There is a ticking time bomb at the heart of the North American economy. And this is the year that it begins to detonate.
Over the past several months, Canadian businesses and analysts have been pressuring the federal government to better prepare for the mandated renegotiation of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) that regulates trade and economic activity among the three North American countries.
Article 34.7 of the pact effectively commits the three countries to undertake a review of the new agreement every six years, in 2026 (the agreement went into force in 2020).
This might not seem like a big deal. Canada has negotiated many trade agreements, and a regular review of our most important trade agreement may seem reasonable.
But CUSMA is no regular trade agreement, in large part because this highly unusual review process undermines the very security and stability that trade agreements are supposed to provide.
In 2018, in the depths of the first Donald Trump presidency, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that had governed continental economic relations since 1994.
The agreement — called the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) in the U.S., the Tratado entre México, Estados Unidos y Canadá (T-MEC) in Mexico and CUSMA in Canada — was largely greeted with relief throughout Canada.
Negotiated under duress with a Trump administration that was threatening to tear up NAFTA, the three governments seemingly preserved a rules-based approach to managing economic relations with our most important trading partner. Free trade had been saved.
But there was a twist due to the deal’s requirement that the three countries review the pact every six years.
Trade agreements are bigger than their specific rules. Their real importance lies in how they provide the smaller partners with certainty and protection from the coercive power of the larger partners.
The promise of greater market access, and the threat of restricting this access, has always been the American trump card in its international economic relations. American negotiators use this threat/promise to convince partners to adopt, change or eliminate policies in the U.S. interest.
But once an agreement is signed, the U.S. loses this leverage — which is good for smaller countries’ policy autonomy.
The difference? Canada’s negotiations took place after NAFTA had been negotiated, while Mexico’s reforms were the result of the NAFTA negotiations, when the U.S. was using market access as a negotiating tactic.
Having a trade agreement with a renegotiation clause is like having no agreement at all because everyone knows that, once renegotiations start, everything is back on the table.
As I argued in two 2018 articles for The Conversation Canada, the renegotiation requirement significantly reduces smaller countries’ overall policy autonomy. Knowing that renegotiation is on the horizon will mean that the threat of economic blackmail will hang over all policies as they become pawns to be sacrificed to preserve the Holy Grail: access to the U.S. market.
Knowing that any policy could be effectively targeted by the U.S. means that Canada and Mexico run the risk of widespread regulatory chill: governments, anticipating retaliation, become excessively cautious in their regulatory efforts.
These chilling effects can already be seen, two years away from the start of formal renegotiations. In early September, the Business Council of Canada called on the federal government to revoke its new three per cent digital services tax on foreign tech giants for fear it might “imperil” the upcoming talks.
The implications of the CUSMA time bomb are beginning to be understood in Canada.
In a recent editorial, The Globe and Mail argued that Canada should make some enormous policy concessions — eliminate the new digital services tax, end the agriculture supply management system and crack down on forced labour in supply chains — in exchange for eliminating regular CUSMA reviews.
The myth of free trade
Editorialists are labouring under the belief that free trade is still in play. It’s not.
More pragmatically, any concessions are highly unlikely to convince the U.S. — regardless of which party is in power — to surrender the most potent weapon it has in its arsenal to pressure its neighbours to adopt its preferred policies. Policy reform, simply put, leads to U.S. market access.
While the U.S., Canada and Mexico will continue to sign trade and economic agreements, these deals are no longer reliable tools to deliver the certainty and protection enjoyed under NAFTA for three decades prior to 2018. Renegotiated deals will merely restructure Canada’s continental relationship, they won’t preserve Canadian autonomy.
The 2018 CUSMA didn’t preserve free trade in North America. It signalled its demise and the return of power politics to our most important economic relationship.
Blayne Haggart has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
The author is the late Enos Montour, a Delaware writer from Six Nations of the Grand River. As the title suggests, it is an ironic play on Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), Thomas Hughes’s popular novel about his boyhood in an English school.
In Brown Tom’s Schooldays, instead of the main character being an English boy at an elite private boarding school, he is Tom Hemlock, a First Nations boy attending Mount Elgin Indian Residential School between 1910 and 1915. Montour’s narrative is the only known substantive writing by a Mount Elgin student. His stories unfold school life, illuminating the physical and social world of Mount Elgin in powerful ways.
A new edition of Brown Tom’s Schooldays has recently been published by the University of Manitoba Press Series called First Voices, First Texts. This series aims to reconnect contemporary readers with some of the most important Indigenous literature of the past, much of which has been unavailable for decades.
The series reveals the richness of these works by providing re-edited texts that give readers new insights into the cultural contexts of these unjustly neglected classics. The diversity and complexity of Indigenous writers and their work was not appreciated by publishers when authors like Montour attempted to have his book published in the 1970s and 80s.
As a historian and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous People, History and Archives at the University of Winnipeg, and band member of the Munsee Delaware Nation who has been engaged in community-based projects chronicling the history of Mount Elgin, I led the project.
In my introduction, I document Montour’s fascinating life and work and detail Brown Tom’s Schooldays’ publication history, drawing from documents from the United Church of Canada Archives, Trent and McGill University Archives, Library and Archives Canada, private correspondence and other sources. I also show how the book provides insight into the operations of Mount Elgin, as well as social and linguistic histories of the First Nations communities in the area.
20th century Indigenous print cultures
Montour, a minister with the United Church of Canada, published several of the early chapters of Brown Tom in United Church magazines.
After he retired, he gathered these and other Mount Elgin stories together and sought a church or trade publisher for the book. When no publishers moved, Montour felt frustrated that his work might be read as too “mild” for a reading public who expected sensationalized depictions of First Nations life.
In declining health, Montour ensured a legacy for the book by asking anthropologist Elizabeth Graham to transcribe, edit and photocopy the manuscript. Copies were made for family and friends. One copy of the manuscript was sent by Graham to the National Library in Ottawa. Until this fall, that was the only publicly accessible copy of the work.
For this new edition of Brown Tom’s Schooldays, with University of Manitoba Press editor Jill McConkey, I consulted with Graham, as well as Montour’s two granddaughters, Mary I. Anderson and Margaret McKenzie, about how we might frame the book. Using archival correspondence between herself and Montour, Graham wrote a new preface. Anderson and McKenzie shared family records, including photos, and wrote an afterword to the book.
This new edition of Montour’s book is a good reminder that formal published work accounts form a small fraction of the literature by and about Indigenous people and history. A much more representative field is produced in copy shops, and this self-published, limited-run “grey literature” is now held in archives across the country.
Brown Tom’s Schooldays is based solidly in a real place and draws from lived experiences. Like the central tension of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Montour’s book is about moving toward adulthood and the meaning of that for First Nations students at the time. Montour’s layered story shows how, for “Brown Tom,” this journey involved learning and then working through self-doubt and prejudice and confronting the impossible choice of a white or Indian adulthood.
‘Brown Tom’s Schooldays,’ by Enos Montour. (University of Manitoba Press)
Montour’s formal education at Mount Elgin was based on set curriculum that endorsed colonial domination, racism and discrimination against people of colour and Indigenous people. Moreover, a federal Indian Residential School, Mount Elgin’s purpose was to facilitate assimilation of First Nations children, and this happened in an underfunded, carceral and abusive setting. Mount Elgin, like other residential schools, emphasized children’s manual labour more than academics.
In spite of this early education, Montour loved reading and writing, and he brought this love to his stories of Mount Elgin and the surrounding area, giving the school character and beauty and students humour and agency. The stories are at times strikingly sentimental.
When I first read this collection, I did not know what to think of it. For me, Montour’s consistent references to the Bible and classic works of English literature did not fit with what I expected in an Indian Residential School memoir. I chaffed when reading Montour’s characters written in terms that seem to accept standard racist stereotypes of First Nations at the time. His representation of the early 20th century seemed too funny, or rosy, too Anglophile and too naive.
At the same time, I knew that Montour wrote stories true to his experience, as he understood it, and by his ironic play on English literature through the eyes of a First Nations boy. This way of writing is a window into a sense of humour and way of telling what mattered that reminded me of people of my great-grandfather’s generation.
But I don’t think Montour would have feared how the book would be received and read. He writes compellingly about youth, school life and friendship, but also about the callous and disorienting experience of arriving at Mount Elgin and the everyday pervasive hunger and homesickness felt there.
He also describes extraordinary moments, including the death of a fellow student, Noah, who had tuberculosis. Short, moving and profoundly troublesome, this chapter shows the pervasive apathy towards student life at Mount Elgin and the ungreivablity of student death.
Ultimately, even in retirement and ill health, Montour insisted on completing the book and making it accessible because the stories mattered to him. And they matter to us, too.
Brown Tom’s Schooldays can be purchased from anywhere you buy books.
Mary Jane Logan McCallum receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada
On Sept. 18, I was on the traditional territory of the Songhees and Xwsepsum Nations to stand with my Indigenous physician family as the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) delivered its apology to Indigenous Peoples in Victoria, B.C. This wasn’t the first time that we have stood together to witness a collective apology.
That day, we hoped the apology signalled a turning point and that a new day was coming. What we’ve seen since, as evidenced by multiple reports on progress on reconciliation, is that it takes a long time for that new day to come, and progress on reparations and reconciliation is not linear or always forward-moving.
I carried the lessons from that 2008 experience with me to Victoria to witness the apology from CMA — Canada’s national association of physicians — and knew this would be different for me. My experiences of racism in the health-care system are significantly more direct than my experiences of residential schools.
Racism in health care
I navigated medical education as a Cree-Anishinaabe woman, experiencing significant amounts of both non-malicious and malicious racism. This ranged from being asked if there were polar bears where I grew up (the North End of Winnipeg) to being asked by an attending emergency room physician if I had to “jump out of the Indian Posse” to transfer from Winnipeg to Saskatoon.
What would this collective apology for systemic racism in health care mean to me, an Indigenous physician, who has and continues to experience racism from my physician peers?
Did/does the ER physician whose behaviour escalated to include putting his hand in the back pocket of my jeans when I was on call to both grope me and “check if I had stolen their reflex hammer” feel deep shame? Probably not, and that disconnect impacted how the apology landed.
Within “the national voice of the medical profession” are those of us who have experienced and continue to experience anti-Indigenous racism; those we work with in consensual solidarity or allyship to dismantle white supremacy within the profession; and those who are actively perpetuating the spread of false and harmful anti-Indigenous stereotypes that contribute to the unequal health care we receive. Many of these behaviours are described in British Columbia’s In Plain Sight Report
A collective apology cannot speak to this range of experiences or contributions to harm. As racism operates at multiple levels, so must accountability.
This is why on the day of the apology I was apprehensive and feeling somewhat pressured to respond positively to it, to make a show of unity. Since the apology hadn’t really spoken to the breadth and depth of experiences of racism I’ve had or that I know many of my Indigenous physician colleagues have had, I was not ready for that. I suspected some of my colleagues felt the same.
After the apology was delivered, in a small group that included many of the Indigenous physicians who were there, I shared my feelings. I said, “An apology has been offered. Whatever your reaction is to what was said today is valid. You don’t have to accept this apology today, tomorrow or ever. It’s okay to wait and see what comes next.” I saw people nodding and tears being shed.
I sat with that feeling, and then a couple days later I was reading Cole Arthur Riley’s This Here Flesh. Riley is a Black American author and founder of the incredibly popular Black Liturgies Instagram account. Her writing of Black liberation and the reparations needed for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and other injustices strongly parallel the need for Canada’s ongoing truth and reconciliation work — which we will be recognizing on Sept. 30.
This passage from This Here Flesh resonated with me when reflecting on this latest apology:
“There are some of us who have grown weary of talk of reconciliation. This is probably because it comes to us on the tongues of men who have paid no time to the process of true repair. It is both ego and shame concealed in shallow unity-speak that regresses any progress that has been made.”
Based on the fallout after the Indian Residential School apology, we can accurately predict the actions following this apology will not be linear with forward progress.
If we are hesitant to fully accept this most recent apology, it is because we have learned the hard way that our safety, and sometimes our survival, depends on first seeing the integrity of the other party we are in union with.
There is a deep social contract between the medical profession and the public we serve. There is an individual contract between each physician and each patient they see. There is also a contract between physicians as colleagues, teachers and learners, embedded in our Modern-Day Physician’s Pledge.
This apology is meaningful because it addresses a tragic breach between the medical profession and the public. The CMA has committed to followup actions.
This, however, does not offer “true repair” for the past breaches, and the ones still to come, in all of these contracts. That is a gap that remains to be closed and without it we will not see the end of anti-Indigenous racism in health care.
Marcia Anderson received funding from Health Canada to develop Indigenous Cultural Safety and Anti-Racism Training.
The budget surplus for last financial year has come in at $15.8 billion, well exceeding the $9.3 billion that was forecast in the May budget.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers, just back from talks in Beijing on China’s economic outlook, will announce the result on Monday.
The government says the better-than-forecast outcome has been driven entirely by lower spending. Revenue was also lower than the budget anticipated. Areas of savings included the National Disability Insurance Scheme, payments to the states, and various grant programs that don’t exist anymore.
This is the government’s second consecutive surplus. The May budget has predicted deficits for the coming years.
Across 2022-23 and 2023-24 the budget position has improved by a cumulative $172.3 billion, compared with what was forecast in the official Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, released immediately before the 2022 election.
The government says it has made $77.4 billion in savings, including $12.2 billion in 2023-24.
Payments were 25.2% of GDP in 2023-24. This compared to the PEFO forecast of 27.1%
Chalmers said this was the “first government to post back-to-back surpluses in nearly two decades”. The surpluses hadn’t come at the expense of cost-of-living relief, he said in a statement.
Speaking in Beijing on Friday Chalmers said it remained to be seen whether China’s just-announced stimulus measures would work.
“But we’ve seen on earlier occasions when the authorities here, the administration here, steps in to support activity in the economy that is typically a good thing for Australia – good for our businesses and workers, our industries, our investors, and good for the global economy as well.
“Like a lot of people around the world, we have been concerned about the softer conditions here in the Chinese economy. Subject to the details [of measures] that will be made public in good time, any efforts to boost growth and support activity here is a welcome one around the world and especially at home in Australia.”
Chalmers on Monday is likely to face further questions on the Treasury’s work on negative gearing, news of which leaked out last week.
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.
The death of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on September 27 has left the militant Lebanese organisation leaderless at a critical time. Two days earlier in a speech broadcast around the world, the head of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) northern command, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, had told his soldiers to prepare for a possible incursion into Lebanon.
There is every reason to believe Friday’s airstrike, which targeted Hezbollah’s headquarters building in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, was in preparation for a possible incursion. It came after days of strikes which Israel claims have eliminated much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership.
Halevi told his troops on September 25 that they would “go in, destroy the enemy there, and decisively destroy” Hezbollah’s infrastructure. As Hezbollah is embedded within the Lebanese population, this strategy promises the deaths of innocent civilians.
Since 2006, both Hezbollah and the IDF have sought to avoid a direct confrontation. For years, they have played tit-for-tat with the rationale of proportionality to prevent an all-out war.
Although the horrific October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas triggered a resumption of hostilities, until last week both sides were calling for restraint. What has changed? Is a ground invasion now inevitable? And if so, what would that mean for Hezbollah and Lebanon?
Israel has a track record of engaging in military adventures in Lebanon that have only ever served to make its opponents stronger in the long term. The destruction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) did not prevent the emergence of Hamas – indeed, it helped to create it. Similarly, Israel’s pursuit of the PLO in south Lebanon triggered the creation of Hezbollah. Despite five invasions since 1978, Israel has shown itself incapable of successfully occupying even the smallest sliver of Lebanese land.
While both sides have been preparing for a new conflict for years, the trigger for the escalation began on September 18, when Israel struck the first blow by detonating thousands of pagers and mobile devices owned by Hezbollah operatives, killing at least 32 and injuring several thousand people.
This technological attack had been years in the making and could be described as a strategic masterstroke to disable the enemy. The timing appears to have been because Hezbollah was becoming suspicious about the devices, so the IDF had to act or lose the “surprise”. This suggests operational considerations are taking precedence over strategic and political ones, which research suggests is rarely a good idea.
Nonetheless, these strikes are believed to have crippled Hezbollah’s command in the short term, and emboldened the IDF’s leadership. On September 18, Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, told Israeli troops: “We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance.” While he made no mention of the exploding devices, he praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, noting their results were excellent.
A tactic used in recent days by the IDF is one that has been developed over many years on the “Blue Line” – the de facto border that divides Israel and Lebanon. Emboldened by the failure of the IDF to defeat it in the July war of 2006, Hezbollah’s senior operatives have been active and visible on the Blue Line, which is monitored closely by the IDF.
This has enabled the IDF to photograph, identify and track senior Hezbollah leadership, which is why since October 7 we have seen a succession of assassinations of its key operatives, including Ibrahim Aqeel, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, and more recently, Mohammed Sarour in Beirut, as well as many others.
The IDF now believes it has Hezbollah on its knees – or at least, on one knee. The escalation we are currently witnessing is because the IDF is driving home its advantage and applying the same strategy as in Gaza: bombing any area it can plausibly claim to be a Hezbollah target.
This has had devastating consequences for the Lebanese population. The Health Ministry stated on Friday that 1,540 people had been killed since October 8 2023, with thousands of innocent civilians injured. Over 70,000 civilians have reportedly registered in 533 shelters across Lebanon, with an estimated 1 million people having been displaced from their homes.
Can Hezbollah fight back?
The death of Nasrallah has left Hezbollah temporarily leaderless, while the killing of several of its senior figures has deprived it of seasoned commanders, many of whom had recent combat experience in Syria. And the bombing of south Lebanon is reducing Hezbollah’s supply of rockets and other weapons.
However, Israel should not assume that Hezbollah is out of the game or underestimate the group. Hezbollah’s real strength has always lain in its ability to melt into the population – and it will be ready to commence a war of attrition with hit-and-run tactics if the IDF makes the mistake of putting boots on the ground again. The fact that all five previous invasions failed should be an indication that the outcome may be a repeat of what occurred between 1982 and 2006.
Furthermore, while Iran’s response to the escalation has been muted thus far, it is unlikely to abandon Hezbollah. A long, drawn-out, low-intensity conflict would favour the kind of asymmetric tactics used by the “axis of resistance”, which also includes Lebanon’s neighbour, Syria.
By bombing and displacing the Lebanese population, the IDF aims to reduce morale. It is now destroying private homes and public buildings on the grounds they are Hezbollah ammunition and weapons depots.
In Lebanon, the Palestine issue has always been regarded as the primary cause of the civil war that took place from 1975 to 1990. As such, the IDF is banking on Lebanese people turning against Hezbollah for bringing a new war down on them as a result of its rocket barrages into northern Israel, in solidarity with Hamas since the October 7 attack.
But, while there are many people in Lebanon who do not support Hezbollah and its activities in south Lebanon, the IDF should remember the past. Even if sentiment against Hezbollah is high today, indiscriminate bombing of the kind we are currently witnessing in Lebanon will not be tolerated by the population indefinitely.
It’s worth noting that in 1982, when the IDF invaded south Lebanon, some Lebanese welcomed them with rice and flowers – viewing them as liberators from the PLO. But that welcome did not last long.
The stated IDF aim is to drive Hezbollah back north of the Litani river, to force it to comply with UN resolution 1701 and allow displaced people in northern Israel to return to their homes. But it is naive of Israel and the IDF to think that an invasion or a bombing campaign, no matter how successful in the short term, will enable Israeli civilians to live in peace along the Blue Line for the long term.
Ultimately, the only way forward is for both parties to come to the table and negotiate. The human cost of Israel’s current strategy in Lebanon is appalling to contemplate, and in all likelihood will create more hatred – fostering a new generation of anti-Israel fighters, rather than creating the basis for a durable peace.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was written with assistance from John Molloy, lt. col. (rtd.) Irish Defence Forces and former senior Unifil political & civil affairs officer, 2008-2017.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Madhav Joshi, Research Professor & Associate Director, Peace Accords Matrix (PAM), Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame
It has been nearly two years since the African Union brokered a peace deal that put an end to the war between the Ethiopian state and the Tigray regional government. The signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement in November 2022 brought an end to a deadly two-year conflict.
the establishment of an AU-led monitoring and verification mission.
But a great deal still remains to be done if the peace is going to last. We havestudied 42 comprehensive and 236 partial peace agreements in the last three decades. Based on this experience, we argue that urgent issues remain to be addressed in the Ethiopian agreement. If left unattended, they raise the risk of a return to war.
Empirical research suggests that a higher overall implementation rate of civil war peace agreements leads to sustainable peace. It is the only proven pathway for resolving remaining conflicts in a country. Doing what was agreed is necessary for post-war recovery.
In Ethiopia, the disarmament and demobilisation of Tigrayan combatants needs urgent attention. So do the protection of civilians and returnees in disputed territories in western and northern Tigray, and the restoration of basic infrastructure in the region. The state also needs to ensure the smooth delivery of humanitarian aid, the withdrawal of foreign troops from Tigray and the representation of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in the federal government.
The gaps
A substantial reason for the lack of progress in building sustainable peace is that the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement has holes in it.
Firstly, only the immediate cessation of hostilities, and the demobilisation and disarmament of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front combatants, were set out clearly. Other principles – such as civilian protections, delivery of humanitarian aid and ensuring accountability for the conflict – were left to “good faith implementation”.
The peace agreement and its implementation process in Tigray lack safeguard mechanisms. These are procedures involving the power-sharing government, dispute resolution and robust mechanisms to verify the implementation of the agreement. However, only the verification mechanism is in place among these three pillars, and it’s very weak. Safeguard mechanisms create ownership, inclusion and accountability. They amplify the urgency of implementing peace deals.
Secondly, the underlying causes of conflict and grievances haven’t been dealt with as agreed. These include the withdrawal of foreign troops from Tigray, the reconstruction of conflict-affected communities and the Tigrayan government’s representation in the federal government. Addressing these grievances might create the mutual trust that is necessary to revive the stalled process of building peace.
Thirdly, while the overt conflict with Tigrayan forces has subsided, the political dialogue between the regional and national governments hasn’t happened. This dialogue is key to addressing ambiguities in the peace deal. The agreement’s success depends on actions at the federal level – such as the reparation of internally displaced persons. Yet, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front isn’t represented at this level.
Fourth, conflict-displaced Tigrayans are slowly returning to their communities. But insecurity remains acute because it’s not clear if all Tigrayan combatants are demobilised and all troops from Eritrea withdrawn. The monitoring mechanism in place is weak and cannot independently verify what’s been achieved.
Fifth, the Ethiopian government’s transitional justice policy is unclear. It doesn’t provide guidance on who to prosecute as there are still ongoing conflicts in Ethiopia. The policy also avoids international scrutiny. It lacks critical aspects to prevent the recurrence of atrocities by adhering to international standards.
Political factors
The lack of progress in building lasting peace can also be put down to a lack of political will on the part of both parties.
The federal government lacks resources for reconstruction. For example, there has been little rebuilding of basic infrastructure. The cost of recovery from the war in Tigray is estimated to be over US$44 billion.
For its part, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front is in the throes of a growing rift between its chairman, Debretsion Gebremichael, and the deputy chairman and head of the interim government in Tigray, Getachew Reda. This has diverted attention to managing intra-party rivalries rather than pressuring the federal government to take necessary actions.
Ethiopia is facing a watershed moment. The peace agreement can be carried out faster if the Tigray People’s Liberation Front maintains its cohesiveness. When broken into factions, it cannot hold the Abiy Ahmed regime accountable.
Research shows that rebel movements such as the Tigray People’s Liberation Front often form factions after signing peace deals because of disagreements on the compromises made to reach a deal. A slow implementation process can further divide a rebel movement as it cannot cater to its supporters, or justify the war and unaddressed humanitarian and human rights abuses.
Factions weaken the party, create instabilities and hurt the peace building process.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s unity is crucial for the success of the deal and its aspiration to return to political power in Tigray.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
We all admire wise people, don’t we? Whether it’s a thoughtful teacher, a compassionate doctor, or an elder in the community, we recognise wisdom when we see it. But have you ever thought about how people in different cultures perceive wisdom? Does someone in Morocco view a wise person in the same way as someone in Ecuador? Our recent study explored how people across cultures think of wisdom.
This large-scale project required a joint effort of 34 researchers across fields of philosophy, psychology, anthropology, social science and psychometrics – and from all over the world, connected in a research consortium called The Geography of Philosophy.
What we found was somewhat surprising. Wisdom may appear to be shaped by cultural differences, but the core aspects of what makes someone wise are largely the same across cultures. From urban college students in Japan to villagers in South Africa, participants associated wisdom with two key characteristics: reflective orientation and socio-emotional awareness. We explain what that means below.
Contrary to widespread stereotypes, people recognise wisdom in a similar way across east and west, south and north. Despite the divisions of the world, we see wisdom in the same individuals and associate it with similar traits. Are we indeed more alike than we are different, when it comes to how we perceive wisdom? And what characterises wise people?
These are the characteristics of wise people
There are two key characteristics. Reflective orientation is about people who think before acting, carefully consider different perspectives, and use logic and past experiences to guide their decisions. They’re the type of person who keeps their cool in difficult situations, taking time to weigh all the options before making a move.
The second is socio-emotional awareness. Wise people are good at understanding and caring about the thoughts and feelings of others. They pay attention to emotions and consider different views on the situation. Such an individual might be skilled at mediating conflicts by understanding each party’s point of view, or be adept at providing emotional support during difficult times.
Together, these two dimensions combine to form the global image of wisdom. The study suggests that the wisest people are those who balance both, showing strong abilities in reasoning while also being emotionally and socially aware.
A highly reflective person who is suppressing their own emotions but doesn’t notice the social context of the problem wouldn’t be called wise. Likewise, someone who is entirely driven by emotion and the social environment but fails to make logical connections wouldn’t be called wise either. Real wisdom, according to our study, is about finding a balance between thoughtful reasoning, social understanding, and emotional awareness.
Cultures do differ, but not as much as you might think
To uncover these dimensions, we employed a method sometimes called experimental philosophy. Participants across 16 different cultures in 12 countries on five continents compared a set of targets to each other. For example, one of the questions asked participants to compare whether a doctor or a religious person was more likely to think logically when making a hard life decision with no right or wrong answers. Our participants also rated themselves. Then we asked how wise each of these persons were.
When we started this project, we expected to find big differences between cultures. Previous research suggested that people in “the west” use and value analytical thinking, which tends to dismiss social and emotional parts of the situation. In contrast, individuals in “the east” emphasise holistic thinking, that is, all-encompassing views of complex situations.
But that’s not what we found. While there were some small differences – people in South Africa, for example, placed more importance on nature and divinity when thinking about socio-emotional awareness – the overall picture was strikingly similar. Across the globe, people rated individuals who were both reflective and socially and emotionally aware as the wisest. For instance, they named a doctor and a 75-year-old person as the wisest, and at the same time the highest on both dimensions.
What was particularly fascinating was that people tended to rate themselves differently from how they rated others. Most people saw themselves as less reflective but more socially and emotionally aware than the “wise” figures they were asked to rate. In other words, people were ready to admit a moderate level of their own intellectual capabilities, but they were quite confident in their ability to understand and care for others.
Why this matters
This research defies stereotypes of a cold analytical ideal of “the west” and a social-minded and emotionally driven image of “the east” and “the south”. The idea that wisdom is purely intellectual, or conversely, purely social or divine, is too simplistic. It also highlights that wisdom manifests in a balance of traits traditionally attributed to different cultures.
In a time when global cooperation is more important than ever, recognising our shared appreciation for certain qualities can help bridge cultural divides.
The study opens up new avenues for research. Could these dimensions of wisdom help us understand how to solve global problems? Are people more likely to trust leaders who show both reflective thinking and socio-emotional awareness? And how do these qualities affect the way we handle personal relationships, difficult decisions, or conflicts?
One thing is clear: wisdom is something we all value, no matter where we come from. By understanding it better, we can not only become wiser ourselves but also learn to appreciate wisdom in others, wherever they may be.
Veli Mitova receives funding from the John Templeton Foundation and the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences.
Maksim Rudnev 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.
South Africa has a massive infrastructure problem. Roads, electricity supply and water management are just three areas in which there is mounting evidence of collapse and decay. This is true for big cities like Johannesburg as well as small towns and rural areas.
This is a problem because infrastructure like this has huge economic benefits. Having water and electricity enables firms to run smoothly. Local roads improve mobility and access to markets.
A study by South Africa’s Financial and Fiscal Commission in 2018 showed that infrastructure spending had a statistically significant positive impact on local employment and economic growth.
Responsibility for maintaining these essential services lies with South Africa’s 257 municipalities. Funding comes from two pots: central government allocation; and revenue raised locally through the delivery of services.
The national government has increased its financial transfers to municipalities for infrastructure investment by more than 3.5 times in local currency over the past 14 years. In that period municipalities have received almost R600 billion (US$45,5 billion) from national government.
Why do local governments have little to show for it?
We have been researching South Africa’s public finances and intergovernmental fiscal relations issues for many years. In a recent paper we evaluated how municipalities have managed the delivery of infrastructure.
We found that:
municipalities have failed to effectively use increased infrastructure allocations
municipalities have not chosen the right infrastructure projects
projects have not been implemented cost effectively
projects have not been completed on time and within budget
infrastructure was not being operated efficiently
existing infrastructure was not being maintained.
The failures
We identified the following failures.
People resources: Most of South Africa’s 257 municipalities lack the required capacity for managing infrastructure. Only a few have fully resourced project management units. In addition, there are cumbersome and costly infrastructure planning processes and legislative requirements. For instance, municipalities must conduct a feasibility study and appoint a steering committee for each project. The resources required for this are overwhelming for many and the process simply shifts the limited resources away from the actual infrastructure work.
These problems have persisted despite many years of reforms and increased technical and financial support.
Poor allocation of funds: Most allocations by national government for infrastructure have been in the form of conditional grants. These stipulate conditions for what type of infrastructure the money can be spent on.
However, this hasn’t stopped the grants being allocated to prolonged or abandoned projects. The result is that many municipalities have been using recurring budget allocations to rectify poor workmanship and abandoned projects.
Political interference: Where infrastructure has been built it is not well maintained. This is partly because politicians tend to prefer new infrastructure which comes with opportunities for ribbon cutting ceremonies. But some of this infrastructure doesn’t match the needs of communities, and becomes a white elephant.
Bureaucracy: Municipalities share responsibility with national and provincial governments for some local infrastructure investments. But joint planning and budgeting is lacking. So water and electricity reticulation networks are often installed without sufficient bulk supply from the relevant providers.
Service delays then lead to community protest and infrastructure vandalism.
The role of national government departments also creates problems. They are the custodians of conditional infrastructure grant funding. In this role they often interfere and dictate priorities for municipalities while attaching stringent conditions to funding.
Lack of ownership: Frustrated by the ongoing inability to spend infrastructure funds, national government is increasingly carrying out projects on behalf of municipalities, often using indirect grants. The result is that municipalities have no sense of ownership of the infrastructure and are not keen to maintain it. Some of the landfill sites and sport facilities constructed by the national departments of environmental affairs and sports have been neglected.
We also found that municipalities are battling to keep up with growing populations, rising input costs and the vandalisation of infrastructure.
Our findings are confirmed by reports of the auditor-general which highlight weak municipal infrastructure delivery management.
The 2021–2022 auditor-general’s report found that the average delay in completing infrastructure projects ranged from 17 to 26 months.
It also found that all 257 municipalities had spent only R18 billion (US$1.2 billion) on infrastructure maintenance. This represents 4% of the total value (R450 billion or US$30.6 billion) of municipal assets. This low spend increases the risk of infrastructure breakdown and reduces service level standards.
It also rapidly increases the pace and cost of infrastructure upgrading and replacement.
The solutions
The failure to deliver infrastructure has itself affected the financial stability of municipalities. This is because they can generate their own revenue from selling water and electricity to residents. A collapse of these services means this income is lost.
But debates on municipal infrastructure in South Africa have largely focused on funding shortfalls. This ignores weaknesses or a lack of municipal capacity to manage infrastructure projects. Giving municipalities money for infrastructure does not guarantee quality and long-lasting infrastructure.
Municipalities need to:
focus on the full life cycle management of infrastructure instead of just rolling out new projects
plan for relevant infrastructure that responds to local circumstances
maintain old and new infrastructure
refurbish infrastructure that is nearing the end of its useful life.
None of this can be achieved without competent and prescient local government leadership.
Eddie Rakabe is affiliated with Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflections.
Ramos Emmanuel Mabugu 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.
Today we removed an article titled “Should we ditch big exam halls? Our research shows how high ceilings are associated with a lower score”, because the original research has been found to contain errors and has been retracted by the academic journal that published it.
The Conversation’s article, published on July 3, 2024, was based on a study published online by The Journal of Environmental Psychology on June 26, 2024. It looked at the impact of ceiling heights on the exam performance of Australian students, and found that even after accounting for other factors such as age or past exam experience, higher ceiling heights were statistically correlated with poorer exam results.
After the study was published, a query from a reader of the journal article led the authors to review their calculations.
The authors discovered some honest errors in their work, leading them to conclude that the relationship between ceiling heights and exam score was “more nuanced” than presented in the paper.
The revised research manuscript was reviewed by the same anonymous peer-reviewers who looked at the original research. One reviewer did not feel comfortable assessing the statistical corrections, one advised against publishing the corrected manuscript, and a third recommended revisions.
On this basis, the Journal of Environmental Psychology rejected the amended version. The journal’s response can be found here.
The authors, lead by Isabella Bower, apologise for the error, and are working to resubmit their updated research to another journal.
The Conversation has decided that, in light of the current status of the research, the most appropriate option is to retract our coverage of the study. We are committed to providing accurate and reliable information, and to acknowledging errors in an open and transparent way when they occur.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martie-Louise Verreynne, Professor in Innovation and Associate Dean (Research), The University of Queensland
Humans are increasingly engaging with wearable technology as it becomes more adaptable and interactive. One of the most intimate ways gaining acceptance is through augmented reality (AR) glasses.
Last week, Meta debuted a prototype of the most recent version of their AR glasses – Orion. They look like reading glasses and use holographic projection to allow users to see graphics projected through transparent lenses into their field of view.
Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg called Orion “the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen”. He said they offer a “glimpse of the future” in which smart glasses will replace smartphones as the main mode of communication.
But is this true or just corporate hype? And will AR glasses actually benefit us in new ways?
Old technology, made new
The technology used to develop Orion glasses is not new.
In the 1960s, computer scientist Ivan Sutherland introduced the first augmented reality head-mounted display. Two decades later, Canadian engineer and inventor Stephen Mann developed the first glasses-like prototype.
Throughout the 1990s, researchers and technology companies developed the capability of this technology through head-worn displays and wearable computing devices. Like many technological developments, these were often initially focused on military and industry applications.
In 2013, after smartphone technology emerged, Google entered the AR glasses market. But consumers were disinterested, citing concerns about privacy, high cost, limited functionality and a lack of a clear purpose.
This did not discourage other companies – such as Microsoft, Apple and Meta – from developing similar technologies.
Looking inside
Meta cites a range of reasons for why Orion are the world’s most advanced glasses, such as their miniaturised technology with large fields of view and holographic displays. It said these displays provide:
compelling AR experiences, creating new human-computer interaction paradigms […] one of the most difficult challenges our industry has ever faced.
Orion also has an inbuilt smart assistant (Meta AI) to help with tasks through voice commands, eye and hand tracking, and a wristband for swiping, clicking and scrolling.
With these features, it is not difficult to agree that AR glasses are becoming more user-friendly for mass consumption. But gaining widespread consumer acceptance will be challenging.
A set of challenges
Meta will have to address four types of challenges:
ease of wearing, using and integrating AR glasses with other glasses
psychological factors such as social acceptance, trust in privacy and accessibility.
These factors are not unlike what we saw in the 2000s when smartphones gained acceptance. Just like then, there are early adopters who will see more benefits than risks in adopting AR glasses, creating a niche market that will gradually expand.
This will allow for broader applications in education (for example, virtual classrooms), remote work and enhanced collaboration tools. Already, Orion’s holographic display allows users to overlay digital content and the real world, and because it is hands-free, communication will be more natural.
Creative destruction
Smart glasses are already being used in many industrial settings, such as logistics and healthcare. Meta plans to launch Orion for the general public in 2027.
By that time, AI will have likely advanced to the point where virtual assistants will be able to see what we see and the physical, virtual and artificial will co-exist. At this point, it is easy to see that the need for bulky smartphones may diminish and that through creative destruction, one industry may replace another.
This is supported by research indicating the virtual and augmented reality headset industry will be worth US$370 billion by 2034.
The remaining question is whether this will actually benefit us.
There is already much debate about the effect of smartphone technology on productivity and wellbeing. Some argue that it has benefited us, mainly through increased connectivity, access to information, and productivity applications.
But others say it has just created more work, distractions and mental fatigue.
If Meta has its way, AR glasses will solve this by enhancing productivity. Consulting firm Deloitte agrees, saying the technology will provide hands-free access to data, faster communication and collaboration through data-sharing.
It also claims smart glasses will reduce human errors, enable data visualisation, and monitor the wearer’s health and wellbeing. This will ensure a quality experience, social acceptance, and seamless integration with physical processes.
But whether or not that all comes true will depend on how well companies such as Meta address the many challenges associated with AR glasses.
Martie-Louise Verreynne receives funding from the ARC and NHMRC.
The development of “superhuman” strength and power has long been admired in many cultures across the world.
This may reflect the importance of these physical fitness characteristics in many facets of our lives from pre-history to today: hunting and gathering, the construction of large buildings and monuments, war, and more recently, sport.
Potentially, the current peak of human strength and power is demonstrated in the sport of strongman.
What is strongman?
Strongman is becoming more common, with competitions now available at regional, national and international levels for men and women of different ages and sizes.
Strongman training and competitions typically involve a host of traditional barbell-based exercises including squats, deadlifts and presses but also specific strongman events.
The specific strongman events – such as the vehicle pull, farmer’s walk, sandbag/keg toss or stones lift – often require competitors to move a range of awkward, heavy implements either higher, faster or with more repetitions in a given time period than their competitors.
Researching one of the greats
Strongman has enjoyed substantial growth and development since the introduction of the World’s Strongest Man competition in the late 1970s.
However, from a scientific perspective, there are few published studies focusing on athletes at the elite level.
In particular, very little is currently known about the overall amount of muscle mass these athletes possess, how their mass is distributed across individual muscles and to what extent their tendon characteristics differ to people who are not training.
However a recent study sought to shed some light on these extreme athletes. It examined the muscle and tendon morphology (structure) of one of the world’s strongest ever men – England’s Eddie Hall.
Measuring an exceptionally strong person such as Hall – who produced a 500kg world record deadlift and won the “World’s Strongest Man” competition in 2017 – provided the opportunity to understand what specific muscle and tendon characteristics may have contributed to his incredible strength.
Eddie Hall is one of world strongman’s finest competitors.
What can we learn from a single case study?
A limited number of athletes reach the truly elite level of strongman and even fewer set world records or win premier events.
Because it’s so difficult to recruit even a small group of such rare athletes, conducting a case study with one elite strongman provided a unique opportunity to understand more about his muscle and tendon characteristics.
Case studies have many limitations, including an inability to determine cause and effect or generalise findings to other individuals from the same group.
However, the study of Hall was insightful, as his muscle and tendon results could be compared directly with various groups from the authors’ earlier published research.
These groups included untrained people, people who have regularly resistance trained for several years, and competitive track sprinters.
The inclusion of these comparative populations allowed meaningful interpretation of what makes Hall’s muscle and tendon characteristics so special.
What they found
Hall’s lower body muscle size was almost twice that of an untrained group of healthy active young men.
And the manner in which his muscle mass was distributed across his lower body exhibited a very specific pattern.
Three long thin muscles, referred to as “guy ropes”, were particularly large (some 2.5 to three times bigger) compared to untrained people.
The guy rope muscles connect to the shin bone via a shared tendon and provide stability to the thigh and hips by fanning out and attaching to the pelvis at diverse locations.
Highly developed guy rope muscles would be expected to offer enhanced stability with heavy lifting, carrying and pulling.
Hall’s thigh (quadriceps) muscle structure was more than twice that of untrained people, yet the tendon at the knee that is connected to this muscle group was only 30% larger than an untrained population.
This finding indicates muscle and tendon growth, within this case of extreme quadriceps muscle development, do not occur to the same extent.
What do the results mean?
The obvious implication is, the larger the relevant muscles, the greater the potential for strength and power.
However, sports like strongman and even everyday activities like climbing stairs, carrying groceries and lifting objects off the ground require the coordinated activity of many stabilising muscles as well as major propulsive muscles such as the quadriceps.
While Hall’s quadriceps were substantially bigger than untrained people, the largest relative differences occurred in the calves and the long thin “guy rope” muscles that help stabilise the hip and knee.
These results pose a question about whether additional or more specific training for these smaller muscles may further enhance strength and power.
This could benefit strongman athletes as well as everyday people.
Also, the relatively small differences in tendon size between Hall and untrained populations suggests tendons do not grow to the same extent as muscles do.
As muscular forces are transmitted through tendons to the bones, the substantially greater growth of muscle than tendon may mean athletes such as Hall have a greater relative risk of tendon than muscle injury.
Justin Keogh is the Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, an exercise scientist and a former strongman competitor.
Tom Balshaw is a Lecturer in Kinesiology, Strength and Conditioning employed by Loughborough University
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alister McKeich, Lecturer and Researcher in Law, Criminology and Indigenous Studies, Victoria University, Victoria University
The onslaught in the Middle East has brought to the world’s attention once again the “crime of crimes”, genocide.
Both the the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court (ICC) have brought allegations of genocide against Israel as a state and Israeli and Hamas leaders as individuals.
The Australian government’s response to the Gaza crisis has included temporarily freezing of A$6 million of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine. Though funding has been flowing again since March, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been referred to the ICC by a law firm for being “an accessory to genocide”.
Against this backdrop, Australia’s own genocide legislation is under parliamentary scrutiny. A bill tabled by independent Senator Lidia Thorpe (for whom I work as a casual legal researcher) seeks to change the way Australia deals with genocide.
So what do our current laws say and what’s the case for changing them?
Yet it was not until 2002, once the ICC was established, that the Commonwealth Criminal Code was amended to create a new division of atrocity crimes.
Through this legislation, Australia may prosecute any person accused of a Rome Statute crime (such as genocide) under Australian law.
At the moment, written consent from the attorney-general is required before legal proceedings about genocide and other atrocity crimes can commence. This is called the “attorney-general’s fiat”.
Further, the attorney-general’s decision is final. It “must not be challenged, appealed against, reviewed, quashed or called into question”.
Thorpe’s bill seeks to overturn these two measures.
The explanatory memorandum in the 2002 amendment did not say why the attorney-general’s consent was necessary.
Consent from an attorney-general (or similar position) is not an international requirement.
Australia is only one of a handful of other countries (including the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada) where the fiat also exists.
Why is it a problem?
The Australian government has justified the rule on the basis that prosecutions for atrocity crimes against individuals could affect Australia’s international relations and national security.
However, submissions from legal experts and community groups to a senate inquiry looking at the issue point out flaws.
They say this rule prevents access to justice for victims and survivors of atrocity crimes. It can also create the potential for government bias.
Submissions also say the lack of explanation or appeal process ignores fundamental principles of jurisprudence.
Has the rule been used?
The attorney-general’s fiat has been used in a limited number of cases.
In 2009, Palestinian rights groups Australians for Palestine issued a request for consent for the prosecution of former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who was visiting at the time.
The Australian Centre for International Justice states in its submission how then-attorney-general Robert McClellend denied the request. He cited matters of international state sovereignty and the difficulties of pursuing such a case in an overseas jurisdiction.
Then, in 2011, Arunchalam Jegastheeswaran, an Australian citizen of Tamil
background, sought the attorney-general’s consent for the prosecution of then Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was due to visit Australia.
McClellend again denied the request, saying Rajapaska was protected under “head of state immunity”. This concept is controversial in international law, given it’s often heads of state who commit atrocity crimes.
Head of state protection was also offered to former Myanmar (Burma) leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was in government when the 2017 genocide against the Rohingya was committed.
With Suu Kyi due to be in Australia for an ASEAN conference in 2018, the Australian Rohingya community sought a prosecution. It was denied by then attorney-general Christian Porter.
And in 2019, retired Sri Lankan General Jagath Jayasuriya visited Australia. Despite concerted efforts to raise evidence to prosecute Jayasuriya of war crimes, delays with the Australian Federal Police meant the case never reached the point of attorney-general consent.
First Nations plaintiffs such as Paul Coe and Robert Thorpe have also sought to bring cases of genocide before the domestic courts, with no success.
What would changing the laws mean?
As it’s unlikely an attorney-general would consent to prosecutions against its own government, submissions to the inquiry argue the rule creates a direct conflict of interest.
For First Nations people seeking justice for crimes of “ongoing genocide” perpetuated by the Commonwealth, any government is hardly going to rule in their favour.
Some Indigenous community groups argue the high rates of First Nations children in protection, deaths in custody, hyper-incarceration and cultural, land and environmental damage amount to genocide crimes.
Submissions to the inquiry recommend instead of requiring the consent of the attorney-general, claims of genocide should be directed to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. This would ensure greater independence from government.
The director has a mandate for this sort of work. It already investigates similar crimes such as people smuggling, human trafficking, slavery and child exploitation.
Internationally, the implications of this bill, if passed, will be consequential. The Australian Centre for International Justice estimates up to 1,000 Australian citizens have returned to Israel to fight as part of the Israel Defense Forces. Israel has been accused of serious atrocity crimes in Gaza.
Should any of those citizens return, there could be attempts to mount a case. The government would then have to consider Australia’s political and economic ties with Israel.
Whether the bill is passed will depend on parliament. But the situation highlights a paradox: the state itself will be deciding whether to remove its own inbuilt protections against charges of genocide.
Alister McKeich is a casual legal researcher with the office of Senator Lidia Thorpe.
Imagine scrolling through social media or playing an online game, only to be interrupted by insulting and harassing comments. What if an artificial intelligence (AI) tool stepped in to remove the abuse before you even saw it?
This isn’t science fiction. Commercial AI tools like ToxMod and Bodyguard.ai are already used to monitor interactions in real time across social media and gaming platforms. They can detect and respond to toxic behaviour.
The idea of an all-seeing AI monitoring our every move might sound Orwellian, but these tools could be key to making the internet a safer place.
However, for AI moderation to succeed, it needs to prioritise values like privacy, transparency, explainability and fairness. So can we ensure AI can be trusted to make our online spaces better? Our two recent research projects into AI-driven moderation show this can be done – with more work ahead of us.
Whether it’s a single offensive comment or a sustained slew of harassment, such harmful interactions are part of daily life for many internet users.
The severity of online toxicity is one reason the Australian government has proposed banning social media for children under 14.
But this approach fails to fully address a core underlying problem: the design of online platforms and moderation tools. We need to rethink how online platforms are designed to minimise harmful interactions for all users, not just children.
This is where proactive AI moderation offers the chance to create safer, more respectful online spaces. But can AI truly deliver on this promise? Here’s what we found.
‘Havoc’ in online multiplayer games
In our Games and Artificial Intelligence Moderation (GAIM) Project, we set out to understand the ethical opportunities and pitfalls of AI-driven moderation in online multiplayer games. We conducted 26 in-depth interviews with players and industry professionals to find out how they use and think about AI in these spaces.
Interviewees saw AI as a necessary tool to make games safer and combat the “havoc” caused by toxicity. With millions of players, human moderators can’t catch everything. But an untiring and proactive AI can pick up what humans miss, helping reduce the stress and burnout associated with moderating toxic messages.
But many players also expressed confusion about the use of AI moderation. They didn’t understand why they received account suspensions, bans and other punishments, and were often left frustrated that their own reports of toxic behaviour seemed to be lost to the void, unanswered.
Participants were especially worried about privacy in situations where AI is used to moderate voice chat in games. One player exclaimed: “my god, is that even legal?” It is – and it’s already happening in popular online games such as Call of Duty.
Our study revealed there’s tremendous positive potential for AI moderation. However, games and social media companies will need to do a lot more work to make these systems transparent, empowering and trustworthy.
Right now, AI moderation is seen to operate much like a police officer in an opaque justice system. What if AI instead took the form of a teacher, guardian, or upstander – educating, empowering or supporting users?
Enter AI Ally
This is where our second project AI Ally comes in, an initiative funded by the eSafety Commissioner. In response to high rates of tech-based gendered violence in Australia, we are co-designing an AI tool to support girls, women and gender-diverse individuals in navigating safer online spaces.
We surveyed 230 people from these groups, and found that 44% of our respondents “often” or “always” experienced gendered harassment on at least one social media platform. It happened most frequently in response to everyday online activities like posting photos of themselves, particularly in the form of sexist comments.
Interestingly, our respondents reported that documenting instances of online abuse was especially useful when they wanted to support other targets of harassment, such as by gathering screenshots of abusive comments. But only a few of those surveyed did this in practice. Understandably, many also feared for their own safety should they intervene by defending someone or even speaking up in a public comment thread.
These are worrying findings. In response, we are designing our AI tool as an optional dashboard that detects and documents toxic comments. To help guide us in the design process, we have created a set of “personas” that capture some of our target users, inspired by our survey respondents.
We allow users to make their own decisions about whether to filter, flag, block or report harassment in efficient ways that align with their own preferences and personal safety.
In this way, we hope to use AI to offer young people easy-to-access support in managing online safety while offering autonomy and a sense of empowerment.
We can all play a role
AI Ally shows we can use AI to help make online spaces safer without having to sacrifice values like transparency and user control. But there is much more to be done.
Other, similar initiatives include Harassment Manager, which was designed to identify and document abuse on Twitter (now X), and HeartMob, a community where targets of online harassment can seek support.
Until ethical AI practices are more widely adopted, users must stay informed. Before joining a platform, check if they are transparent about their policies and offer user control over moderation settings.
The internet connects us to resources, work, play and community. Everyone has the right to access these benefits without harassment and abuse. It’s up to all of us to be proactive and advocate for smarter, more ethical technology that protects our values and our digital spaces.
The AI Ally team consists of Dr Mahli-Ann Butt, Dr Lucy Sparrow, Dr Eduardo Oliveira, Ren Galwey, Dahlia Jovic, Sable Wang-Wills, Yige Song and Maddy Weeks.
Dr Lucy Sparrow receives funding from the eSafety Commissioner’s Preventing Tech-Based Abuse Against Women grant program for the “AI Ally” project.
Dr Eduardo Oliveira receives funding from the eSafety Commissioner’s Preventing Tech-Based Abuse Against Women grant program for the “AI Ally” project.
Dr Mahli-Ann Butt receives funding from the eSafety Commissioner’s Preventing Tech-Based Abuse Against Women grant program for the “AI Ally” project.
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
The US presidential election will be held on November 5. In analyst Nate Silver’s aggregate of national polls, Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by 49.3–46.0 – a slight widening of the competition since last Monday, when Harris led Trump by 49.2–46.2.
President Joe Biden’s final position before his withdrawal as Democratic candidate on July 21 was a national poll deficit against Trump of 45.2–41.2.
There will be a debate on Tuesday evening US time between the vice-presidential candidates, Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance. Vice-presidential debates in previous elections have not had a significant influence on the contest.
The US president isn’t elected by the national popular vote, but by the Electoral College, in which each state receives electoral votes equal to its federal House seats (population based) and senators (always two). Almost all states award their electoral votes as winner-takes-all, and it takes 270 electoral votes to win (out of 538 total).
The Electoral College is biased to Trump relative to the national popular vote, with Harris needing at least a two-point popular vote win in Silver’s model to be the Electoral College favourite.
In Silver’s polling averages, Harris leads Trump by one to two points in Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes), Michigan (15), Wisconsin (ten) and Nevada (six). If Harris wins all these states, she is likely to win the Electoral College by at least a 276–262 margin. Trump is ahead by less than a point in North Carolina (16 electoral votes) and Georgia (16), and if Harris wins both, she wins by 308–230.
In Silver’s model, Harris has a 56% chance to win the Electoral College, up from 54% last Monday but down from her peak of 58% two days ago. Earlier this month, there were large differences in win probability between Silver’s model and the FiveThirtyEight model, which was more favourable to Harris. But these models have nearly converged, with FiveThirtyEight now giving Harris a 59% win probability.
There are still more than five weeks until election day, so polls could change in either Trump’s or Harris’ favour by then. Harris’ one to two point leads in the key states are tenuous, and this explains why Trump is still rated a good chance to win.
Silver wrote on September 1 that polls in 2020 and 2016 were biased against Trump, but polls in 2012 were biased against Barack Obama. In the last two midterm elections (2022 and 2018), polls have been good. It’s plausible there will be a polling error this year, but which candidate such an error would favour can’t be predicted.
On Sunday, Silver said if there was a systematic error of three or four points in the polls in either Trump’s or Harris’ favour, that candidate would sweep all the swing states and easily win the Electoral College. There are other scenarios in which one candidate underperforms the polls with some demographics but overperforms with other demographics.
I wrote about the US election for The Poll Bludger last Thursday, and also covered bleak polls and byelection results in Canada for the governing centre-left Liberals ahead of an election due by October 2025, a dreadful poll for UK Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the new French prime minister, a German state election and a socialist win in Sri Lanka’s presidential election.
Upwardly revised economic data
Last Thursday, a revised estimate of June quarter US GDP was released. There was a large upward revision in real disposable personal income compared to the previously reported figures. This has resulted in the personal savings rate being revised up to 4.9% in July from the previously reported 2.9%, and it was 4.8% in August.
With these upward revisions, Silver’s economic index that averages six indicators is now at +0.25, up from +0.09. As the incumbent party’s candidate, a better economy than was previously believed should help Harris.
Coalition gains narrow lead in Essential
In Australia, a national Essential poll, conducted on September 18–22 from a sample of 1,117 people, gave the Coalition a 48–47 lead (including undecided voters) after a 48–48 tie in early September. It’s the Coalition’s first lead in the Essential poll since mid-July.
Primary votes were 35% Coalition (steady), 29% Labor (down one), 12% Greens (down one), 8% One Nation (steady), 2% UAP (up one), 9% for all Others (up one) and 5% undecided (steady).
Anthony Albanese’s net approval was up five points since August to –5, with 47% disapproving and 42% approving. Peter Dutton’s net approval was down one to net zero.
On social media regulations, 48% thought them too weak, 43% about right and 8% too tough. By 67–17, voters supported imposing an age limit for children to access social media (68–15 in July). By 71–12, voters supported making doxing (the public release of personally identifiable data) a criminal offence (62–19 in February).
By 49–18, voters supported Labor’s Help to Buy scheme, and by 57–13 they supported the build-to-rent scheme. The questions give detail that few voters would know.
Voters were told the Liberals and Greens had combined to delay Labor’s housing policies in the senate. By 48–22, voters thought the Liberals and Greens should pass the policies and argue for their own policies at the next election, rather than block Labor’s policies. Greens voters supported passing by 55–21.
Labor keeps narrow lead in Morgan
A national Morgan poll, conducted September 16–22 from a sample of 1,662 people, gave Labor a 50.5–49.5 lead, unchanged from the September 9–15 Morgan poll.
Primary votes were 37.5% Coalition (steady), 32% Labor (up 1.5), 12.5% Greens (steady), 5% One Nation (down 0.5), 9.5% independents (down 0.5) and 3.5% others (down 0.5).
The headline figure is based on respondent preferences. By 2022 election preference flows, Labor led by an unchanged 52–48.
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.
A 1935 school photograph taken in Kandos, NSW.Author provided, courtesy of the Kandos Museum.
In the town of Kandos, New South Wales, there’s the local Kandos Museum run by volunteers. The museum holds relics from the cement works that once defined the town, but there are other treasures, too.
As part of the Cementa24 festival, I became fixated on the museum’s collection of school photos. Neatly organised into ring-bound folders by the volunteers, the group portraits span decades of students from Kandos Public School and Kandos High School, from 1924 through to the 1990s.
A photo album made by volunteers at the Kandos Museum. Author provided
I enlarged and cropped some of these photos to turn them into street posters to scatter around town. I asked permission before sticking a few outside the local pub, the radio station, the post office and the op shop. I spot the locals smiling as they pass them, stopping to look for someone they know. I watch them point at the pictures and hear them naming names.
Working on this project, I can’t stop thinking about the weight of these photographic rituals. School photos aren’t just memories; they hold social histories. Through them, you can trace changes in hairstyles, fashion, attitudes and even migration – yet there’s something homogeneous and unchangeable about how they’re made.
School photo rules
There’s always a physical hierarchy in these photos. The photographer organises the group to ensure compositional acuity. The students are lined up in rows, with tall people in the back and shorter people in front – evenly spaced, arranged by height and symmetry.
When was the rule made that says this is how a group should look? Balanced, orderly and with everyone fitting neatly into place, whether they socially do or not. Somehow I always ended up on the edge of the middle row. The social dynamics of the playground found their way into the organisation of our bodies, forever captured in a split second.
A photo of Kandos’ 5th Form, 1967. Author provided, courtesy of the Kandos Museum
Looking at the Kandos photos from the 1940s through to the 1970s, then at my children’s photos from 2013 to 2024, and my own school photos in the 1980s and ‘90s, I can see the difference in public, private and catholic school uniforms. I can see the difference in racial diversity (or lack thereof) between a small regional town, inner-city Sydney and suburban southwest Sydney. I can also see how much photographic technology has changed.
Despite this, the organisational structure of the school photo remains the same. The kids still stand stiffly in their rows, with identical tunics and ties. Standing too close, someone’s elbow digs into someone else’s side.
As a photographer now, I often think about these school photos and the rituals that have remained largely unchanged in Australia. Every year, kids are shuffled onto tiered steps. Those in the front put their knees together, hands in laps, while the girls must “try to look like ladies”. Then there are the “nobodies” in the middle row (or is that just me reading into it?)
The perils of posing
Posing for school photos can be complicated. One year my daughter came home from school and declared the photographer was sexist because he made all the girls sit in the front row while the boys got to stand. I asked her why sitting was sexist. She couldn’t explain – she was eight years old – but she certainly felt the power difference between sitting with your knees pressed together and standing tall.
And what about the solo portrait? I still think about my kindergarten class from 1979. The group photo was fine. I was happy, standing next to my new best friend. But my solo portrait was a disaster. I looked possessed, my eyes half-closed, lashes blurred, caught mid-blink.
My mother didn’t buy the solo photo, but she kept the group one. After that I promised myself it would never happen again. I told myself every year: “don’t blink, don’t blink”. Back then, photography was on film. There were no re-dos, no instant feedback, no photoshop and no AI. Once the camera clicked, that was it.
‘Don’t blink, don’t blink,’ I’d think, while trying to keep my eyes open. Author provided
At the end of primary school, I’d visit my best friend’s house and envy the neat, chronological line of her school photos framed on her kitchen wall. Year by year, there she was, changing just slightly – a slow, steady record of growing up. I didn’t know why, but seeing framed evidence of time passing made me emotional. Maybe it was the certainty of the way her life was so neatly documented.
My own school photos never made it to the wall in such a tidy fashion. But they did make it into my father’s wallet, my mother’s purse, in frames above the piano, on the fridge, in photo albums and in many a drawer.
Small acts of rebellion
The 1950s photos are formal and solemn. Back then you stood straight, faced the camera and no one smiled too much. By the 1970s and ’80s, the kids started to smirk – with hair loosened, mullets, and bodies shifting like they were trying to resist the pose. In one photo, the basketball team boys have their shoes off, feet raised above the blistering asphalt in the summer heat. The rules were still there, but you can see them pushing back.
Bare feet raised in a photo of the Kandos High School Open basketball team, 1975. Author provided, courtesy of the Kandos Museum.
What if we invited the rituals to change? What if students could self-organise, be silly, pull faces, wear their own clothes, and resist gender binaries and institutional uniformity?
Some of the photos in the Kandos albums hint at this potential for small acts of rebellion. There’s the girl pulling a face, one laughing in profile. In one photo there’s a kid wearing a non-regulation jumper, and another in which they were clearly allowed to be silly because the teacher is laughing too.
Photographic rebellion in the class of 1996. Author provided, courtesy of the Kandos Museum.
In the pre-digital era, these small mishaps and moments of failure were captured unpolished and unfiltered. Those are the images I find myself drawn to; these are often the best ones. They reveal how uncomfortable it can be being photographed and how forced a pose can feel. Shirking a smile and a stiff stance is maybe the only power we have in that brief moment.
Cherine Fahd 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.
More than 1.1 million Australians are estimated to be living with an eating disorder. Around one-third of these people are neurodivergent.
So why are neurodivergent people, such as autistic people and those with ADHD, more likely to experience eating disorders than the broader population? And how does this impact their treatment?
First, what is neurodivergence?
Neurodivergence, or the state of being neurodivergent, is a term for people whose cognitive functioning differs from what society considers “typical”. Many conditions broadly fall under neurodivergence, including (but not limited to):
autism
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
dyslexia
Tourette’s syndrome.
Our understanding of neurodivergence has come a long way. Neurodivergence used to be considered a linear “spectrum” ranging from less to more neurodivergent.
We now know every neurodivergent person will have a unique experience across a range of dimensions. This includes sensory processing, motor abilities and executive functioning (working memory, cognitive flexibility and inhibition).
Conceptualising these differences ends up looking more like a colour wheel.
What are eating disorders?
Eating disorders are complex and potentially life-threatening mental health conditions. They cause persistent and significant disturbances in thoughts, feelings and behaviours related to body weight, food and/or eating.
Many factors are likely to contribute to the development of an eating disorder. But research shows neurodivergent people are disproportionately affected.
One review found around 22.9% of autistic people had an eating disorder, compared with 2% in the general population. In another review, people with ADHD were four times more likely to be diagnosed with an eating disorder than people without ADHD.
Why are eating disorders more common among neurodivergent people?
Science has not pinpointed an exact reason why eating disorders are more common among neurodivergent people. But here’s what we know so far.
Neurodivergent people are more likely to experience feeding difficulties, sensory sensitivities and disordered eating.
A United States study assessing the eating behaviour of neurodivergent children found around 70% of autistic children displayed “atypical” eating behaviours. This includes food selectivity and a hypersensitivity to food textures. It compares with 4.8% of neurotypical children.
Similarly, autistic children may choose or reject foods based on texture more than other children. They may prefer foods with a consistent texture, bland taste and neutral colour (for example, chicken nuggets, plain pasta and rice).
Selective eating (having limited accepted foods and food aversions) has been associated with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID). This is an eating disorder characterised by avoidance and aversion to food and eating that is not related to body image. ARFID is commonly associated with autism, with one study estimating 21% of autistic people will experience it in their lifetime.
Other neurodivergent traits, such as perfectionism and a preference for routine, have been associated with disordered eating and eating disorders.
Research on adolescent girls found those with anorexia nervosa are more likely to exhibit neurodivergent (in this case, autistic) traits and behaviours. These include developing rules, resistance to change and a hyperfocus on body weight. These features are commonly seen in anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder characterised by restricted food intake, an intense fear of weight gain and body image disturbances.
Meanwhile, impulsivity symptoms in ADHD have been associated with binge eating disorder. This can involve recurrent episodes of eating large amounts of food in a short period of time. Impulsivity may also be linked to bulimia nervosa, characterised by compensatory behaviours to prevent weight gain after binge eating (such as exessive exercise).
Some studies indicate a link between ADHD, alexithymia (difficulty experiencing, identifying and expressing emotions) and overeating behaviours such as emotional eating.
Finally, neurodivergent people are more likely to identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, experience trauma and also have a mental health condition. Each of these considerations increases the likelihood someone will experience an eating disorder.
How does this affect treatment?
Despite the overlap between eating disorders and neurodivergence, current treatment approaches don’t meet the diverse needs of those affected.
Eating disorder treatment often has moderate success at best. For neurodivergent people, the outcomes are worse than for their neurotypical counterparts.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), a broad range of treatments based on the interaction between thoughts, feelings and behaviours, is less beneficial for neurodivergent people. Yet this is often part of treatment for eating disorders. Autistic women have suggested CBT is less accessible due to its blanket approach and the assumption they have the skills needed to benefit.
Such care recognised and safely accommodates the multiple ways neurodivergence is related to feeding and eating behaviour.
Research suggests eating disorder treatment can be successfully adapted for neurodivergent people based on the following principles:
1. equal partnership. Including neurodivergent people as equal partners in their care and as decision-makers, and elevating their own experiences
2. embracing and celebrating differences. Neurodivergent traits should not be considered a deficit, or something to be “treated” or “fixed”. Rather, neurodivergent traits should be celebrated to nourish a positive sense of identity
3. accommodations. Neurodivergent traits and preferences are respected and accommodated. As an example, this might include reducing sensory inputs (the smell, sounds and lights) in a dining area, or a meal plan that is predictable and considers a person’s sensory sensitivities.
Breanna Lepre works for The University of Queensland and is a member of Dietitians Australia. Breanna is neurodivergent and has lived experience of an eating disorder.
Lauren Ball works for The University of Queensland and receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Queensland Health and Mater Misericordia. She is a Director of Dietitians Australia, a Director of the Darling Downs and West Moreton Primary Health Network and an Associate Member of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hamish Bradley, Adjunct Lecturer, Anaesthetist and Aeromedical Retrieval Specialist, The University of Western Australia
From the creeks that wind through inner city Melbourne to the far outback in Western Australia, snake season is beginning.
Over the cooler months snakes have been in state of brumation. This is very similar to hibernation and characterised by sluggishness and inactivity. As warmer conditions return both snakes and humans become more active in the outdoors, leading to an increased likelihood of interaction. This may happen when people are hiking, dog-walking or gardening.
The risk of being bitten by a snake is exceptionally small, but knowing basic first aid could potentially save your, or another person’s, life.
Snake bite should always be treated as a life-threatening emergency, and if you are bitten in rural or remote Australia, you will often receive an air medical emergency pick up to a regional or metropolitan hospital for advanced care.
The effects of snake bites vary, depending on the species of snake and first aid measures undertaken.
calling for help (dialing 000 or activating an emergency beacon)
applying a pressure immobilisation bandage
resting.
Why pressure is important
Snake venom is carried within the lymphatic system. This is a collection of tiny tubes throughout the body that return fluid outside of blood vessels back to the blood stream.
Muscles act as a “pump” to help the fluid move through this system. That’s why being still, or immobilisation, is vital to slow the spread of venom.
A firm pressure immobilisation bandage, applied as tight as you would for a sprained ankle, will compress these tubes and help limit the venom’s spread.
Ideally bandage the entire limb on which the bite occurred and apply a splint to help further with immobilisation. It is very important that the blood supply to the limb is not limited by this bandage.
Never attempt to capture or kill the snake for identification. This risks further bites and is not required for specialist care. The decision about when to give antivenom (if any) is based on the geographical location, symptoms, the results of blood tests and discussion with a toxicologist.
The tyranny of distance
People living in rural and remote locations may also have limited access to health care, including access to ambulance services, snake bite first aid such as bandages and splints, and to antivenom.
Over one year (as a component of a larger three-year study) we collected information on the pre-hospital care and in-flight care with the Royal Flying Doctors Service Western Operations.
During this time, 85 people from regional, rural, remote and very remote Western Australia were flown by Royal Flying Doctor Service to hospital for suspected or confirmed snake bites. Reassuringly, only five of these patients (6%) ultimately received a toxicologist’s diagnosis of envenomation.
To move or not to move?
Troublingly, 38 (45%) of the 85 snake bite victims continued to move around and be active following their suspected snake bite. This raises questions about whether people lack knowledge of first-aid guidelines, or whether this is a consequence of being isolated, with limited access to health care.
Either way, our as-yet-unpublished research highlights the vulnerability of Australia’s rural and remote people. All patients eventually received a pressure immobilisation bandage, with an average time from bite to application of 38 minutes. Three quarters of the patients made their way to health-care site by foot, or private car, arriving on average 65 minutes after the bite.
Rest and compression with a bandage are vital elements of snakebite first aid. Microgen/Shutterstock
What needs to change?
Our results indicate rural and remote Australians need innovative health-care solutions beyond the metropolitan guidelines, particularly when outside ambulance service areas.
Basic snake bite first aid education needs to be not only reiterated but also a pragmatic approach is required in these geographically isolated locations. This would involve being vigilant, staying safe and, when isolated, always carrying emergency technology to call for help.
The authors wish to acknowledge the efforts required through this research project as it continues, including by Fergus Gardiner, Kieran Hennelly, Rochelle Menzies, James Anderson, Alex McMillan and John Fisher. Hamish Bradley is an Aeromedical Retrieval Specialist and Principal Investigator in this project.
Alice Richardson receives funding from NHMRC.
Breeanna Spring is affiliated with Australian College of Midwives, Australian College of Nursing.
Hamish Bradley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney
Water flows in mainland Australia’s most important river system, the Murray-Darling Basin, have been declining for the past 50 years. The trend has largely been blamed on water extraction, but our new research shows another factor is also at play.
We investigated why the Darling River, in the northern part of the basin, has experienced devastating periods of low flow, or no flow, since the 1990s. We found it was due to a decrease in rainfall in late autumn, caused by climate change.
The research reveals how climate change is already affecting river flows in the basin, even before water is extracted for farm irrigation and other human uses.
Less rain will fall in the Darling River catchment as climate change worsens. This fact must be central to decisions about how much water can be taken from this vital natural system.
The Darling River runs from the town of Bourke in northwest New South Wales, south to the Murray River in Victoria. Together, the two rivers form the Murray-Darling river system.
The Indigenous name for the Darling River is the Baaka. For at least 30,000 years the river has been an Indigenous water resource. On the river near Wilcannia, remnants of fish traps and weirs built by Indigenous people can still be found today.
The Darling River was a major transport route from the late 19th to the early 20th century.
In recent decades, the agriculture industry has extracted substantial quantities of water from the Darling’s upstream tributaries, to irrigate crops and replenish farm dams. Water has also been extracted from Menindee Lakes, downstream in the Darling, to benefit the environment and supply the regional city of Broken Hill.
A river in trouble
Natural weather variability means water levels in the Darling River have always been irregular, even before climate change began to be felt.
In recent years, however, water flows have become even more irregular. This has caused myriad environmental problems.
Compounding the droughts, smaller flows that once replenished the system have now greatly reduced. Our research sought to determine why.
What we found
We examined rainfall and water flows in the Darling River from 1972 until July 2024. This includes from the 1990s – a period when global warming accelerated.
We found a striking lack of short rainfall periods in April and May in the Darling River from the 1990s. The reduced rainfall led to long periods of very low, or no flow, in the river.
Since the 1990s under climate change, shifts in atmospheric circulation have generated fewer rain-producing systems. This has led to less rain in inland southeast Australia in autumn.
The river system particularly needs rainfall in the late autumn months, to replenish rivers after summer.
The periods of little rain were often followed by extreme floods. This is a problem because the rain fell on dry soils and soaked in, rather than running into the river. This reduced the amount of water available for the environment and human uses.
In addition to the fall in autumn rainfall, we found the number of extreme annual rainfall totals for all seasons has also fallen since the 1990s.
We also examined monthly river heights at Bourke, Wilcannia and Menindee. We found periods of both high and low water levels before the mid-1990s. But the low water levels at all three locations from 2000 onwards were the lowest in the period.
Ensuring water for all
Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth. Ensuring steady water supplies for human use has always been challenging.
Falls in Darling River water levels in recent decades have largely been attributed to water extraction for farm dams, irrigation and town use.
But as our research shows, the lack of rainfall in the river catchment – as a result of climate change – is also significant. The problem will worsen as climate change accelerates.
This creates a huge policy challenge. As others have noted, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan does not properly address climate change when determining how much water can be taken by towns and farmers.
Both the environment and people will benefit from ensuring the rivers of the basin maintain healthy flows into the future. As our research indicates, this will require decision-makers to consider and adapt to climate change.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article contains minor spoilers for episode one of Joan.
The new six-part ITV crime series, Joan, opens with The Pretenders’ rebellious rock anthem Brass in Pocket. It’s a fitting choice that immediately sets the tone for the series. As Chrissie Hynde’s vocals kick in, we’re introduced to our protagonist – a woman who, like the song, will soon exude self-assurance and a touch of defiance, even in the face of overwhelming adversity.
Sophie Turner stars as Joan Hannington, whose journey from impoverished victim to notorious jewel thief unfolds in 1980s London. Based on true events, the series chronicles Hannington’s transformation into “the godmother” – the most infamous woman in the city’s criminal underworld.
The first episode establishes Hannington’s dire circumstances and the spark that ignites her criminal career. She is trapped in an abusive marriage to a violent man who physically abuses her and neglects their six-year-old daughter, Kelly. When he goes on the run, Hannington seizes the opportunity to escape, but not before facing the harsh realities of her situation – from being assaulted by gangsters to whom her husband owes money, to being pressured by undercover police to inform on him.
Circumstances force Hannington to place Kelly with an emergency foster family. This decision is made all the more poignant by the revelation of Joan’s own childhood in care, which explains her fierce determination to provide a better life for her daughter. Their relationship forms the first episode’s emotional core. It is why Joan takes her first tentative steps into illegality, beginning with stealing a car to visit Kelly at her new home.
The trailer for Joan.
This initial transgression evolves into more sophisticated cons. Her method of learning about jewellery by eavesdropping on wealthy women before landing a job at a jeweller’s offers a pointed commentary on class barriers. Hannington’s ability to mimic the accents and mannerisms of the affluent underscores the performative nature of social class and foreshadows her future success in high-end theft.
Joan doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of its world, where the threat of male violence is a constant shadow. From her husband’s brutal abuse to the unwelcome advances of her new boss at the jewellers, the series portrays a reality where Hannington’s safety is perpetually at risk.
Yet these very threats fuel her determination to carve out a safer life for herself and Kelly. We watch as she takes increasingly bold steps, culminating in a scene where she swallows several diamonds to smuggle them out of the store. This moment marks a turning point for Hannington, signalling her commitment to her new life of crime.
Anti-heroines in British crime drama
Joan takes its place in a rich tradition of anti-heroines in British crime TV, a lineage that has been slowly but steadily growing since the turn of the millennium.
As noted by professor of television studies, Milly Buonanno in Television Antiheroines: Women Behaving Badly in Crime and Prison Drama (2017), it wasn’t until the noughties that “the rule of male prominence and power [was] challenged by a wave of anti-heroines who have made inroads into the criminal underworlds and have provided evidence of women’s capacity to be ‘good at being bad’ against the myth of female innocence”.
Hannington joins this pantheon of complex female characters, trail-blazed in the 90s by Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) from Prime Suspect (1991). As TV critic Rebecca Nicholson has observed, Tennison’s influence “looms larger than is often acknowledged within modern television”. More recent additions to this lineage include characters such as Alice (Ruth Wilson) in Luther (2010) and Villanelle (Jodie Comer) in Killing Eve (2018) – each pushing the boundaries of how female characters are portrayed in British crime dramas.
Speaking about bringing Hannington to life on screen, Turner has said that she “was captivated by the character of Joan, she’s such a complex and extraordinary woman, both vulnerable and strong. She makes some terrible choices, unfortunately, but I think someone that a lot of people can relate to, and I just wanted to read more and more about her.”
Turner’s words encapsulate the hallmarks of the anti-heroine archetype – moral ambiguity, inner conflict, and a strange magnetism that draws viewers in despite (or perhaps because of) the character’s flaws. Her emphasis on Hannington’s relatability – even in the face of “terrible choices” – speaks to the human core of these anti-heroine stories.
But it’s crucial to approach these characters with a sense of discernment. As Buaonanno cautions, we should refrain from “uncritically celebrating characters of women in the business of crime”. The mere presence of criminal anti-heroines doesn’t equate to feminist achievement. But Joan does offer an opportunity for a nuanced exploration of themes such as gender, class and morality.
Whether Hannington’s journey will serve as a cautionary tale or a celebration of resilience remains to be seen. One thing is certain: Joan will challenge audiences to grapple with moral ambiguities as it explores the story of a working-class woman who forges her own path in the ruthless world of organised crime.
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Laura Minor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jen Harvie, Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Performance, Queen Mary University of London
It is a testament to the power of the late British actress Dame Maggie Smith that other eminent actors – though only male ones, as far as I can see – accused her of upstaging them.
Richard Burton complained that in Anthony Asquith’s 1963 film The VIPs, she didn’t merely steal a big scene with him, “she committed grand larceny”. After making the 1978 Neil Simon film California Suite with her (for which Smith won her second Academy Award), Michael Caine is reported to have phoned Michael Palin, who was to be her co-star in the 1982 film The Missionary. “Watch her,” Caine reportedly warned. “She’ll have that scene from under your feet.”
More recent audiences will recognise Smith’s arresting power in her portrayal of Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the long-running television series Downton Abbey and its two films. For film critic Peter Bradshaw, even “in the smallest of roles she set her own terms and every other actor was her satellite”.
A prominent part of what gave Smith her power was her caustic humour, an acerbic put-down, and that withering look – from huge eyes set over pursed lips. New York Times critic Frank Rich praised her ability to “italicise a line as prosaic as ‘Have you no marmalade?’ until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram by Coward or Wilde.”
But there was so much more to Maggie Smith than this. Her range was huge, and her power was built on craft.
The social satire and commentary of her performances could be conveyed through anything from minxy humour to world-weariness, but always intelligence. In a review of her portrayal of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler in a 1970 National Theatre production directed by Ingmar Bergman, the Evening Standard’s Milton Shulman described her as “haunt[ing] the stage like some giant portrait by Modigliani, her alabaster skin stretched tight with hidden anguish”.
So, if you only know her work through recent blockbusters like Downton and the Harry Potter film franchise, in which she played Professor Minerva McGonagall, take a look at her vast and wonderful back catalogue. It’s a sustained masterclass in acting, as well as some of the very best explorations of the lived experiences of British middle-class women in the mid-to late-20th century. Two good places to start are the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and the 1988 Alan Bennett television play A Bed Among the Lentils.
In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – adapted by Jay Presson Allen from Muriel Spark’s 1961 novel– Smith played the eponymous heroine and won her first Academy Award, for best actress. Miss Brodie is a vivacious, romantic teacher at a repressive girls’ school in Edinburgh, Scotland. Confident that she knows what’s best for “her girls”, she fails to recognise how her approach to teaching is as controlling and potentially more damaging than that of the conservative head mistress.
Smith sails through the film, moving from haughty grandeur through charming coquettishness to anguished despair. With just a hint of delicious melodrama, the film captures Miss Brodie’s hubris, but also the strict social limits of the times on girls’ and women’s freedoms and dreams.
A Bed Among the Lentils is one of playwright Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads series of television monologues, written mostly for women. Smith plays Susan, the secretly alcoholic wife of an aspirational vicar. She is clearly under-stimulated by a life spent hosting visiting clerics at lunch and competing with other local women at flower-arranging for the altar. Her life shifts when she meets a kind, young and attractive Asian shopkeeper. He helps her to gain a different perspective on what gods can stand for and discovers what she wants and desires from life.
Smith’s performance under Bennett’s direction is sometimes achingly slow, though it poignantly captures the emptiness of Susan’s life. (Smith reports in the 2018 tribute film Nothing Like a Dame that Laurence Olivier once criticised her for line delivery so slow she “bored him off the stage”. When it came to their next performance, she says, “I went so fast he didn’t know if it was Wednesday or Christmas.”)
Again and again across an extraordinary career, Smith gave us painfully accurate portraits of British women, from steely and haughty to fragile and vulnerable – often simultaneously. She captured women’s fatigue with the social constraints imposed upon them and showed stunning glimpses of a world beyond those limitations, full of other potentials and possibilities.
Jen Harvie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rico Merkert, Professor in Transport and Supply Chain Management and Deputy Director, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS), University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney
Qatar Airways has announced plans to buy a 25% minority stake in Virgin Australia from its owner, US private equity firm Bain Capital.
The two airlines have already had a strong relationship as “codeshare partners” since 2022. Codesharing is where airlines agree to sell seats on each other’s flights. This new announcement, however, is a big step up.
All of this will, of course, be subject to approval from both Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). But there could be a range of winners if it goes ahead.
Perhaps most importantly for Australian travellers, the move means Virgin Australia will be able to compete as it once did on long-haul international routes.
This is because a proposed “wet lease” agreement – in which one airline provides full aircraft, crew and relevant services to another – could see Virgin Australia start operating its own flights from Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney to Doha as early as mid-2025.
It’s also a win for Bain Capital, which had been trying to offload some of its stake in the airline after acquiring it in crisis in 2020.
So with the prospect of a renewed international foothold for Virgin Australia, could we soon see more competition – and real consumer benefits – on the “Kangaroo Route” between Australia and Europe?
Clearer skies for Qatar?
As you might remember, Qatar Airways’ previous attempts to expand in Australia haven’t always gone smoothly.
Today’s announcement comes little more than a year after Transport Minister Catherine King controversially blocked a request by Qatar to double the number of flights its state-owned airline Qatar Airways was allowed to fly into major Australian airports.
Given the intense public backlash to this decision, it’s possible a renewed application by Qatar would have been more successful. A large expansion of flights by Turkish Airlines was later quietly approved.
But this new deal may diminish the need to try again. By wet-leasing wide-body aircraft so Virgin Australia can operate its “own” long-haul routes to Doha (connecting into Europe), Qatar will effectively bypass the need to get government approval for the additional flights.
Back in 2023, my calculations suggested Qatar’s application to expand should have been approved. Capacity on the Kangaroo Route was only back to 70% of pre-COVID levels. That meant the major players operating flights – including the Qantas–Emirates alliance – could charge significantly more than before the pandemic.
Using the latest flight schedule data, we can show that the capacity between Australia and the Middle East is still 17% below what it was before the pandemic. If Virgin Australia’s proposed long-haul re-entry goes ahead, we could see much more capacity on these routes, and a formidable challenger to the Emirates–Qantas arrangement.
It’s easy to see why Virgin and Qatar might be excited. The deal will extend Virgin Australia’s reach – and that of its frequent flyers – into Europe and other destinations via Doha. But this goes both ways, and could also mean more demand on its domestic network.
Similarly, the additional flights into Doha will feed Qatar Airways’ network, an airline that seems to be going from strength to strength.
Despite historical troubles at Doha’s main airport, Qatar Airways is now one of the world’s largest airlines. It has once again been ranked as the world’s best airline by the independent air transport rating organisation Skytrax.
Both airlines were also keen to point out benefits of the partnership they said would go beyond additional services and increasing competition in the Australian market.
These include the potential to work together towards various sustainability initiatives and on developing Western Sydney’s aviation ecosystem, providing exciting new opportunities for employment and training.
Not yet a done deal
However, they’re still a long way from the finishing line. Whether this deal will actually materialise remains to be seen.
It is worth noting this is not the first time Virgin Australia has been part-owned by an airline in the Middle East. Before Virgin Australia’s collapse into administration in April 2020, Etihad held a 21% equity stake.
Further, it remains to be seen what aircraft Virgin Australia will actually get access to and how the service will be perceived. Qatar Airways is guaranteed a transaction win through the wet-lease, without taking on the brand and profit risks of operating these services.
How much concern this will stir at Qantas also remains to be seen, but one thing is clear. Project Sunrise – Qantas’ plan to bypass the Middle Eastern hubs and connect Australia directly with Europe – could soon become much more important.
Emirates is unlikely to emerge as the winner of this move, now set to face increased competition not only on services connecting Australia with the Middle East, but also across its broader network through Dubai.
Qatar Airways acquiring a stake in Virgin Australia will also create interesting dynamics within the Oneworld Alliance, in which both Qantas and Qatar Airways are key partners. There are certainly interesting times ahead.
Dr Rico Merkert receives funding from the ARC and various industry partners. He loves to work with and for airlines, including Qantas and Virgin Australia.
How do you cast Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte’s 1847 novel about a child so brutalised by his adoptive family that he drives his pregnant love to death? Not, it would seem, like Emerald Fennell, the latest director to attempt it.
Fennell’s previous projects include the Oscar-winning A Promising Young Woman (2020) and Netflix hit Saltburn (2023), but she has been under fire for casting Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie in the lead roles of Heathcliff and Catherine, two teenagers on the wild, 19th-century Yorkshire moors. As tanned Australian actors aged 27 and 34, best known for playing Elvis and Barbie, it is hard to imagine how they can pull this off.
But has anybody ever got Heathcliff and Catherine right?
Lawrence Olivier was nominated for an Oscar for playing Heathcliff in 1939, but his clipped, Royal Shakespeare Company gentlemanliness hardly befitted the “savage vehemence” of the role. Heathcliff is an orphan, probably picked up on the Liverpool docks, bullied for looking like “a dark-skinned gypsy”, “a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway” (a lascar was a sailor or militiaman often from Asia). Among his many eventual crimes, he tortures puppies and beats children. But the Olivier movie staged the novel as a classic Hollywood romance.
Until very recently other directors followed suit, cutting the story’s more brutal elements (including most of its second half) and casting dashing (white) leads like Timothy Dalton (1970) and then-newcomer Ralph Fiennes (1992). In the latter film, Juliette Binoche’s Catherine had a notably French accent. (Maybe best not to mention Cliff Richard’s 1996 musical, in which, at 56, he was panned for playing a teenage Heathcliff as a pop idol.)
As the director of a 2011 BBC Radio Three adaptation put it, Wuthering Heights is not supposed to be “a Vaseline-lensed experience”. But it has been mostly sold that way.
Perhaps the only director to capture the nightmarishness of Bronte’s text is Andrea Arnold, who in 2011 cast untrained actors in the central roles, including a black actor, James Howson, as Heathcliff. At the time, some critics even found that decision controversial. But the casting was a turning point, and Arnold’s bleak, almost wordless, adaptation changed the game.
In 2024, audiences are more aware that casting a white actor like Elordi as Heathcliff is not only to undersell the novel as romance, but to wilfully ignore the imperialism in the text.
There is evidence to suggest that Heathcliff’s story was at least partly inspired by a local slave-owning family, the Sills, who, as well as making their money from sugar plantations in Jamaica, had 30 enslaved Africans working on their home estate in Yorkshire.
Also, as mentioned, characters speculate about Heathcliff’s race throughout. For instance, Nelly Dean, Cathy’s family’s servant, wonders whether “[his] father was Emperor of China, and [his] mother an Indian queen.” He is clearly not white.
Still, in going in the opposite direction to Arnold, Fennell’s film might offer us something new.
The novel is difficult to film not only because it depicts human beings at their most primal, but also because it is so strangely told. Bronte rarely shows us Catherine or Heathcliff firsthand. We learn their tale through an uninitiated southerner, Lockwood, who himself hears much of the story from a servant with unreliable passions of her own.
Key scenes in the novel have an emotional realism drawn not only from the rough-hewn Yorkshire rocks but also from gothic melodrama: Catherine’s ghost literally bleeds as it grasps Lockwood through a window; Heathcliff digs up Catherine’s grave just “to have her in my arms again”. If this is realism, it is so extreme it borders on the theatrical.
And this is where Fennell excels. Saltburn’s bathtub scene is infamous for body horror, but mostly it depicts an urgent need to consume and be consumed by another. Saltburn also has its own graveside scene, which clearly echoes Heathcliff’s necrophiliac desires in Wuthering Heights.
I would argue there can be no justification for casting a white actor as Heathcliff, and it is to be hoped that Fennell rethinks this decision. But perhaps there is also something to be gained from having a Heathcliff and Catherine with the glitzy theatricality of Elvis and Barbie. Fennell isn’t going to give us the Catherine and Heathcliff we have come to expect, but it is possible she will evoke the passion the characters deserve.
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Adelene Buckland 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.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been charged with bribery and fraud following a spiraling federal investigation into his administration.
Among other accusations, federal prosecutors alleged in their September 2024 indictment that Adams received campaign donations from the Turkish government for his 2021 mayoral race and sought to conceal these illegal foreign contributions.
And as we document in our new podcast, “Scandalized,” discovering campaign finance violations is often just the first chapter in a much wilder story.
Why campaign finance law matters
The U.S. has federal rules that govern how political campaigns can raise and spend money in U.S. elections. For example, they limit how much money individuals and groups can contribute to candidates’ campaigns. Federal rules also restrict how campaign funds may be used and require the disclosure of all campaign expenditures, ensuring candidates can’t spend campaign money on whatever they want.
Legally, candidates may use campaign donations on expenses directly related to their race for office. Allowable expenditures include advertising, travel and costs related to fundraising, such as renting an event space or buying food for guests. Candidates may use excess campaign funds after the election is over to pay down outstanding loans, or they can transfer it to other campaigns or party organizations.
Campaign funds may not, however, be spent at any time on purely personal expenses. Candidates cannot pay their mortgage or rent out of their election war chest, or purchase clothing or household supplies.
The disgraced former U.S. Rep. George Santos, a Republican from New York, was a particularly egregious violator of the rules related to personal expenses.
Santos pleaded guilty in August 2024 to nearly two dozen counts of campaign finance violations – a smorgasbord of crimes. According to The New York Times, he rerouted “tens of thousands of dollars of campaign money toward personal expenses, including luxury goods, Atlantic City casinos, rent payments and a website primarily known for explicit sexual content.”
Santos, who served for just under a year until he was expelled from Congress in December 2023, is a prime example of how the complicated U.S. campaign finance system can unearth other, even more scandalous actions by politicians.
Former U.S. Rep. George Santos outside court after pleading guilty to 23 felony counts on Aug. 19, 2024, in West Islip, N.Y. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
A window into bigger scandals
A key element of campaign finance law is disclosure. Candidates must publicly report donations over US$200, for example, and document everything they spend those donations on during and after their campaigns.
For former U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr., a California Republican, failure to comply with disclosure laws during his 2016 election campaign resulted in a federal investigation. The Justice Department found that Hunter used campaign donations to fund family vacations, video game purchases and hotel rooms for multiple extramarital affairs. In 2020, he was sentenced to 11 months in prison.
Former President Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, also failed to disclose a contribution to his boss’s 2016 presidential campaign. But the real scandal was what that money actually went for: paying adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence about an alleged affair with Trump in 2006. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to making an unlawful contribution.
Many, if not most, campaign finance violations are minor. Small mistakes such as filing a late donor disclosure report or miscategorizing an expense usually incur little more than a small fine.
When technical campaign finance violations shed light on a big scandal, however, they attract attention. Voters and the media latch onto the fact that not only are donors’ funds not going where they intended, but in many cases the money has been spent to subsidize candidates’ personal misbehavior and corrupt activity.
High-profile political scandals erode the public trust
Just about every recent survey shows Americans’ levels of faith and trust in government at historic lows. In the 1960s, three-quarters of voters said they trusted the government to do the right thing most or all of the time. Today, only one-fifth do.
Unseemly behavior by politicians, including by candidates who misspend their supporters’ donations, may contribute to this declining trust. Americans have real fears about money in politics. For example, 84% of Americans worry that wealthy lobbyists and interest groups have undue influence on elections, and 80% say campaign donations have corrupting effects on politicians.
Even when candidates aren’t technically breaking the law, they often use campaign funds in ways donors may not realize – or appreciate.
Sometimes, investigations into seemingly technical campaign violations uncover a wilder story. Filo via Getty
The bottom line: Donations made to help a candidate win their race are not always going where donors actually intended or believed they would.
Still, the U.S. political climate is so polarized that these scandals may not dramatically affect voters’ decision-making. Political scientists sometimes refer to today’s voters as “calcified” in their partisan identities, meaning they are so loyal to their own party that campaign-finance violations and other scandals cannot change their views much.
Research shows voters are also increasingly motivated not so much by their support or affection for their own party but rather by their fear and loathing of the other party. As a result, partisan voters are willing to accept or forgive scandalous behavior from their own side in the interest of beating the opposition. Hardcore partisans are also adept at finding ways to justify or rationalize these transgressions.
With record amounts of money flowing in and out of political campaigns in 2024, the coming months are bound to bring more campaign finance scandals. But our research indicates they are unlikely to have major effects at the polling station.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Growing up in Aberdeen, Scotland, the shadow of the Piper Alpha disaster loomed large over our community. The tragic explosion of the oil rig platform in 1988 claimed the lives of 167 people. Back then, I was blissfully unaware of the ecological ramifications of that disaster. But the spill of 670 tonnes of oil wreaked havoc on marine life and had a lasting impact on the marine environment that I love to explore.
In recent decades, there has been a gradual decline in the number of oil spills and the volume of oil discharged from tankers, rigs, wells and offshore platforms. While incidents continue to occur globally – often in less scrutinised regions than the North Sea – the UK has, thankfully, not experienced another disaster of Piper Alpha’s magnitude since.
Does this mean that the UK’s oil and gas sector have cleaned up their act? They would certainly like you to think so. But ocean pollution isn’t just about large oil slicks that spread across the water’s surface.
As a new report, Sea Slick, from marine conservation charity Oceana explains, the extent of frequent, small-scale spills are still being grossly underestimated, even though big oil spills are less frequent.
The report reveals what it claims is the true scale and impact of chronic oil pollution in the UK, showing that for many years the North Sea has been subjected to hundreds of unaccounted for “chronic oiling events”. These are where oil is frequently released in lower volumes than those associated with large spills. This issue stems from a poorly regulated oil and gas sector and a lack of transparency in reporting, allowing oil and gas companies to mark their own homework.
Currently, a certain amount of oil pollution is permitted as part of routine operations for oil and gas developments. Companies can apply for oil discharge permits, which allow them to release a set volume or concentration of oil or chemicals into the ocean. This waste output is referred to as “produced water”. Produced water is a by-product of the oil and gas sector, which returns to the surface of the ocean as wastewater during oil and gas production. Produced water may be treated before release but still contains finely dispersed oil and toxic heavy metals, such as mercury and arsenic.
Oil and gas companies are regularly breaching their legal produced water permit allowances, Oceana’s report claims. Yet, in line with official government reporting requirements, these breaches are not registered as accidental oil spills. Indeed, Sea Slick counts a total of 723 permit breaching incidents in the last three-and-a-half years – that’s equivalent to 17 oil or chemical spills each month.
Currently these permit breaches aren’t counted as accidents. They’re not really counted as anything – other than permit breaches. If these unaccounted-for permit breaches are factored into official government data for accidental oil spills, Oceana estimates that the volume of oil spilling into UK seas increases by at least 43%.
The oil and gas sector are keen to reassure the public that chronic oil pollution can be quickly dispersed and poses a low risk to marine life or human health. Certainly, if incidents were rare, this might be a more persuasive argument. But they aren’t. Over time, the incremental release of toxic chemicals has a negative environmental effect. An estimated 248 spills from permit breaches took place within the UK’s network of marine protected areas between January 2021 and May 2024.
Why does this matter? Marine protected areas are regions of the ocean which have been given special designations to help preserve marine life and habitats. They have been created to protect rare, threatened and important habitats or species.
Marine wildlife is at great risk of harm from oil pollution, but a substantial number of oil spills occur within marine protected areas. werbefotos_com/Shutterstock
The release of produced water into areas, which have been singled out as especially important for protection, is shocking. Contaminants associated with chronic oiling have been shown to have a range of effects on marine life. The list is long: damaging cells and cell membranes, DNA damage (a common cause of cancer), the changing of gene expression and the disruption of reproductive functions. The steady leaching of toxic oil and chemical byproducts poses risks to human health too as toxic chemicals enter the food chain through farmed and wild-caught fish.
The new government’s water (special measures) bill will force water companies to clean up the UK’s rivers and oceans. A failure to cooperate or any attempts to cover up data around sewage spills could see bosses jailed for up to two years. Water company bosses are finally being held to account. Will the UK government apply the same rules to the bosses of oil and gas companies who are also polluting our seas?
As the Sea Slick report notes, there is overwhelming public support for polluters to be held to account. By regulating and fining oil companies properly for chronically polluting UK seas, the government could enact and make permanent their commitment to end new oil and gas licenses. It’s time to take action.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
In recent months, Vladimir Putin and his proxies have been foreshadowing a change in Russia’s nuclear doctrine. This is the set of rules that spells out when and how his country might resort to the use of its nuclear arsenal, which is currently the largest in the world. Most recently his deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said the revisions to the rulebook were “connected with the escalation course of our western adversaries”. In other words: it’s not us, it’s you.
You don’t have to read too much between the lines to discern a connection between the growing clamour by some in the west to allow Ukraine to use western long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia and Russia’s decision to reconsider under what circumstances it would use its nuclear arsenal.
Over the past couple of years – since shortly after he initiated Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – Putin and his inner circle have regularly invoked Russia’s nuclear deterrent, writes Christoph Bluth, an expert in nuclear proliferation and international security at the University of Bradford. All it seems to take is for the west to agree another large package of funding, or change the terms of its aid to Kyiv for the Kremlin to dust off the doomsday scenario.
So it comes as little surprise that, shortly after Volodymr Zelensky gave his impassioned speech to the United Nations general assembly yesterday restating his country’s urgent need for more support and more latitude in how to use it, Putin announced his country’s new “draft” nuclear doctrine. Henceforth, he said, Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons. The trigger for the launch of nuclear missiles against Ukraine or any of its allies, he said, would be “reliable information about a massive launch of aerospace attack means and their crossing of our state border”.
Bluth recounts how, earlier this month, one of Putin’s proxies, Alexander Mikhailov, the director of the Bureau of Military Political Analysis, recently called for Russia to “bomb plywood mock-ups of London and Washington to simulate a nuclear attack, so that it would ‘burn so beautifully that it will horrify the world’.” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s lower house, said that any attacks against Russia would prompt it to respond with nuclear weapons. He is reported to have added – with what appears to have been ghastly relish – that the European parliament in Strasbourg was “only a three-minute flight for a Russian nuclear missile”.
It’s tempting to dismiss Russia’s threats as just so much sabre-rattling. And there have been plenty of voices in the west urging leaders to defy Putin’s threats. After Ukraine launched its lightning raid into Russia’s Kursk province in August, Zelensky said it was clear that Russia’s red lines were a bluff. He said: “The naive, illusory concept of so-called red lines regarding Russia, which dominated the assessment of the war by some partners, has crumbled apart these days.”
Colin Alexander, a specialist in political commnunications at Nottingham Trent University, believes that since the end of the cold war the focus of what he calls “fear propaganda” has changed. It has moved away from the prospect of nuclear annihilation to “other threats, such as extremism, pandemics and migration”.
But anyone who grew up during the cold war will remember the omnipresent fear of the “three-minute warning” regularly reinforced by government messaging, TV documentaries and dramas. These all served to remind everyone that a nuclear holocaust was only a series of wrongheaded decisions away. It’s that atmosphere of peril, writes Alexander, which makes a leader’s threats believable.
And the “madman theory” which holds that only an unstable leader would contemplate pushing the button, has helped lull people into the idea that a nuclear conflict is indeed unthinkable, because surely no leader would be mad enough. But Alexander concludes by citing the one leader who actually did drop a nuclear bomb in an enemy:
US president Harry S. Truman pushed the button in 1945. He was then given detailed reports of the death and destruction that his decision caused to Hiroshima. Then he pushed the button again to annihilate Nagasaki.
Zelensky’s speech to the UN general assembly was compelling and moving in equal measure. He warned of intelligence reports that Russia was preparing to target Ukraine’s nuclear power plants as part of its campaign to wreck the country’s energy infrastructure before winter. He mourned for the children of Ukraine, who “are learning to distinguish the sounds of different types of artillery and drones because of Russia’s war”. And he restated his ten-point plan for peace, which involves Russia withdrawing from all the lands it has occupied since 2014.
But, Stefan Wolff notes, a growing number of countries are lining up behind a peace plan proposed earlier in the year by China and Brazil, which would freeze the conflict along the existing frontlines before proceeding to negotiations.
The state of the conflict in Ukraine as at September 25. Institute for the Study of War
Wolff, an expert in international security at the University of Birmingham, believes this plan is deeply flawed. For one thing it would inevitably involve Kyiv being forced to give up territory illegally annexed by Russia. It would also give Russia time to regroup, rearm and train extra troops and would almost certainly not guarantee a lasting peace, but would simply stave off another Russian assault on Ukraine.
But Zelensky faces two key problems which make his diplomatic mission that much harder. His voice is in danger of being drowned out by the conflict in the Middle East, which appears almost inevitably bound for a ground war in Lebanon in days to come. And the prospect of Donald Trump winning a second term in about six weeks’ time, means that the days of Washington as Kyiv’s staunchest partner could well be coming to an end.
As the conflict drags on – 31 months and counting – there is evidence that some Ukrainians would give up territory in return for peace and an end to the killing. Our team of political scientists, Kristin M. Bakke of UCL, Gerard Toal of Virginia Tech and John O’Loughlin of University of Colorado Boulder, have been polling Ukrainians since the invasion and have detected a definite shift in attitudes towards the conflict.
While most Ukrainians still hate the idea of having to give up territory to Russia, support for the proposition that Ukraine should “continue opposing Russian aggression until all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, is liberated” had fallen from 71% in 2022 to 51% now. And, while in 2022 just 11% of respondents agreed with “trying to reach an immediate ceasefire by both sides with conditions and starting intensive negotiations”, that number had almost tripled in the most recent polling.
Interestingly, the researchers note, while most people they spoke with professed unchanged support for their country’s war effort, a growing number said they were worried that their fellow Ukrainians were beginning to suffer from war-weariness.
Russia is already calling for more territory in eastern Ukraine in the form of a “buffer zone” around Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv in the north-east of the country. This, the Kremlin claims, is to protect Russian towns from shelling and missile attacks from Ukrainian territory.
Interestingly, writes Iain Farquharson, a security expert and military historian at Brunel University London, Israel has also proposed setting up a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, to protect Israelis living near the the country’s northern border from Hezbollah missile barrages.
Farquharson considers the history of buffer zones in the Middle East and beyond. Firstly, buffer zones rarely live up to their supposed function – as Afghanistan’s misfortune to be between British India and southern Russia in the 19th century and Lebanon’s bad luck to be between Syria and Israel in the 1960s and 1970s amply demonstrate.
But what Russia and Israel are proposing are not so much buffer zones as land grabs, pure and simple. There’s no sense that either country is willing to contribute any of its own territory to these so-called demilitarised areas (or that they’ll actually be demilitarised). They should, he writes, “instead primarily be seen as a way of formalising control over contested territory to protect their home bases, which would give them a military advantage”.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Vinita Srivastava, Senior Editor, Culture + Society / Host + Exec. Producer, Don’t Call Me Resilient
On Sept. 30, Canada will observe the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Formerly known as Orange Shirt Day, the now federal statutory day honours generations of Indigenous survivors, families and communities impacted by Canada’s residential school system and remembers the children who never returned home. It’s also a good time to honour the “Truth” in Truth and Reconciliation and check in on Canada’s progress on the 94 Calls to Action that came out of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee.
Here at Don’t Call Me Resilient, we’ve curated a playlist of episodes for you that explore the historical and current issues of Indigenous communities. Through the voices of experts, the playlist features discussions related to Indigenous history, justice, rights and resistance. In each episode, Indigenous scholars and experts present their research and ideas to help explain the issues. They dive deep into conversations about the importance of preserving and protecting Indigenous land, life and identity.
As a collection, these episodes invite listeners to engage in a process of learning and unlearning; to acknowledge the tragic legacies of residential schools in Canada and to move beyond a single day of remembrance. Individually, the conversations are thoughtful and informative explorations of Indigenous scholarship, living history and the future of reconciliation in Canada.
In this episode, two Indigenous land defenders from different nations as well as generations: Ellen Gabriel, a human rights activist and artist well known for her role during the 1990 Oka crisis, and Anne Spice, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, discuss the importance and urgency of defending land. They explain why they work to protect the land against invasive development and why their work is necessary for everyone’s survival. Also, check out Gabriel’s forthcoming book with Sean Carleton: When the Pine Needles Fall. (first aired: March, 2021)
Stories are a powerful tool to resist oppressive situations. They give writers from marginalized communities a way to imagine alternate realities, and to critique the one we live in. In this episode, Vinita speaks to two storytellers who offer up wonderous “otherworlds” for Indigenous and Black people. Selwyn Seyfu Hinds is an L.A-based screenwriter and the producer of Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black. Daniel Heath Justice is professor in Indigenous literature at the University of British Columbia and author of Why Indigenous Literatures Matter.
Over the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of high-profile figures accused of falsely claiming Indigenous identity, of being “Pretendians.” These cases have become big news stories, but they have big real-life consequences, too. Misidentifying as Indigenous can have financial and social consequences, with the misdirection of funds, jobs or grants meant for Indigenous peoples. Vinita delves into it all with two researchers who look at identity and belonging in Indigenous communities: Veldon Coburn and Celeste Pedri-Spade from McGill University. (first aired: October, 2021)
The state of our environment keeps getting scarier and scarier: and we have yet to find a way forward. Two Indigenous scholars who run labs to address the climate crisis say bringing an Indigenous understanding to environmental justice could help us get unstuck. A big part of that is seeing pollution through a new lens — one that acknowledges it is as much about racism and colonialism as it is toxic chemicals. Vinita talks to Michelle Murphy at the University of Toronto, and Max Liboiron, author of Pollution is Colonialism, and associate professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland. (first aired: November, 2021)
Over 17 per cent of households in Canada are food insecure. For racialized Canadians, that number is higher — two to three times the national average. In this episode, Vinita asks what is happening with our food systems, and what we can do to make them fairer with two women who have been tackling this issue for years. Melana Roberts is Chair of Food Secure Canada and one of the leaders behind Canada’s first Black food sovereignty plan. Also joining the conversation is Tabitha Robin Martens, assistant professor at UBC’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems. Martens researches Indigenous food sovereignty and works with Cree communities to bolster traditional land uses. (first aired: November, 2021)
In this episode, we take a look at what has happened since the unmarked graves of 215 Indigenous children were found in Kamloops, B.C. in May 2021. Vinita speaks to Veldon Coburn, associate professor and faculty chair of the Indigenous Relations Initiative at McGill University about what happened, the widespread grief and outcry and the immediate political response, but also, how none of that lasted despite communities continuing to find bodies. Joining Vinita on the episode is Haley Lewis, then-Don’t Call Me Resilient producer and culture and society editor for The Conversation Canada. Lewis is mixed Kanyen’keha:ká from Tyendinaga and led our coverage of the findings. (first aired: May, 2022)
Since diamond mining started in Canada in 1998, Canada has become the third-largest producer of diamonds in the world. In 2019, the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls linked resource extraction to spikes in violence against women. In this episode, we hear from two women who talk about how diamond mines in the Northwest Territories have negatively impacted and perpetuated gender violence, particularly among Indigenous women. Vinita chats with Rebecca Hall, assistant professor of global development studies at Queen’s University and the author of Refracted Economies: Diamond Mining and Social Reproduction in the North, and Della Green, former victim services co-ordinator, at the Native Women’s Association of the Northwest Territories. (first aired: June, 2022)
After weeks of the so-called Freedom Convoy in 2022, many of us took a hard look at the symbolism of the Canadian flag and the attempt to associate it with white supremacy. Some felt a new fear or anger at what they feel the flag represents. But other communities say they have always felt this way about the Canadian flag. Both our guests on this episode have studied multiculturalism, citizenship and belonging. Daniel McNeil looks at history and culture and the complexities of global Black communities. He is a professor and Queen’s National Scholar Chair in Black Studies at Queen’s University. Lucy El-Sherif is an assistant professor of global peace and social justice at McMaster University. They help us unpack the meaning and symbolism of the Canadian flag. (first aired: June, 2022)
For decades, Canadian media have covered Indigenous communities with a heavy reliance on stereotypes — casting Indigenous Peoples as victims or warriors. This deep-seated bias in the news can have unsettling consequences for both how a community perceives itself as well as how others perceive them. Award-winning Anishinaabe journalist and former CBC reporter Duncan McCue is trying to change that both in the classroom and in the newsroom. He joins Vinita to talk about what Canadian media could be doing better. (first aired: November, 2022)
When the Queen died, there was a tremendous outpouring of love and grief for her and the monarchy she represented. But not everyone wanted to take a moment of silence — and there are a lot of reasons why. For example, the head of the Assembly of First Nations, RoseAnne Archibald told CTV News that the Royal Family should apologize for the failures of the Crown… “particularly for the destructiveness of colonization on First Nations people.” To explore these ideas further, we reached out to two scholars, Veldon Coburn, associate professor and faculty chair of the Indigenous Relations Initiative at McGill University and Cheryl Thompson, an associate professor of media and culture at Toronto Metropolitan University. Both say that the Queen’s death could be a uniting moment of dissent for people from current and former colonies. (first aired: September, 2022)
In 2023, the Vatican repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, a 500-year-old decree used to justify settler colonialism. In this episode, political and Indigenous studies scholar Veldon Coburn explains why the Vatican’s repudiation of the Doctrine is a huge symbolic victory. We also examine what this repudiation may mean for members of Indigenous Nations, what prompted this renouncement, and what still needs to happen. (first aired: April, 2023)
In this episode, we explore how the practice of gardening is deeply tied to colonialism that affects what we plant and also, who gets to garden. But there is also a growing understanding that centuries-old Indigenous land-based knowledge and practices can foster a more resilient landscape. We speak to community activist Carolynne Crawley — a woman with Mi’kmaw, Black and Irish ancestry who leads workshops and walks that integrate Indigenous teachings into practice — and Jacqueline L. Scott — a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education whose research focuses on the wilderness and making it a welcoming space for Black people. We discuss a new way forward, discussing practical gardening tips with an eye to Indigenous knowledge. (first aired: May, 2023)
Botanical classification; 227 figures of plant anatomical segments with descriptive text. CC BY
This episode tackles why the revitalization of Indigenous languages is so critical. Guest host Veldon Coburn speaks with Frank Deer, professor of education at the University of Manitoba, to tackle the issue of disappearing Indigenous languages. They delve into how language reflects philosophies that guide political, cultural and ecological relationships — and discuss what more needs to be done to revitalize them. (first aired: June, 2023)
In this episode, we take you inside the ongoing quest to document the children who died in Canada’s Indian Residential Schools system. Vinita speaks to Terri Cardinal, associate vice president of Indigenous initiatives and engagement at MacEwan University, about the search she led to uncover the unmarked graves of those who perished at the Blue Quills Residential School in Alberta. It’s deeply personal and emotional work for Cardinal, whose own father is a survivor of the school. Cardinal talks about what she found, how she felt, and what she hopes will come of it. She says the number of unmarked graves across the country is much higher than many of us could have imagined. And she says it’s important to keep shining a light on the rising numbers, especially with so many Canadians in denial about what really happened at these schools. (first aired: September, 2023)
Students at Blue Quills Residential School. Provincial Archives of Alberta, CC BY
Musician Buffy Sainte-Marie in 1970. CMA/wikicommons, CC BY
Lori Campbell, a ‘60s Scoop survivor and associate vice president of Indigenous engagement at the University of Regina, challenges the CBC’s motives in releasing an investigation that questioned the Indigenous roots of legendary singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie in this episode. Campbell asks: was the story in service of truth and reconciliation or a sensationalist headline? She also highlights the turmoil the story is causing, especially among Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan, home to the Piapot Nation that embraced Sainte-Marie. (first aired: November, 2023)
Plains Cree Chief Mistahimaskwa resisted signing a treaty with the ‘Crown,’ until starvation of his people propelled him to sign Treaty 6. (Library and Archives Canada), CC BY
Vinita speaks to two famine scholars about the use of starvation as a tool in the colonizer’s playbook through two historic examples — the attempted decimation of Indigenous populations in the Plains, North America and the 1943 famine in Bengal, India. Our guests James Daschuk from the University of Regina and Janam Mukherjee at Toronto Metropolitan University discuss how colonial forces inflicted famine upon Indigenous populations to control them, their land, and their resources. (first aired: March, 2024)
Reservation Dogs: Sarah Podemski and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai. Shane Brown/FX
Indigenous media in North America have rapidly expanded over the last 30 years, with Indigenous media makers gaining greater control of their own narratives, including the ability to subvert colonial representations. Karrmen Crey, who is Stó:lō from Cheam First Nation, is an associate professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, and the author of “Producing Sovereignty: The Rise of Indigenous Media in Canada.” In this special episode, recorded on-site with an audience in Vancouver at Iron Dog books, Crey speaks with Vinita about the ways Indigenous creators are using humour along with a sharp critique of pop culture to show just how different the world looks when decision-making power over how stories get told shifts and Indigenous media makers take control. (first aired: April, 2024)
The actor Gillian Anderson has just released a book of sexual fantasies. Titled Want, it catalogues a diverse range of fantasies submitted anonymously by women from around the world.
It is not the first to do so. In 1973, American author Nancy Friday published My Secret Garden, a volume that provoked fierce debate at the time and is now considered to be an important milestone in the sex-positive movement. Each book gives a fascinating snapshot of women’s relationships with their own sexuality at a different moment in history.
Though attitudes, vocabulary and specific fantasy content have undoubtedly changed in the intervening half-century, there are striking similarities between the books. This is not only true of the subject matter — workplace flings and group sex are apparently timelessly appealing — but also of how people feel about their fantasies. Shame, in particular, continues to loom large in many women’s feelings about their own erotic imaginings.
Past research indicates that most adults (of all genders) experience sexual fantasies, suggesting many of us have grappled with the question of whether to tell a partner about ours. Over the past four years, we have been conducting research that explores this question: how do people decide whether to disclose their sexual fantasies – and what happens when they do?
An act of closeness
The women featured in both My Secret Garden and Want vary considerably in the degree to which they have chosen to share their fantasies with a partner. Some describe passionate relationships enhanced by the disclosure and enactment of erotic fantasies, while others intend to take their favourite fantasy to the grave.
We were interested in understanding the psychology of such radically different approaches. In a study published earlier this year in The Journal of Sex Research, we asked 287 people to reflect on a recent or prominent sexual fantasy. We found that over 69% of participants had previously disclosed their fantasy to a partner. Of those, more than 80% found this to be a positive experience.
Unsurprisingly, participants commonly cited sexual desire as their main reason for opening up. For example, many said they had shared their fantasy with a partner in the hope that they could act it out together. Others reported that they found talking about sexual fantasies arousing, or that discussing secret desires allowed them to learn more about their partner.
Several participants explained that they valued honesty and openness and that the level of trust and commitment in their relationship made them feel safe to share their fantasy with their partner.
Not all reasons for disclosing fantasies were positive, however. Some said they disclosed their fantasy in a last-ditch attempt to spice up an unsatisfying sex life.
The power of shame
Gillian Anderson, author of Want. wikipedia, CC BY-SA
Among the group who had chosen not to share their fantasy, many cited its content as the primary reason. Consistent with accounts in both My Secret Garden and Want, several of our participants were ashamed of their fantasy, or felt it to be too extreme or taboo to share with their partner.
Some — especially those whose partners had not responded well to similar conversations in the past — were worried they would receive a negative response that could cause problems for their relationship. We also heard from several people who explained that, put simply, their fantasies were private joys that they had no desire or intention to discuss with anyone.
In a series of follow-up studies yet to be published, we explored some of these ideas in more depth. One important finding is that relationship traits are a key predictor of whether a person will disclose their fantasy. For example, disclosure was more likely in relationships that already involved large amounts of sexual novelty and exploration.
We also confirmed that the content of a fantasy is critical to a person’s decision about whether to share it. Anything that is likely to be considered unacceptable by a partner or is otherwise potentially threatening to the relationship (such as a move away from monogamy), is unlikely to be disclosed. Indeed, even among participants who had previously shared a fantasy, we found over half also had at least one more that they were unwilling to divulge.
While our findings suggest that people who choose to tell their partner about their erotic daydreams usually get a good response, we also found that the process by which people reach that decision can be complicated. Some people have very good reasons for keeping their fantasy to themselves.
Hopefully, Want will help to reduce some of the shame associated with the very common experience of fantasising about sex. But its similarities to a book published 50 years earlier suggest we may still have a long way to go.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam Jerrett, Lecturer, Faculty of Creative & Cultural Industries, University of Portsmouth
In late November 2020, I was one of those people standing in line – or rather,
refreshing my browser – hoping to snag a PlayStation 5 during a restock. The
pandemic was in full swing, and with most of the world locked indoors, there weren’t many better things to do. The original PS5 promised to deliver true 4K gaming at very smooth frame rates – though a claim that it supported 8K gaming was later removed from the console’s packaging.
However, the PS5 got off to a slow start, owing primarily to game delays as a result of the pandemic. Additionally, gamers had to effectively choose between preset modes related to fidelity – high-quality visuals – and game performance within the in-game settings menus.
In November, gamers will no longer be faced with this dilemma, as Sony is set to release its “mid-generation refresh” console, the PlayStation 5 Pro. Its upgraded graphics processing unit (GPU) has more processing power and a faster memory than the basic PS5, allowing for up to 45% faster rendering of the graphics.
Advanced ray tracing – a technique to simulate the way light behaves in the real world – and AI technology called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution are expected to enable higher-resolution visuals at higher frame rates. This could fulfil the basic PS5’s promise of 4K gaming at 60 frames per second.
However, all that power doesn’t come cheap. The £699 digital-only console scales to £798 with a £99 disc drive, which is required to play physical games. It is already selling out in some markets. There’s also a £25 vertical stand (which came bundled with the original PS5).
PS5 Pro Technical Presentation.
That’s a lot of money for a console that won’t have any exclusive titles. Every game you can play on the PS5 Pro will also run on the base PS5. Some even speculate that it still may not play forthcoming games at the highest possible fidelity.
That kind of price is even more of a shock when compared with the different world of 2020’s PS5 launch. Demand for games and consoles surged during the pandemic, but the economic landscape has drastically shifted in the past four years. Inflation is at an all-time high, and the cost of living has rocketed, leaving less disposable income for non-essential purchases, of which the PS5 Pro is a prime example.
The games industry has also seen waves of layoffs resulting from investment shortfalls, changing work patterns, and post-pandemic consumer behaviour. A further irony is that such layoffs prevent studios from having the time, budget, or labour to create the graphically intense, polished games that the PS5 Pro would take full advantage of.
Consoles have always been loss leaders –- products sold at lower profit margins to get buyers into a product ecosystem. The basic PS5 is barely fulfilling that role (most PlayStation gamers still play on the PS4). So it makes business sense for the PS5 Pro to merely reflect the economic realities of 2024, where the rising cost of materials, supply chain disruptions and a scramble for computing power due to AI’s enhanced workloads means that consoles are significantly more expensive to produce.
This time, instead of Sony absorbing the cost, they’ve passed it along to consumers – most of whom are deeply unhappy about it. YouTube reactions to the PS5 Pro reveal trailer have been overwhelmingly negative, sitting at a 3:1 dislike ratio on YouTube.
A solution without a problem?
Many are also wondering whether the PS5 Pro is solving any real problems. The current generation of consoles has been plagued by delays or underwhelming game releases, and many remakes and remasters. Sony is even porting games that were previously exclusive to consoles over to PCs in a bid to reach new audiences. This has left the PS5’s true “exclusives” library somewhat barren.
The PS5 Pro launch was similarly absent of any blockbuster titles making use of the new hardware. Astrobot, Sony’s most recent smash-hit and likely Christmas bestseller, certainly won’t be using all that horsepower.
Astrobot Launch Trailer.
Regardless, there’s little doubt that the PS5 Pro will sell out at launch. Sony is probably producing fewer units of the Pro model than they did for the basic PS5, creating an artificial scarcity that will drive demand. Those who can afford it and who want the best possible gaming experience will jump at the chance to own the most powerful PlayStation console ever made.
This all makes the PS5 Pro’s launch feel a little strange. The PS5 Pro’s technical improvements are genuinely impressive. It’s clearly aimed at the hardcore gamers who want the best possible experience, regardless of the cost –- Sony knows its audience here.
However, the PS5 Pro is not the console that will drive mass adoption nor convince PS4 players to finally upgrade. Instead, like all things “Pro” in the tech world, it’s simply another niche, high-end option.
And as much as I’m tempted by the promise of true 4K 60FPS console gaming, I can’t
help but feel that this mid-generation upgrade is arriving at a time when the games
industry has myriad more important things to address than a shiny new toy.
Adam Jerrett 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.
There is growing awareness of the problems caused by the use of a fast-acting drug called ketamine. Often referred to as K or ket, it was made a class B drug in the UK in 2014 and is illegal to buy or sell. Possessing the drug can lead to a maximum five-year prison sentence and supplying the drug up to 14 years in prison.
Ketamine is an effective anaesthetic and plays an important part in battlefield and emergency medicine. It is used to treat pain in end-of-life care and could treat some forms of depression. However, it is its non-medical use that is causing concern among some doctors and specialist drug-treatment providers.
On the illicit market, ketamine is cheaper than cocaine and MDMA (ecstasy), costing about £20 a gram. Police forces report large seizures of the drug, but global rates of production are high, and the wholesale price of a kilogram of ketamine is believed to have fallen from £8,000 to £5,000. This makes it an attractive drug for young people and those with a limited income.
Ketamine typically takes about 15 minutes to work and induces euphoria, relaxation and a slight sense of detachment. However, with higher doses it can also cause dissociation. This can be confusing and can cause panic attacks and memory loss. It can increase blood pressure and affect breathing and heart function.
Effects can also be fatal. The Friends actor Matthew Perry died in 2023 as a result of using the drug.
Some urologists have also expressed concern about an increase in bladder problems (so-called “ketamine bladder”) as a result of prolonged and heavy use of the drug. Although national data about the number of people with ketamine bladder is not available, there are other sources about the use of ketamine.
Ketamine first became popular as a recreational drug in the early 1990s. Use among people aged 16-24 in England and Wales rose from 0.9% in 2006-07 to 3.8% in 2022-23 – which is about 220,000 people.
There has been an increase in young people attending specialist treatment services with problems related to ketamine use: 512 during 2021-22 rising to 719 in 2022-23.
The increase is concerning as few services and interventions are available that specifically address ketamine use. An increase in people seeking treatment has not been helped by historic cuts to drug-treatment funding, which is only beginning to be addressed, and a lack of meaningful drug education and early intervention responses.
This increase in young people seeking treatment is also seen in adults. Rising from 1,551 in 2021-22 to 2,211 during 2022-23. There has been a fivefold increase in adult treatment since 2014.
Self-medicating
There is a suggestion from experts that part of the increase in the use of ketamine is due to some people who have mental health problems that are unable to access treatment because of long waiting lists.
Rather than wait for specialist treatment some people turn to drugs like ketamine that offer some reprieve from their symptoms. Ketamine can create a sense of detachment in users, this will be a desirable state for those who are seeking to escape invasive mental health symptoms of troubling thoughts and feelings.
In effect, they are finding their own solutions by self-medicating with the drug. Given that ketamine is easily available, relatively cheap and fast-acting it is easy to see why this drug is appealing, particularly as there are no long waiting lists or invasive assessments to undergo.
Ketamine doesn’t induce the same type of hangover that alcohol and other drugs do. This makes it appealing to those who need to be at work the day after using it. Likewise, it is appealing to those on zero-hour contracts who are asked to work at short notice.
However, many people will use other substances alongside ketamine – typically alcohol. Mixing alcohol and ketamine can cause significant harm, ranging from slowed breathing to coma and even fatal overdose.
Paradoxically ketamine is being investigated as a treatment for those who are dependent on alcohol, including those who haven’t responded to more traditional forms of therapy.
As with the promise that other drugs, such as psychedelics, might help treat mental health problems, current evidence suggests that these drugs are only effective when given alongside therapy.
It’s not clear whether the UK has reached peak ketamine use. Most drugs fall in and out of fashion. It is clear that originally banning the drug in 2005, and increasing punishments in 2014 has failed to halt its rising popularity. What could have helped was investment into prevention, education and harm reduction services, but this didn’t happen and we are seeing some of the consequences now.
Preventing the use of ketamine is the only way to be sure that it won’t cause harm. But if we accept that young people and adults will continue to use it then we should be aiming to reduce the potential for harm. There are useful resources already available, but reducing drug-related harm requires a more active response – one that doesn’t rely on people visiting websites or reading a leaflet.
We should put effort and resources into providing public health messaging that reaches those who are at the most risk from harm due to ketamine. At the same time, investing in and providing timely mental health support would reduce the need for those who are self-medicating with the drug.
With a new government in the UK, commanding a sizeable majority in parliament, could this Labour government adopt a policy shift that could reduce suffering and save lives?
Harry Sumnall receives funding from public grant awarding bodies for alcohol and other drugs research, and fees from (international) not-for-profit organisations and government departments for consultation work. He is an unpaid steering group member of the Anti-Stigma Network, an unpaid member of the Scientific Advisory Group of the International Society of Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP), an unpaid member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Mind Foundation, an unpaid advisor to the UK Drug Education Forum, and an unpaid co-opted member of UK Government Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) Working Groups on cocaine, and prevention.
Ian Hamilton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Glenn Fosbraey, Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Winchester
We recently asked subscribers to our arts and culture newsletter, Something Good, to name their favourite cover song. We received a range of replies, from Beyoncé’s reimagining of the Dolly Parton classic, Jolene, to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged recording of The Man Who Sold the World by David Bowie. Here’s how seven of our academic experts responded when we asked them the same question.
1. Heaven, by DJ Sammy (2001)
The late 1990s and early 2000s saw a glut of Euro-dance songs troubling the higher reaches of the UK charts, as artists like Alice Deejay, Fragma and Sash (all aliases for male DJs fronted by female guest vocalists) married heavy trance beats with catchy melodies. But above all others stood 2001’s Heaven, by DJ Sammy. A shining example of the energetic but straightforward approach to music that characterised the era, it had a generation of club-goers running for the dancefloor.
Heaven saw Spanish producer Sammy turn a mawkish 1983 Bryan Adams track into the ultimate dance track for all seasons, complete with a relentless beat, hypnotic synth riff, and earworm-of-all-earworm choruses delivered by Dutch singer Dominique Rijpma van Hulst (stage name Do). It’s fun, unapologetically simple, yet somehow seems to encompass every emotion going. An era-defining track that needs to be played loud and proud.
Glenn Fosbraey
2. Me and the Devil Blues, by Gil Scott-Heron (2014)
A great cover is more than a different version of a song – it re-articulates the track and injects it with new meaning. Some do this by radically changing the genre, others by making the song so intensely personal that it is difficult to imagine anyone else singing it. But Gil Scott-Heron’s cover of Robert Johnson’s Me and the Devil Blues (1938), on Scott-Heron’s final album, accomplishes an even rarer feat.
It layers the pain and anguish of a modern black life lived in the heavy bootprint of the fight for civil rights, de-industrialisation and the “war on drugs”, over the legend of original singer Robert Johnson’s daring and tragic story in the Jim Crow south.
Scott-Heron’s cover is an opaque homage that ruminates on living in the echoes of an American music legend’s ruins. It’s a reminder of the continuing horrors of racism, and the enduring artistry of resistance and resilience.
Justin Patch
3. Helter Skelter, by Siouxsie and the Banshees (1978)
As a young artist from Liverpool who was newly signed to Deltasonic Records in the early 2000s, I was keen to find inspiration from artists other than our beloved Beatles. Little did I expect that much of this inspiration would circle back to Paul, John, George and Ringo when I discovered Siouxsie and the Banshees’ album The Scream (1978).
Their cover of Helter Skelter from The Beatles’ White Album (1968) blew me away. Personally, I think this is the best cover of a Beatles song ever, performed by a woman who wasn’t afraid to take control of it.
Eva Petersen
4. Wild is the Wind, by David Bowie
David Bowie frequently supplemented his original material with thematically connected cover songs. There are covers on Hunky Dory (1971), The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust (1972) and Aladdin Sane (1973). These moments are often the weakest spots on Bowie’s records – with one major exception.
Bowie’s 1976 album Station To Station closes with his take on Wild Is The Wind, reworking Johnny Mathis’s two-minute original from 1957 into a soaring and theatrical six-minute showstopper. Bowie’s band dutifully rises to the occasion, decorating the track with elegant lead guitar work and one of the most exquisite drum performances ever committed to tape.
Never one to underplay, Bowie gives the vocal performance of a lifetime, culminating in a soaring climax guaranteed to leave goosebumps on any listener with a pulse.
Daniel Ash
5. Against All Odds, by The Postal Service (2004)
A good cover version needs to find ways to reinvent the texture and structure of the original. Beyond The Postal Service’s iconic 2003 album Give Up, the indie-tronica outfit have a tiny repertoire. For my money, their cover of Phil Collins’s Against All Odds (1984) was the only bright spot in the horrendous Josh Hartnett movie, Wicker Park (2004).
The familiar texture and soundscape of Give Up is heard in the distant and crackly vocal, reverse delays and keyboard of the opening verse and chorus. This gives way to a middle section which is cleaner and more purposeful than the first, with a brighter tempo. A final outro section repeats the lyrical hook – “take a look at me now” – with gentle guitar bringing the song to a close.
With this cover, The Postal Service manage to remake an emotional love ballad into a more angsty and complex work with their own musical stamp.
Conor Caldwell
6. Shipbuilding, by Suede
I always tell students to look at their hero’s heroes and find the covers they chose to do. It is often the case that we discover a classic song from a cover.
The 1995 charity album HELP featured 20 songs (many of them cover versions) by 20 artists in support of children displaced by the Bosnian War.
Suede’s cover of Shipbuilding (written by Elvis Costello and Clive Langer in 1982) was the first version of the song I heard. Such is the power of the piece, I suspect it was not difficult to convey the message. Written during the Falklands war, it concerned the resurgence of the shipyards caused by the necessity to replace ships lost in the conflict.
This led me to discover the definitive 1982 version sung by Robert Wyatt and featuring Costello, which has superb brushed drums and double bass. A masterpiece.
Howard Monk
7. Such Great Heights, by Iron and Wine
In this cover, Sam Beam of Iron and Wine strips what could be potentially considered the calling card of The Postal Service’s small but perfectly formed oeuvre to its bare bones. Featuring nothing more than a hushed voice, gently plucked acoustic guitar and subtle flourish of mandolin, the yearning romanticism of the lyrics is endearingly exposed.
Curiously, The Postal Service chose to include this wonderfully considered cover version as a b-side to their own single release of the song in 2003. This may have prompted its use in the divisive indie movie Garden State (2004), elevating Iron and Wine to deservedly greater heights in the process.
Steve Ryan
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Eva Petersen has previously received Arts Council funding for her research in 2019. She currently works for Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.
Conor Caldwell, Daniel Ash, Glenn Fosbraey, Howard Monk, Justin Patch, and Stephen Ryan 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.
