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Category: Academic Analysis

  • MIL-Evening Report: Australia once had ‘immigration amnesties’ to grant legal status to undocumented people. Could we again?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Dehm, Senior Lecturer, International Migration and Refugee Law, University of Technology Sydney

    The year is 1972. The Whitlam Labor government has just been swept into power and major changes to Australia’s immigration system are underway. Many people remember this time for the formal end of the racist White Australia Policy.

    A lesser-known legacy of this period was the introduction of Australia’s first immigration amnesty. This amnesty, implemented later in 1974 with bilateral support, provided humane pathways to permanency or citizenship for undocumented people in Australia.

    In other words, people living without lawful immigration status could “legalise” their status without risk of punishment or deportation.

    More immigration amnesties were promised during later election campaigns and then implemented in 1976 and 1980.

    These amnesties occurred under successive Labor and Liberal federal governments, and each enjoyed enthusiastic bipartisan support.

    So, how did these amnesties work – and could they happen again?

    Started by Whitlam

    Australia’s first amnesty was announced in January 1974, as part of the Whitlam government’s official policy of multiculturalism.

    Its purpose was to grant permanency to people who had been living in Australia “illegally” and at risk of labour exploitation.

    The amnesty was open for five months, from late January until the end of June 1974.

    The main eligibility criteria was that the person:

    • had to have been living in Australia for three years or more and
    • be of “good character”.

    This program had only a modest uptake. However, it set the path for more successful initiatives in the future.

    Continued by Fraser

    During the 1975 election campaign, then caretaker Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser promised another amnesty if his government won the election.

    He committed to “do everything we can” to allow undocumented people

    to stay here and make Australia their permanent home.

    After the election, Fraser’s Liberal government implemented a broad amnesty for “overstayed visitors” in January 1976.

    Departmental figures show 8,614 people sought legal status in the amnesty period.

    The vast majority (63%) lived in New South Wales. The main nationalities of these applicants were:

    • Greek (1,283 applicants)
    • UK (911 applicants)
    • Indonesian (748 applicants)
    • Chinese (643 applicants).

    Australia’s third broad immigration amnesty came in 1980, again as a result of a bipartisan election promise.

    Immigration Minister Ian Macphee announced a six-month Regularisation of Status Program. It aimed, he said, to deal “humanely with the problem of illegal immigration” while also seeking to curb such unauthorised migration in the future.

    Not a trick

    Many migrants worried these amnesties were a government “trick” to facilitate deportations.

    In an attempt to reassure the public, Prime Minister Fraser insisted in 1980 that the program was

    not a trap to lure people into the open so that they can be seized, jailed and deported.

    By the end of the amnesty period in December 1980, it was reported that more than 11,000 applications had been received. This covered more than 14,000 people.

    What made the past amnesties successful?

    Our research looked at what motivated the amnesties and how they worked.

    We found several key factors that drove success, including the need for:

    • simple and inclusive criteria for eligibility
    • a clear application process
    • a careful campaign for promotion, to build trust with migrant communities, and
    • durable outcomes that offer of clear pathways to citizenship.

    The 1980 amnesty program involved an effective campaign to publicise successful cases.

    A 21-year-old Greek waitress working in her aunt’s Goulburn restaurant was widely publicised as the first person to be granted immigration amnesty status in July 1980. A Uruguayan refugee was profiled as the 1,000th.

    The Department of Immigration also translated amnesty information into 48 languages, publicised in non-English language press and radio.

    Of the three amnesties, the 1974 one was the least successful, due to:

    • stringent eligibility criteria
    • limited media publicity, and
    • no official outreach strategy to build trust with migrant communities.

    Precarious lives

    Recent calls for an immigration amnesty has focused on two groups in Australia:

    The Department of Home Affairs estimates more than 70,000 people live in Australia today without immigration status.

    Undocumented workers are highly vulnerable to exploitation and deportation.

    Yet, these workers often fulfil crucial labour market shortages. Many have been living in Australia for years or even decades.

    Asylum seekers and refugees on temporary or no visas cannot return “home” for fear of persecution. They risk lapsing into irregular status with no rights or entitlements.

    Lessons from past amnesties

    Amnesties are a humane and cost-effective response to unauthorised migration.

    Australia currently spends millions, if not billions of dollars, on the detention and deportation of people without visas.

    In the lead up to both the 1976 and 1980 amnesties, successive governments acknowledged such a “detection and deportation” approach would be unnecessarily costly. It would require “increased resources in manpower”.

    An amnesty, instead, was in the words of then Immigration Minister Macphee a chance to:

    clean the slate, to acknowledge that no matter how people got here they are part of the community.

    These historical precedents show Australia’s migration system and politicians could, if they wanted, accommodate initiatives and reforms that fundamentally value migrants and prioritise migrant access to permanency.

    Our research also shows Australian election campaigns can be opportunities for advancing policies that embrace the reality of immigration and offer hope, not fear.

    Sara Dehm receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a co-convenor of the interdisciplinary academic network, Academics for Refugees.

    Anthea Vogl receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Commonwealth Departure of Health and Aged Care. She is a Board Member of the Forcibly Displaced People Network and co-convenor of the interdisciplinary academic network, Academics for Refugees.

    – ref. Australia once had ‘immigration amnesties’ to grant legal status to undocumented people. Could we again? – https://theconversation.com/australia-once-had-immigration-amnesties-to-grant-legal-status-to-undocumented-people-could-we-again-252294

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Is there a best way to peel a boiled egg? A food scientist explains

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paulomi (Polly) Burey, Professor in Food Science, University of Southern Queensland

    We’ve all been there – trying to peel a boiled egg, but mangling it beyond all recognition as the hard shell stubbornly sticks to the egg white. Worse, the egg ends up covered in chewy bits of adhesive membrane in the end.

    The internet is littered with various “hacks” that claim to prevent this problem. But there are several reasons why eggs can be hard to peel. Luckily, that means there are also science-based strategies we can use to avoid the problem.

    Egg ‘peelability’ factors

    Eggs consist of a hard, porous shell, an inner and outer membrane, the egg white (albumen), and a membrane-encased yolk at the centre. There is also an air cell between the inner and outer membrane next to the shell.

    Chicken eggs have a shell, an outer membrane and an inner membrane.
    Twinkle Picture/Shutterstock

    A lot of research was done in the late 1960s and 1970s on factors that affect the peelability of eggs after they’ve been boiled.

    One of these factors is the pH of the egg white. An early study from the 1960s indicated that the pH of the egg white needs to be in the range of 8.7–8.9, quite alkaline, in order for the egg to be easier to peel.

    Storage temperature has a role to play, too. A study from 1963 showed that storing eggs at about 22 degrees Celsius (or 72 degrees Fahrenheit) gives a better peelability result than storage at lower temperatures of 13°C, or even fridge temperatures at 3–5°C.

    Of course, there is a risk of spoilage if eggs are stored at higher ambient temperatures.

    In the studies, an increase in storage time before boiling – using less fresh eggs – also increased the ease of peelability.

    The older the eggs, the easier they might be to peel.
    Caroline Attwood/Unsplash

    Step one: avoid fresh eggs

    The fact that fresh eggs are harder to peel is relatively well known. Based on the factors above, there are a couple of reasons for this.

    For one, in a fresh egg the air cell is still quite small. As the egg ages, it (very) slowly loses moisture through the porous shell, increasing the size of the air cell while the rest of the egg contents shrink. A bigger air cell makes it easier to start the peeling action.

    Additionally, egg whites, although they already start out relatively alkaline, increase in pH as the eggs age, also making them easier to peel.

    Step two: water temperature

    Some keen egg boiling pundits believe that starting off with boiling water and lowering it to a simmer before gently placing the eggs into it provides a better result. However, you want to do this with room temperature eggs to avoid them cracking due to a sudden temperature change.

    The reasoning behind this approach is that exposure to higher temperatures from the start of cooking also makes it easier for the membrane to come away from the shell and egg white.

    Furthermore, the quick hot start makes it easier for the egg white proteins to denature (change structure as they cook) and bond to each other, rather than to the membrane.

    After boiling eggs for the desired amount of time (typically 3–5 minutes for runny yolks, 6–7 minutes for jammy yolks, and 12–15 minutes for hard boiled), you can quench them in ice water. This should help the egg white to slightly shrink away from the shell, improving peelability.

    Starting in hot water might help peelability, especially if you plunge the eggs in ice water afterwards.
    Max4e Photo/Shutterstock

    Step three (optional): adding things to the water

    Some other suggestions to improve peelability include adding salt to the boiling water, but this has mixed results. In one study, this approach did actually improve peelability, but this effect was lost after eggs had been stored for longer periods.

    Acids and alkali have also been shown to aid eggshell peelability or removal. The patent that describes this used rather harsh substances with the goal to dissolve away the shell.

    But based on this idea, you could try adding baking soda or vinegar to the water. With vinegar, the theory is that it attacks the calcium carbonate in the eggshell to then aid its removal. As for baking soda, because it’s alkaline, it could help detach the membrane from the shell.

    Bonus: alternative cooking methods

    There are other methods for hard-cooking eggs, such as pressure steaming, air-frying and even microwaving.

    In steaming eggs, some proponents theorise that water vapour permeates the eggshell, loosening the membrane from the egg white, and thereby making the egg much easier to peel.

    While studies have recently been done on the air-frying of other foods, there is still scope to further understand how this style of cooking might affect eggshells and peelability.

    Lastly, once you have successfully separated the eggshells, don’t just throw them in the bin. There are lots of different uses for them, including compost, slug and snail deterrent in your garden, using them as little biodegradable pots for seedlings, or even something as advanced as scaffolds for cancer research.

    Paulomi (Polly) Burey receives funding from the Australian Government Department of Education which has funded the eggshell research mentioned at the end of this article.

    – ref. Is there a best way to peel a boiled egg? A food scientist explains – https://theconversation.com/is-there-a-best-way-to-peel-a-boiled-egg-a-food-scientist-explains-235895

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Election Diary: a cost-of-living election where neither leader can tell you the price of eggs

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

    The fourth election debate was the most idiosyncratic of the four head-to-head contests between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

    Apart from all the usual topics, the pair was charged with producing one-word responses to pictures of the prime minister’s Copacabana house, a three-eyed fish and Elon Musk.

    They were asked the price of a dozen eggs. It’s an old trick from debates past, but those “prepping” the leaders had fallen down. Dutton said about A$4.20. Albanese was closer with “$7, if you can find them”. The actual price is $8.80 at Woolworths (or $8.50 at Coles). Watching at home, some viewers would have thought, “here are a couple of guys in the cost-of-living election who don’t do the shopping”.

    Debate host Seven had an audience of 60 undecided voters, who scored the pair on a range of topics. They gave the overall result to Albanese over Dutton by 50%–25% with the other 25% undecided.

    In general, Dutton pursued Albanese aggressively whenever he could, pressing the accusation he made in their last encounter that the prime minister does not tell the truth. “Honestly, this whole campaign, it’s hard to believe anything you say.”

    Albanese, however, effectively marshalled his points and counterpoints on a number of the topics.

    This showed in the scores the audience awarded on core issues. On cost of living, 65% gave the tick Albanese, and only 16% were more convinced by Dutton. On housing, Albanese also had a win, although more narrowly – 35% to 30%. With tax cuts, Albanese’s margin was 49% to 21%.

    The Anzac Day heckling at the Shrine of Remembrance prompted a discussion of Welcome to Country ceremonies.

    Dutton was openly critical of their extensive use. “I think a lot of Australians think it’s overdone and it cheapens the significance of what it was meant to do.”

    Albanese was supportive of the ceremonies but circumspect. “Well, from my perspective, it’s a matter of respect, but it’s also, of course, up to the organisations that are hosting an event, whether they have a Welcome to Country or not. It’s up to them, and people will have different views, and people are entitled to their views.”

    Dutton scored 46% to Albanese’s 27% on this topic.

    One of the more bizarre moments came in a discussion about whether the leaders had US President Donald Trump’s mobile phone number. The prime minister said he was not sure whether the president even had a mobile phone (despite it being highly publicised Greg Norman had to pass the number onto former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull when Trump was elected).

    But Dutton coped with the question of trusting Trump better than in the last debate, when he had said he didn’t know him. Asked whether we could trust Trump to have our back, he said “We can trust whoever’s in the Oval Office”.

    Pressed on which country posed the biggest threat to Australia’s security, Dutton said, “the biggest concern from our intelligence agencies and our defence agency is in relation to the Communist Party of China”.

    Albanese talked around the question of whether China posed the biggest risk to Australia’s national security. “Well, China is the major power in the region which is seeking to increase its influence. But the relationship is complex as well, because China is our major trading partner.” And on and on his answer went.

    On defence Dutton was well out in front in the minds of the audience, 43% to 37%.

    Albanese would have gone home the happier of the two leaders. He won on the issues at the centre of the election.

    As Tony Abbott once said, who needs sleep at the end of a campaign?

    Dutton plans to visit up to 28 seats in the campaign’s final week, the majority of them held by Labor.

    The Liberals say with the Coalition needing to gain 21 seats for a majority, the seats’ blitz underlines the election is winnable for the Coalition.

    It also underlines the adrenaline rush leaders get in the dash to the finish line. In 2010 opposition leader Tony Abbott launched into a 36-hour non-stop blitz for the final three days of the election. “Why sleep at a time like this?” Abbott said. Prime Minister John Howard had finished his unsuccessful 2007 campaign blitzing shopping centres in Queensland.

    Dutton started his marathon on Sunday in Labor territory with a rally in west Melbourne, in the seat of Hawke. The opposition leader’s seat list includes Solomon (NT), Aston (Victoria), Gilmore (NSW), Moreton (Queensland), Gorton (Victoria), Lyons (Tasmania), Dunkley (Victoria), Goldstein (Victoria), Kooyong (Vitoria), Paterson (NSW), Dobell (NSW), Bennelong (NSW), Bullwinkel (Western Australia) and Boothby (South Australia). Later on Sunday he was in the Sydney teal seat of Mackellar, where Howard also spoke in support of the Liberal candidate James Brown who is taking on independent Sophie Scamps.

    But as each day passes, for an increasing number of voters in these and other seats the visits and messages will be irrelevant. They’ll have pre-polled. People are flocking to vote early. There are 11 days for pre-polling this election. Back in 2019 pre-polling ran for 19 days. As of Saturday, 2.4 million people had already pre-polled.

    The politicians are vaguely resentful so many people are voting with their feet and avoiding, for a variety of reasons, the last days of what most commentators have thought has been an uninspiring campaign. Some of the politicians would like everyone to listen to their pitches right up to the end. But there is also a more practical reason why they regard pre-polling as a problem – they and their supporters have to spend long hours outside polling booths handing out how-to-vote cars.

    Michelle Grattan 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.

    – ref. Election Diary: a cost-of-living election where neither leader can tell you the price of eggs – https://theconversation.com/election-diary-a-cost-of-living-election-where-neither-leader-can-tell-you-the-price-of-eggs-255385

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Peter Dutton declares Welcome to Country ceremonies are ‘overdone’ in heated final leaders’ debate

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Marks, Vice-President, Public Affairs and Partnerships, Western Sydney University

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have had their fourth and final leaders’ debate of the campaign. The skirmish, hosted by 7News in Sydney, was moderated by 7’s Political Editor Mark Riley.

    Cost of living and housing affordability featured in the clash, with both leaders acknowledging the price pain being felt by many Australians. Immigration, US President Donald Trump, energy policy and welcome to country ceremonies were also thrashed out in a number of lively exchanges.

    How did each leader perform? Have they done enough to convince undecided voters before polling day? Three experts give their analysis

    Andy Marks, Western Sydney University

    This is the election, Seven’s opening voiceover proclaimed, “that will decide the future of Welcome to Country ceremonies.”

    Puzzled voters no doubt welcomed the promise of clarification. So Riley cut to the chase. Some people, he said, are “uncomfortable” with the ceremonies.

    Dutton agreed:

    I think a lot of Australians think it is overdone and cheapens the significance of what it was meant to do.“

    Albanese said it was up to event organisers to decide whether to have a ceremony. On the lost Voice referendum? He “accepts the outcome”.

    No fight. Just consensus from both leaders January 26 should remain as Australia Day.

    Lack of spark was never going to stop Seven. A dramatic soundtrack rumbled away behind the leaders’ statements added an Oscars vibe, with each rushing their answers before being played off.

    It worked. Halfway in, a fire was lit. “It’s hard to believe anything you say”, Dutton said to his opponent. “You’ve made promises you haven’t delivered. People are getting smashed.”

    Albanese shot back. “Peter can attack me. But I won’t let him attack the wages of working people.”

    Hostilities abated as Riley asked Albanese if he had Trump’s mobile number. “Do you have [UK Prime Minister] Keir Starmer’s?” Dutton added.

    Nuclear power reheated the debate. “I am proud”, Dutton said of the Coalition’s energy plans. But he would not commit to visiting any of the proposed sites in the final days of the campaign.

    Suddenly it became a science lesson. Dutton asked “how will solar work at night?” When you turn on a tap, Albanese responded, water still comes out even when it isn’t raining.

    A highlight? Dutton almost quoted Taylor Swift. “The prime minister promises a band-aid on a bullet wound” he quipped on cost of living.

    Blair Williams, Monash University

    “This is the debate for every Australian”, the Channel 7 voiceover said at the start of the debate. However, to reference Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder if this debate would truly include everyone.

    We saw the usual quibbles between Albanese and Dutton over various crises, such as housing and the cost of living. Albanese argued he would help through initiatives such as cheaper medicines and childcare.

    However, he put his foot down on scrapping negative gearing as it’s a measure that “will not build supply”.

    Dutton’s response made it clear he was not planning to include “everyone” in this debate, as he quickly blamed immigrants for the housing crisis in Australia.

    Riley posed a question to both leaders about Welcome to Country, saying booing during an ANZAC event sparked an “important discussion […] there are people in Australia who are uncomfortable being welcomed to Country”.

    Riley asked both leaders if the ceremonies are “overdone”.

    Dutton argued they do have a place but he wants “everyone to be equal” as “we are all equal”. Dutton said he wanted the country to be “one”. This overlooks how structural disadvantages, such as racism and sexism, result in inequality.

    Albanese took a more Keating-esque perspective, citing ANZAC Day in New Zealand and the central place of Maori language in their events, emphasising the importance of First Nations people and multiculturalism in Australia.

    The debate ended without any discussion of violence against women. So far this year, 24 women have been killed as a result of gendered violence, with three in just the past week. Yet both parties have barely mentioned it during the campaign or the debates.

    Women’s issues were also barely raised. While Albanese mentioned cheaper childcare, Dutton failed to reference any issues that might specifically impact women. He has done little in this campaign and during this debate to win them over.

    Instead, both leaders wasted time arguing over the Coalition’s plan to produce nuclear energy in 2035.

    “Is this helping you decide?” Channel 7 asked viewers. For many women – and other – around the country, it merely showed two white men in suits and ties yelling over each other. This could explain why a third of Australians will preference a minor party or independent at the ballot box. Perhaps these are the voters who have felt left out.

    Michelle Cull, Western Sydney University

    While the debate started off friendly, it became quite heated very quickly. Dutton found it difficult to finish his talking points on time but had no problem interrupting Albanese. Cost of living was central to the debate.

    There wasn’t much the leaders could agree on – no surprises there. Although both concurred there should be no change to the date for Australia Day.

    When asked about Welcome to Country ceremonies, Dutton mentioned them happening at the “start of every meeting at work” and they were “divisive”. Perhaps there was some confusion here with Acknowledgement of Country.

    Dutton focused on short-term cost-of-living relief and his fuel excise cuts. He blamed Albanese for high inflation, high interest rates and housing affordability issues. The prime minister was quick to remind him not everything was “hunky dory” when Labor took office.

    Albanese did well to promote many of the Labor policies targeted at reducing cost of living through lower HECS-HELP, free TAFE and cheaper childcare. He was the only leader to include what his party was doing for renters and those in social housing, as well as first home buyers. Albanese also responded to Dutton’s short-term cost-of-living relief with Labor’s more permanent help through wage increases and tax cuts.

    Dutton was clever enough to throw Labor’s proposed superannuation changes into the debate by referring to the plan to tax unrealised capital gains on superannuation balances greater than A$3 million. But this didn’t seem to make it much further in the debate, as it did not relate to the question being asked.

    We’ll now have to wait until Saturday to see if the leaders really managed to sway any undecided voters.

    Michelle Cull is an FCPA member of CPA Australia, member of the Financial Advice Association Australia and President Elect of the Academy of Financial Services in the United States. Michelle is an academic member of UniSuper’s Consultative Committee. Michelle co-founded the Western Sydney University Tax Clinic which has received funding from the Australian Taxation Office as part of the National Tax Clinic Program. Michelle has previously volunteered as Chair of the Macarthur Advisory Council for the Salvation Army Australia.

    Andy Marks and Blair Williams 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.

    – ref. Peter Dutton declares Welcome to Country ceremonies are ‘overdone’ in heated final leaders’ debate – https://theconversation.com/peter-dutton-declares-welcome-to-country-ceremonies-are-overdone-in-heated-final-leaders-debate-255102

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why seniors’ care should have been on the election agenda

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Pat Armstrong, Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology, York University, Canada

    I was hopeful that when the COVID-19 pandemic drew attention to the plight of senior citizens, the attention might result in meaningful change. Instead, seniors seem to be getting blamed for high costs and high living.

    Let me set some context. The Canada Health Act is a remarkable document. It is simple and clear. Provinces must adhere to the principles of universal, reasonable access to comprehensive hospital and doctor care throughout Canada, without charge for medically necessary care and with funding from a publicly administered, non-profit health insurance plan.

    Those with a health-care card can go to any hospital or doctor and do not have to worry about health-care bankruptcy or losing health-care coverage if they change jobs or travel across Canada. Because the rich use the same beds as everyone else, they have a vested interest in all beds being high quality.

    A good start with good principles

    The CHA and the public insurance programs that preceded it dramatically improved access to quality care, quality jobs and — not incidentally in these times — it promoted solidarity across ages, classes and genders through what became Canada’s best loved social program.

    Of course, it was not perfect or perfectly equitable, but it was a good start with good principles.

    However, there are three basic problems with it. First, it was supposed to be the first step towards a system that covered home care, long-term care, eye, dental and pharmaceutical care, but it stalled there until very recently. Second, the principles depended on the federal government using its spending power for enforcement. And third, it failed to prohibit for-profit services being paid public money or doctors from operating in private practices.

    So when the federal government started tinkering with funding, changing from providing cash to match half provincial costs and instead offering provinces tax room, that made both federal contributions and provincial spending harder to track. When Ottawa then failed to keep up funding, provinces and territories started defining hospital and doctor care more and more narrowly, moving care out of the hospitals where the principles no longer applied.

    Increasingly, more necessary care had user fees or lacked public financial support. More of it was for-profit; more of it provided lower quality jobs and lower quality care, undermining solidarity in the process. This is especially the case for seniors, whose care needs are increasingly defined as chronic rather than acute and therefore not requiring hospital care. Racialized and immigrant older women are especially likely to have low incomes, making them unable to buy care.

    Seniors’ election issues

    Which brings me to this federal election and seniors, and to issues that are being swamped by a focus on assembling cars and making tax cuts.

    There are gaping holes in access to care at home and in long-term care as well as to hospital care and primary care services. And equally important, there is less access to good jobs providing this care.

    We hear a lot about how care at home is everyone’s first choice, but staying at home often requires skilled care, special facilities and support for things like food, cleaning and maintenance, as well as help with dressing and walking. Too often, what we mean by care at home is 24/7 care by female relatives, untrained and unpaid for the work, too often doing so to the detriment of their own health and economic future.

    Too often it is about shifting costs and labour to families and individuals, not about choice or overall cost savings. Too often there is no choice.

    There has been new federal money for health care, a significant amount of which is unconditional and thus available for home care. But we have seen little effective expansion.

    The recently appointed Health Workforce Canada seems primarily focused on getting better data and more migrants to provide care, rather than improving the conditions of work that are vital to attracting and keeping the staff.

    If we are serious about home as the place to be, we need to provide the public support for the option, support that needs to go well beyond a few more temporary work permits for care providers.

    Although remaining at home is many people’s first choice, people in long-term care say the benefits include feeling safe, there is company, there are activities, and women especially say there is someone to clean the bathroom and make the meals.
    (Shutterstock)

    Nursing homes

    Which takes me to nursing homes. At the same time as home care is talked about as the first choice, nursing homes are presented as the last and worst choice. We forget though that many people do not have homes, many homes are unsafe physically and/or in terms of abuse, many homes are isolating, and many people have 24-hour extensive care needs that cannot be accommodated in a private home.

    When we ask residents about whether there is anything better about nursing homes compared to their private home, many say yes; they feel safe, there is company, there are activities, and women especially say there is someone to clean the bathroom and make the meals. Of course, we can and should make nursing homes better for people to live, work and visit in them, but we can’t forget that we need them and significantly more of them as well as more people to work in them.

    The federal government did fund the development of new standards for nursing homes but then it has done little with those standards. We need more beds, more staff and enforced standards. As with hospital care, the federal government could use its spending power to play a critical role, doing so through the promised safe long-term care act.

    And we need more community care clinics providing the full range of services. Here too the federal government has signed some targeted funding agreements but we need more and we need to severely limit private practice that contributes to fragmented care.

    Care vs. profit

    And in all these areas, we need to ensure the money goes to care rather than to profit.

    Of course good and fair health care costs money. But we have to remember that investments in care are an investment in the economy, in equity and in solidarity. The money does not go into a hole. It circulates in the economy. And investments in providing good conditions of work can save money at the same time as they promote care, given that the conditions of work are the conditions of care.

    We need to put senior care back on the agenda in the aftermath of this election.

    Pat Armstrong receives funding from SSHRC

    I am a Board member of the Canadian Health Coalition and a member of the economic subgroup of the Ottawa Council on Aging

    – ref. Why seniors’ care should have been on the election agenda – https://theconversation.com/why-seniors-care-should-have-been-on-the-election-agenda-255220

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Social media influencers blur the lines between political content and campaigning, potentially affecting elections

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Louise Stahl, PhD candidate, Communication, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

    Online influencers sharing political content can fall into an unregulated grey zone. (Shutterstock)

    Political commentary occurs regularly on social media. From politicians and parties promoting their platforms to journalists sharing day-to-day news and everyday people sharing their thoughts, there is no shortage of online content commenting on what governments are doing, aren’t doing and should be doing.

    A recent development has been the rise in online content creators, which has become a profession in and of itself. And social media influencers — those content creators who have developed a brand persona around their popular social media accounts — have plenty to say when it comes to politics. They promote politicians, encourage voting, comment on social issues and share political news. They can also be involved in disinformation and foreign interference campaigns.

    Our recent report, Influencers and Elections: The many roles that content creators play in elections, looks at the blurred lines between influencers and advertisers, celebrity endorsers, campaign volunteers, media outlets, data brokers, journalists and lobbyists, and the impact this can have on election outcomes.

    Social media influencers discuss their political views on CBC News.

    Influencing politics

    Influencers play multiple roles in the political communication ecosystem, acting in ways similar to celebrities, journalists, advertisers, activists and others.

    Influencers might be paid for the content or endorse political campaigns voluntarily. Some interview politicians or produce their own commentary. And others express political views independently, without any formal political ties.

    These increasingly blurred lines make it challenging to distinguish between genuine support, co-ordinated marketing or reliable news sources. It also makes it harder for voters to evaluate the credibility and intent behind political messages — which makes it harder for policymakers to regulate it.

    Influencers are increasingly integral to election campaign strategies. Political campaigns work with influencers to reach audiences traditional media often misses, or to target specific groups with tailored messaging. And influencers’ deep understanding of social media platforms enable them to create content that can spread quickly and effectively, maximizing reach and engagement.

    Influencers can act as advertisers who are paid to promote politicians or parties, celebrity endorsers donating their time and reach to campaigns or campaign volunteers sharing content online. Unlike traditional advertisements and celebrities, influencers have more interactive and intimate relationships with their audiences.

    Influencers are invested in appearing authentic, reliable and relatable while also projecting aspirational lifestyles. This makes them particularly persuasive, and their content perceived as genuine and independent, even if it has been paid for or co-ordinated.

    Influencers’ ability to move between personal expression and strategic campaigns makes them extremely powerful. At the same time, they are difficult to regulate or hold accountable. The multiple roles they play, and the flexibility they have in shifting from one role to another, allow them to evade the traditional categories that regulation depends on.

    For instance, it is often difficult to distinguish between authentic support and paid sponsorship. Influencers may endorse a politician because they genuinely support them or as part of a formal campaign. Influencers may be paid to share particular messages or negotiate informal arrangements involving perks like access to exclusive events. Because they do not always disclose these ties, this content can often go unregulated.

    While Canadian election laws are clear that paid advertisement spending needs to be reported, other forms of compensation and co-ordination do not require disclosure. This means that social media users may find it difficult to tell when an influencer’s support is authentic, part of a co-ordinated effort, or sponsored in some way.

    Influencers and journalism

    Influencers have also become central to sharing news, performing a role previously reserved for journalists. Influencers conduct interviews and provide updates and commentary. Research shows that users — especially younger ones — pay more attention to online influencers and celebrities for news than they do traditional news sources.

    In Canada, this trend may have accelerated after the implementation of the Online News Act in 2023, which led Meta to restrict news access on Instagram and Facebook. News influencers are filling this gap.

    Unlike professional journalists, many influencers operate without journalistic training, professional standards, editorial oversight or accountability measures. As such, some become unintentionally involved in the spread of disinformation. Others have been co-opted into disinformation campaigns, which see influencers as a path to plausible deniability, as their content can be presented as opinion rather than a co-ordinated effort.

    While online influencers adapt to these overlapping roles, many politicians and journalists are adopting strategies similar to those of influencers: building personal brands, cultivating authenticity and fostering relationships with their audiences.

    This scenario makes the boundaries between political entities and content creators even more difficult to define.

    Younger people pay more attention to online influencers and celebrities for news than they do traditional news sources.
    (Shutterstock)

    Understanding influencer

    From endorsing candidates to shaping political narratives and mimicking reporters, influencers play multiple political roles in Canada.

    What is organic political support and what is co-ordinated marketing? Who is doing independent political reporting and who is spreading disguised propaganda? And who is being paid? These questions need to be answered to know how to interpret influencers’ content — and how to apply rules around transparency, advertising and political speech.

    Currently, media literacy strategies revolve around teaching users how to find trusted sources, gather information from a range of sources and question how content reaches them.

    When it comes to political information shared by influencers, this means asking whether the influencer is sponsored or collaborating with some political entity. It means considering whether they talk about how they source and verify their information. It also means not relying on a single or small group of influencers who share the same ideas within a given online community.

    Regulating influencers

    Current regulatory frameworks are not equipped to handle influencer political content and its possible effects on elections. Election laws were designed around clear professional categories, media-centric advertising and centralized communication environments. This is no longer the information ecosystem that we exist in.

    The lack of clear definitions and regulatory blind spots creates loopholes that political campaigns can exploit to evade ad transparency and spending laws. Meanwhile, policymakers struggle to find the balance between regulating political advertising via influencers and guaranteeing their freedom of expression.

    Canada’s regulatory framework has to evolve, including clear definitions of political content and advertising, as well as disclosure requirements for paid or co-ordinated political message.

    Elizabeth Dubois receives funding from SSHRC and the Alex Trebek Forum for Dialogue, University of Ottawa.

    Michelle Bartleman receives funding from SSHRC.

    Louise Stahl 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.

    – ref. Social media influencers blur the lines between political content and campaigning, potentially affecting elections – https://theconversation.com/social-media-influencers-blur-the-lines-between-political-content-and-campaigning-potentially-affecting-elections-255382

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Skilled migrants are leaving the U.S. for Canada — how can the north gain from the brain drain?

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ashika Niraula, Senior Research Associate, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration & Integration Program, Toronto Metropolitan University

    Skilled migrants and international students are leaving the United States for Canada in growing numbers. A March 2025 report by Statistics Canada reveals a sharp rise in the numbers of American non-citizen residents moving to Canada. Reasons given are largely restrictive U.S. immigration policies, visa caps and long wait times for green cards.

    This is a shift from earlier decades when American-born citizens dominated the trend. By 2019, nearly half of those making the move were U.S. non-citizen residents.

    Since U.S. President Donald Trump’s election win and early days in office, Google searches by American residents on how to move to Canada, New Zealand and Australia have surged.

    Several high-profile academics have relocated to Canadian universities amid growing concerns over threats to academic freedom.

    British Columbia recently announced plans to launch landmark policies to streamline the credential recognition process for internationally trained health-care professionals, particular American doctors and nurses.

    Skilled talent like health-care professionals, researchers and engineers are essential to building innovative, future-ready economies. But attracting them requires staying competitive in an increasingly global bid for talent.

    Global competition for talent

    In this global race for talent, Canada and Australia need to offer not only efficient immigration pathways but also faster credential recognition and better integration support.

    Yet both nations find themselves walking a tightrope. Once both celebrated as welcoming destinations for global talent, each country has experienced recent immigration restrictions and growing anti-immigration sentiments, undermining those reputations.



    Read more:
    Canada at a crossroads: Understanding the shifting sands of immigration attitudes

    What can these countries learn from each other to stay competitive and benefit from this talent flow?

    Research from Toronto Metropolitan University’s Migration and Integration Program shows Canada’s appeal for skilled migrants is rooted in a mix of practical and aspirational factors. This includes a combination of high living standards, the promise of better career prospects, more accessible permanent residency pathways and a broadly welcoming society.

    But for migrants in Canada, these goals are becoming harder to attain.

    A more cautious approach

    Since the pandemic, Canada’s immigration approach has shifted. During the early COVID-19 years, Canada was praised for its inclusive response, including recognizing immigrants as essential to economic recovery. Temporary workers, including essential workers, international student graduates and French-speaking immigrants, were offered new routes to permanent residency through a federal program.

    However, since 2024, Canada has taken a more cautious approach.

    New policy changes that target international students and cut temporary and permanent migration numbers have tarnished Canada’s global reputation as a welcoming place.

    While permanent residency is still more accessible than in the U.S., skilled migrants are increasingly questioning whether the wait for permanent residency is worth it.

    Australia visa rules slow things down

    Australia faces similar dilemmas. In late 2023, the government launched a new migration strategy to address critical workforce shortages in construction, tech and health care. The Skills in Demand visa promised faster processing and clearer pathways to permanent residency for workers in priority sectors.

    Yet a recent report by the Grattan institute warns that tighter eligibility rules risk excluding much-needed talent, potentially weakening Australia’s competitiveness.

    Growing visa delays are also noted to be an additional barrier that may deter both prospective migrants and employers.

    Working in jobs far below qualifications

    Migration data often tells a story of numbers, categories and eligibility thresholds. However, the human stories behind the numbers reveal deep systemic issues and missed opportunities. One recurring issue is the widespread phenomenon of deskilling.

    In both Canada and Australia, many skilled migrants often find themselves working in jobs far below their qualifications.

    These experiences are part of a pattern that affects not only individuals but also national economies, which lose out on the full potential of their skilled workforce.

    Credential recognition systems are opaque, inconsistent and frequently biased.

    Another overlooked issue is that many skilled migrants do not move alone. People arrive with spouses, children and sometimes elderly parents.

    Yet immigration and settlement systems in both countries are largely structured around individual economic migrants rather than families. In Canada, for instance, federally funded settlement services are mainly geared toward supporting only permanent residents.

    Many spouses, particularly women, face even greater barriers to employment. Issues also include things like high fees for visa processing for parents. Other considerations include children who may struggle with schooling and identity in unfamiliar environments.

    Housing shortages and high costs in major urban centres compound these challenges, pushing newcomers into unaffordable living conditions.

    All this contributes to growing disillusionment. Migrants initially drawn to Canada or Australia as alternatives to unwelcoming environments elsewhere may choose to still come, but it doesn’t mean they will stay.



    Read more:
    Canada halts new parent immigration sponsorships, keeping families apart

    Learning from each other: Canada and Australia

    The experiences of skilled migrants in Canada and Australia show that attracting talent is only half the battle. The real challenge is in retention and integration.

    Many countries like Germany, Japan, South Korea and some Gulf states have begun offering more competitive pathways to immigration along with promises of a work-life balance, streamlined visa programs and competitive salaries. This means skilled migrants are increasingly mobile.



    Read more:
    The states want a bigger say in skilled migration – but doing that actually leaves them worse off

    Australia has made strides in streamlining visa categories and targeting sectoral needs, while Canada has built a strong narrative around inclusion and multiculturalism.

    However, there is a need to combine Australia’s responsiveness and Canada’s inclusive ethos to build resilient migration systems.

    Build future-ready migration systems

    In an era defined by geopolitical uncertainties, countries can no longer afford to treat skilled migrants as temporary fixes or just economic inputs. They are people with aspirations, with families and with dreams.

    They must be seen and supported as future citizens. To build future-ready migration systems Canada must:

    • Ensure transparency and consistency in immigration pathways to reduce uncertainties caused by policy reversals and lengthy processing times.

    • Improve credential recognition and career support to help skilled migrants, including temporary residents, transition into roles that match their qualifications.

    • Develop regional settlement strategies to address where migrants settle and ensure equitable access to services, job markets and housing, especially outside major cities.

    • Adopt inclusive, intersectional policies that consider gender, race and class in shaping the migrant experience, including support for spouses, children and aging parents.

    • Foster collaborative and responsive policymaking. This involves connecting researchers, employers, community organizations and migrants to inform policy making.

    For Canada, the challenge ahead is clear. It’s not just about opening the door. It’s about making sure that once here, migrants have the support, rights and opportunities to walk through that door — and thrive.

    ​Ashika Niraula works as a Senior Research Associate at the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration & Integration Program at Toronto Metropolitan University. The Skilled Migrant Decision Making Under Uncertainty project has received financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (435-2021-0752) and from the wider program of the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University.

    Iori Hamada 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.

    – ref. Skilled migrants are leaving the U.S. for Canada — how can the north gain from the brain drain? – https://theconversation.com/skilled-migrants-are-leaving-the-u-s-for-canada-how-can-the-north-gain-from-the-brain-drain-254435

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Investigators are increasingly using technology in conflict-related sexual assault cases

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Valerie Oosterveld, Professor, Faculty of Law, and Western Research Chair in International Criminal Justice, Western University

    In the last two weeks of February, humanitarian agencies reported 895 cases of conflict-related rape as M23 rebels advanced through the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees official, this was an average of more than 60 rapes a day.



    Read more:
    M23’s capture of Goma is the latest chapter in eastern Congo’s long-running war

    UNICEF officials reported similarly grim figures. Between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2, 2025, the number of rape cases treated across 42 health facilities in DRC jumped five-fold, with 30 per cent of these cases being children.

    While immediate responses are needed to stop the violence, provide health care to the survivors and assist the displaced, the pursuit of justice also plays a critical role.

    Investigative bodies, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), are increasingly using technology to investigate conflict-related sexual violence. In a recent research project, my team interviewed experts who specialize in conflict-related sexual violence investigations around the world. The research was supported by XCEPT, a conflict research program funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development.

    Investigating sexual violence

    The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, visited DRC at the end of February and met with sexual violence survivors. The ICC has the mandate to investigate rape, sexual slavery and other gender-based violence amounting to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The office had reactivated investigations in October 2024.

    Investigators start by speaking to survivors, following guidelines such as the 2023 Policy on Gender-Based Crimes or the Global Code of Conduct for Gathering and Using Information About Systematic and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. The Global Code of Conduct is known as the Murad Code after Nobel Peace Prize recipient and advocate Nadia Murad.

    In our research, we found that survivors of conflict-related sexual violence are connecting with investigators through various technologies, such as directly using encrypted apps like Signal. Survivors also go through civil society organizations equipped to take video or electronic statements — Yazda, for example, which works with Yazidi survivors of ISIS crimes in northern Iraq — or via portals like the ICC’s OTPLink. The UN’s Commissions of Inquiry also encourage and receive email submissions.

    International courts and investigative bodies are also analyzing open-source information on conflict-related sexual violence, such as videos, photos and statements posted on online platforms. Guided by the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations, this information can be useful to support witness statements, place alleged perpetrators at the scene of the violations and link incidents into a pattern of similar violence.

    For example, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria described how ISIS used the encrypted app Telegram and other online platforms to buy and sell captured Yazidi women and girls across the Iraq-Syria border to sustain its sabaya (sexual slavery) system.

    In Ukraine, our study found that the main technology-related concern in open-source data gathering is identifying AI-created and other artificially generated images, specifically designed and planted in the public domain as a form of disinformation or to compromise investigations.

    Face and voice recognition

    Conflict-related sexual violence is often perpetrated indoors which makes certain technologies like satellite or drone imagery less useful. However, other forms of technology have proven to be beneficial in Ukraine’s investigations. In particular, face and voice recognition software have supported efforts to identify alleged perpetrators.

    While Ukraine’s experience points to some successes, investigations into sexual violence committed by ISIS in northern Iraq have been hampered. This is partly due to the lack of automated translation software in the Yazidi language to facilitate the transcription and translation of testimonies.

    This speaks to the importance of developing software to translate minority languages spoken in armed conflict zones.

    Survivor concerns

    Survivors have expressed concerns about the turn to the digital. They fear that their identities and experiences may be revealed through hacking or poor data handling, which could put them at risk of reprisals from perpetrators or their accomplices. It could also lead to stigmatization and ostracization in some communities, undoing survivors’ efforts to rebuild their lives.

    To address these concerns, international courts and investigative bodies have adopted data protection protocols. However, the lack of a standardized framework for the use of technology in the investigation of conflict-related sexual violence remains a significant concern for the investigators we interviewed.

    Such a framework would incorporate best practices in supporting survivors providing evidence, tracking and preserving open source information and developing new technological applications.

    If there is to be justice for survivors of conflict-related rape in DRC and elsewhere, technology — provided it is used with great sensitivity — will likely be an important and timely aid.

    Valerie Oosterveld received funding for this research from the UK’s Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy, and Trends (XCEPT) research programme.

    – ref. Investigators are increasingly using technology in conflict-related sexual assault cases – https://theconversation.com/investigators-are-increasingly-using-technology-in-conflict-related-sexual-assault-cases-249227

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Is Canada heading down a path that has caused the collapse of mighty civilizations in the past?

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Daniel Hoyer, Senior Researcher, Historian and Complexity Scientist, University of Toronto

    Canada is, by nearly any measure, a large, advanced, prosperous nation. A founding member of the G7, Canada is one of the world’s most “advanced economies,” ranking fourth in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Better Life Index, which measures things like national health outcomes, security, safety and life satisfaction.

    However, all of this prosperity and ostensible stability can mask social tensions, which can simmer for years, even decades, before boiling over into widespread unrest, civil violence and even societal collapse.

    Along with more than a dozen collaborators as part of the Seshat: Global History Databank project, I have spent over a decade studying the rise and fall of societies from around the globe and throughout history. This provides a unique insight to understand the challenges facing modern nations.

    Our new organization, Societal Dynamics (SoDy), works to translate what we learn from observing historical patterns into lessons for today.

    Even the most powerful empires can collapse

    Devoting my time to studying historic crises has shown me just how fragile societies are. Even big, powerful, famous civilizations can succumb to crises.

    For instance, colleagues recently published a study comparing three large, wealthy imperial powers of the past: the Roman, Han and Aztec Empires.

    Historians consider these to be some of the most successful, wealthy, stable societies of the pre-modern world.

    They lasted centuries, controlled vast stretches of territory, oversaw innovations in technology, politics and philosophy and produced some of the most famous works of art and architecture from history that we still talk about today — the incredible Roman Colosseum, the stunning jade carvings and other artwork of the Han period and the amazing Aztec pyramids and intricate artwork.

    But not long after they reached their apex, all three of these mighty civilizations experienced devastating crises:

    Rome was torn apart by civil warfare starting in the early third century CE. Ambitious military generals from the provinces marched on each other, looking to gain even more power. They were supported by legions of loyal soldiers dissatisfied with their lot in life.

    Western Han imperial rule came to a crashing end in the ninth century CE when a wealthy and prominent courtier named Wang Mang led a successful coup. As in Rome, Wang rallied military leaders and officials frustrated in their ambitions. He amassed a large following of commoners weary of impoverishment by decrying the luxurious excesses of the Han court.

    Aztec authority was already weakened by civil strife by the time the invading Spanish armies arrived in 1519 CE. The Aztecs ultimately proved unable to withstand the vicious warfare and disease outbreaks that accompanied the Spanish arrival.

    Hidden vulnerabilities

    What happened to these once-mighty empires? The aforementioned study gives some answers. The authors explored the distribution of wealth and income in these empires, comparing it to the modern United States.

    They found that each of these empires permitted fairly high disparities to accumulate.

    In each case, the richest five per cent and one per cent of citizens controlled an outsized share of their society’s wealth. This leads to fairly high “gini index” values as well. The gini is a commonly used measure of inequality in nations — the higher the number up to one, the more inequitable a society is. For comparison, the current average gini among OECD countries is 0.32, notably lower than each of the four societies shown above.

    The researchers suggest this high level of inequality contributed to the eventual collapse of these empires.

    This is consistent with our own findings on the dynamics of crisis. Inequality tends to breed frustration as impoverishment spreads.

    It creates conflict as the upper classes become bloated with too many wealthy and powerful families vying for control of the vast spoils that accumulate at the top. It also erodes society’s ability to respond to acute shocks like ecological disasters or economic downturns as the government loses capacity and authority.

    If allowed to persist, it becomes more and more likely for the society to end in collapse.

    How does Canada compare?

    Canada today bears several similarities with these and other famous civilizations of the past — and that should make Canadians nervous.

    Canada, like the Romans, Han, Aztecs and many other once great societies, has maintained a relatively peaceful and secure rule over a large territory for a time. It’s generated a great deal of wealth, has facilitated the exchange of technology, ideas and movement of people over vast distances and has produced amazing works of art. But Canada has also allowed inequality to grow and linger for generations.

    My group has been exploring the historic patterns of wealth creation and distribution in different countries, including Canada. We focus on what’s known as the “Palma ratio,” generally considered a more reliable measure of inequality than the gini.

    The measurement quantifies the ratio of wealth or income between the richest 10 per cent and the poorest 40 per cent of citizens. Higher numbers indicate that the richest are capturing the lion’s share of a country’s overall wealth.

    Canada’s economy has been growing steadily as measured by GDP per capita — with a few notable exceptions — since the Second World War.

    Initially, inequality held steady, but starting in about 1980, the Palma ratio jumps up sharply. This suggests the bulk of this growth was making its way into the hands of the wealthy. After a downturn in the late 2000s, inequality has begun to grow again in recent years.

    By comparison, the U.S. has experienced similar trends, though without the momentary downturn in the 2000s. Note also that these two graphs show different levels — the Palma ratio in the U.S. in 2022 (the latest available data) is about 4.5, while it’s just over two in Canada.

    Heading down a dangerous path

    Most citizens living in the heyday of these once mighty empires probably thought that collapse was unfathomable, just as few living in the U.S. or Canada today feel that we’re headed that way.

    But there have been familiar signs growing in the U.S. in recent years. Americans appear to be further ahead on the road to a potential collapse than Canadians are, but not by that much.

    Canada is starting to exhibit many of these same indicators as well, including significant spikes in social unrest evident during the COVID-19 pandemic and the increasingly hostile rhetoric we have seen among Canadian politicians. Persistent, heightened material inequality stands out as core driver in all of these cases.



    Read more:
    The ‘freedom convoy’ protesters are a textbook case of ‘aggrieved entitlement’

    Canada remains, in many ways, a stable, thriving, modern democratic-socialist country. But it’s on a dangerous path.

    If Canada allows inequality continue to rise unchecked as it has over the last few generations, it risks ending up where Rome, Han, the Aztecs and hundreds of other societies have been before: widespread unrest, devastating violence and even complete societal collapse.

    As Canadians head to the polls, the country is at another crossroads. Will it continue down this all-too-familiar path, or will it take the opportunity to forge a different route and avoid the fate of the fallen societies of the past?

    Daniel Hoyer is director of SoDy and affiliated with ASRA Network, Complexity Science Hub, Vienna, and the SocialAI lab at the University of Toronto. He has received funding from: the Tricoastal Foundation; the Institute for Economics and Peace; and the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation.

    – ref. Is Canada heading down a path that has caused the collapse of mighty civilizations in the past? – https://theconversation.com/is-canada-heading-down-a-path-that-has-caused-the-collapse-of-mighty-civilizations-in-the-past-254378

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Newspoll shows Labor’s lead steady at 52–48

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

    While last week’s Morgan and YouGov polls had Labor continuing its surge, Newspoll is steady for the fourth successive week at 52–48 to Labor. A Redbridge poll of the marginal seats was again very strong for Labor, while YouGov and KJC seat polls were respectively good and bad for Labor.

    A national Newspoll, conducted April 21–24 from a sample of 1,254, gave Labor a 52–48 lead, unchanged from the April 14–17 Newspoll.

    Primary votes were 35% Coalition (steady), 34% Labor (steady), 11% Greens (down one), 8% One Nation (up one) and 12% for all Others (steady). The drop for the Greens and gain for One Nation mean this poll was probably better for the Coalition before rounding than the previous Newspoll.

    Here is the graph of Labor’s two-party preferred vote in national polls. The fieldwork midpoint date of Newspoll was April 23, three days ahead of the next most recent poll (YouGov). Perhaps Labor has peaked too early.

    Analyst Peter Brent wrote for Inside Story that he thought Anthony Albanese performed poorly in the April 22 debate with Peter Dutton. This may explain some shift to the Coalition. But with just five full days left until the May 3 election and early voting in progress, Labor remains the heavy favourite to win.

    Albanese’s net approval was steady at -9, while Dutton’s net approval was down two points to -24, a new record low. Albanese led Dutton by 51–35 as better PM (52–36 previously). Here is the graph of Albanese’s net approval in Newspoll, with the plus signs marking data points and a smoothed line fitted.

    In this poll, 48% thought it was time to give someone else a go (down five since February), while 39% (up five) thought the government deserved to be re-elected. Meanwhile, 62% (up seven) said the Dutton-led Coalition was not ready to govern.

    Labor retains 54.5–45.5 lead in Redbridge marginal seats poll

    A poll of 20 marginal seats by Redbridge and Accent Research for the News Corp tabloids was conducted April 15–22 from a sample of 1,000. It gave Labor a 54.5–45.5 lead, unchanged since the April 9–15 marginal seats poll. Primary votes were 35% Labor (steady), 34% Coalition (steady), 14% Greens (up one) and 17% for all Others (down one).

    The overall 2022 vote in these 20 seats was 51–49 to Labor, so this poll implies a 3.5-point swing to Labor from the 2022 election. If applied to the national 2022 result of 52.1–47.9 to Labor, Labor would lead by about 55.5–44.5. Since the first wave of this marginal seats tracker in early February, Labor has gained 6.5 points. If this poll is accurate, Labor is likely to win a thumping majority.

    Over the five waves of this marginal seats tracker, the Liberals have gone from +1 net favourable to -8, while Labor has moved from -9 to -3. Albanese has gone from -16 to -4 (up one since last week), while Dutton has gone from -11 to -20 (up two since last week).

    By 22–14, voters preferred Labor’s housing policy to the Coalition’s, with 38% for neither and 12% for both the same.

    YouGov and KJC seat polls

    The Canberra Times had YouGov polls of ten regional seats, conducted April 17–24 from an overall sample of 3,000 (so 300 per seat). The primary votes suggest the Coalition would lose the Tasmanian seat of Braddon to Labor, and the NSW and Victorian seats of Calare and Wannon to independents, leaving them with only Dutton’s Dickson out of the ten surveyed.

    Labor would be likely to hold all its regional seats, although in the NSW seat of Hunter One Nation would be their final opponent instead of the Coalition. Seat polls are unreliable.

    The Poll Bludger reported Saturday that KJC Research had taken seat polls on April 24 from a sample of 600 per seat for an industry group. These polls went against the trend, with the Liberals ahead of Labor by 49–45 including undecided in the Western Australian Labor-held seat of Tangney and 46–41 in the Queensland Labor-held seat of Blair.

    In the New South Wales Labor-held seat of Richmond, the Greens led Labor by 39–34. In the NSW Labor-hels seat of Hunter, Labor led the Liberals by 45–41.

    Gap narrows, but Liberals still likely to win majority at Canadian election

    The Canadian election is on Monday, with the large majority of polls closing at 11:30am AEST Tuesday. The CBC Poll Tracker has the centre-left governing Liberals leading the Conservatives by 42.5–38.7 in national vote share and by 189–125 in seat point estimates (172 needed for a majority). I covered Canada and other upcoming and past international elections for The Poll Bludger on Saturday.

    Adrian Beaumont 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.

    – ref. Newspoll shows Labor’s lead steady at 52–48 – https://theconversation.com/newspoll-shows-labors-lead-steady-at-52-48-255381

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Rwanda’s genocide: why remembering needs to be free of politics – lessons from survivors

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Samantha Lakin, Lecturer, Clark University

    Memory and politics are inherently intertwined and can never be fully separated in post-atrocity and post-genocidal contexts. They are also dynamic and ever-changing. The interplay between memory and politics is, therefore, prone to manipulation, exaggeration or misuse by clever actors to meet a range of political ends.

    This applies too to Rwanda’s commemoration period (Kwibuka). It runs from April to July each year, dedicated to remembering the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.

    I have been researching genocide memory in Rwanda for more than 12 years. My research focuses on memorialisation, meaning-making, and senses of justice rendered for individuals who lived through the genocide, documenting personal relationships with Kwibuka.

    Remembrance poses a challenging paradox. Often, when new conflicts arise, memorialisation falls into two distinct and competing categories. There is politically motivated commemoration, where memory is used as cover to advance a political agenda. Then, there are memory practices that transcend politics. These two types of memory coexist at the same time and place.

    Drawing from more than a decade of original research on genocide memory in Rwanda, I explore commemoration practices that transcend politics, and identify why Kwibuka is still needed and how individuals keep Kwibuka relevant in today’s challenging socio-political climate.

    Three ways genocide remembrance transcends politics

    Firstly, Kwibuka can be a freeing practice for survivors.

    For many Rwandans, genocide remembrance practices like Kwibuka still hold meaning. According to interviews I held with several Rwandan genocide survivors based in the US and in Rwanda, the commemoration period can be surprisingly and unexpectedly freeing.

    One Rwandan woman in her early 40s who survived rape and was forced into hiding during the genocide explains:

    When survivors gather for Kwibuka, we feel like we are allowed to express our grief in ways that might seem bizarre to outsiders. As Rwandans, culturally we are expected to be strong and not overly emotional. Yet during Kwibuka, we cry, we tell stories, and we even laugh and tell jokes. During Kwibuka we are not judged for it. This is what it looks like for survivors to move forward.

    Secondly, there is genocide memory as a responsibility.

    Some survivors continue to engage in commemoration as an outward form of obligation to the victims lost during the genocide.

    According to interviews with several early representatives of Ibuka, the main survivors’ organisation in Rwanda, established in 1995, right after the genocide, most survivors didn’t feel ready to put their own needs aside. They doubted that justice would ever be achieved. Yet, by and large, they did it anyway for the good of the collective, or out of respect for the leaders of the movement who were advocating for their rights.

    The obligation to victims remains meaningful to genocide survivors today. When sharing her testimony at the UN commemoration on 7 April 2025, genocide survivor Germaine Tuyisenge Müller discussed her personal obligation to victims.

    Many of us still have guilt. We do not know why we survived. We tell our stories out of responsibility.

    She was only 9 years old during the genocide.

    Out of 100 people I interviewed during my research from 2013 to 2020 in Rwanda, the majority feel it’s important to attend Kwibuka ceremonies. The main reason they give is to support their neighbours and their community.

    This perspective represents a change that took place some time after 2014, the 20th Kwibuka, from negative incentives to attend (pressure, surveillance from the government and potential consequences), to Kwibuka being perceived as a positive collective good, with relatively little harm in attending ceremonies. As one Rwandan I interviewed in 2017 put it:

    We go because it holds communal value, it’s better to go rather than cause a problem in the community, and it isn’t a hassle for me to go Kwibuka.

    Thirdly, genocide remembrance provides agency.

    Many Rwandan survivors view engaging in Kwibuka as a way to have agency in the present, contrary to the genocide period when they had no control over their fate. They exercise agency through commitments and actions that support victims who experience violence today.

    The majority of interview respondents shared that they reflect on different things while attending commemorations, even when official stories told might not represent the diverse range of Rwandan experiences during the genocide. These include Rwandans from mixed marriages, or individuals falsely accused of committing acts of genocide in 1994.

    Shaping commemoration

    How can external actors and concerned citizens support efforts that shape commemoration that transcends politics?

    While it may feel that there is not much “we” can do, as ordinary global citizens, we each play an important role in protecting and promoting truth in the wake of those who manipulate history to harm survivors and gain politically. But we must be discerning. When we learn, listen to and amplify survivor voices, we must focus on two main aspects. First, are people’s stories authentic? Second, are they dedicated to pursuing justice and peace, and not causing division and conflict?

    Additionally, building peace is a long struggle. It cannot happen overnight, nor can we expect it to.

    Genocide survivors from Rwanda teach us that it takes active dedication and ongoing, daily work from individuals and organisations to confront and challenge rising manipulation by those who seek to promote violence and conflict. Suffering in the world is increasing. Survivor stories and testimonies shared around the world during Kwibuka become even more important to inform analysis and prevention of modern-day crimes and human rights abuses.

    By remembering and honouring the struggles and sacrifices made for the right to gather and remember, the international community and stakeholders dedicated to pursuing peace can learn from the forms of remembrance that transcend politics. This includes its critical role in protecting historical truth from manipulation, one of the most significant challenges faced today.

    Samantha Lakin, PhD, is a specialist in comparative genocide and a Senior Fellow at The Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development (CPDD) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Please note: the author is writing in her personal capacity as a genocide scholar, and her views do not represent those of her current employer.

    – ref. Rwanda’s genocide: why remembering needs to be free of politics – lessons from survivors – https://theconversation.com/rwandas-genocide-why-remembering-needs-to-be-free-of-politics-lessons-from-survivors-254745

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: First fossil pangolin tracks discovered in South Africa

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Charles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University

    A team of scientists who study vertebrate fossil tracks and traces on South Africa’s southern Cape coast have identified the world’s first fossil pangolin trackway, with the help of Indigenous Master Trackers from Namibia. Ichnologists Charles Helm, Clive Thompson and Jan De Vynck tell the story.

    What did you find?

    A fossil trackway east of Still Bay in South Africa’s Western Cape province was found in 2018 by a colleague and was brought to our attention. It was found on the surface of a loose block of aeolianite rock (formed from hardened sand) that had come to rest near the high-tide mark in a private nature reserve.

    We studied it but our cautious approach required that we could not confidently pin down what had made the track. It remained enigmatic.

    How did you eventually identify it?

    In 2023, we were working with two Ju/’hoansi San colleagues from north-eastern Namibia, #oma Daqm and /uce Nǂamce, who have been interpreting tracks in the Kalahari all their lives. They are certified as Indigenous Master Trackers and we consider them to be among the finest trackers in the world today. We’d called on their expertise to help us understand more about the fossil tracks on the Cape south coast. One example of the insights they provided was of hyena tracks, and we have published on this together.



    Read more:
    First fossil hyena tracks found in South Africa – how expert animal trackers helped

    We showed them the intriguing trackway, which consisted of eight tracks and two scuff marks made, apparently, by the animal’s tail. They examined the track-bearing surface at length, conversed with one another for some time, and then made their pronouncement: the trackway had been registered by a pangolin.

    This was an astonishing claim, as no fossilised pangolin tracks had previously been recorded anywhere in the world.

    It also confirms that pangolins were once distributed across a larger range than they are now.

    We then created three-dimensional digital models of the trackway, using a technique called photogrammetry.

    We shared these images with other tracking and pangolin experts in southern Africa (like CyberTracker, Tracker Academy, the African Pangolin Working Group, wildlife guides and a pangolin researcher at the Tswalu Foundation). There were no dissenting voices: not surprisingly, it was agreed that our San colleagues were highly likely correct in their interpretation.

    There is something really special about a fossil trackway, compared with fossil bones – it seems alive, as if the animal could have registered the tracks yesterday, rather than so long ago.

    What are the characteristics of pangolin tracks?

    Pangolins are mostly bipedal (walking on two legs), with a distinctive, relatively ponderous gait. Track size and shape, the distance between the tracks, and the width of the trackway all provide useful clues, as do the tail scuff marks and the absence of obvious digit impressions. A pangolin hindfoot track, in the words of our Master Tracker colleagues, looks as if “a round stick had been poked into the ground”. And being slightly wider at the front end, it has a slightly triangular shape.

    Pangolin walking (video in slow motion)

    Our Master Tracker colleagues are familiar with the tracks of Temminck’s pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) in the Kalahari, which was the probable species that registered the tracks that are now evident in stone on the Cape coast. Other trackmaker candidates, such as a serval with its slim straddle, were considered, but could be excluded or regarded as far less likely.

    How old is the fossil track and how do you know?

    The surface would have consisted of loose dune sand when the pangolin walked on it. Now it’s cemented into rock. We work with a colleague, Andrew Carr, at the University of Leicester in the UK. He uses a technique known as optically stimulated luminescence to obtain the age of rocks in the area.

    The results he provided for the region suggest that these tracks were made between 90,000 and 140,000 years ago, during the “Ice Ages”. For much of this time the coastline might have been as much as 100km south of its present location.

    What’s important about this find?

    Firstly, this demonstrates what you can uncover when you bring together different kinds of knowledge: our western scientific approach combined with the remarkable skill sets of the Master Trackers, which have been inculcated in them from a very young age.

    Without them, the trackway would have remained enigmatic, and would have deteriorated in quality due to erosion without the trackmaker ever being identified.



    Read more:
    Fossil treasure chest: how to preserve the geoheritage of South Africa’s Cape coast

    Secondly, we hope it brings attention to the plight of the pangolin in modern times. There are eight extant pangolin species in the world today, and all are considered to be threatened with extinction. Pangolin meat is regarded as a delicacy, pangolin scales are used in traditional medicines, and pangolins are among the most trafficked wild animals on earth. Large numbers in Africa are hunted for their meat every year.

    What does the future hold?

    Our San Indigenous Master Tracker colleagues have just completed their third visit to the southern Cape coast, thanks to funding from the Discovery Wilderness Trust.

    The results have once again been both unexpected and stupendous, and their tracking skills have again been demonstrated to be unparalleled. Many more publications will undoubtedly ensue, bringing their expertise to the attention of the wider scientific community and anyone interested in our fossil heritage or in ancient hunter-gatherer traditions.

    We hope that our partnership continues to lead to our mutual benefit as we probe the secrets of the Pleistocene epoch by following the spoor of ancient animals.

    Clive Thompson is a trustee of the Discovery Wilderness Trust, a non-profit organization that supports environmental conservation and the fostering of tracking skills.

    Charles Helm and Jan Carlo De Vynck 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.

    – ref. First fossil pangolin tracks discovered in South Africa – https://theconversation.com/first-fossil-pangolin-tracks-discovered-in-south-africa-253383

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Election Diary: Albanese promises around-the-clock health line, with leaders to hold rallies

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will launch another push on health on Sunday, announcing a re-elected Labor government would set up a free around-the-clock 1800MEDICARE advice line and afterhours GP telehealth service.

    The service would be launched from January 1 and cost A$204.5 million over the forward estimates.

    Albanese will tell a Sydney rally that people would be able to call at any time to get advice from a nurse. If the problem couldn’t wait for their regular GP, they would be connected to a free GP telehealth consultation.

    “Life isn’t 9 to 5. Neither is health care,” Albanese will say in his speech, an extract of which was released ahead of delivery.

    People with a sick child late at night or an unwell elderly parent would know there was trained expert advice at the end of the phone.

    “This will take pressure off people – and off public hospitals.

    “And in conjunction with our plan to open 50 more Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, it will ensure that free urgent care is within a 20 minute drive away for four out of every five Australians and just a phone call away for every Australian.”

    The present telehealth service is patchy depending on which part of Australia people live and doesn’t provide a weekend GP service.

    With a number of Victorian seats in strong contention, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has a rally in Melbourne on Sunday. Federal Labor’s vote in Victoria has been volatile, first collapsing under the unpopularity of the state Allan government but recently reviving.



    Read more:
    50 new urgent care clinics are on the cards. But are the existing ones working? Here’s what we know so far

    Several men land in northern Australia

    A small group of men from a boat that arrived illegally in remote northern Australia has been apprehended by Border Force. The men were first discovered by a commercial helicopter pilot.

    They had written “SOS” in the sand and put up a flag. It is not known where they came from, or their circumstances.

    Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said in a statement on Saturday, “We do not confirm , or comment on, operational matters.

    “There has never been a successful people smuggling venture under our government, and that remains true.

    “When someone arrives without visa they are detained and then deported.”

    In 2022 the Liberals tried to exploit a boat interception on election day, by publicising it and sending text messages to voters.

    Michelle Grattan 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.

    – ref. Election Diary: Albanese promises around-the-clock health line, with leaders to hold rallies – https://theconversation.com/election-diary-albanese-promises-around-the-clock-health-line-with-leaders-to-hold-rallies-254991

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Election Diary: Albanese promises around-the-clock health line, with leaders to hold rallies in Victoria

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will launch another push on health on Sunday, announcing a re-elected Labor government would set up a free around-the-clock 1800MEDICARE advice line and afterhours GP telehealth service.

    The service would be launched from January 1 and cost A$204.5 million over the forward estimates.

    Albanese will tell a Melbourne rally that people would be able to call at any time to get advice from a nurse. If the problem couldn’t wait for their regular GP, they would be connected to a free GP telehealth consultation.

    “Life isn’t 9 to 5. Neither is health care,” Albanese will say in his speech, an extract of which was released ahead of delivery.

    People with a sick child late at night or an unwell elderly parent would know there was trained expert advice at the end of the phone.

    “This will take pressure off people – and off public hospitals.

    “And in conjunction with our plan to open 50 more Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, it will ensure that free urgent care is within a 20 minute drive away for four out of every five Australians and just a phone call away for every Australian.”

    The present telehealth service is patchy depending on which part of Australia people live and doesn’t provide a weekend GP service.

    With a number of Victorian seats in strong contention, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton also has a rally in Melbourne on Sunday. Federal Labor’s vote in Victoria has been volatile, first collapsing under the unpopularity of the state Allan government but recently reviving.



    Read more:
    50 new urgent care clinics are on the cards. But are the existing ones working? Here’s what we know so far

    Several men land in northern Australia

    A small group of men from a boat that arrived illegally in remote northern Australia has been apprehended by Border Force. The men were first discovered by a commercial helicopter pilot.

    They had written “SOS” in the sand and put up a flag. It is not known where they came from, or their circumstances.

    Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said in a statement on Saturday, “We do not confirm , or comment on, operational matters.

    “There has never been a successful people smuggling venture under our government, and that remains true.

    “When someone arrives without visa they are detained and then deported.”

    In 2022 the Liberals tried to exploit a boat interception on election day, by publicising it and sending text messages to voters.

    Michelle Grattan 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.

    – ref. Election Diary: Albanese promises around-the-clock health line, with leaders to hold rallies in Victoria – https://theconversation.com/election-diary-albanese-promises-around-the-clock-health-line-with-leaders-to-hold-rallies-in-victoria-254991

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: 80 years after Benito Mussolini’s death, what can democracies today learn from his fascist rise?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Australian Catholic University

    Hitler and Mussolini in Munich, Germany, June 18, 1940. Everett Collection/Shutterstock

    This Monday marks 80 years since Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was killed in an Italian village towards the end of the Second World War in 1945. The following day, his body was publicly desecrated in Milan.

    Il Duce, as Mussolini was known, was Hitler’s inspiration.
    State Library of Victoria

    Given the scale of Adolf Hitler’s atrocities, our image of fascism today has largely been shaped by Nazism. Yet, Mussolini preceded Hitler. Il Duce, as Mussolini was known, was Hitler’s inspiration.

    Today, as commentators, bloggers and scholars are debating whether the governments of US President Donald Trump, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin are “fascist”, we can learn from Il Duce’s career about how democracies fail and dictators consolidate autocratic rule.

    The early years

    The term “fascist” itself originated around the time of Mussolini’s founding in 1914 of the Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria, a militaristic group promoting Italy’s entry into the First World War.

    Mussolini had been raised in a leftist family. Before WWI, he edited and wrote for socialist newspapers. Yet, from early on, the young rebel was also attracted to radically anti-democratic thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, George Sorel, and Wilfred Pareto.

    When WWI broke out, Mussolini broke from the socialists, who opposed Italy’s involvement in the conflict. Like Hitler, he fought in the war. Mussolini considered his front-line experience as formative for his future ideas around fascism. His war experience led him to imagine making Italy great again – an imperial power worthy of the heritage of ancient Rome.

    In March 1919, Mussolini formed the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in Milan. This group brought together a motley collection of war veterans, primarily interested in fighting the socialists and communists. They were organised in squadristi (squads), which would become known for their black shirts and violence – they forced many of their targets to drink castor oil.

    The political success of Mussolini’s fascist ideals, however, was neither instant nor inevitable. In the 1919 Italian elections, Mussolini received so few votes, communists held a mock funeral march outside his house to celebrate his political death.

    The rise to power and the march on Rome

    Fascism became a part of national political life in 1920-21, following waves of industrial and agricultural strikes and worker occupations of land and factories.

    As a result, rural and industrial elites turned to the fascist squadristi to break strikes and combat workers’ organisations. Fascist squads also overturned the results of democratic elections in Bologna and Cremona, preventing left-wing candidates from assuming office.

    Mussolini’s political capital, remarkably, was boosted by this violence. He was invited to enter Prime Minister Ivanoe Bonomi’s first government in July 1921.

    The following October, fascists occupied the towns of Bolzano and Trento. The liberals, socialists and Italian monarchy were indecisive in the face of these provocations, allowing Mussolini to seize the moment. Mustering the fascist squads, he ordered the famous “march on Rome” in late October 2022 to demand he be appointed prime minister.

    All the evidence suggests if the government had intervened, the march on Rome would have disbanded. It was a bold piece of political theatre. Nevertheless, fearing civil war — and the communists more than the black shirts — King Victor Emmanuel III caved in without a shot being fired.

    Mussolini was made leader of a new government on October 31, 1922.

    The consolidation of dictatorship

    Like Hitler in 1933, Mussolini’s rule started as the head of a coalition government including non-fascist parties. Yet, with the repressive powers of the state now at his disposal, Mussolini exploited the division among his rivals and gradually consolidated power.

    In 1923, the communist party was targeted with mass arrests and the fascist squads were brought under official state control as a paramilitary force. Mussolini began to use state powers to surveil all non-fascist political parties.

    In the 1924 general election, with fascist militia menacingly manning the polls, Il Duce won 65% of the vote.

    Then, in June, socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti was kidnapped and murdered by black shirts. When investigations pointed to Mussolini’s responsibility, he at first denied any knowledge of the killing. Months later, however, Mussolini proudly admitted responsibility for the deed, celebrating the fascists’ brutality. He faced no legal or political consequences.

    The last nail in the coffin of Italy’s enfeebled democracy came in late 1926. Following an assassination attempt in which Mussolini’s nose was grazed (he wore a bandage for a time afterwards), Mussolini definitively banned all political opposition.

    The “lesser evil”

    Following his death in April 1945, Mussolini’s dictatorship was often portrayed as “dictatorship-lite”, a “lesser evil” compared to Nazism or Stalinist Russia. This narrative, bolstered by German crimes against Italians in the last months of the war, has understandably been embraced by many Italians.

    Yet, Mussolini’s was the first regime to advertise itself as totalitarian. Styling himself as a “man of destiny”, Mussolini claimed that fascism embodied the “spiritual renewal” of the Italian people.

    His goal of making Italy a power again required total control of the state. His 1932 “Doctrine of Fascism” describes the need “to exercise power and to command” all administrative, policing, and judicial institutions. This included censorship of the press and educational institutions.

    Mussolini announcing Italy’s declaration of war on France and Britain in 1940.
    Australian War Memorial

    While portraying fascism as a “populist” movement, Mussolini also shut down independent trade unions, bailed out big banks, and prevented the right to strike. As a result, economic inequality between Italians actually grew wider under his rule.

    Mussolini also pursued an imperialist dream by invading Ethiopia. Defying international conventions, Il Duce’s troops used chemical weapons and summary executions to quell acts of resistance. Over 700,000 Ethiopians are estimated by scholars to have been killed by the invaders, with around 35,000 forced into internment camps.

    Italian Ca-111 bombers over Ethiopia in the 1930s.
    Getty Images/Wikimedia Commons

    Mussolini’s fascists ran over 30 concentration camps from 1926–45, almost all of them offshore. Some 50–70,000 Libyans alone died in camps set up under Italy’s brutal colonial regime from 1929–34. Many more died through executions, starvation and ethnic cleansing.

    When the notorious SS leader Heinrich Himmler visited Libya in in 1939, he deemed the Italian colony a successful model to emulate.

    And after Mussolini’s forces aided the Axis invasions of Yugoslavia, Albania and Russia in the Second World War, more than 80,000 more prisoners were interned in camps. At the camp on the Croatian Island of Rab, more than 3,000 prisoners died in grossly inhumane conditions in 1942–43, at a mortality rate higher than the Nazi camp at Buchenwald.

    Slovenian prisoner of the Italian Rab concentration camp.
    Archives, Museum of Modern History, Ljubljana/Wikimedia Commons

    From late 1943, Italian fascists also participated in the rounding up of over 7,000 Italian Jews to transfer to Auschwitz. Almost all of them were murdered.

    Following the war, even with Il Duce dead, few perpetrators faced justice for these atrocities.

    Lessons for democracies after 80 years

    The infamy of the crimes associated with the word “fascism” has meant that few people today claim the label – even those attracted to the same kinds of authoritarian, ethnonationalist politics.

    Mussolini, even more than Hitler, can seem a bombastic fool, with his uniform, theatrical gestures, stylised hyper-masculinity and patented steely jaw.

    Yet, one of the lessons of Mussolini’s career is that such political adventurists are only as strong as the democratic opposition allows. To fail to take them seriously is to enable their success.

    Mussolini pushed his luck time and again between 1920 and 1926. As the wonderful recent teleseries of his ascent, Mussolini, Figlio del Seculo shows, time and again, the opposition failed to concertedly oppose the fascists’ attacks on democratic norms and institutions. Then it was too late.

    Democracies mostly fall over time, by a thousand cuts and shifts of the goalposts of what is considered “normal”. Fascism, moreover, depends in no small measure on shameless political deception, including the readiness to conceal its own most radical intentions.

    Fascist “strongmen” like Mussolini accumulate power thanks to people’s inabilities to believe that the barbarisation of political life – including open violence against opponents – could happen in their societies.

    And there is a final, unsettling lesson of Mussolini’s career. Il Duce was a skilled propagandist who portrayed himself as leading a popular revolt to restore respectable values. He was able to win widespread popular support, including among the elites, even as he destroyed Italian democracy.

    Yet, if the monarchy, military, other political parties and the church had attempted a principled, united opposition to fascism early enough, most of Mussolini’s crimes would likely have been avoided.

    Matthew Sharpe has in the past (2013-17) received funding from the ARC to study religion and politics in the contemporary world.

    – ref. 80 years after Benito Mussolini’s death, what can democracies today learn from his fascist rise? – https://theconversation.com/80-years-after-benito-mussolinis-death-what-can-democracies-today-learn-from-his-fascist-rise-251154

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: 80 years after Benito Mussolini’s death, what can democracies today learn from his fascist rise?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Australian Catholic University

    Hitler and Mussolini in Munich, Germany, June 18, 1940. Everett Collection/Shutterstock

    This Monday marks 80 years since Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was killed in an Italian village towards the end of the Second World War in 1945. The following day, his body was publicly desecrated in Milan.

    Il Duce, as Mussolini was known, was Hitler’s inspiration.
    State Library of Victoria

    Given the scale of Adolf Hitler’s atrocities, our image of fascism today has largely been shaped by Nazism. Yet, Mussolini preceded Hitler. Il Duce, as Mussolini was known, was Hitler’s inspiration.

    Today, as commentators, bloggers and scholars are debating whether the governments of US President Donald Trump, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin are “fascist”, we can learn from Il Duce’s career about how democracies fail and dictators consolidate autocratic rule.

    The early years

    The term “fascist” itself originated around the time of Mussolini’s founding in 1914 of the Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria, a militaristic group promoting Italy’s entry into the First World War.

    Mussolini had been raised in a leftist family. Before WWI, he edited and wrote for socialist newspapers. Yet, from early on, the young rebel was also attracted to radically anti-democratic thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, George Sorel, and Wilfred Pareto.

    When WWI broke out, Mussolini broke from the socialists, who opposed Italy’s involvement in the conflict. Like Hitler, he fought in the war. Mussolini considered his front-line experience as formative for his future ideas around fascism. His war experience led him to imagine making Italy great again – an imperial power worthy of the heritage of ancient Rome.

    In March 1919, Mussolini formed the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in Milan. This group brought together a motley collection of war veterans, primarily interested in fighting the socialists and communists. They were organised in squadristi (squads), which would become known for their black shirts and violence – they forced many of their targets to drink castor oil.

    The political success of Mussolini’s fascist ideals, however, was neither instant nor inevitable. In the 1919 Italian elections, Mussolini received so few votes, communists held a mock funeral march outside his house to celebrate his political death.

    The rise to power and the march on Rome

    Fascism became a part of national political life in 1920-21, following waves of industrial and agricultural strikes and worker occupations of land and factories.

    As a result, rural and industrial elites turned to the fascist squadristi to break strikes and combat workers’ organisations. Fascist squads also overturned the results of democratic elections in Bologna and Cremona, preventing left-wing candidates from assuming office.

    Mussolini’s political capital, remarkably, was boosted by this violence. He was invited to enter Prime Minister Ivanoe Bonomi’s first government in July 1921.

    The following October, fascists occupied the towns of Bolzano and Trento. The liberals, socialists and Italian monarchy were indecisive in the face of these provocations, allowing Mussolini to seize the moment. Mustering the fascist squads, he ordered the famous “march on Rome” in late October 2022 to demand he be appointed prime minister.

    All the evidence suggests if the government had intervened, the march on Rome would have disbanded. It was a bold piece of political theatre. Nevertheless, fearing civil war — and the communists more than the black shirts — King Victor Emmanuel III caved in without a shot being fired.

    Mussolini was made leader of a new government on October 31, 1922.

    The consolidation of dictatorship

    Like Hitler in 1933, Mussolini’s rule started as the head of a coalition government including non-fascist parties. Yet, with the repressive powers of the state now at his disposal, Mussolini exploited the division among his rivals and gradually consolidated power.

    In 1923, the communist party was targeted with mass arrests and the fascist squads were brought under official state control as a paramilitary force. Mussolini began to use state powers to surveil all non-fascist political parties.

    In the 1924 general election, with fascist militia menacingly manning the polls, Il Duce won 65% of the vote.

    Then, in June, socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti was kidnapped and murdered by black shirts. When investigations pointed to Mussolini’s responsibility, he at first denied any knowledge of the killing. Months later, however, Mussolini proudly admitted responsibility for the deed, celebrating the fascists’ brutality. He faced no legal or political consequences.

    The last nail in the coffin of Italy’s enfeebled democracy came in late 1926. Following an assassination attempt in which Mussolini’s nose was grazed (he wore a bandage for a time afterwards), Mussolini definitively banned all political opposition.

    The “lesser evil”

    Following his death in April 1945, Mussolini’s dictatorship was often portrayed as “dictatorship-lite”, a “lesser evil” compared to Nazism or Stalinist Russia. This narrative, bolstered by German crimes against Italians in the last months of the war, has understandably been embraced by many Italians.

    Yet, Mussolini’s was the first regime to advertise itself as totalitarian. Styling himself as a “man of destiny”, Mussolini claimed that fascism embodied the “spiritual renewal” of the Italian people.

    His goal of making Italy a power again required total control of the state. His 1932 “Doctrine of Fascism” describes the need “to exercise power and to command” all administrative, policing, and judicial institutions. This included censorship of the press and educational institutions.

    Mussolini announcing Italy’s declaration of war on France and Britain in 1940.
    Australian War Memorial

    While portraying fascism as a “populist” movement, Mussolini also shut down independent trade unions, bailed out big banks, and prevented the right to strike. As a result, economic inequality between Italians actually grew wider under his rule.

    Mussolini also pursued an imperialist dream by invading Ethiopia. Defying international conventions, Il Duce’s troops used chemical weapons and summary executions to quell acts of resistance. Over 700,000 Ethiopians are estimated by scholars to have been killed by the invaders, with around 35,000 forced into internment camps.

    Italian Ca-111 bombers over Ethiopia in the 1930s.
    Getty Images/Wikimedia Commons

    Mussolini’s fascists ran over 30 concentration camps from 1926–45, almost all of them offshore. Some 50–70,000 Libyans alone died in camps set up under Italy’s brutal colonial regime from 1929–34. Many more died through executions, starvation and ethnic cleansing.

    When the notorious SS leader Heinrich Himmler visited Libya in in 1939, he deemed the Italian colony a successful model to emulate.

    And after Mussolini’s forces aided the Axis invasions of Yugoslavia, Albania and Russia in the Second World War, more than 80,000 more prisoners were interned in camps. At the camp on the Croatian Island of Rab, more than 3,000 prisoners died in grossly inhumane conditions in 1942–43, at a mortality rate higher than the Nazi camp at Buchenwald.

    Slovenian prisoner of the Italian Rab concentration camp.
    Archives, Museum of Modern History, Ljubljana/Wikimedia Commons

    From late 1943, Italian fascists also participated in the rounding up of over 7,000 Italian Jews to transfer to Auschwitz. Almost all of them were murdered.

    Following the war, even with Il Duce dead, few perpetrators faced justice for these atrocities.

    Lessons for democracies after 80 years

    The infamy of the crimes associated with the word “fascism” has meant that few people today claim the label – even those attracted to the same kinds of authoritarian, ethnonationalist politics.

    Mussolini, even more than Hitler, can seem a bombastic fool, with his uniform, theatrical gestures, stylised hyper-masculinity and patented steely jaw.

    Yet, one of the lessons of Mussolini’s career is that such political adventurists are only as strong as the democratic opposition allows. To fail to take them seriously is to enable their success.

    Mussolini pushed his luck time and again between 1920 and 1926. As the wonderful recent teleseries of his ascent, Mussolini, Figlio del Seculo shows, time and again, the opposition failed to concertedly oppose the fascists’ attacks on democratic norms and institutions. Then it was too late.

    Democracies mostly fall over time, by a thousand cuts and shifts of the goalposts of what is considered “normal”. Fascism, moreover, depends in no small measure on shameless political deception, including the readiness to conceal its own most radical intentions.

    Fascist “strongmen” like Mussolini accumulate power thanks to people’s inabilities to believe that the barbarisation of political life – including open violence against opponents – could happen in their societies.

    And there is a final, unsettling lesson of Mussolini’s career. Il Duce was a skilled propagandist who portrayed himself as leading a popular revolt to restore respectable values. He was able to win widespread popular support, including among the elites, even as he destroyed Italian democracy.

    Yet, if the monarchy, military, other political parties and the church had attempted a principled, united opposition to fascism early enough, most of Mussolini’s crimes would likely have been avoided.

    Matthew Sharpe has in the past (2013-17) received funding from the ARC to study religion and politics in the contemporary world.

    – ref. 80 years after Benito Mussolini’s death, what can democracies today learn from his fascist rise? – https://theconversation.com/80-years-after-benito-mussolinis-death-what-can-democracies-today-learn-from-his-fascist-rise-251154

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Warfare is Band of Brothers for the ‘war on terror’ generation

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sam Edwards, Reader in Modern Political History, Loughborough University

    Back in 1998, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan was widely acclaimed for the bloody realism of its opening scenes. In Warfare, co-directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland have achieved something very similar for the Iraq war (2003-2011).

    This time, however, the assault on the senses lasts for almost the entire duration of the film – around 95 mins. The result is an unrelenting depiction of 21st-century battle which both invokes and disrupts the generic conventions of the combat film.

    Warfare begins by staking a claim to authenticity. The opening credits tell us that it is based entirely on the memories of those who were there: the members of a US Navy Seal platoon involved in an operation in the immediate aftermath of the 2006 Battle of Ramadi.

    In pre-release interviews, Mendoza – a Seal veteran and former member of the platoon – explained that Warfare was made as a purposeful attempt to provide a visual account of what happened for a comrade (Elliott Miller, played in the film by Cosmo Jarvis) who lost his memory after a horrific battlefield injury.

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    It is by no means the only war film to find inspiration in the memories of veterans. From The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) to Lone Survivor (2013), traumatic first-hand experiences have long informed Hollywood’s depictions of war and its aftermath.

    But in Warfare this framing has a very deliberate consequence. It telescopes the action so that questions of broader political context are necessarily sidelined in favour of the visceral experiences of those on the ground. The Seals are there because they are there – no other rationale for their mission is offered.

    Towards the start, Warfare also follows some well-trodden ground when it pointedly lingers on the boredom before battle. This is reminiscent of another work of filmic war memoir, 2005’s Jarhead.

    The Seals sweat and swear until, suddenly, chaos is catalysed. What follows is among the most intense depictions of combat ever seen on the big screen. Besieged by an ever-present, yet largely out-of-sight enemy, the embattled soldiers fight to protect one another, rescue their wounded and escape. As they do so, the fog of war descends.

    This is where the film most clearly reveals its debt to the war film genre. Indeed, for all the originality of its screenplay Warfare actually invokes several familiar generic motifs of the combat film. The most obvious is the focus on a platoon, but two others also stand out.

    The trailer for Warfare.

    One concerns the film’s narrative centre: a band of isolated and outnumbered American warriors battling heroically against the odds. A popular motif in American culture since at least the 1836 Battle of the Alamo (during the Texas Revolution), it has been used and reused over the years in countless westerns and war films, perhaps most explicitly in 2016’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. In its underlying structure, the story told by Warfare is informed by this very same trope.

    A second familiar motif is the film’s Shakespearean meditation on the brotherhood of battle. Like 2001’s HBO mini-series Band of Brothers (about a company of second world war paratroopers), this is a story of men at war. Blood is shed and unbreakable bonds are forged.

    It is here though that Garland and Mendoza also disrupt. For where Henry V offers his “happy few” a validating cause, no such higher purpose reveals itself in Warfare.

    In fact, these undoubtedly brave warriors are clearly unwelcome invaders. The fraught interactions with the frightened (and unnamed) Iraqi civilians whose home they have occupied makes this obvious, as do the persistent attempts by Iraqi insurgents to kill them.

    Whatever happens, therefore, one thing is certain: these Seals, unlike their second world war predecessors, will not be greeted as liberators by flag-waving locals casting garlands of flowers.

    This is where Warfare reveals that for all its telescoped focus it is not apolitical after all. Quite the contrary; the film is inescapably a product of its moment.

    The fighting “out there”, says Warfare, offered no redeeming purpose and so for veterans all that is left are memories of the love and the loyalty between those who went into battle, together.

    Seen like this, Warfare’s place in the genre also now becomes clear. This is a Band of Brothers for those who fought the war on terror. It’s a point made especially apparent in the closing credits which feature photos of the real Seal veterans next to those of the actors who played them (not unlike how each episode of Band of Brothers included veterans’ testimony).

    Warfare’s structure, focus, and elisions speak volumes about the chasm in American culture – particularly in the eyes of veterans – that separates the “good war” of the 1940s from the far less popular conflicts of the early 21st century.

    Sam Edwards has previously received funding from the ESRC, the US-UK Fulbright Commission, the US Army Military History Institute, and the US Naval War College. Sam is a Trustee of The D-Day Story (Portsmouth) and of Sulgrave Manor (Northamptonshire), he is a Governor of The American Library (Norwich), he is Co-Editor of the British Journal for Military History, and he is Vice-Chair of the Transatlantic Studies Association.

    – ref. Warfare is Band of Brothers for the ‘war on terror’ generation – https://theconversation.com/warfare-is-band-of-brothers-for-the-war-on-terror-generation-255349

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump’s tariffs: poor workers in countries like Cambodia will be among the biggest losers

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sabina Lawreniuk, Principal Research Fellow, University of Nottingham

    I Love Coffee dot Today/Shutterstock

    Politicians and economists have been pretty vocal in their response to the ongoing saga of Donald Trump’s tariffs. But much less has been heard from the world’s poorest workers about how they will be affected.

    For when the US president first set out his reciprocal tariffs – later paused for 90 days – some of the highest rates were for countries like Vietnam (46%), Bangladesh (37%) and Cambodia (49%).

    These are places that make huge amounts of the clothes we wear, and even the reduced 10% tariff could be a big blow to their economies – and the people who depend on them.

    Because aside from the well known sweatshop conditions suffered by many workers in these places, brands and manufacturers often offset new costs by passing them on to workers in the form of lower wages and higher demands.

    This phenomenon, sometimes referred to as “social downgrading”, was seen during the pandemic, when garment workers around the world faced mass layoffs and even worse working conditions to protect corporate profits when consumer demand decreased.

    And those working conditions are already challenging. The minimum wage for one of Cambodia’s 1 million garment workers (from a total population of 16 million) is just US$208 (£155.50) per month.

    Around 80% of those workers are women, whose wages often support children and elderly parents, who don’t have the security of a state pension safety net.

    It is these workers and their families who may end losing the most in Trump’s trade war. But they are used to geopolitics affecting their everyday lives, having suffered the impact of tariffs fairly recently – from the EU.

    In 2020, Cambodia’s duty-free, quota-free access to the EU market (usually granted to developing countries) was partially revoked as a punitive response to human rights concerns. Tariffs averaging 11% were added to some product lines, mostly clothing and footwear, which covered about 20% of Cambodia’s total exports to the EU.

    The Cambodian government immediately responded by cutting public holidays and workplace benefits to try offset any increase in costs.

    It has since slowed the rate of minimum wage growth to below inflation. Both actions slashed real wages and made the challenge of economic survival even harder for those who depend on the industry.

    Now, as Trump’s latest tariffs take hold – even at the lower rate of 10% – many garment and footwear industry workers will fear for their jobs.

    But even those “lucky” enough to keep them will face mounting pressures to produce more, and more quickly, to offset rising costs – at the direct expense of their own financial security and wellbeing.

    The idea that tariffs will ultimately bring jobs back to the US ignores that fact that these jobs – precarious, underpaid and frequently dangerous – are not the kind of jobs that any American would want.

    International supply chains are deeply embedded.
    PX Media/Shutterstock

    Supply chained

    And the evidence suggests that if even if they did want them, international manufacturing supply chains are more deeply embedded than people might think.

    After the EU imposed its tariffs on Cambodia for example, brands could have looked to circumvent those added costs by relocating production. As it turned out, the volume of trade between Cambodia and the EU has remained steady since – because sometimes there’s no alternative.

    With Cambodia, companies have not been willing or able to shift production to competitors like Bangladesh, Myanmar or Sri Lanka, partly due to the political volatility in those countries.

    Added to this is the fact that clothes production has become highly specialised geographically. Cambodia’s distance from the EU means it focuses mainly on seasonal fashion “basics” such as T-shirts and knitwear.

    Closer countries like Turkey and Morocco concentrate on the latest fast fashion trends, as their shorter shipping routes mean they can be quicker to respond to changing tastes.

    It is not that easy to unsettle the systems and markets that are already in place.

    As a result, in the global garment industry at least, Trump’s tariffs may not trigger a complete restructuring of the world’s supply chains. In the short term, they are instead likely to cause great uncertainty, reducing investors’ appetite for long-term planning, and reducing their confidence.

    Orders may slow and prices may rise. And Cambodians making the world’s T-shirts and trainers will face even more pressure on their wages and working conditions.

    Sabina Lawreniuk receives funding from UKRI through a Future Leaders Fellowship (grant ref MR/ W013797/1).

    – ref. Trump’s tariffs: poor workers in countries like Cambodia will be among the biggest losers – https://theconversation.com/trumps-tariffs-poor-workers-in-countries-like-cambodia-will-be-among-the-biggest-losers-254408

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why the energy transition won’t be green until mine waste disasters are prevented

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Eva Marquis, Research Fellow in Critical Minerals and Circular Economy, University of Exeter

    On February 18, contamination in the Kafue river, Zambia, led to a mass death of fish. Its water turned a deathly grey and adjacent farmland was poisoned. The drinking water it supplied to half a million residents of the town of Kitwe was suddenly cut off.

    Reports suggest that this catastrophe was caused by the failure of the Chambishi tailings storage facility. Tailings are mixed liquid-solid mine wastes that remain after the valuable materials are removed from the crushed ores.

    They are often stored in impoundments, held in place by dams made of rock (and other mine waste), that ideally are managed and kept safe. This storage is necessary because tailings often contain high concentrations of potentially toxic, radioactive and corrosive elements.

    But tailings storage facilities can and do fail. The Chambishi failure was caused by a break in a wall between two tailings ponds containing acidic water. Fifty million litres of this water, equivalent to 20,000 Olympic swimming pools, spilled into a tributary of the Kafue river, and then into the river itself.

    The Kafue is a lifeline, flowing through 990 miles (1,600km) of Zambia, providing water for around 5 million people and supporting fishing and agriculture. That lifeline is still threatened by the ongoing damage of this failure.

    Chambishi is not alone. It is one of six major tailings incidents documented in the first three months of 2025, with others documented in Bolivia, Ghana, Philippines and Indonesia.

    Tailings and transitions

    Tailings are a produce of society’s voracious appetite for metals and materials. With growing demand for technologies for the energy transition, digitalisation and development, production of metals and materials and the volumes of tailings are set to vastly increase.

    Identifying suitable sites for safe storage is likely to become more challenging. Space will become more of a premium as more tailings are produced, and risks will evolve with changing climate and growing global population. For instance, storage facility plans developed before mining begins may no longer be suitable for their intended use over the life of the operation.

    The ability to safely store and manage tailings is a key factor in the development of metals projects. By extension, that’s fundamental to enabling an equitable and responsible energy transition.

    Initiatives to improve the management and monitoring of tailings, developed by independent organisations and industry bodies, such as the Global Industry Standard for Tailings Management and the International Council on Mining and Mineral’s Tailings Management Good Practice Guide. Although these initiatives are comprehensive, they do not minimise risks from past tailings storage practices or address the full costs involved.

    Tailing ponds.
    iofoto/Shutterstock

    A broad range of technical, social and environmental uncertainties have been linked to the management of tailings storage facilities. These uncertainties, combined with financial practices such as discounting future costs, can result in future costs (such as long-term tailings management and rehabilitation) being underestimated in mining project cash flows, and sizeable costs for future generations.

    Without a fully understanding of the true long-term costs, making the economic case for improved tailings management becomes that much harder.

    Reducing risks and improving outcomes

    Improved mechanisms for quantifying the cost of tailings in the short, medium and long term, whether tailings storage facilities fail or not, are essential for adequately financing these long-term legacies of mining. Mechanisms to reduce volumes of waste produced not only have the potential to improve project economics over the lifetime of a mine but can also enhance social and environmental outcomes both during and beyond the life of a mine.

    Tailings can be used as sources of aggregate materials for construction and critical metals for the green transition, and for carbon capture and storage. These opportunities will be context specific, however, and there will not be a one-size-fits-all approach to tailings reduction and responsible management.

    New mining paradigms, such as selective mining through precision drilling or in-situ electrokinetic “keyhole” techniques and extraction of metals from geothermal waters, may give us the ability to extract some metals without producing tailings.

    Innovations in tailings storage, like using tailings to fill worked-out underground mining tunnels, can remove tailings from the surface environment, eliminating risk from landslides, dust, seepages and other hazards. Even with these efforts, tailings storage facilities will continue to be used and will need to be managed.

    Reducing, reclaiming and regenerating the environments that have been negatively affected by tailings will require collaborative approaches. Financing is a clear barrier to responsible tailings management. Without knowing the true social, environmental and economic costs of tailings legacies, the ability to overcome this barrier to responsible management is hampered.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    Eva Marquis receives funding from EPSRC, NERC, and Innovate UK.

    Karen Hudson-Edwards receives funding from NERC, BBSRC, EPSRC, the Technology Strategy Board (Innovate UK), the Royal Society and the EU Horizon 2020 programme.

    – ref. Why the energy transition won’t be green until mine waste disasters are prevented – https://theconversation.com/why-the-energy-transition-wont-be-green-until-mine-waste-disasters-are-prevented-252436

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Leading by example: how the rich and powerful can inspire more climate action

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sam Hampton, Researcher, Environmental Geography, University of Oxford

    In a survey covering the UK, China, Sweden and Brazil, a majority of people agreed that we need to drastically change the way we live and how society operates, to address climate change. Another study involving more than 130,000 people across 125 countries found that 69% said they would donate 1% of their income to climate action.

    However, when asked in the same survey what proportion of others in their country would be willing to do the same, the average estimate was only 43%. This underestimation of others’ concern is known as pluralistic ignorance.

    This fuels a vicious cycle: silence begets silence. People hesitate to advocate for policies like cycle lanes or meat taxes, fearing social isolation, while politicians avoid championing measures seen as “career-limiting”. The result is a democracy trapped by unspoken consensus.

    Research on UK MPs reveals how this plays out. Even climate-conscious politicians frame low-carbon lifestyles such as avoiding flying or eating meat as extreme, wary of hypocrisy accusations if their personal choices fall short. This “greenhushing” isn’t just political caution – it’s a failure to recognise that most people are primed to follow bold examples.

    When leaders visibly adopt low-carbon behaviour, they can help address pluralistic ignorance. For instance, MPs who cycle or opt for the train instead of taking short-haul flights don’t just reduce emissions; they signal that such choices are normal, desirable, and shared.

    The invisible transition

    While individual actions matter, systemic change requires policies to steer collective transformation. Consider the UK’s early phase-out of inefficient lightbulbs: a 1.26 million tonne annual CO₂ reduction achieved not through personal sacrifice, but by banning the sale of halogen bulbs that emitted more heat than light.

    Progress on lightbulbs, renewable electricity or more efficient fridges are all part of an “invisible transition” towards a lower-carbon society – a series of changes already woven into our economy that often go unnoticed by the public. Reframing these achievements as collective victories – your home insulation, our renewable grid – can build momentum for tougher measures.

    For decades, fridges got bigger yet became more efficient and used less electricity.
    Prostock-studio / shutterstock

    Building on progress

    Public willingness to make sacrifices for climate action is closely tied to perceptions of fairness and necessity. Crucially, people want to see that their own efforts are being matched by others, especially those with larger carbon footprints. This is why leaders and other high-profile people should visibly lead by example, demonstrating commitment and helping to establish new social norms.

    Research shows that public support for subsidies for heat pumps, solar panels, electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies often depends on whether these subsidies are perceived as fair and inclusive.

    Most agree that subsidies must help ensure that all households, especially those with lower incomes, can be involved. This makes it especially important for wealthy and high profile people to lead by example.

    Coalitions of the visible: uniting everyday leaders

    Leaders who take low-carbon actions are seen as more credible, not less. The most effective leadership frames climate action as pragmatic and rooted in everyday life, rather than as a test of virtue.

    Research by the NGO Climate Outreach demonstrates that shared, relatable stories – such as parents campaigning for solar panels at their children’s schools – can shift social norms and build momentum for collective action. These “narrative workshops” have shown that people respond most strongly when climate solutions are presented through the lens of their own values and aspirations, rather than as abstract technical fixes.

    The Green Salon Collective’s Mirror Talkers initiative is another creative example: by placing climate conversation prompts on salon mirrors, hairdressers are empowered to spark everyday discussions with clients. This kind of grassroots engagement helps normalise climate conversations in places you wouldn’t expect.

    Overcoming pluralistic ignorance requires leaders to articulate a new story – one that acknowledges the “invisible transition” already underway while inviting everyone to help finish the job.

    This means equipping leaders at every level with the tools and confidence to adopt and advocate for low-carbon choices. It also means normalising the reality that climate leadership is not about perfection, but about consistency and transparency.

    Figures like Clover Hogan, founder of Force of Nature, and Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief, openly share their own “climate confessions” – acknowledging the challenges, contradictions and imperfect choices that come with striving for a low-carbon life. By embracing and communicating their imperfections, they demonstrate that visible, relatable climate leadership is about honesty and persistence, helping to shift expectations and inspire others to take action in their own lives.

    Authentic climate leadership can transform public understanding of climate solutions. By illuminating the transition already in progress – and their own part in it – leaders can transform pluralistic ignorance into pluralistic action.

    The task is not to convince people to care about climate change, but to show them that they already do, and to make visible the collective progress that is often hidden in plain sight.

    Sam Hampton receives funding from the Economics and Social Research Council. He is affiliated with the University of Oxford and University of Bath.

    Tina Fawcett currently receives funding from UKRI.

    – ref. Leading by example: how the rich and powerful can inspire more climate action – https://theconversation.com/leading-by-example-how-the-rich-and-powerful-can-inspire-more-climate-action-255168

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Tove Jansson’s Moomin books explore the power of adventure and transformation

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sue Walsh, Lecturer, Department of English Literature, University of Reading

    This year marks the 80th anniversary of the first Moomin tale, The Moomins and the Great Flood. In the book, Moomintroll and his friends embark on a journey to find their home after a great flood devastates Moominvalley, meeting odd creatures and new friends along their journey.

    The book was first published in creator Tove Jansson’s native Swedish in 1945. However, the first Moomin book to have an English edition was in fact the third of the Moomin books, Trollkarlens Hatt (The Hobgoblin’s Hat). It was translated by Jansson’s friend Elizabeth Portch and reached its widest English-speaking audience when it was published by Puffin Books in 1961 as Finn Family Moomintroll.

    At the beginning of the story Moomintroll finds a magical top hat. It can transform anything that is placed inside of it into something else entirely – and so the adventures begin.

    This is part of a series of articles celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Moomins. Want to celebrate their birthday with us? Join The Conversation and a group of experts on May 23 in Bradford for a screening of Moomins on the Riviera and a discussion of the refugee experience in Tove Jansson’s work. Click here for more information and tickets.

    Unlike the Swedish-language edition, Portch’s translation of Finn Family Moomintroll begins with a letter from Moominmamma. It’s written in a curly cursive and dotted with love-hearts and an image of an apparently “hand-drawn” troll. The letter is addressed to a “dear child” who is “overseas”.

    In it, Moominmamma expresses disbelief at the idea that there may not be any Moomins “there over” and that the child she is addressing may “not even know what a troll is” (hence the illustration).

    Moominmamma’s wonder at the differences in custom between her own land and “your country” is based on an assumption that the two must be somewhat alike. Similarly, her explanation of what Moomintrolls are depends on their difference from the “usual common trolls”, which means there must be familial similarity between them.

    The Moomins and the Great Flood was Jansson’s first Moomins book.

    Both Moominmamma’s wonder at and explanation of difference assume an underlying essential similarity or sameness between Moominvalley, where she lives, and the reader’s home. This is significant in a story that explores ideas of foreignness and translation, change and transformation.

    Though the adventures in Finn Family Moomintroll might be said to only truly begin on the spring morning when Moomintroll, Sniff and Snufkin find “a tall black hat”, the book opens with the Moomins settling down for their winter hibernation and closes with the valley in autumn.

    Creator of The Moomins, Tove Jansson in 1970.
    Per Olov Jansson/Wiki Commons, CC BY-SA

    The changes wrought by the Hobgoblin’s hat are “quite different” because “you never know beforehand” what they will be. However, their extreme nature is framed and contained by a world in which there are known and predictable changes in the seasons, as well as routine – though sometimes dramatic – changes in the weather.

    The Hemulen is unperturbed by the hat’s transformation of eggshells into fluffy little clouds that Moomintroll and his friends are able to ride. That’s because he is “so used to [them] doing extraordinary things”. But when Moomintroll is transformed by the hat into “a very strange animal indeed”, so much so that his friends do not recognise him, it’s a very different matter.

    A moment of real jeopardy occurs when Moomintroll’s own mother does not seem to recognise him either. But this is soon dispelled when Moominmamma looks “into his frightened eyes for a very long time” and quietly declares: “Yes, you are my Moomintroll.”

    This moment of recognition breaks the spell and Moomintroll changes back into “his old self again”. One of the crucial features of the hat is the changes it makes are only temporary and this, together with Moominmamma’s reassurance that she will “always know [Moomintroll], whatever happens”, suggests an ultimately unchanging essence to things that cannot be denied.

    Changelessness as deadening

    On the other hand, the book suggests that some change is to be embraced.

    Sniff’s desire for things to stay the same “for ever and ever” is portrayed as immature and wrong-headed. As is the Muskrat’s obsessive quest for peace and stillness which ends up with his apparent, though temporary, transformation into a monster.

    Snufkin’s point that “life is not peaceful” offers a gentle rebuke to the Hemulen, who also wishes to “live his life in peace and quiet”. But perhaps the clearest indication of the book’s attitude to changelessness is the monstrous Groke. She is motivated by an unwavering drive to recover the “King’s Ruby”, not because this thing which “changes colour all the time” is “the most beautiful thing in the world”, but because it is “the most expensive”.

    The Groke’s inability to appreciate the ruby aesthetically is presented as being rooted in her own immutability. That the Groke’s hostility to change is itself deadening, becomes evident when she sits “motionless” before the Moomins and their friends, staring at them in a way that makes them feel “she would wait for ever” and eventually departs leaving the ground behind her frozen in the wrong season.

    This, then, is key. Adventure, transformation and change in Finn Family Moomintroll are both necessary and desirable, but they are also contained within a reassuring frame of reliable predictability. The final lines of the English translation are: “It is autumn in Moomin Valley, for how else can spring come back again?”

    Sue Walsh 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.

    – ref. Tove Jansson’s Moomin books explore the power of adventure and transformation – https://theconversation.com/tove-janssons-moomin-books-explore-the-power-of-adventure-and-transformation-245969

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why you don’t need to stress about cortisol ruining your waistline – or your face

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Craig Doig, Associate Professor of Metabolic Health, Nottingham Trent University

    tommaso lizzul/Shutterstock

    If you’ve been unfortunate enough to scroll through TikTok lately, the algorithm may have convinced you that cortisol, your body’s main stress hormone, is ruining your life.

    Yes, according to social media content creators, stress is giving you a repulsive “cortisol belly” and puffing up your sad “cortisol face.” And, of course, this is what’s holding us all back from achieving the full influencer, ideal dream life. If it weren’t for my raging cortisol levels, I’m sure I’d be knee-deep in Lamborghinis and beating off admirers with a stick by now.

    But is there any scientific evidence behind the cortisol craze? After all, this is just the latest in a long line of reasons social media has given us to believe we are inferior to the living gods of TikTok. Or maybe, just maybe, this is another grift designed to harvest likes, sell dodgy merch and drive engagement. Surely not.

    Cortisol is a natural hormone produced by your adrenal glands, located just above your kidneys. For millennia, humans have relied on cortisol – in fact, we can’t survive without it. Most of the time, it helps regulate our daily rhythms and behaviour.

    And yes, it’s true that stress (whether caused by an approaching sabre toothed tiger or having a high-pressure job) rapidly and reliably triggers cortisol release. But this isn’t bad. Cortisol isn’t trying to ruin your summer body, it’s trying to keep you alive and give you the energy to run or fight.

    That said, chronically elevated cortisol can contribute to some serious health issues, including weight gain. And to be very clear: if you’re experiencing symptoms of consistently high cortisol, you should be in conversation with a qualified healthcare professional.

    So yes, cortisol has its downsides – but then again, so does everything in excess. Even TikTok.

    Research shows that people with sustained high cortisol levels tend to store more fat in the abdominal area and around the face. This was first described nearly a century ago – in 1932, by neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing (don’t bother looking him up, he’s not on socials).

    But this applies to Cushing’s disease, a rare medical disorder. The cortisol released from everyday stress doesn’t even come close to the levels or duration seen in Cushing’s.

    Also, let’s not pretend your face or belly fat is solely cortisol’s fault. Fat distribution is the result of a complex mix of genetics, diet, sleep, exercise and hormones. Blaming one hormone for everything is like blaming the rise of air fryers for global warming.

    Chill out about cortisol

    If you’re genuinely concerned about stress or its effects on your health, I have good news: you don’t need to buy anything or follow the “cortisol detox” advice of social media influencers.

    Here are some stress-reducing tips. They are simple. They are boring. And they work:

    Get decent sleep – regularly.

    Exercise – regularly.

    Eat a balanced diet – regularly.

    Relax – a little.

    And if something feels off, talk to your doctor.

    “Cortisol belly” and “cortisol face” might sound catchy, but they reduce incredibly complex biological processes into bite-sized insecurities. Social media’s obsession with cortisol isn’t about health, it’s about content and clicks.

    Stress is real, but don’t let a billionaire influencer who wakes up at 3:53am to mainline turmeric tell you your face is “hormonal” and your stomach is “inflamed”.

    You don’t need to fix yourself with trendy hacks. Just put the phone down and chill. Which, ironically, might be the most effective cortisol-lowering advice of all.

    Craig Doig has received funding from The Physiological Society, Society for Endocrinology and the Defence Medical Services.

    – ref. Why you don’t need to stress about cortisol ruining your waistline – or your face – https://theconversation.com/why-you-dont-need-to-stress-about-cortisol-ruining-your-waistline-or-your-face-254335

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: India and Pakistan tension escalates with suspension of historic water treaty

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Daniel Haines, Associate Professor in the History of Risk and Disaster, UCL

    India has taken the highly significant step of suspending the 1960 Indus waters treaty, which governs water sharing with Pakistan, as part of its response to the April 22 terrorist attack in Kashmir that killed at least 26 people.

    India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, said that “the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 will be held in abeyance with immediate effect, until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism”.

    India holds Pakistan responsible for the attack, and has responded by putting in place several other measures including telling Pakistani nationals to leave the country.

    The attack happened in Pahalgam in the part of Kashmir controlled by India. Both India and Pakistan claim the region, which has been the site of several military conflicts since 1947 and a long-running insurgency since the 1990s.

    The thorny question of shared rivers — a legacy of the partition of India and Pakistan at independence from British rule in 1947 — is now entangled with the larger, and escalating, dispute between the counties.

    A formal letter from India’s water resources ministry cited both “sustained cross border terrorism by Pakistan” and Pakistan’s refusal to renegotiate the terms of the treaty as key reasons for its suspension.

    The treaty suspension could harm Pakistani agriculture in the short term, and seriously disrupt downstream irrigation water supplies to farmers. Significantly, the decision abruptly changes the treaty’s status from an agreement that has been largely (if not fully) insulated from the decades-long conflict between India and Pakistan.

    The 1960 treaty splits the management of the transnational Indus River basin between the two countries. India gained full rights over the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, three tributaries of the Indus River known collectively as the eastern rivers. Pakistan gained most of the rights over three western rivers – the Indus main stem and two more tributaries, the Jhelum and Chenab.

    Depoliticising water, and building towards peace in Kashmir, were two starting points for the eight years of World Bank-sponsored negotiations that produced the treaty. The treaty’s success has been to make water sharing a bureaucratic process and reducing the political heat.

    Reporting on attacks on tourists in Kashmir.

    More recently, growing disagreement has stemmed from India’s right to build some hydropower plants on the western rivers. Pakistan has objected to Indian project designs, arguing that they breach the terms of the treaty. India has accused Pakistan of intransigence in blocking its projects.

    Since 2023, when India demanded amendments to the treaty, the two countries have held inconclusive talks. The suspension of the treaty is a new move, but also a logical development of increasing bilateral tensions over the treaty, which was kept separate from security issues for decades.

    Indian politicians threatened to reduce water supplies to Pakistan in response to terrorist attacks in 2016 and 2019. The threat to punish Pakistan is likely to play well in India while public shock and anger over the attack is fresh. It also distracts attention from questions about possible Indian intelligence failures.

    But previous threats stopped short of putting the Indus waters treaty into abeyance, so the suspension now needs to be taken seriously.

    The impact will vary depending on how long it lasts. With the treaty suspended, India could change the way it operates existing water-control infrastructure on the western rivers.

    Its engineers could flush sediment out of the reservoir of the upstream Kishenganga hydroelectric project and then refill the reservoir over a period of days. Previously, under the treaty, this could only be done during the peak monsoon period when water levels are highest.

    It could now happen earlier, refilling reservoirs just when downstream farmers in Pakistan, who depend heavily on river water for irrigation, need a plentiful supply at the beginning of the crop-sowing season. India could also stop sharing water-flow data with Pakistan, making it harder for the latter to plan the management of its own hydropower and flood-control infrastructure.

    Longer term, India could construct bigger projects on the western rivers that do not need to comply with the Indus waters treaty’s restrictions, more seriously reducing water availability in Pakistan. It would take years, though, for India to build these projects.

    What does India hope to gain?

    India stands to gain from using the treaty as leverage. The demand that Pakistan “abjure its support for cross-border terrorism” holds the resumption of water cooperation hostage to progress on a wider point of bilateral conflict, and strengthens India’s hand in renegotiating the treaty.

    Internationally, treaty suspension may seem a comparatively measured response by India. Other forms of signalling displeasure, such as nuclear posturing, are too reputationally risky for a country that has worked hard to project itself as a responsible nuclear-armed state.

    But Indian leaders will be aware that stopping the flow of the Indus waters is a potential red line for Pakistan and that Indian decisions about water sharing could goad Pakistan into nuclear threats.

    India’s decision to suspend the water treaty has already predictably pushed Pakistan to make a subtle nuclear threat on April 24. It suggested that blocking or diverting water allocated to Pakistan under the treaty would be an “act of war,” and that it would consider the “complete spectrum of national power” as a response.

    An escalation of rhetoric has already ensued between the two countries, with Pakistan announcing that it would “exercise the right to hold all bilateral agreements with India… in abeyance”, including the Simla agreement that ended the 1971 war between India and Pakistan.

    Fears of escalation

    There are fears that the current crisis could follow the path of the dangerous escalation seen in 2019, when Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, authorised an airstrike on Pakistani soil following a terror attack that killed dozens of Indian security personnel. Pakistan responded with airstrikes on Indian-administered Kashmir before both sides found a way to deescalate the situation.

    Today, the US, a traditional mediator between these two nations at crisis moments, may play a hands-off role. However, new facilitators such as China, Saudi Arabia and the UAE seemingly played a part in winding down tensions in 2019, and could step in again.

    On concluding the Indus waters negotiations in 1960, then Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, spoke of the treaty as “a happy symbol not only in this domain of the use of the Indus valley waters, but in the larger co-operation between the two countries”. The logic is now reversed. The current Indian government has woven water sharing and conflict back together.

    Daniel Haines has received funding from United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) for his work on South Asian history and water politics via a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship and an AHRC-ESRC-FCO Knowledge Exchange Fellowship.

    Kate Sullivan de Estrada 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.

    – ref. India and Pakistan tension escalates with suspension of historic water treaty – https://theconversation.com/india-and-pakistan-tension-escalates-with-suspension-of-historic-water-treaty-255331

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Jordan joins regional push to sideline Islamist opposition

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rory McCarthy, Associate Professor in Politics and Islam, Durham University

    The Jordanian authorities have banned the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition movement in the kingdom, in a major new crackdown. On Wednesday April 23, security forces raided Brotherhood offices, confiscating assets and property, and outlawed all of the group’s activities.

    One week earlier, 16 Brotherhood members were arrested for allegedly plotting attacks on targets inside Jordan using rockets and drones. The Brotherhood, whose members Jordanian interior minister Mazen al-Faraya says “operate in the shadows and engage in activities that could undermine stability and security”, has denied any links to the attack plots.

    The ban on the Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that wants a greater role for religion in public life, comes at a time when the Jordanian government is facing intense pressure over the war in Gaza.

    The Brotherhood organised months of demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians. It has also been vocal in its support for the Palestinian armed group Hamas, and has demanded the cancellation of Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel.

    At the same time, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has come under heavy pressure from the Donald Trump administration in the US to resettle Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank. If he were to agree, the move would risk being seen as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.

    The Jordanian authorities have had an uneasy relationship with the Brotherhood since the late 1980s, when the kingdom’s political system opened up. They have looked to curb its influence.

    In 2016, the Brotherhood’s headquarters in the capital, Amman, was closed and its assets were transferred to a new organisation called the Association of the Society of the Muslim Brotherhood, known as the “permitted” Muslim Brotherhood. As ideological splits emerged in the movement, the authorities have tried to exploit internal divisions.

    The latest crackdown represents a striking repressive turn. It marks a shift away from containing the movement to excluding it from public life.

    Yet the Brotherhood remains popular. In September 2024, the Islamic Action Front, the political party affiliated with the movement, surprised observers by winning parliamentary elections. It took 31 seats in the 138-seat parliament, securing victory in constituencies across the country in its best election performance in more than three decades.

    Its success was largely down to the Brotherhood’s demonstrations in support of Palestinians. These demonstrations resonated in Jordan, where around half the population is of Palestinian origin. The party also benefited from changes in the electoral laws prior to the election, which gave more weight to political parties and less to independent candidates.

    But under Jordan’s authoritarian system, the king holds most of the power, especially in internal security and foreign affairs. The palace tightly controls political life. So the Islamic Action Front was not invited to join the new government, which is made up of pro-monarchy parties.

    The key question now is whether the authorities will also ban the Islamic Action Front, despite its electoral gains.

    Conflict with the crown

    Even before the latest crackdown, Islamists in Jordan feared a confrontation with the authorities. Many suspected the palace wanted to close the Brotherhood movement and leave a weakened party that might be more easily contained.

    During a visit to Jordan shortly after the elections in September, one senior Islamic Action Front figure told me: “They [the monarchy] just want a party in a superficial form. A party without any presence.”

    Although the Brotherhood had been under pressure, it was still able to operate most of its activities. Senior party members even took part in a royal committee on “political modernisation” in 2021, which drew up reforms to change the electoral laws to strengthen political parties.

    Yet many in the Brotherhood feared a confrontation with the palace was coming. One senior Brotherhood figure told me in October 2024: “The Brotherhood is a vast, widespread organisation with a social and a political presence. A clash between the state and the Brotherhood would have negative effects on society and on the legitimacy of the political system.”

    Jordan’s Brotherhood is not alone in facing a crisis. Other Islamist organisations across the region are experiencing political setbacks, more than a decade after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings seemed to offer them new opportunities.

    In Tunisia, where a democratic transition has been sharply reversed since 2021, dozens of leaders from the Islamist Ennahda party have been jailed.

    The arrests were part of a broad wave of repression against regime critics, including politicians, judges, lawyers and human rights activists. Ennahda, which spent a decade in government between 2011 and 2021, has suffered internal splits.

    In Morocco, the Justice and Development party, an Islamist party which also spent a decade in government from 2011, suffered a heavy defeat in the most recent elections in 2021.

    The party’s losses were partly a result of restrictions at the time of the vote. These included new rules about how seats were apportioned and the fact that some party candidates were disqualified from running.

    But the losses were also because of internal disputes after Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani signed a normalisation agreement with Israel in 2020 to avoid a confrontation with the monarchy, which controls foreign affairs.

    In Kuwait, parliament was suspended in 2024 because the ruling emir, Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, complained about political gridlock. This kept all opposition parties, including Islamists, out of the political process. And in Algeria, Islamist parties have been co-opted or marginalised since the bitter civil war of the 1990s.

    Opinion polls show that many people in the Middle East want to see a significant role for religion in public life. But rulers across the region are increasingly wary of Islamist parties, which want not only to introduce a more conservative social agenda but to challenge undemocratic regimes.

    Rory McCarthy receives funding for his academic research from the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust.

    – ref. Jordan joins regional push to sideline Islamist opposition – https://theconversation.com/jordan-joins-regional-push-to-sideline-islamist-opposition-255243

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How Project 2025 became the blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dafydd Townley, Teaching Fellow in US politics and international security, University of Portsmouth

    Throughout the 2024 presidential election campaign, Donald Trump denied claims he intended to shape his second administration’s policies around Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a renewed conservative America. But despite his repeated denials, Trump 2.0 has adopted much of Project 2025 into the White House’s agenda.

    The Heritage Foundation, the right-wing Washington think tank which published Project 2025, has provided policy guidance for Republican presidents since the Reagan administration. Despite the foundation’s longevity, Project 2025 has met with opposition from many quarters.

    The 900-page publication, Mandate for Leadership: the Conservative Promise, was published in 2023. It went largely under the radar until Democrats and civil liberty champions established Stop Project 2025 during the presidential campaign. Essentially, Project 2025 consists of policy recommendations for each department of the executive branch.

    The project has several broad objectives. It aims to reassert presidential power by removing federal agencies’ independence and appointing political loyalists rather than career civil servants. It sets out to dismantle the administrative state by cancelling initiatives and projects that do not match conservative aims.

    It reinforces traditional conservative family values and rolls back on LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights. It removes regulatory constraints aligned with climate and environmental protections and weakens consumer protection laws. And it calls for increased deportations of illegal aliens and the imposition of harsh immigration restrictions.

    Even before he had taken office, Trump and his team sought to replace career-long specialists in federal agencies with those that matched his own beliefs. His transition team used Project 2025 to guide its appointment of officials for the forthcoming administration. Reports quoting insiders within Trump’s team say that the team consulted a database of Trump loyalists created by the Heritage Foundation to fill vacancies.

    Contributors to Project 2025 were also appointed to key roles. These have included including border tsar, Tom Homan, and CIA director John Ratcliffe. Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Committee, wrote a chapter of Project 2025 on the committee.

    The principal author of Project 2025, Russ Vought, has been appointed as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – the nerve centre of the federal government’s expenditure. Vought’s influence within the administration has led one journalist to call him “the real mastermind behind Trump’s imperial presidency”.


    How is Donald Trump’s presidency shaping up after 100 days? Here’s what the experts think. If you like what you see, sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter.

    The alignment of Trump’s policy decisions and Project 2025’s objectives continued after he was inaugurated on January 20. The raft of executive orders issued by Trump during the first few weeks reflected many of Project 2025’s ambitions.

    CNN analysed the 53 executive orders signed by Trump in his first week as president and concluded that 36 of those orders mirrored proposals within the Heritage Foundation’s brief. The alignment spread across numerous departments.

    Trump’s controversial reciprocal tariffs on US imported goods match Project 2025’s desire for free trade and its belief that the World Trade Organization’s most favoured nation principle is unfair. Although both Trump tariffs and Project 2025 have a foundation in economic nationalism, Trump has favoured a broad and aggressive approach compared to Project 2025’s more targeted aims.

    The savings to federal expenditure proposed by Doge, the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk, are also broadly covered within the paper. A theme running throughout Project 2025 is ensuring value for taxpayers by reducing unnecessary government expenditure.

    But while a large amount of Project 2025 has already been incorporated into the administration’s policies, there is still a significant number of recommendations and initiatives that remain to be implemented.

    What’s still to come?

    While Trump has already ended the use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion through Executive Order 14182, Project 2025 calls for stronger initiatives to support a pro-life position by threatening to withhold funding to states if they fail to adhere to new guidelines. These penalties could be incurred through states failing to report to the Center for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) data on how many abortions take place within the state, for example.

    The administration has also not yet matched Project 2025’s calls for increasing the defence budget to 5% of GDP. Earlier this month, however, Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, promised that their next budget proposal would include a $1 trillion defence budget. Hegseth posted on X that the money would be spent on ‘lethality and readiness.’

    Trump’s recent criticisms of the refusal by Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates might suggest that he agrees with Project 2025’s criticism of the Federal Reserve and its recommendation that it be abolished. But the market’s negative reaction to Trump’s attack on Powell looks likely to end any prospect of eradicating the Fed.

    Perhaps a greater concern to Americans is Project 2025’s designs for social security. As part of the focus on fiscal stability, the authors of Project 2025 have recommended that the retirement age be increased from 67 to 69. Social security reforms have been discussed by the administration but yet to be put into place.

    When questioned, Republican legislators have stopped short of telling constituents that Social Security is safe from change. After all, Trump maintained that he has no plans to either reduce social security payments or increase the retirement age.

    However, just this week, Trump and Doge have announced cuts to the Social Security Administration (SSA), the body that administers payments. This has led to concerns for the former SSA director, Martin O’Malley, who suggested that the cuts would mean that future payments of vital benefits might be delayed.

    Where the administration turns next is unclear. There are hundreds of policy recommendations within the 900-page document, some of which have been implemented in full, others only in part.

    Nonetheless, Project 2025 has acted as a blueprint for much of the new Trump administration’s policies, even though the White House has shown some reluctance to incorporate all of the recommendations within the project.

    There are signs, however, that the administration has not yet finished with Project 2025 and that the conservative wishlist continues to influence the administration’s policymaking decisions.

    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.

    – ref. How Project 2025 became the blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term – https://theconversation.com/how-project-2025-became-the-blueprint-for-donald-trumps-second-term-255149

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: In talking with Tehran, Trump is reversing course on Iran – could a new nuclear deal be next?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jeffrey Fields, Associate Professor of the Practice of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

    A mural on the outer walls of the former US embassy in Tehran depicts two men in negotiation. Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

    Negotiators from Iran and the United States are set to meet again in Oman on April 26, prompting hopes the two countries might be moving, albeit tentatively, toward a new nuclear accord.

    The scheduled talks follow the two previous rounds of indirect negotiations that have taken place under the new Trump administration. Those discussions were deemed to have yielded enough progress to merit sending nuclear experts from both sides to begin outlining the specifics of a potential framework for a deal.

    The development is particularly notable given that Trump, in 2018, unilaterally walked the U.S. away from a multilateral agreement with Iran. That deal, negotiated during the Obama presidency, put restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. Trump{,} instead turned to a policy that involved tightening the financial screws on Iran through enhanced sanctions while issuing implicit military threats.

    But that approach failed to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.

    Now, rather than revive the maximum pressure policy of his first term, Trump – ever keen to be seen as a dealmaker – has given his team the green light for the renewed diplomacy and even reportedly rebuffed, for now, Israel’s desire to launch military strikes against Tehran.

    Jaw-jaw over war-war

    The turn to diplomacy returns Iran-US relations to where they began during the Obama administration, with attempts to encourage Iran to curb or eliminate its ability to enrich uranium.

    Only this time, with the U.S. having left the previous deal in 2018, Iran has had seven years to improve on its enrichment capability and stockpile vastly more uranium than had been allowed under the abandoned accord.

    As a long-time expert on U.S. foreign policy and nuclear nonproliferation, I believe Trump has a unique opportunity to not only reinstate a similar nuclear agreement to the one he rejected, but also forge a more encompassing deal – and foster better relations with the Islamic Republic in the process.

    The front pages of Iran’s newspapers in a sidewalk newsstand in Tehran, Iran, on April 13, 2025.
    Alireza/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

    There are real signs that a potential deal could be in the offing, and it is certainly true that Trump likes the optics of dealmaking.

    But an agreement is by no means certain. Any progress toward a deal will be challenged by a number of factors, not least internal divisions and opposition within the Trump administration and skepticism among some in the Islamic Republic, along with uncertainty over a succession plan for the aging Ayatollah Khamenei.

    Conservative hawks are still abundant in both countries and could yet derail any easing of diplomatic tensions.

    A checkered diplomatic past

    There are also decades of mistrust to overcome.

    It is an understatement to say that the U.S. and Iran have had a fraught relationship, such as it is, since the Iranian revolution of 1979 and takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran the same year.

    Many Iranians would say relations have been strained since 1953, when the U.S. and the United Kingdom orchestrated the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran.

    Washington and Tehran have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1979, and the two countries have been locked in a decadeslong battle for influence in the Middle East. Today, tensions remain high over Iranian support for a so-called axis of resistance against the West and in particular U.S. interests in the Middle East. That axis includes Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

    For its part, Tehran has long bristled at American hegemony in the region, including its resolute support for Israel and its history of military action. In recent years that U.S. action has included the direct assaults on Iranian assets and personnel. In particular, Tehran is still angry about the 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

    Standing atop these various disputes, Iran’s nuclear ambitions have proved a constant source of contention for the United States and Israel, the latter being the only nuclear power in the region.

    The prospect of warmer relations between the two sides first emerged during the Obama administration – though Iran sounded out the Bush administration in 2003 only to be rebuffed.

    U.S. diplomats began making contact with Iranian counterparts in 2009 when Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns met with an Iranian negotiator in Geneva. The so-called P5+1 began direct negotiations with Iran in 2013. This paved the way for the eventual Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2015. In that agreement – concluded by the U.S., Iran, China, Russia and a slew of European nations – Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program, including limits on the level to which it could enrich uranium, which was capped well short of what would be necessary for a nuclear weapon. In return, multilateral and bilateral U.S. sanctions would be removed.

    Many observers saw it as a win-win, with the restraints on a burgeoning nuclear power coupled with hopes that greater economic engagement with the international community that might temper some of Iran’s more provocative foreign policy behavior.

    Yet Israel and Saudi Arabia worried the deal did not entirely eliminate Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, and right-wing critics in the U.S. complained it did not address Iran’s ballistic missile programs or support for militant groups in the region.

    Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, draws a red line on a graphic of a bomb while discussing Iran at the United Nations on Sept. 27, 2012.
    Mario Tama/Getty Images

    When Trump first took office in 2016, he and his foreign policy team pledged to reverse Obama’s course and close the door on any diplomatic opening. Making good on his pledge, Trump unilaterally withdrew U.S. support for the JCPOA despite Iran’s continued compliance with the terms of the agreement and reinstated sanctions.

    Donald the dealmaker?

    So what has changed? Well, several things.

    While Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA was welcomed by Republicans, it did nothing to stop Iran from enhancing its ability to enrich uranium.

    Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, eager to transform its image and diversify economically, now supports a deal it opposed during the Obama administration.

    In this second term, Trump’s anti-Iran impulses are still there. But despite his rhetoric of a military option should a deal not be struck, Trump has on numerous occasions stated his opposition to U.S. involvement in another war in the Middle East.

    In addition, Iran has suffered a number of blows in recent years that has left it more isolated in the region. Iranian-aligned Hamas and Hezbollah have been seriously weakened as a result of military action by Israel. Meanwhile, strikes within Iran by Israel have shown the potential reach of Israeli missiles – and the apparent willingness of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to use them. Further, the removal of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria has deprived Iran of another regional ally.

    Tehran is also contending with a more fragile domestic economy than it had during negotiations for JCPOA.

    With Iran weakened regionally and Trump’s main global focus being China, a diplomatic avenue with Iran seems entirely in line with Trump’s view of himself as a dealmaker.

    A deal is not a given

    With two rounds of meetings completed and the move now to more technical aspects of a possible agreement negotiated by experts, there appears to be a credible window of opportunity for diplomacy.

    This could mean a new agreement that retains the core aspects of the deal Trump previously abandoned. I’m not convinced a new deal will look any different from the previous in terms of the enrichment aspect.

    There are still a number of potential roadblocks standing in the way of any potential deal, however.

    As was the case with Trump’s meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his first term, the president seems to be less interested in details than spectacle. While it was quite amazing for an American leader to meet with his North Korean counterpart, ultimately, no policy meaningfully changed because of it.

    On Iran and other issues, the president displays little patience for complicated policy details. Complicating matters is that the U.S. administration is riven by intense factionalism, with many Iran hawks who would be seemingly opposed to a deal – including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz. They could rub up against newly confirmed Undersecretary of Defense for policy Elbridge Colby and Vice President JD Vance, both of whom have in the past advocated for a more pro-diplomacy line on Iran.

    As has become a common theme in Trump administration foreign policy – even with its own allies on issues like trade – it’s unclear what a Trump administration policy on Iran actually is, and whether a political commitment exists to carry through any ultimate deal.

    Top Trump foreign policy negotiator Steve Witkoff, who has no national security experience, has exemplified this tension. Tasked with leading negotiations with Iran, Witkoff has already having been forced to walk back his contention that the U.S. was only seeking to cap the level of uranium enrichment rather than eliminate the entirety of the program.

    For its part, Iran has proved that it is serious about diplomacy, previously having accepted Barack Obama’s “extended hand.”

    But Tehran is unlikely to capitulate on core interests or allow itself to be humiliated by the terms of any agreement.

    Ultimately, the main question to watch is whether a deal with Iran is to be concluded by pragmatists – and then to what extent, narrow or expansive – or derailed by hawks within the administration.

    Jeffrey Fields receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

    – ref. In talking with Tehran, Trump is reversing course on Iran – could a new nuclear deal be next? – https://theconversation.com/in-talking-with-tehran-trump-is-reversing-course-on-iran-could-a-new-nuclear-deal-be-next-254770

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Tensions over Kashmir and a warming planet have placed the Indus Waters Treaty on life support

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Fazlul Haq, Postdoctoral Scholar at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University

    The Indus River Valley in the cold desert of Ladakh, India. Pallava Bagla/Getty Images

    In 1995, World Bank Vice President Ismail Serageldin warned that whereas the conflicts of the previous 100 years had been over oil, “the wars of the next century will be fought over water.”

    Thirty years on, that prediction is being tested in one of the world’s most volatile regions: Kashmir.

    On April 24, 2025, the government of India announced that it would downgrade diplomatic ties with its neighbor Pakistan over an attack by militants in Kashmir that killed 26 tourists. As part of that cooling of relations, India said it would immediately suspend the Indus Waters Treaty – a decades-old agreement that allowed both countries to share water use from the rivers that flow from India into Pakistan. Pakistan has promised reciprocal moves and warned that any disruption to its water supply would be considered “an act of war.”

    The current flareup escalated quickly, but has a long history. At the Indus Basin Water Project at the Ohio State University, we are engaged in a multiyear project investigating the transboundary water dispute between Pakistan and India.

    Fazlul Haq walks through the Gargo Glacier floodplain in the Upper Indus Basin.
    Fazlul Haq/Indus Basin Water Project/Ohio State University, CC BY-SA

    I am currently in Pakistan conducting fieldwork in Kashmir and across the Indus Basin. Geopolitical tensions in the region, which have been worsened by the recent attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, do pose a major threat to the water treaty. So too does another factor that is helping escalate the tensions: climate change

    A fair solution to water disputes

    The Indus River has supported life for thousands of years since the Harappan civilization, which flourished around 2600 to 1900 B.C.E. in what is now Pakistan and northwest India.

    After the partition of India in 1947, control of the Indus River system became a major source of tension between the two nations that emerged from partition: India and Pakistan. Disputes arose almost immediately, particularly when India temporarily halted water flow to Pakistan in 1948, prompting fears over agricultural collapse. These early confrontations led to years of negotiations, culminating in the signing of the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960.


    Fazlul Haq/Bryan Mark/Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center/Ohio State University, CC BY

    Brokered by the World Bank, the Indus Waters Treaty has long been hailed as one of the most successful transboundary water agreements.

    It divided the Indus Basin between the two countries, giving India control over the eastern rivers – Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – and Pakistan control over the western rivers: Indus, Jhelum and Chenab.

    At the time, this was seen as a fair solution. But the treaty was designed for a very different world. Back then, India and Pakistan were newly independent countries working to establish themselves amid a world divided by the Cold War.

    When it was signed, Pakistan’s population was 46 million, and India’s was 436 million. Today, those numbers have surged to over 240 million and 1.4 billion, respectively.

    Today, more than 300 million people rely on the Indus River Basin for their survival.

    This has put increased pressure on the precious source of water that sits between the two nuclear rivals. The effects of global warming, and the continued fighting over the disputed region of Kashmir, has only added to those tensions.

    Impact of melting glaciers

    Many of the problems of today are down to what wasn’t included in the treaty, rather than what was.

    At the time of signing, there was a lack of comprehensive studies on glacier mass balance. The assumption was that the Himalayan glaciers, which feed the Indus River system, were relatively stable.

    This lack of detailed measurements meant that future changes due to climate variability and glacial melt were not factored into the treaty’s design, nor were factors such as groundwater depletion, water pollution from pesticides, fertilizer use and industrial waste. Similarly, the potential for large-scale hydraulic development of the region through dams, reservoirs, canals and hydroelectricity were largely ignored in the treaty.

    Reflecting contemporary assumptions about the stability of glaciers, the negotiators assumed that hydrological patterns would remain persistent with the historic flows.

    Instead, the glaciers feeding the Indus Basin began to melt. In fact, they are now melting at record rates.

    Construction site of the Diamer-Bhasha Dam along the Indus River.
    Fazlul Haq/Indus Basin Water Project/Ohio State University

    The World Meteorological Organization reported that 2023 was globally the driest year in over three decades, with below-normal river flows disrupting agriculture and ecosystems. Global glaciers also saw their largest mass loss in 50 years, releasing over 600 gigatons of water into rivers and oceans.

    The Himalayan glaciers, which supply 60-70% of the Indus River’s summer flow, are shrinking rapidly. A 2019 study estimates they are losing 8 billion tons of ice annually.

    And a study by the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development found that Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalayan glaciers melted 65% faster in 2011–2020 compared with the previous decade.

    The rate of glacier melt poses a significant challenge to the treaty’s long-term effectiveness to ensure essential water for all the people who rely on the Indus River Basin. While it may temporarily increase river flow, it threatens the long-term availability of water.

    Indeed, if this trend continues, water shortages will intensify, particularly for Pakistan, which depends heavily on the Indus during dry seasons.

    Another failing of the Indus Waters Treaty is that it only addresses surface water distribution and does not include provisions for managing groundwater extraction, which has become a significant issue in both India and Pakistan.

    In the Punjab region – often referred to as the breadbasket of both nations – heavy reliance on groundwater is leading to overexploitation and depletion.

    Groundwater now contributes a large portion – about 48% – of water withdrawals in the Indus Basin, particularly during dry seasons. Yet there is no transboundary framework to oversee the shared management of this resource as reported by the World Bank.

    A disputed region

    It wasn’t just climate change and groundwater that were ignored by the drafters of the Indus Waters Treaty. Indian and Pakistan negotiators also neglected the issue and status of Kashmir.

    Kashmir has been at the heart of India-Pakistan tensions since Partition in 1947. At the time of independence, the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was given the option to accede to either India or Pakistan. Though the region had a Muslim majority, the Hindu ruler chose to accede to India, triggering the first India-Pakistan war.

    This led to a U.N.-mediated ceasefire in 1949 and the creation of the Line of Control, effectively dividing the territory between Indian-administered and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Since then, Kashmir has remained a disputed territory, claimed in full by both countries and serving as the flashpoint for two additional wars in 1965 and 1999, and numerous skirmishes.

    A ruined village in Jammu and Kashmir, India, during the war between India and Pakistan in 1965.
    Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis via Getty Images

    Despite being the primary source of water for the basin, Kashmiris have had no role in negotiations or decision-making under the treaty.

    The region’s agricultural and hydropower potential has been limited due to restrictions on the use of its water resources, with only 19.8% of hydropower potential utilized. This means that Kashmiris on both sides — despite living in a water-rich region — have been unable to fully benefit from the resources flowing through their land, as water infrastructure has primarily served downstream users and broader national interests rather than local development.

    Some scholars argue that the treaty intentionally facilitated hydraulic development in Jammu and Kashmir, but not necessarily in ways that served local interests.

    India’s hydropower projects in Kashmir — such as the Baglihar and Kishanganga dams — have been a major point of contention. Pakistan has repeatedly raised concerns that these projects could alter water flows, particularly during crucial agricultural seasons.

    However, the Indus Waters Treaty does not provide explicit mechanisms for resolving such regional disputes, leaving Kashmir’s hydrological and political concerns unaddressed.

    Tensions over hydropower projects in Kashmir were bringing India and Pakistan toward diplomatic deadlock long before the recent attack.

    The Kishanganga and Ratle dam disputes, now under arbitration in The Hague, exposed the treaty’s growing inability to manage transboundary water conflicts.

    Then in September 2024, India formally called for a review of the Indus Waters Treaty, citing demographic shifts, energy needs and security concerns over Kashmir.

    Indian Border Security Force soldiers patrol on a boat along the Pargwal area of the India-Pakistan international border.
    Nitin Kanotra/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

    The treaty now exists in a state of limbo. While it technically remains in force, India’s formal notice for review has introduced uncertainty, halting key cooperative mechanisms and casting doubt on the treaty’s long-term durability.

    An equitable and sustainable treaty?

    Moving forward, I argue, any reform or renegotiation of the Indus Waters Treaty will, if it is to have lasting success, need to acknowledge the hydrological significance of Kashmir while engaging voices from across the region.

    Excluding Kashmir from future discussions – and neither India nor Pakistan has formally proposed including Kashmiri stakeholders – would only reinforce a long-standing pattern of marginalization, where decisions about its resources are made without considering the needs of its people.

    As debates on “climate-proofing” the treaty continue, ensuring Kashmiri perspectives are included will be critical for building a more equitable and sustainable transboundary water framework.

    Nicholas Breyfogle, Madhumita Dutta, Alexander Thompson, and Bryan G. Mark at the Indus Basin Water Project at the Ohio State University contributed to this article.

    Fazlul Haq does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Tensions over Kashmir and a warming planet have placed the Indus Waters Treaty on life support – https://theconversation.com/tensions-over-kashmir-and-a-warming-planet-have-placed-the-indus-waters-treaty-on-life-support-244699

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why sitting down – and getting back up – might be the most important health test you do today

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Catherine Norton, Associate Professor Sport & Exercise Nutrition, University of Limerick

    Ruslan Huzau/Shutterstock

    If you or someone you love finds it difficult to stand up from the toilet without using your hands, it might seem like a small issue. But in health and ageing, this movement – known as the “sit-to-stand” – can be a red flag. It’s one of the strongest indicators of frailty, a condition that can threaten independence and quality of life.

    Frailty increases the risk of falls, hospital stays, slower recovery from illness, and early death. It’s more than just about being thin or weak – it’s about reduced muscle mass, strength and energy – and it’s one of the main reasons older adults lose the ability to live on their own.

    This loss of muscle strength and function isn’t just about growing old. It often begins as early as your 30s and accelerates after 60. The good news? It’s not inevitable. Frailty can be prevented – and even reversed – with simple, targeted changes in diet and physical activity.

    Surprisingly, carrying a bit of extra weight in older age can be beneficial. Studies suggest that being in the “overweight” BMI range is often linked to better outcomes than being underweight – as long as you’re carrying muscle, not just fat.

    What matters most is body composition – the ratio of muscle to fat. Lean muscle supports mobility, balance and resilience during illness or injury. In contrast, excess visceral fat (around the internal organs) increases the risk of disease.

    Muscle is made of protein and, as we age, our bodies become less efficient at using it. That means older adults need to eat more protein than younger people – not less. Aim for 1 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. For a 70kg person, that’s around 70–85 grams daily, ideally spread across all meals.

    Good protein sources include:
    • Eggs, milk, cheese and yoghurt
    • Chicken, turkey, beef and oily fish
    • Lentils, beans, tofu and soy products
    • Nuts, seeds, and whole grains

    Also, don’t forget total calorie intake. If you’re undereating overall – especially during illness – your body will break down muscle to compensate, even if protein intake is adequate.

    Move it or lose it

    Muscle only stays if you use it – the “move it or lose it” mantra applies here. Regular strength training is one of the best things you can do to stay independent and strong.

    Aim for two to three sessions per week focused on strength. You don’t need a gym – bodyweight exercises at home count too.

    Effective strength activities include:

    • Sit-to-stand repetitions from a chair
    • Functional movements like stair climbing, gardening, or carrying groceries
    • Squats, lunges and push-ups
    • Using resistance bands or light weights

    Walking, swimming and cycling are great for cardiovascular and joint health, but they aren’t enough on their own to maintain muscle mass. Challenge your muscles regularly – even in small ways.

    Things to watch out for:

    • Struggling to stand up from low chairs or the toilet
    • Clothes feeling looser around the thighs or arms
    • Feeling weaker carrying bags or household items
    • Avoiding stairs or certain movements you used to do easily

    Catching these signs early can help you act before it affects your independence.

    Here are five things you can do for healthy ageing

    1. Prioritise protein: include it in every meal. Think eggs for breakfast, beans at lunch, and fish or chicken for dinner.
    2. Strength train weekly: find something you enjoy and can stick with – gardening, resistance bands, or a local class.
    3. Don’t fear healthy weight gain: especially if you’ve recently lost weight unintentionally. Focus on building muscle, not fat.
    4. Stay active daily: every movement counts – walking, stretching, or lifting household objects.
    5. Monitor your function: the sit-to-stand test is a simple way to track your strength. If it’s getting harder, take action.

    We can’t stop ageing, but we can age well. That means making muscle health a priority – not just for appearance, but for independence, dignity and quality of life.

    So, whether you’re thinking about your future or supporting an older loved one, remember this: building and maintaining muscle is one of the most powerful tools we have for healthy ageing.

    With the right habits, you can protect your strength, mobility and independence.

    And next time you sit down – think about how easily you get back up. That small action might be the most important health check you do all day.

    Catherine Norton receives funding organisations e.g. Food for Health Ireland, DAFM, Enterprise Ireland

    – ref. Why sitting down – and getting back up – might be the most important health test you do today – https://theconversation.com/why-sitting-down-and-getting-back-up-might-be-the-most-important-health-test-you-do-today-255057

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump can’t decide who to blame for a failing peace deal that would only lead to further conflict

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

    After a second consecutive night of deadly Russian air attacks – against the capital Kyiv on April 23 and the eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad on April 24 – a ceasefire in Ukraine seems as unrealistic as ever.

    With Russian commitment to a deal clearly lacking, the situation is not helped by US president Donald Trump. He can’t quite seem to decide who he will ultimately blame if his efforts to agree a ceasefire fall apart.

    Before the strikes on Kyiv, Trump blamed Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for holding up a deal by refusing to recognise Crimea as Russian. The following day, he chided Vladimir Putin for the attacks, calling them “not necessary, and very bad timing” and imploring Putin to stop.

    The main stumbling bloc on the path to a ceasefire is what a final peace agreement might look like and what concessions Kyiv – and its European allies – will accept. Ukraine’s and Europe’s position on this is unequivocal: no recognition of the illegal Russian annexation.

    This position is also backed by opinion polls in Ukraine, which indicate only limited support for some, temporary concessions to Russia. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, also suggested that temporarily giving up territory “can be a solution”.

    The deal that Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff apparently negotiated over three rounds of talks in Russia was roundly rejected by Ukraine and Britain, France and Germany, who lead the “coalition of the willing” of countries pledging support for Ukraine.



    Read more:
    Could Trump be leading the world into recession?

    This prompted Witkoff and US secretary of state Marco Rubio to pull out of follow-up talks in London on April 24. These ended with a fairly vacuous statement about a commitment to continuing “close coordination and … further talks soon”.

    And even this now appears as quite a stretch. Coinciding with Witkoff’s fourth trip to see Putin on April 25, European and Ukrainian counterproposals were released that reject most of the terms offered by Trump or at least defer their negotiation until after a ceasefire is in place.

    Why is it failing?

    The impasse is unsurprising. Washington’s proposal included a US commitment to recognise Crimea as Russian, a promise that Ukraine would not join Nato and accept Moscow’s control of the territories in eastern Ukraine that it currently illegally occupies. It also included lifting all sanctions against Russia.

    In other words, Ukraine would give up large parts of territory and receive no security guarantees, while Russia is rewarded with reintegration into the global economy.

    It is the territorial concessions asked of Kyiv which are especially problematic. Quite apart from the fact that they are in fundamental breach of basic principles of international law – the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states – they are unlikely to provide solid foundations for a durable peace.

    Much like the idea of Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, to divide Ukraine like post-1945 Berlin, it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what, and who, drives this war.

    Recent London peace talks in April failed to make progress.

    Kellogg later clarified that he was not suggesting a partition of Ukraine, but his proposal would have exactly the same effect as Trump’s most recent offer.

    Both proposals accept the permanent loss to Ukraine of territory that Russia currently controls. Where they differ is that Kellogg wants to introduce a European-led reassurance force west of the river Dnipro, while leaving the defence of remaining Ukrainian-controlled territory to Kyiv’s armed forces.

    If accepted by Russia – unlikely as this is given Russia’s repeated and unequivocal rejection of European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine – it would provide at best a minimal security guarantee for a part of Ukrainian territory.

    What it would almost inevitably mean, however, is a repeat of the permanent ceasefire violations along the disengagement zone in eastern Ukraine where Russian and Ukrainian forces would continue to face each other.

    This is what happened after the ill-fated Minsk accords of 2014 and 2015, which were meant to settle the conflict after Russia’s invasion of Donbas in 2014. A further Russian invasion could be just around the corner once the Kremlin felt that it had sufficiently recovered from the current war.



    Read more:
    Ukraine deal: Europe has learned from the failed 2015 Minsk accords with Putin. Trump has not

    The lack of a credible deterrent is one key difference between the situation in Ukraine as envisaged by Washington and other historical and contemporary parallels, including Korea and Cyprus.

    Korea was partitioned in 1945 and has been protected by a large US military presence since the Korean war in 1953. After the Turkish invasion of 1974, Cyprus was divided between Greek and Turkish Cypriots along a partition line secured by an armed UN peacekeeping mission.

    Trump has ruled out any US troop commitment as part of securing a ceasefire in Ukraine. And the idea of a UN force in Ukraine, briefly floated during the presidency of Petro Poroshenko between 2014 and 2019, never got any traction, and is not likely to be accepted by Putin now.

    The assumed parallels with the situation in Germany after the second world war are even more tenuous. Not only did Nazi Germany unconditionally surrender in May 1945 but its division into allied zones of occupation was formally and unanimously agreed by the victorious allies in Potsdam in August 1945.

    Muddling up Potsdam and Munich?

    By the time two separate German states of East and West Germany were established in 1949, the western allies had fallen out with Stalin but remained firmly united in Nato and western Europe. So the west German state was firmly protected under the US nuclear umbrella.

    The agreements made in Potsdam didn’t have the same implication of permanence as the US suggestion to formally recognise Crimea as Russian territory. The suggestion was always that the allied forces would pull out of Germany at some stage, and restore the country’s sovereignty.

    Most importantly, the allies did not reward the aggressor in the war or create the conditions for merely a brief interruption for an aggressor’s revisionist agenda.

    After all, what has driven Putin’s war against Ukraine is his conviction that “the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”.

    The Trump administration deludes itself that it is applying the lessons of Potsdam by recognising Russia’s territorial conquests in Ukraine and handing them over. Instead it is falling into the trap of the 1938 Munich Agreement. Negotiators in Munich tried, but failed, to avoid the second world war by appeasing and not deterring an insatiable aggressor – a historical lesson that doesn’t need repeating.

    Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

    Tetyana Malyarenko 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.

    – ref. Trump can’t decide who to blame for a failing peace deal that would only lead to further conflict – https://theconversation.com/trump-cant-decide-who-to-blame-for-a-failing-peace-deal-that-would-only-lead-to-further-conflict-254841

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Trump’s ‘Garden of American Heroes’ is a monument to celebrity and achievement – paid for with humanities funding that benefits everyday Americans

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Jennifer Tucker, Professor of History, Wesleyan University

    Donald Trump speaks in front of a wax statue of John Wayne at the John Wayne Museum in Winterset, Iowa, during the 2016 GOP primaries. Al Drago/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images

    Donald Trump first came up with his plan for a “National Garden of American Heroes” at the end of his first term, before President Joe Biden quietly tabled it upon replacing Trump in the White House.

    Now, with Trump back in the Oval Office – and with the country’s 250th anniversary fast approaching – the project is back. The National Endowment for the Humanities is seeking to commission 250 statues of famous Americans from a predetermined list, to be displayed at a location yet to be determined.

    It isn’t clear who compiled the list of 250 to be honored. It includes names that are largely recognizable and whose accomplishments are well-known: politicians like Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy; jurists Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia; activists such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Harriet Tubman; celebrities such as John Wayne and Julia Child; and sports stars like Kobe Bryant and Babe Ruth.

    Donald Trump announces some famous Black Americans he plans to include in his ‘National Garden of American Heroes’ during a Black History Month event on Feb. 20, 2025, at the White House.

    The statue garden coincides with an executive order from March 2025 in which the Trump administration denounced what it saw as historical revisionism that had recast the country’s “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness.” Instead, it had constructed a story of the nation that portrayed it “as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed,” which “fosters a sense of national shame.”

    “We don’t need to overemphasize the negative,” explained Lindsey Halligan, a 35-year-old insurance lawyer who is named in the order as one of the people tasked with reforming museums that receive government funds.

    Trump often casts himself as a man of the people. But as historians, we don’t see a garden of heroes as a populist effort. To us, it represents a top-down approach to U.S. history, akin to the hagiography that Americans already regularly get from movies, television and professional sports.

    And it comes at a cost: It’s going to be paid for with funds that had been previously allotted to tell stories about people and places that may be less familiar than the proposed figures for Trump’s garden. But they’re nonetheless meaningful to countless communities across the nation.

    Only the movers and shakers matter

    Trump’s fixation on America’s luminaries is adjacent to the “great man” theory of history.

    In 1840, Scottish philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle published “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History,” in which he argued that “The History of the world is but the Biography of great men.”

    American biologist and eugenicist Frederick Adams Woods embraced the great man theory in his 1913 work, “The Influence of Monarchs: Steps in a New Science of History.” In it, he investigated 386 rulers in Western Europe from the 12th century until the French Revolution. He proposed a scientific measurement to quantify the relative impact these rulers had on the course of civilization.

    Then and now, many other historians and sociologists have pushed back, arguing that the “Great Man” view of history oversimplifies the past by attributing major historical events to the actions of a few influential individuals, while ignoring broader social, economic and cultural forces.

    Nonetheless, it continues to have broad appeal. It’s very popular among corporate leaders, for example, many of whom like to portray themselves as visionaries, with their business successes proof of their genius.

    Trump’s garden of heroes reflects his penchant for celebrating wealth, champions and successes, akin to what Walt Disney tried to capture with his Disney World ride Carousel of Progress, which highlights American technological advances.

    A national redundancy?

    However, the U.S. already has a national statuary hall, which opened in the U.S. Capitol in 1870. Each state has contributed two statues; for example, Massachusetts honors Samuel Adams and John Winthrop, while Ohio celebrates James Garfield and Thomas Edison.

    Today there are 102 statutes, though just 14 women.

    Importantly, the roster is fluid – not set in stone – and reflects debates over whom the nation ought to celebrate.

    Over time, the representation has become slightly more inclusive. The first woman, Illinois educator Frances Willard, was added in 1905. Only in 2022 did a Black American appear, when educator Mary Bethune replaced a Confederate general from Florida. And in 2024, Johnny Cash replaced James Paul Clarke, a former governor and senator from Arkansas with Confederate sympathies.

    Family members and elected officials attend the unveiling of the statue of Johnny Cash at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 24, 2024.
    Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

    What about everyday Americans?

    We don’t think there’s anything wrong with celebrating and honoring popular figures in American history. But we do think there’s an issue when it comes at the expense of other historical and archival projects.

    The New York Times reported that US$34 million for the project would come from funds formerly allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, whose budget has been cut by 85%.

    Many of the grants that have been slashed explore, celebrate and preserve history in ways that stand in stark contrast to a statue garden. They involve, as Gal Beckerman writes in the Atlantic, efforts that “are about asking questions, about uncovering hidden or overlooked experiences, about closely examining texts or adding to the public record.”

    They include one that supports the digitization of local newspapers and archival records; another to collect and preserve oral histories of local communities; a grant that funds the production of documentaries and podcasts about local communities; traveling exhibitions that bring items from the Smithsonian’s collection to small towns and rural areas; and a grant to fund the collection of first-person accounts of Native Americans who attended U.S. government-run boarding schools.

    These and countless similar history projects serve millions of people far from Washington, and they have broad support from lawmakers and citizens of all political stripes.

    In 1938, as forces of fascism gathered in Europe, a Connecticut high school social science teacher said, “The greatest need of America, on the threshold of the greatest epoch of its history, is citizens who understand the past out of which the nation has grown. … Let us look into the souls of the leaders and the common people who have made America great.”

    In his 2016 campaign, Trump promised to work on behalf of everyday Americans – the “forgotten man and woman.” But the proposed statue garden of famous figures cuts out the common people from America’s story – not just as subjects of history, but as its stewards for future generations.

    With funds slashed from organizations dedicated to local history, we wonder how many more stories will go untold.

    Jennifer Tucker has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research that examines the social and cultural role of modern technology, such as facial recognition, through a historical lens.

    Peter Rutland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Trump’s ‘Garden of American Heroes’ is a monument to celebrity and achievement – paid for with humanities funding that benefits everyday Americans – https://theconversation.com/trumps-garden-of-american-heroes-is-a-monument-to-celebrity-and-achievement-paid-for-with-humanities-funding-that-benefits-everyday-americans-254564

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –