” by their teachers — students who had never shown signs of violent behaviour before.
The abuse was gamified. Users earned rewards for inviting friends, sharing images, and escalating the harm. It was social, yet anonymous.
Could this happen in Australia?
We have already seen smaller, less organised deepfake incidents in Australian schools. However, the huge scale and ease of use of the Korean abuse system should be cause for alarm.
The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation recorded 58,503 reports of pictures and videos of online child abuse in the 2023–24 financial year. This is an average of 160 reports per day (4,875 reports a month), a 45% increase from the previous year.
This increase is likely to continue. In response to these risks, the Australian government, through the eSafety Commissioner, is applying the existing Basic Online Safety Expectations to generative AI services. This creates a clear expectation these services must work proactively to prevent the creation of harmful deepfake content.
Internationally, the European Union’s AI Act has set a precedent for regulating high-risk AI applications, including those that affect children. In the United States, the proposed Take It Down Act aims to criminalise the publication of non-consensual intimate images, including AI-generated deepfakes.
These are a start, but a lot more work remains to be done to provide a safe online environment for young people. The Korean experience shows how easily things can escalate when these tools are used at scale, especially in peer-to-peer abuse among adolescents.
5 lessons from Korea
The South Korean crisis holds several lessons for Australia.
1. Prevention must start early. Korea’s crisis involved children as young as 12 (and even younger in some primary schools targeted). We need comprehensive digital ethics and consent education in primary schools, not just in high schools.
2. Law enforcement needs AI tools of their own to keep up. Just as offenders are using AI to scale up abuse, police must be equipped with AI to detect and investigate it. This may include facial recognition, content detection, and automated triage systems, all governed by strict privacy protocols.
3. Platforms must also be held accountable. Telegram only began cooperating with South Korean authorities after immense public pressure. Australia must enforce safety-by-design principles and ensure encrypted platforms are not safe havens for abuse.
4. Support services must be scaled up. Korea’s crisis caused trauma for entire communities. Victims often had to continuing going to school with perpetrators in the same classrooms. Australia must invest in trauma-informed support systems that can respond to both individual and collective harm.
5. We must listen to victims and survivors. Policy must be shaped by those who have experienced digital abuse. Their insights are crucial to designing effective and compassionate responses.
Joel Scanlan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University; and Vice Chancellor’s Strategic Fellow, Victoria University
When it comes to dealing with two of the biggest current crises in the Muslim world – the devastation of Gaza and the Taliban’s draconian rule in Afghanistan – Arab and Muslim states have been staggeringly ineffective.
Their chief body, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in particular, has been strong on rhetoric but very short on serious, tangible action.
The OIC, headquartered in Saudi Arabia, is composed of 57 predominantly Muslim states. It is supposed to act as a representative and consultative body and make decisions and recommendations on the major issues that affect Muslims globally. It calls itself the “collective voice of the Muslim world”.
Yet the body has proved to be toothless in the face of Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza, triggered in response to the Hamas attacks of October 7 2023.
The OIC has equally failed to act against the Taliban’s reign of terror in the name of Islam in ethnically diverse Afghanistan.
Many strong statements
Despite its projection of a united umma (the global Islamic community, as defined in my coauthored book Islam Beyond Borders), the OIC has ignominiously been divided on Gaza and Afghanistan.
True, it has condemned Israel’s Gaza operations. It’s also called for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the starving population of the strip.
It has also rejected any Israeli move to depopulate and annex the enclave, as well as the West Bank. These moves would render the two-state solution to the long-running Israeli–Palestinian conflict essentially defunct.
Further, the OIC has welcomed the recent joint statement by the foreign ministers of 28 countries (including the United Kingdom, many European Union members and Japan) calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as well as France’s decision to recognise the state of Palestine.
The OIC is good at putting out statements. However, this approach hasn’t varied much from that of the wider global community. It is largely verbal, and void of any practical measures.
What the group could do for Gaza
Surely, Muslim states can and should be doing more.
For example, the OIC has failed to persuade Israel’s neighbouring states – Egypt and Jordan, in particular – to open their border crossings to allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza, the West Bank or Israel, in defiance of Israeli leaders.
Nor has it been able to compel Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco to suspend their relations with the Jewish state until it agrees to a two-state solution.
Further, the OIC has not adopted a call by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, for Israel to be suspended from the UN.
Nor has it urged its oil-rich Arab members, in particular Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to harness their resources to prompt US President Donald Trump to halt the supply of arms to Israel and pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war.
Stronger action on Afghanistan, too
In a similar vein, the OIC has failed to exert maximum pressure on the ultra-extremist and erstwhile terrorist Taliban government in Afghanistan.
Since sweeping back into power in 2021, the Taliban has ruled in a highly repressive, misogynist and draconian fashion in the name of Islam. This is not practised anywhere else in the Muslim world.
In December 2022, OIC Secretary General Hissein Brahim Taha called for a global campaign to unite Islamic scholars and religious authorities against the Taliban’s decision to ban girls from education.
But this was superseded a month later, when the OIC expressed concern over the Taliban’s “restrictions on women”, but asked the international community not to “interfere in Afghanistan’s internal affairs”. This was warmly welcomed by the Taliban.
In effect, the OIC – and therefore most Muslim countries – have adopted no practical measures to penalise the Taliban for its behaviour.
It has not censured the Taliban nor imposed crippling sanctions on the group. And while no Muslim country has officially recognised the Taliban government (only Russia has), most OIC members have nonetheless engaged with the Taliban at political, economic, financial and trade levels.
Why is it so divided?
There are many reasons for the OIC’s ineffectiveness.
For one, the group is composed of a politically, socially, culturally and economically diverse assortment of members.
But more importantly, it has not functioned as a “bridge builder” by developing a common strategy of purpose and action that can overcome the geopolitical and sectarian differences of its members.
In the current polarised international environment, the rivalry among its member states – and with major global powers such as the United States and China – has rendered the organisation a mere talking shop.
This has allowed extremist governments in both Israel and Afghanistan to act with impunity.
It is time to look at the OIC’s functionality and determine how it can more effectively unite the umma.
This may also be an opportunity for its member states to develop an effective common strategy that could help the cause of peace and stability in the Muslim domain and its relations with the outside world.
Amin Saikal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dafydd Townley, Teaching Fellow in US politics and international security, University of Portsmouth
There are masked men, and some women, on the streets in American cities, sometimes travelling in unmarked cars, often carrying weapons and wearing military-style kit. They have the power to identify, arrest, detain non-citizens and deport undocumented immigrants. They also have the right to interrogate any individual who they believe is not a citizen over their right to remain in the US.
These are agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, known as Ice. This is a federal law enforcement agency, which falls under the control of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and is playing a significant and contentious role in the implementation of Donald Trump’s tough immigration policy.
On the campaign trail Trump promised “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”. And he is giving Ice more power to deliver his plans.
Since Trump took office in January, Ice funding has been significantly increased. Trump’s “big beautiful bill”, passed by Congress in July 2025, gave Ice US$75 billion (£55 billion) of funding for the next four years, up from around US$8 billion a year.
This funding boost will allow the agency to recruit more agents as well as adding thousands more beds plus extensions to buildings to increase the capacity of detention centres. There is also new funding for advanced surveillance tools including AI-assisted facial recognition and mobile data collection. There’s another US$30 billion going to frontline operations, covering removing immigrants and transport to detention centres.
The president has committed to deporting everyone who is in the US illegally, that is estimated by the Wall Street Journal to be about 4% of the current US population. For the past five months, the numbers of people being picked up by Ice agents has been ticking up fast.
Average daily arrests were up 268% to about 1,000 a day in June 2025, compared with the same month a year earlier. This was also a 42% rise on May 2025, according to data analysis from the Guardian and the Deportation Data Project. However, this is still considerably short of the 3,000 a day ordered by secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
Ice’s tactics have already attracted significant criticism. Right-leaning broadcaster Fox News has reported on how masked agents are not showing ID or naming their agency when picking up people in raids. Other reporting has highlighted allegations that American citizens are also sometimes being swept up in the raids.
The agency, currently led by acting director Todd M. Lyons, has three main divisions: the Enforcement and Removal Operations division, which identifies and deports undocumented immigrants as well as manages detention centres. The Homeland Security Investigations, which investigates criminal activities with an international or border nexus such as human trafficking, narcotics, and weapons smuggling. The Office of the Principal Legal Advisor provides legal advice to Ice and prosecutes immigration cases in court.
Lyons claimed that mask wearing was necessary because of Ice agents being “doxed” – when a person’s personal information such as names and home addresses are revealed online without their permission. Assaults on Ice agents have risen, he claimed. DHS data suggested that there were 79 assaults on Ice agents from January to June 2025, compared to ten in the same period in 2024.
Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries compared mask wearing by Ice agents to secret police forces in authoritarian regimes. “We’re not behind the Iron Curtain. This is not the 1930s.”
The Ice agency was established in 2003 by the George W. Bush administration, partly as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and was part of a broader reorganisation of federal agencies under the then newly created DHS. It incorporated parts of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and some elements of the US Customs Service.
According to the agency’s website, Ice’s core mission is “to protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety”.
News coverage of Ice agents wearing masks and not identifying themselves.
What’s changed?
At the start of the administration in January, the White House gave Ice the authority to hasten the deportation of immigrants that had entered the country with government authorisation during the previous administration. This “expedited removal” authority allowed Ice to deport individuals without requiring an appearance before an immigration judge.
As arrests have grown in the past months, Lyons told CBS News that Ice would detain any undocumented immigrant, even if they did not have a criminal record.
And the Trump administration has also allowed Ice agents to make arrests at immigration courts, which had previously been off limits. This restriction was introduced by the Biden administration in 2021 to ensure witnesses, victims of crimes and defendants would still appear in court without fear of arrest for immigration violations, unless the target was a national security threat.
Protests over Ice raids have spread across California.
However, Lyons rescinded those restrictions in May, part of a broader shift towards aggressive enforcement.
Much of the time, Ice has targeted illegal immigrants. But the agency has also arrested and detained some individuals who were residents (green card holders) or tourists – and, in some cases, citizens.
In recent weeks, according to the Washington Post, Ice has been ordered to increase the number of immigrants shackled with GPS-enabled ankle monitors. This would significantly increase the number of immigrants that are under surveillance. Ankle monitors also restrict where people can travel.
Sparking protests
There have been numerous public protests about Ice raids, most notably in California. This peaked on June 6 after Ice had conducted numerous raids in Los Angeles, resulting in clashes between agents and protesters. This led to the White House sending around 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles, despite opposition from California governor Gavin Newsom.
Part of the friction between the Trump administation and the state is that Los Angeles and San Francisco have adopted local policies to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities including Ice. California has sanctuary laws, such as SB 54, that prohibit local police and sheriffs from assisting Ice with civil immigration enforcement.
However, Trump shows every sign of pushing harder and faster to crack down on illegal immigrants, and Ice agents are clearly at the forefront of how he aims to do it.
Dafydd Townley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Donald Trump’s lawyers are pushing to get Rupert Murdoch deposed, and quickly.
The US president is suing the billionaire media owner, alongside the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones and others, for libel after it published an article alleging that Trump once wrote a “bawdy” birthday letter to the convicted sex offender, the late Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump and Murdoch have a transactional friendship that goes back decades. Despite past tensions, this rupture is something new in a relationship that has continued to serve both men’s interests.
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, professor of journalism Andrew Dodd at the University of Melbourne takes us back to where their relationship began in 1970s New York, to understand how Murdoch helped to build brand Trump.
Murdoch was already a very successful media magnate in Australia and the UK before he made his move to America. In 1976, after dabbling in two newspapers in Texas, he bought the New York Post.
“ Murdoch wanted to make it big in the US and to do that he really needed to break into New York,” says Dodd. US television networks were all based in US, he explains, “so by influencing what was going on in Manhattan, he was influencing the entire country’s media.”
Meanwhile, Trump was a young property developer from Queens. “ He’s wanting to develop and build, and he’s also wanting a profile because the profile will help him along the way,” says Dodd. “But he’s also an egomaniac. He needs publicity for its own sake, and so he’s attracted to the media.” Trump became easy and frequent fodder for the new Page Six gossip column of Murdoch’s New York Post.
Dodd says that both men saw in each other “opportunities for their own advancement”. For Trump, it was about access to notoriety. For Murdoch, a newcomer and foreigner in New York, he needed to make friends quickly and start establishing relationships. “He’s becoming ingratiated with power in the city, and so they’re all using one another,” he says.
Listen to the conversation with Andrew Dodd about Trump and Murdoch and the power they now wield over each other, on The Conversation Weekly podcast.
This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with assistance from Ashlynne McGhee. Mixing and sound design by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl.
Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Andrew Dodd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
.jpg){kind=link}
