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Category: Academic Analysis

  • MIL-OSI Global: Many Russian speakers in Ukraine have switched language – but changing perceptions may be much harder

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Oleksandra Osypenko, PhD researcher in linguistics, Lancaster University

    After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a lot of Ukrainians who would normally have used Russian as their first language started instead to speak only in Ukrainian. It was part of a cultural shift, particularly in areas close to Russia. Streets were renamed, statues of Russians taken down and Russian literature taken off the shelves of bookshops.

    But language does more than merely signal a person’s identity. We wanted to find out whether a change in the language a person uses could influence they way they think in their everyday lives. Our research suggests encouraging people to speak more Ukrainian in public isn’t enough to shift the influence of the Russian language on people’s perceptions.

    In a study published in 2024, Ukrainian linguistics expert Volodymyr Kulyk documented a marked decline in the everyday use of Russian by Ukrainians since the invasion in February 2022. Many individuals, Kulyk found, were voluntarily abandoning Russian in response to the invasion, often viewing the language itself as a symbol of Putin’s aggression.

    His survey found that only 44% of Ukrainians reported using Ukrainian as their primary language in 2012, compared to 34% who said they primarily spoke Russian, and 22% had used both. By December 2022, the percentage of people who said they primarily spoke Ukrainian had risen to 57.4% and Russian use had dropped to just 14.8%, with the remaining 27.8% reporting using both languages.

    Kylyk found that this was even more pronounced in public spaces. In the workplace, use of Ukrainian increased from 41.9% in 2012 to 67.7% in December 2022. Online, the consumption of Ukrainian-language content by Ukrainians soared from 11.6% to 52.2%, while that of Russian-language content fell from 48.6% to just 6%

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    The idea that language shapes thought, known as the “linguistic relativity principle” was first articulated by American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1950s. Numerous subsequent studies have since provided evidence supporting the principle.

    Researchers have shown that learning a new language or increasing the use of one can subtly reshape the way a person views the world.

    One way to test this is by looking at grammatical gender. In 40% of the world’s languages – including Ukrainian and Russian – objects are assigned a gender. For example, the word for “sock” is masculine in Russian and referred to using a pronoun “he” (носок – nosok), while in Ukrainian it is feminine and referred to using as “she” (шкарпетка – shkarpetka). Using grammatical gender allows us to examine how such purely linguistic categories influence our perception.

    Previous studies have shown that people tend to associate grammatically masculine nouns with stereotypically male qualities such as strength or aggression and feminine nouns with softness or gentleness. These are associations that can shape real-world judgments in unexpected ways.

    For example, a 2020 study led by French linguist Alican Mecit found that French and Spanish speakers perceived the pandemic as less threatening when it was referred to as la COVID-19 (feminine), and more dangerous when called le coronavirus (masculine), affecting how cautious they were in daily life.

    Masculine or feminine?

    To explore these effects in context of Ukraine’s ongoing language shift, we conducted a study in late 2023 to examine whether speaking Ukrainian or Russian affects people’s perception of everyday things, by asking our participants to rate objects as more masculine or feminine.

    Our participants also completed Ukrainian and Russian proficiency tests and filled out a questionnaire about their language habits. We asked them about what languages they used on a daily basis, with family and friends, and which language they considered their dominant one. After analysing this data, we discovered an interesting trend.

    Some of our results showed exactly what we had thought. Participants with higher proficiency in Russian showed a statistically significant influence of Russian on the way they viewed the world. The same was true for those more proficient in Ukrainian.

    This suggested that the language a person is most skilled in – as measured by tests, not just their own reports – has a strong influence of their perception, even when they are not consciously using that language.

    In other words, the deeper your knowledge of a language, the more it shapes your unconscious patterns of thought.

    But when we looked at participants’ self-reported language use, we unexpectedly found that even those people who said they used Ukrainian more than Russian day-to-day, with their family and friends, still showed perceptual patterns aligned with Russian. These were Ukrainians whose first language was Russian but who had made a deliberate switch to Ukrainian.

    For example, when rating gendered objects as more masculine or feminine, these participants made choices that reflected Russian grammatical gender rather than Ukrainian – so, to use our example from earlier in this article, they saw a sock as being inherently a male thing.

    This suggested one of two possibilities. Either they had overstated their use of Ukrainian, possibly due to social pressure. Or they were genuinely switching to Ukrainian, but Russian continued to unconsciously influence their thinking. This mismatch was especially common among those who claimed to use Ukrainian in informal settings, like at home or with friends.

    So, even as more Ukrainians shift away from using the Russian language because of the war, the influence of Russian can still be found in how they perceive the world.

    What does this mean for language policy?

    Ukraine’s language policies have been a matter for debate event before the 2022 invasion. In fact, one of the reasons Vladimir Putin gave for launching his “military operation” was because of what he claimed was a “genocide” against Russian speakers in Ukraine, something the Ukrainian government strenuously denied.

    But it should be noted that Ukraine passed a law in 2019 (which came into force at the beginning of 2021, titled On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language. This required the use of Ukrainian in all spheres of public life, including education, science, culture, media, advertising and customer service. The law drew some international criticism as possibly discriminatory and caused considerable disquiet in Russian-speaking communities.



    Read more:
    Ukraine: how a controversial new language law could help protect minorities and unite the country

    So while language policy in Ukraine has focused on promoting Ukrainian language in public and professional settings, including schools and workplaces, our findings suggest that these formal uses of language do not necessarily change the way people think.

    The bigger shifts seem to come from informal, everyday language use, especially at home. It is in those personal, emotionally rich contexts that language appears to shape thought most deeply.

    Oleksandra Osypenko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Many Russian speakers in Ukraine have switched language – but changing perceptions may be much harder – https://theconversation.com/many-russian-speakers-in-ukraine-have-switched-language-but-changing-perceptions-may-be-much-harder-257765

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Wales is overhauling its democracy – here’s what’s changing

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stephen Clear, Lecturer in Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Public Procurement, Bangor University

    Wales’ Senedd will expand and change as of May 2026. Mareks Perkons/Shutterstock

    Next May’s Senedd (Welsh parliament) election won’t just be another trip to the polls. It will mark a major change in how Welsh democracy works. The number of elected members is increasing from 60 to 96, and the voting system is being overhauled. These changes have now passed into law.

    But what exactly is changing – and why?

    When the then assembly was first established in 1999, it had limited powers and just 60 members. Much has changed since then and it now has increased responsibility including primary law-making powers over matters such as health, education, environment, transport and economic development.

    The Wales Act 2014 also bestowed a number of new financial powers on the now Senedd, including taxation and borrowing powers. But its size has stayed the same.

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    This led to concerns about capacity and effectiveness. In 2017, an independent expert panel on electoral reform concluded that the Senedd was no longer fit for purpose. It warned that 60 members simply weren’t enough to scrutinise the Welsh government, pass legislation and respond to constituents. A bigger chamber, it argued, would improve both the quality of lawmaking and democratic accountability.

    Wales also has fewer elected politicians per person than any other UK nation. Scotland has 129 MSPs, while Northern Ireland has 90 MLAs. Even with next year’s changes, Wales will still have fewer elected members per citizen compared with Northern Ireland.

    It’s a similar picture when Wales is compared with other small European nations.

    More Senedd members could ease workloads, improve local representation and importantly, may encourage a more diverse pool of people to stand for office.

    How is the voting system changing?

    Alongside expansion will be a change in how Senedd members are elected.

    Since its inception, Wales has used the “additional member system”, which is a mix of first-past-the-post for constituency seats and proportional representation for regional ones.

    From 2026, that system will be replaced by a closed list proportional system, using the D’Hondt method. It’s a system which is designed to be fairer, ensuring that the proportion of seats a party wins more closely reflects the votes they get. But it also means voters will have less say over which individuals get elected.

    Wales will be divided into 16 constituencies, each electing six MSs. Instead of voting for a single candidate, voters will choose one party or independent candidate.

    Parties will submit a list of up to eight candidates per constituency. Seats will then be allocated based on the overall share of the vote each party gets, with candidates elected in the order they appear on their party’s list.

    For example, if a party wins a percentage share of the vote equating to three seats, the top three people on their party list will be elected. The calculation for this is defined by the D’Hondt formula. The decision to adopt this method in Wales was one of the recommendations of the special purpose committee on Senedd reform in 2022.

    Jeremy Vine explains just how the D’Hondt system of proportional representation works.

    Several countries across Europe use this system for their elections, including Spain and Portugal. In countries with small constituency sizes, D’Hondt has sometimes favoured larger parties and made it harder for smaller parties to gain ground. That’s something observers in Wales will be watching closely.

    An alternative method, Sainte-Laguë, used in Sweden and Latvia, is often seen as more balanced in its treatment of small and medium-sized parties, potentially leading to more consensual politics. But it too has its downsides. In countries which have many smaller parties, it can lead to fragmented parliaments and make decision-making more difficult.

    In sum, no system is perfect. But D’Hondt was chosen for its balance between proportionality, simplicity and practicality.

    The Senedd chamber will house 36 more members from May 2026 onwards.
    Senedd Cymru

    Could this confuse voters?

    One concern is the growing differences between electoral systems across the UK, and even within Wales itself.

    At the UK level, first-past-the-post (FPTP) is the method used for Westminster elections. Meanwhile, some Welsh councils are experimenting with the single transferable vote method, which lets voters rank candidates in order of preference.

    So, some people in Wales could find themselves navigating three different voting systems for three different elections. Obviously, this raises the risk of confusion. Voters who are used to one vote and the “winner takes all” nature of FPTP may be confused by how seats are allocated in Wales come 2026.

    With numerous different systems, the risk is that people do not fully understand how their vote translates into representation. In turn this risks undermining confidence and reducing voter turnout.



    Read more:
    Wales wants to punish lying politicians – how would it work?

    Voters will need clear, accessible information on how their vote works – and why it matters. But this is particularly challenging when UK-wide media often defaults to FPTP-centric language and framing surrounding debates, which can shape public expectations. News about Wales often barely registers beyond its borders, while news about politics in Wales barely registers within.

    Electoral reform often prompts broader conversations. As Welsh voters adjust to the new proportional system, some may begin to question Westminster’s FPTP model, especially if the Senedd better reflects the diversity of votes cast. FPTP is frequently criticised for producing “wasted votes” and encouraging tactical voting, particularly in safe seats.

    Under a more proportional system, tactical voting becomes less necessary, which has the potential to shift voter habits in Wales.

    If the 2026 reform leads to a more representative and effective Senedd, it may not only reshape Welsh democracy, but reignite debates about electoral reform across the UK.

    Stephen Clear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Wales is overhauling its democracy – here’s what’s changing – https://theconversation.com/wales-is-overhauling-its-democracy-heres-whats-changing-256640

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Tornado: this samurai-western immigrant revenge tale tries to be many things – but runs out of ammo

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Chi-Yun Shin, Senior Lecturer, Film Studies, Sheffield Hallam University

    Tornado is many things: a British period drama, a western, a samurai film, a coming-of-age story and an origin story. Set in the windswept moorland of Britain in 1790, the film offers a lawless backdrop fit for a western, with no visible sign of the industrial revolution that began some three decades prior.

    Its Wuthering Heights-esque wilderness, serenely captured by the cinematographer Robbie Ryan conjures up an almost otherworldly look.

    The film is also a revenge story. Tornado (Kōki), the 16-year-old Anglo-Japanese heroine, seeks to avenge her father’s death, armed with a samurai sword. First, though, she has to escape the clutches of some ruthless highwaymen.

    We begin in the middle of this action, with Tornado being pursued across a desolate landscape by Sugarman’s (Tim Roth) gang, who just killed her father, Fujin (Takehiro Hira).

    They are looking for their ill-gotten sacks of gold, which they believe she stole from them. What they don’t know is that Fujin, a former samurai who was reduced to a travelling puppeteer in Britain, taught his daughter to fight and hid the gold. These archetypal components of western genre, gold and revenge are mashed up with a samurai-sword-wielding heroine.

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    The cross-pollination of western and samurai films has a long history. There is the well-known influence of John Ford’s westerns on the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. Meanwhile, Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) in turn directly inspired the classic Hollywood western, The Magnificent Seven (1960).

    Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961) practically started the whole sub-genre of spaghetti western, providing a template for the narrative and character arc. Both Sergio Leone’s influential A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and Sergio Corbucci’s Django (1966) feature a lone man, seemingly a mercenary, entering a town with two warring gangs where he uses his skills (swapping samurai-sword-wielding for gun-slinging) to manipulate the situation.

    Tornado’s influences

    Tornado pays homage to Leone’s epic spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). This is most obvious in a scene where the vicious gang arrives at the circus troupe’s trailer site where Tornado is taking refuge.

    A knife thrower (Jude Cranston) is practising his techniques, and his steady throwing actions make rhythmic noises as his knives hit the target board in succession. This creates a soundscape reminiscent of the masterful sound design of the opening sequence of Once Upon a Time in the West.



    Read more:
    Tornado is a Scottish samurai-western film – genres with a long-shared history

    The sole black member of the gang, named Psychotic Bandit (Dennis Okwera) is conspicuously dressed in all black, complete with a black cowboy hat. This costuming is almost identical to one of the three outlaws played by Woody Strode (one of the first black American players in the NFL, turned actor) in Once Upon a Time in the West.

    As he approaches the knife thrower and silences him, his out-of-place look (too dandy for a rural bandit) suddenly makes sense and serves a purpose. Like the Strode character, Psychotic Bandit doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t quite pull off the formidable calm menace of Strode.

    The trailer for Tornado.

    Tornado is also a typical immigrant family story that deals with the generational gap. The father tries his best to pass on his culture and knowledge (samurai skill in this case) to Tornado, but his teenage daughter, while reluctantly participating in the family business (a samurai puppet show) wants to have a lie-in and go to town. She speaks to him in perfect English as opposed to his accented English.

    Although the presence of Japanese samurai as a travelling showman in 1790s Scotland is unlikely (considering that the first Japanese visitors set foot on British soil in 1832), director John Maclean’s interest in outsiders and marginalised communities is evident.

    In one scene, now-wounded Sugarman faces Tornado and makes a fatherly suggestion that she go home, to which she answers: “I am home.” It’s a knowing exchange, even if it’s a bit of cliche. Through the course of the film, Tornado grows to accept her father’s teachings and comes of age, as she declares: “I’m Tornado; remember my name.” Though it feels a little contrived, it is fitting for an origin story of a self-assured samurai.

    This coming-of-age story of a young female samurai, set in a desolate landscape, offers a downbeat antidote to the romanticised stories of a westerner who goes to Japan and becomes a samurai, as seen in The Last Samurai (2003) and Shōgun (2024).

    In the end, however, Tornado tries to be too many things, and can’t quite cut it as a satisfying samurai film. It lacks the introspection of Twilight Samurai (2002) or the exhilaration of Zatoichi (2003) and 13 Assassins (2010). It amounts to an unconventional, but underwhelming, execution of a classic genre mash-up.

    Chi-Yun Shin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Tornado: this samurai-western immigrant revenge tale tries to be many things – but runs out of ammo – https://theconversation.com/tornado-this-samurai-western-immigrant-revenge-tale-tries-to-be-many-things-but-runs-out-of-ammo-258733

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Khartoum before the war: the public spaces that held the city together

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ibrahim Z. Bahreldin, Associate Professor of Urban & Environmental Design, University of Khartoum

    What makes a public space truly public?

    In Khartoum, before the current conflict engulfed Sudan, the answer was not always a park, a plaza or a promenade.

    The city’s streets, tea stalls (sitat al-shai), protest sites and even burial spaces served as dynamic arenas of everyday life, political expression and informal resilience.

    In a recently published article, I studied 64 public spaces across pre-war Greater Khartoum, revealing a landscape far richer – and more contested – than standard urban classifications suggest. Specifically, I uncovered four classifications: formal, informal, privately owned and hybrid spaces – each alive with negotiation and everyday use.

    While some spaces were planned by colonial engineers or municipal authorities, many were carved out by communities: claimed, adapted and reimagined through use.

    My research offers valuable insights into the design and planning of Africa’s cities. As they grow and face mounting political and environmental pressures, it’s time to rethink how public spaces are defined and designed – not through imported models, but by listening to the ways people already make cities public.



    Read more:
    Sudan needs to accept its cultural diversity: urban planning can help rebuild the country and prevent future conflict

    Across the African continent, cities are growing fast – but not always fairly. Urban expansion often privileges gated developments, mega-projects and high-security zones while neglecting the everyday spaces where most people live, work and gather.

    In Sudan, these dynamics have been further complicated by conflict, displacement and economic instability. The ongoing war has disrupted not only governance, but also the spatial fabric of urban life.

    My paper aims to invite those involved in planning policies and post-conflict reconstruction to move beyond formal, western-centric models that often overlook how publicness actually unfolds in African cities: through informality, negotiation and social improvisation.

    Khartoum’s public spaces, as documented in my study, serve as diagnostic tools for understanding how cities survive crises, express identity and contest inequality.

    In the wake of war and displacement, these spaces will play a role in shaping how Sudan rebuilds not just infrastructure, but social cohesion.

    Pre-war Khartoum

    Khartoum’s public spaces cannot be understood through conventional categories – like formal squares and urban parks – alone. These formal squares represent only one layer of a much more plural and negotiated urban reality.

    Drawing on fieldwork and the documentation of 64 public spaces across Greater Khartoum, I identify four overlapping types that reflect how space is produced, accessed and contested.

    1. Formal public spaces: These include planned parks, ceremonial squares, civic plazas and administrative open spaces, often relics of colonial or postcolonial urban planning. They are defined by order, visibility and regulation. Mīdān Abbas, originally an active civic space in the centre of Khartoum, repeatedly reclaimed by informal traders and protesters, is one example, illustrating how even the most formal spaces can become contested. It was notably active during Sudan’s April 1985 uprising, serving as part of a wider network of civic spaces used for political mobilisation. Informal traders consistently transformed it into a bustling marketplace, embedding everyday commerce and social exchange into the formal urban fabric.

    2. Informal and insurgent spaces: These emerge beyond or against official planning logics – riverbanks used for gatherings, neglected lots transformed into social nodes or bridges appropriated by traders. They include spiritual sites like Sufi tombs, and protest spaces such as the sit-in zone outside the city’s army headquarters. These spaces reveal the city’s capacity for bottom-up urbanism and collective adaptation.

    3. Privately owned civic spaces: Shopping malls, privately managed parks and cultural cafés fall into this category. While they appear public, they are often classed, surveilled (monitored through cameras or security presence) or exclusionary. The rise of these spaces coincides with the decline of state-managed urban infrastructure, reflecting the turn in Sudanese urban governance.



    Read more:
    Sudan: the symbolic significance of the space protesters made their own

    4. Public “private” spaces: These spaces blur lines between ownership and use. They include mosque courtyards, school grounds, building frontages or underutilised university lawns that serve as informal gathering points. Access here is governed less by law and more by social codes, trust or class.

    Together, these typologies highlight that “publicness” in Khartoum is relational. It depends not only on who planned a space, but who uses it, how and under what conditions.

    Planning in African cities must therefore move beyond fixed zoning maps to embrace the layered, fluid and lived nature of urban space.

    Rebuilding, rethinking, resisting

    Post-conflict reconstruction in Sudan – and elsewhere in Africa – must resist the allure of “blank slate” master plans. Those involve rebuilding cities from scratch with sweeping, top-down designs that ignore existing social and spatial dynamics.

    Imported models, often guided by bureaucratic thinking or commercial incentives, risk erasing the very spaces where public life already thrives, albeit informally or invisibly.

    Rather than imposing formality, planners should recognise and strengthen the informal and hybrid systems that sustain civic life, especially in times of instability.

    Urban theorists working in and on the global south, such as AbdouMaliq Simone and the late Vanessa Watson, have long argued for planning frameworks that centre on everyday practices, adaptive use and spatial justice.

    Khartoum offers a compelling case.

    From the sit-ins of 2019 to tea stalls run by displaced women, public spaces in Sudan are not inert backdrops. They are active platforms of everyday life, resistance, care and community-making.

    Reconstruction must begin by asking: what spaces mattered to people before the war? Which ones fostered inclusion, dignity and visibility? Only then can new urban futures emerge, ones that are rooted in the practices of those who have always made the city public, even when the state did not.

    What makes spaces truly public?

    The public realm in Sudan has always been shaped through negotiation, sometimes with the state, often despite it.

    Rebuilding after war is not only about reconstructing buildings but also about reimagining the terms of belonging.

    This requires a shift from viewing public space as a fixed asset to understanding it as a dynamic process. Who gets to gather, to speak, to rest, to protest – these are the true measures of publicness.

    Understanding Khartoum’s pre-war public spaces isn’t a nostalgic exercise. It’s a necessary step towards building more inclusive, resilient and locally grounded cities in the wake of crisis.

    Ibrahim Bahreldin is a member of the Sudanese Institute of Architects and the City Planning Institute of Japan, and is registered as a professional architect and urban planner with the Sudanese Engineering Council and the Saudi Council of Engineers. He is also affiliated with the King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia.

    The Author receives funding from KAU Endowment (WAQF) at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

    – ref. Khartoum before the war: the public spaces that held the city together – https://theconversation.com/khartoum-before-the-war-the-public-spaces-that-held-the-city-together-258632

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Global outrage over Gaza has reinforced a ‘siege mentality’ in Israel – what are the implications for peace?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Eyal Mayroz, Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney

    After more than 20 months of devastating violence in Gaza, the right-wing Israeli government’s pursuit of two irreconcilable objectives — “destroying” Hamas and releasing Israeli hostages — has left the coastal strip in ruins.

    At least 54,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military, close to two million have been forcibly displaced, and many are starving. These atrocities have provoked intense moral outrage around the world and turned Israel into a pariah state.

    Meanwhile, Hamas is resolved to retain control over Gaza, even at the cost of sacrificing numerous innocent Palestinian lives for its own survival.

    Both sides have been widely accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and mainly in Israel’s case, genocide.

    While the obstacles to ending the fighting remain stubbornly difficult to overcome, a troubling pattern has become increasingly apparent.

    The very outrage that succeeded in mobilising, sustaining and swelling international opinion against Israel’s actions — a natural psychological response to systematic injustice — has also reinforced a “siege mentality” already present among many in its Jewish population.

    This siege mentality may have undermined more proactive Israeli Jewish public support for a ceasefire and “day-after” concessions.

    A toxic cocktail of emotions

    Several dominant groups have shaped the conflict’s dynamics, each driven by a distinct set of emotional responses.

    For many Israeli Jews, the massacres of October 7 have aggravated longstanding feelings of victimhood and mistrust, fears of terrorist attacks, perceptions of existential threats, intergenerational traumas stemming from the Holocaust, and importantly, the strong sense of siege mentality.

    Together, these emotions have produced a toxic blend of anger, hatred and intense desire for revenge.

    For the Palestinians, Israel’s devastation of Gaza has followed decades of oppressive occupation, endless rights violations, humiliation and dispossession. This has exacerbated feelings of hopelessness, fear and abandonment by the world.

    The wider, global pro-Palestinian camp has been driven by moral outrage over the atrocities being committed in Gaza, alongside empathy for the victims and a sense of guilt over Western governments’ complicity in the killings through the provision of arms to Israel.

    Similarly, for Israel’s supporters around the world, anger and resentment have led to feelings of persecution, and in turn, victimisation and a sense of siege.

    Many on both sides have become prisoners of this moral outrage. And this has suppressed compassion for the suffering of the “other” — those we perceive as perpetrators of injustice against the side we support.

    Complaints of bias and content omissions

    Choosing sides in a conflict translates almost inevitably into biases in how we select, process and assess new information.

    We search for content that confirms what we already believe. And we discount information that would go against our pre-existing perceptions.

    This tendency also increases our sensitivity to omissions of facts we deem important for our cause.

    Since early in the crisis, voices in the two camps have accused the mainstream media in the West of biased coverage in favour of the “other”. These feelings have added fuel to the moral outrage and sense of injustice among both sides.

    Outrage in the pro-Israel camp has focused mainly on a perceived global conspiracy to absolve Hamas of any responsibility.

    In that view, Israel has been singled out as the only culpable party for the killings in Gaza. This is despite the fact Hamas unleashed the violence on October 7, used the Gazan population as human shields while hiding in tunnels, and refused to release all the Israeli hostages to end the fighting.

    On the other side, pro-Palestinian outrage has focused on “blatant” omissions by the media and Western governments of important historical facts that could provide context for the October 7 attacks.

    These included:

    On both sides, then, significant focus has been placed on omissions of facts that could support one’s own narrative or cause.

    A siege mentality in Israel

    Many Israelis continue to relive October 7 while remaining decidedly blind to the daily horrors their military inflicts on Gaza in their name. For them, the global outrage has reinforced a long-existing and potent siege mentality.

    This mindset has been fed by a reluctance to directly challenge Israeli soldiers risking their lives and other rally-around-the-flag effects. It’s also been bolstered by the desire for revenge and an intense campaign of dehumanising all Palestinians — Hamas or not.

    The so-called “ring of fire” created around Israel by Iran and its proxies —Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Houthis — has further amplified this siege mentality. Their stated objective is the destruction of Israel.

    I’ve conducted an exploratory study of Israeli media, government statements and English Jewish diaspora publications from October 2023 to May 2025, reviewing some 5,000 articles and video clips.

    In this research, I’ve identified strong, consistent uses of siege mentality language, phrases such as:

    In a detailed analysis of 65 English articles from major Israeli outlets, such as The Jerusalem Post and Times of Israel, and Jewish publications in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, I found siege mentality language in nearly nine out of ten searches.

    Importantly, nearly half of these occurrences were in response to pro-Palestinian rhetoric or advocacy: campus protests and actions targeting Israelis or Jews, university groups refusing to condemn October 7, or foreign governments’ recognition of Palestinian statehood.

    The sharp increase in attacks on Jews and Jewish installations since October 7 has also sparked global debates over rising antisemitism. Distinguishing honest critiques of Israel’s actions in Gaza from antisemitic rhetoric has become contentious, as has the use of antisemitism claims by Israeli leaders to dismiss much of this criticism.

    Moving forward

    When viewed through the prism of injustice, the strong asymmetry between Israeli and Palestinian suffering has long been apparent. But it’s grown even wider following Israel’s brutal responses to October 7.

    The culpability of Israel’s government and Hamas for the atrocities in Gaza is incontestable. However, many in the Israeli-Jewish public must also share some of the blame for refusing to stand up to – or by actively supporting – their extremist government’s policies.

    The pro-Palestine movement’s justice-driven campaigns have done much to combat international bystanding and motivate governments to act. At the same time, the unwillingness to unite behind a clearer unequivocal condemnation of Hamas’ massacres may have been a strategic mistake.

    By ignoring or minimising the targeting of civilians, the hostage-taking and the reports of sexual violence committed by Hamas, a vocal minority of advocates has weakened the movement’s otherwise strong moral authority with some of the audiences it needed to influence most. First and foremost, this is people in Israel itself.

    My research suggests that while injustice-based outrage can be effective at generating attention and engagement, it can also produce negative side effects. One adverse impact has been the polarisation of the public debate over Gaza, which, in turn, has contributed to the intensification of Israelis’ siege mentality.

    Noam Chomsky, a well-known Jewish academic and fierce critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, once noted in relation to Palestinian advocacy:

    You have to ask yourself, when you conduct some tactic, what the effect is going to be on the victims. You don’t pursue a tactic because it makes you feel good.

    The question, then, is how to harness the strong mobilising power of moral outrage for positive ends – preventing bystander apathy to atrocities – without the potential negative consequences. These include polarisation, expanded violence, feeding a siege mentality (when applicable), and making peace negotiations more difficult.

    The children in Gaza and elsewhere in the world deserve advocacy that will prioritise their welfare over the release of moral outrage — however justified.

    So, what approaches would most effectively help end the suffering?

    Most immediately, the solution rests primarily with Israel and, by extension, the Trump administration as the only international actor powerful enough to force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to halt the killings.

    Beyond that, and looking toward the future, justice-based activism should be grounded in universal moral principles, acknowledge all innocent victims, and work to create space for both societies to recognise each other’s humanity.

    I served as a counterterrorism specialist with the Israeli Defence Forces in the 1980s.

    – ref. Global outrage over Gaza has reinforced a ‘siege mentality’ in Israel – what are the implications for peace? – https://theconversation.com/global-outrage-over-gaza-has-reinforced-a-siege-mentality-in-israel-what-are-the-implications-for-peace-258561

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Should global media giants shape our cultural and media policy? Lessons from satellite radio

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Brian Fauteux, Associate Professor Popular Music and Media Studies, University of Alberta

    Debates about regulating Canadian content for streaming media platforms are ongoing, and key issues include revising the definition of Canadian content for audio and visual cultural productions and whether big streaming companies would be mandated to follow new Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) policies.

    Global streaming companies are fighting regulations requiring them to fund Canadian content and news.

    The Motion Picture Association-Canada, which represents large streamers like Netflix, Amazon and Disney, has argued that the CRTC should not impose “mandatory positions, functions or elements of a ‘Canadian program’” on global streaming companies.

    The Online Streaming Act, passed in 2023, amended the Broadcasting Act to “ensure that online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content.”

    For example, according to the act, online audio streaming services that make more than $25 million in annual revenue and that aren’t affiliated with a Canadian broadcaster will contribute five per cent of those funds to organizations such as FACTOR, Musicaction, the Community Radio Fund of Canada and the Indigenous Music Office, among others.

    This has the potential to benefit musicians in Canada. But Apple and Spotify, and other tech and music companies, have banded together (under the Digital Media Association, DiMA), labelling the act a “streaming tax” on users.

    This is a pivotal moment to think about the important role of policy to support Canada’s independent artists, as well as public and community media, and the increasing power of global streaming companies when it comes to setting the terms of cultural policy. One way to do this is to consider the trajectory of satellite radio.



    Read more:
    Canada’s identity is at stake if we don’t equitably fund and support its music now

    Lessons from satellite radio

    As I have previously argued, the history of satellite radio anticipated the broader turn to subscription music listening. Similarly, the story of satellite radio in Canada exemplifies the tensions arising in policymaking today with streaming media.

    As I discuss in my new book, Music in Orbit: Satellite Radio in the Streaming Space Age, the launch of subscription satellite radio services in the United States in 2001, and their subsequent entry into the Canadian market in 2005, raised questions about how to regulate these new services.

    Canadian content regulations had been established for broadcast radio in 1971, and these needed to be sorted out for satellite radio channels. Many artists and music industry workers were keen to allow the service to enter the country, while others were concerned with the lack of substantial cultural protectionism.

    Canadian content for satellite

    When the CRTC first licensed Sirius and XM in Canada, the license stipulated that each provider had to offer at least eight Canadian-produced channels, each with at least 85 per cent Canadian content. (These guidelines countered the satellite providers’ proposal of only four Canadian channels each.) Later, the CRTC revised regulations, so that no less than 10 per cent of unique channels, per provider, had to be Canadian.

    Critics felt that relegating Canadian music to a small selection of channels higher on the channel lineup (in the 160s and 170s) was a disservice to Canadian content regulations, as those channels were easy to ignore. They also thought that, overall, the domestic music content featured on satellite would be lower than what was heard on terrestrial radio.

    During the 2004 CRTC public hearing before the licensing of Sirius and XM in Canada, Neil Dixon, the president of Canadian Music Week, argued that “one of the most difficult things we had to do in promoting independent music on an independent label was getting it outside this country.”

    Dixon championed the advantages of satellite radio in comparison to terrestrial radio, as did several creatives entities. They spoke of the belief and hope in seeing Canadian, as well as Indigenous artists, heard beyond Canadian borders and in areas not served by broadcast radio.

    CBC Radio 3 and satellite

    Among the Canadian satellite channels was CBC Radio 3, a channel programming 100 per cent independent Canadian music. It served as a beacon of hope for Canadian artists because its music programming drew from a wide variety of artists who had not yet received commercial radio play. This channel came from a financial and programming partnership between CBC, the public broadcaster, and Sirius Canada.

    Years after the 2011 merger of Sirius and XM in Canada, SiriusXM Canada was restructured in 2016, with 70 per cent of the company now owned by U.S. SiriusXM. This also meant that the CBC would cease being a shareholder in SiriusXM Canada.

    In 2022, Sirius XM Canada announced it was removing CBC Radio 3 and CBC Country; these were replaced by channels programmed by SiriusXM. The company also cut French-language CBC music channels ICI Musique Franco-Country and ICI Musique Chansons and introduced new French music channels.

    Uproar over cutting of CBC channels

    The cutting of CBC channels sparked uproar among artists in Canada, namely independent ones. SiriusXM had become a major income source for Canadian artists, particularly by comparison to the low royalty payments from Canadian commercial radio and streaming platforms.

    One headline in the Toronto Star read: “‘Final nail in the coffin’: Why SiriusXM dropping CBC Radio 3 is ‘potentially catastrophic’ for Canadian artists.”

    For artists, a royalty payment could be about $50 per play, divided between artist and owner of the song’s master (typically labels).



    Read more:
    Artists’ Spotify criticisms point to larger ways musicians lose with streaming — here’s 3 changes to help in Canada

    Subscription radio and superstar artists

    Among the new channels introduced by SiriusXM when it simultaneously cut CBC channels was Mixtape North, devoted to Canadian hip hop and R&B.

    Such a channel has the potential to support upcoming Canadian artists in these genres. However, the Mixtape North channel description mentions massively successful commercial artists: “Playing the newest hits from Drake and Jessie Reyez to classic throwbacks from Kardinal Offishall and K-OS to emerging voices.” In late May 2025, according to xmplaylist.com, the most played artists were The Weeknd and Drake, as well as Melanie Fiona, who has a new song with American artist LaRussell.

    A balance between superstar artists and smaller or independent artists is evident. The channel seems designed for more superstar artists than Radio 3, because it is without the CBC’s public media mandate to play independent artists.

    Precarity of public media institutions

    SiriusXM is a massive commercial subscription radio company with a long history of working to alter cultural policy in its favour. Some have argued that it didn’t make sense for a public media company to partner with a commercial subscription radio service in this way.

    The precarious position of public institutions and regulations to support smaller or independent artists remains a pressing issue. Traditional public broadcasters globally, since at least the early 2000s, have faced a growing pressure to reconceive service delivery and responsiveness to public needs and interests, and the multimedia ways people may want to tune in or engage.



    Read more:
    Trump and many GOP lawmakers want to end all funding for NPR and PBS − unraveling a US public media system that took a century to build

    The story of satellite radio exemplifies an imperfect approach to supporting Canadian culture across the digital and streaming music era, as well as the competing commercial and public interests in policymaking.

    We need to pay careful attention to the uneven power dynamics between major media companies and then the musicians and music lovers who live by the rules established through policymaking.

    Brian Fauteux receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. Should global media giants shape our cultural and media policy? Lessons from satellite radio – https://theconversation.com/should-global-media-giants-shape-our-cultural-and-media-policy-lessons-from-satellite-radio-257531

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The big Musk v Trump break-up: what the polls say about who the public thinks won

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex

    Many people thought that the close relationship between Donald Trump and Elon Musk would end badly, since they both have the hubris that comes from success and power. One is arguably the most powerful politician in the world and the other the richest man.

    That said, most people were not prepared for the rapid breakdown in their relationship and the slanging match that took place after Musk spectacularly fell out with the US president. This was magnified by the fact that both have their own influential social media sites (X and Truth Social) and so the divorce was very, very public.

    More recently Musk has rowed back on the comments he made about Trump after leaving his role as a “special government employee” of the administration, and says he went “too far”. But Trump might have a long memory for grievances, so it remains to be seen if the relationship can be patched up.

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    What do the American people think? The chart below shows the percentage of respondents with favourable and unfavourable opinions of Trump and Musk in the most recent US Economist/YouGov poll completed on June 9 after the row blew up.

    It is clear that the most people think that Trump won the contest, giving him a favourability gap (% favourable minus % unfavourable) of minus 10% compared with Musk’s gap of minus 23%.

    What Americans think of Trump and Musk after their row:


    Author’s graph based on Economist polling., CC BY-SA

    The demographics of these favourability judgements are particularly interesting. After the row, around 49% of men thought favourably of Trump, compared with 38% of women, continuing a trend that shows more male than female support for the president. But the gender gap for Musk is even wider with 43% men and only 27% women having a favourable view of the billionaire, making the gap 11% for Trump and 16% for Musk.

    Another interesting demographic is age. Some 35% of 18-to-29 year olds favour Trump (the lowest number of any age group), compared with 30% who favour Musk. The equivalent figures for the over 65s are 45% favouring Trump and 37% Musk. The age divide is wide, with young Americans disliking both more than older Americans, but it is not as wide as the gender gap.

    The income figures and attitudes to both are surprising. A total of 38% of those with incomes less than US$50,000 (£36,700) a year favour Trump, compared with 51% of those with incomes between US$50,000 and US$100,000. The surprise is that only 42% of those with incomes greater than US$100,000 favour Trump, making affluent Americans closer to the low-income group than to the middle-income group in attitudes to the president.

    The equivalent figures for Musk are 32% favourable in the US$50,000 group, 39% in the US$50,000 to US$100,000 group and 36% in the US$100,000+ group, which gives a similar picture.

    If we look at the voting record of the survey respondents in the presidential elections last year, 86% of Trump voters still have a favourable view of him, compared with only 5% of Harris voters. In comparison 67% of Republican voters are favourable to Musk, compared with 10% of Democrats. Equally, 81% of Conservatives favour Trump compared with 67% who favour Musk.

    Looking at the overall picture Musk is the loser in the row as far as the American public are concerned, and this may in part explain his apparent contrition.

    The price of Tesla shares (US$) since the presidential election:


    Author’s graph based on data from Yahoo finance., CC BY

    Overall though, Trump has been gradually losing support on his job approval since the election and the polling shows that 43% of respondents approve and 52% disapprove of his performance as president.

    We don’t have equivalent figures for Musk, but if we take the stock market price of Tesla shares as a guide to his approval ratings this has declined rapidly over time as the chart shows. On December 17 last year the price was US$480 (£353) per share, compared with US$332 per share on June 11 2025. This represents a fall of about 30%. The dramatic dip at the end of the series is an indicator of how markets have reacted to the spat between them.

    Following his public break-up with Trump, Musk’s other major company, Space X, is also likely to face fallout. It is a private company and so does not have a share price, but it is heavily dependent on contracts from the US government to keep going. It seems likely that the flow of contracts for space projects is likely to dry up following the row with Trump, as the president has suggested.

    Overall, Musk has paid a heavy price for becoming such a visible Trump supporter and subsequently falling out with him. And, so far, the public appears to be on Trump’s side.

    Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC.

    – ref. The big Musk v Trump break-up: what the polls say about who the public thinks won – https://theconversation.com/the-big-musk-v-trump-break-up-what-the-polls-say-about-who-the-public-thinks-won-258841

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How to Train Your Dragon: refreshed visuals don’t save this remake’s hackneyed American exceptionalism

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sarah Louisa Bowen, Head of Animation at the Northern Film School, Leeds Beckett University

    The original DreamWorks animated feature film, How To Train Your Dragon, was released in 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. Praised for its innovative 3D animation, emotional depth and stunning flying sequences, spectacle converged with identity, inclusion and a story of generational change that adhered to a reassuringly traditional narrative structure. Fifteen years later, in a world more politically fractured, the live-action remake has been released.

    The original film confidently mastered the uncanny valley issues of early 3D animation. This new live-action version builds on its success and presents a spectacular photo-realistic fantasy world.

    Hyper-real flight sequences offer immersion in ways that have appealed to audiences since the inception of cinema when phantom rides simulated the thrill of speed and continuous movement from a first person perspective.

    There are references to other films throughout, including Titanic (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998) and the Alien and Harry Potter franchises. But even with its extensive use of CGI and visual effects, the differences between the live-action and animation are not as pronounced as might be expected in films made 15 years apart.

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    Significant differences are apparent when it comes to the characters, however. The 2025 reinterpretations of Hiccup (Mason Thames), Astrid (Nico Parker) and Stoic (Hiccup’s father, played by Gerard Butler) seem less nuanced than the original versions. With animated characters, the audience accepts a stylised story world and character motivation more readily. But translated to live action, their motivations now feel as though they turn on a sixpence. As such they come across more as narrative devices than psychologically developed characters.

    The story centres on a young Viking named Hiccup. He looks older here than the original animated 15-year-old, but like most heroes heading off for a rite of passage, he is still awkward, cerebral and caught in the space between boyhood and an adult masculinity.

    Hiccup is expected to kill a dragon as his initiation into adulthood. Instead, he bonds with the fearful Night Fury Dragon (which he names Toothless), and relates to the creature’s feelings of exclusion. This furthers his understanding of the creature he has injured and leads him to question the beliefs of his community.

    The trailer for How to Train Your Dragon.

    When Hiccup reaches out (a moment of welcome respite in the relentless musical score) to Toothless, the most feared dragon, becomes puppy-like with exuberance, gratitude and goodwill. This underlines the film’s themes of empathy over power and a vision for a world that is remade through connection. As such, Hiccup’s mastery of Toothless, through mutual trust and consent, belongs to a cinematic lineage of children and their animal companions.

    American exceptionalism

    The film begins with an introduction to the village of Berk that is under aerial bombardment from dragons. The plucky island community endures the raids with a grit and stoicism that is reminiscent of cinematic representations of the British during the blitz.

    If the dragons are stand-ins for the German Luftwaffe Messerschmitt, then Toothless is all RAF Spitfire. The aerial combat takes a new direction when the attacking dragons are revealed to be controlled by tyrannical alpha dragon, The Red Death.

    The voice casting of the villagers distracts from the action, however. The established Viking community is represented by a range of identities. All the adults speak with British accents while their children, the future inheritors, have an American lilt.

    Tradition versus modernity is one of the themes of the film.

    The implication is that the old Viking community is blinkered by tradition while the American youths represent modernity through reason and inclusion. This hackneyed trope of a traditional community stuck in the past until the Americans drive progress remains in this live-action version. It contradicts the film’s themes of inclusion and understanding by perpetuating an American exceptionalism that resonates with cultural shifts in the aftermath of the second world war.

    As such, the choice of accents is not merely a concession to the market but a continuation of the cultural hegemony of US war narratives. Even though the Battle of Britain was mostly a British, European and Commonwealth effort, it’s the legacy of the Eagle Squadrons, those rule-breaking Americans, who are alluded to here.

    This live-action version of How To Train Your Dragon is therefore refreshed in its visuals only. The dreams, cultural anxieties and post-war allusions remain. The question then is this: after Trump’s reshaping of America’s relationship with the UK and Europe, is a second world war meta-narrative still going to fly?

    Sarah Louisa Bowen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. How to Train Your Dragon: refreshed visuals don’t save this remake’s hackneyed American exceptionalism – https://theconversation.com/how-to-train-your-dragon-refreshed-visuals-dont-save-this-remakes-hackneyed-american-exceptionalism-258496

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: A school prom isn’t just a party – it can equip teens with life skills

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Julie Tinson, Professor of Marketing, University of Stirling

    Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock

    The high school prom, an American institution, has now been a mainstay in UK culture for over 25 years. A prom heralds the end of exams and the end of school altogether – and the beginning of a new chapter of life. It’s an opportunity for teens to dress up in glamorous dresses and smart tuxedos, and maybe arrive in style in the back of a limo.

    It’s an adolescent ritual that might be seen as a one-off, frivolous event. But a prom is much more important than that.

    The research for our forthcoming book chapter has shown that organising and attending proms build teenagers’ leadership skills, creativity, practical and life skills, as well as social and emotional skills. It also boosts positive emotions, such as enthusiasm and pride: something teenagers emerging from a gruelling summer of exams need.

    For teens involved in organising the event, there is scope to develop leadership skills. Making group decisions about where to hold the event and how to fund it requires bargaining with other organising committee members, as well as reasoning with fellow students and navigating school rules.

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    Trying to please everyone, including teachers, parents and host venues can be a steep learning curve. And dealing with disappointment when compromise is required is an important life skill.

    For teenagers with limited involvement in organising the event, attending prom can still help boost their learning. Having a party to look forward to can increase teens’ diligence and commitment to their schoolwork as they revise for their exams. Some schools capitalise on this by offering “passports” to prom. This scheme could involve students earning a free ticket to prom by attending a set number of revision classes.

    Emerging adult selves

    Prom is more than an opportunity for dressing up. Teenagers can also use this event to present a new or altered self, using a coming-of-age celebration as a platform to convey who they are or who they want to be. In some cases, this can involve young people making their own clothing and accessories. Such types of activity afford practical and life skills.

    And any prom look requires organisation: budgeting, researching what’s available. Finances, limited or otherwise, may constrain or restrict choice and result in problem solving or trade-offs. As the high school prom occurs within a particular time frame, time management and the (online) ordering of products can contribute – or not – to the success of a desired prom outfit.

    Friends are keen to share their prom experience with others, but attending the high school prom can be prohibitively expensive. Our research has shown that in these situations, teens can develop their social and emotional skills as well as effectively communicating and negotiating with school staff in more equal, adult ways than they may have before.

    Some teenagers create their own prom looks.
    MJTH/Shutterstock

    For example, some teens in our research secured their friend’s attendance at prom by buying her a dress for her birthday and asking their teacher if she could have her prom ticket for free.

    There remains opportunity to use the high school prom as means to develop a wider range of diverse skills. Equality, diversity and inclusion could be better embedded in prom activities to make them accessible to all, and teenagers can be part of this. To ensure widening participation, creating high school proms that reflect a range of cultures and identities could further enhance learning opportunities for those taking part.

    High school proms involve not only teenagers but also their families, friends and the wider community. Schools especially have an important role to play in this coming-of-age celebration, often going further than simply supporting its organisation. Teachers, for example, can help facilitate the supply of dresses and other resources to guarantee inclusion at this end of school celebration, ensuring that those who want to attend this event can do so.

    Our research shows that teenagers actively participate in a learning journey while preparing for this ritual and develop life skills that they can build on in work, further education and volunteering. A high school prom is more than just one night to remember.

    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.

    – ref. A school prom isn’t just a party – it can equip teens with life skills – https://theconversation.com/a-school-prom-isnt-just-a-party-it-can-equip-teens-with-life-skills-254532

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The deteriorating justice system in England and Wales is hindering economic growth

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Diane Coyle, Professor of Public Policy, University of Cambridge

    Tupungato/Shutterstock

    The Labour government has made economic growth its top priority, committing to planning reforms, business partnerships and millions of pounds of investment in science and technology.

    But economic growth is not just about innovation, investment and businesses. How the law functions is of fundamental importance for economic growth. The UK’s highly-regarded system of justice plays an important role in creating the environment of trust that underpins commerce and investment.

    The legal system should be regarded as part of the national infrastructure, just as much as rail or electricity networks, or health and education. But like them, it has suffered a sustained drop in funding. And with the civil courts now in a state of neglect, their reputation – and the trust placed in them – is at risk of crumbling.

    For both people and businesses, the forum for resolving disputes and securing rights against one another, or against the state, involves the legal system. County courts, tribunals and bodies such as Acas (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) are just a few of the bodies involved in civil and administrative law, employment law, tax law and corporate law.

    The Ministry of Justice budget for England and Wales, which funds courts and tribunals, started to fall in real terms in the 2011-12 financial year. This has led to under-resourcing, underequipping, and understaffing of services. Justice is an “unprotected” government department, and continues to be a low priority compared to others such as health and education.

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    The chancellor’s spending review announced “up to £450 million additional investment per year for the courts system by 2028-29, compared to 2025-26”, which the government says will help tackle court backlogs. But years of decline have already deteriorated the system significantly.

    The key question to measuring the success of publicly-funded legal systems is, are they fast, fair and predictable? It would be difficult today to answer positively.

    There are large backlogs due to staff shortfalls compared to caseloads. When it comes to civil claims in the courts, aside from the very smallest claims, the average period from a claim to a hearing is now 77 weeks. This is an increase from 48 weeks pre-austerity. In either case, it’s plenty of time for a small business or startup to go under while trying to reclaim a debt.

    The position in the tribunals is not much better. According to the latest Ministry of Justice statistics, the backlog of open tribunal cases rose by 4% overall in the quarter to June 2024, to 668,000. There was a 17% jump in employment tribunal open cases, and a huge surge in appeals to the special educational needs and disability tribunal, taking the backlog up 61% to 9,200.

    Another example is the 79,000 appeals outstanding at the social security and child support tribunal, where eligibility for personal independence payments for disabled people is determined. This was up 12% on the year in mid-2024, causing a large number of mostly financially struggling people to wait too long for the money they are due. This has the effect of draining spending power in the local economies that need it most.

    So much for speed. What about whether people and businesses can rely on justice that is fair and predictable? Unfortunately, the tribunal statistics contain worrying signs that this is not reliably happening. For instance, with the social security and child support tribunal, three-fifths of hearings resulted in administrative decisions being overturned in favour of the claimant.

    Effect on the economy

    The economic impact of fraying civil justice is hard to discern. The academic and policy literature alike tend to focus on the high-profile areas of law that affect corporations, such as property and contract disputes.

    Yet there are assuredly costs across the system. Employers may be unable to recruit staff until a tribunal case is settled; meanwhile, employees can’t find a new job. And small businesses may be unable to get bills paid, even for large amounts well over what their cash flow can sustain.

    Long waiting periods for tribunals can harm small businesses.
    JessicaGirvan/Shutterstock

    For countries where slow and unpredictable justice has long been acknowledged as a problem, there is solid evidence of its detrimental effect on the economy. For example, Italian growth has been shown to be hampered by the uncertainty around civil law processes, increasing the risks involved in business decisions. Economists – including Nobel prizewinners Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson – have identified the legal system as essential underpinning for the economy.

    The justice system needs to be regarded as part of national infrastructure, the collection of physical and institutional systems and networks without which the economy cannot function. People do not want courts any more than they want bridges or cables for their own sake, but for all the indispensable activities they enable.

    The value of the courts is indirect but fundamental. If they crumble, the economic transactions and investment enabled by a predictable, rapid justice system are held back.

    Civil and administrative justice does not leap to mind when contemplating the demands of the growth mission: battery factories, graphene labs and building sites all provide ministers with better photo ops. But unless there is improvement in the timeliness of decisions by courts and tribunals, growth in the UK will be facing yet another powerful headwind.

    Diane Coyle has received funding from the Nuffield Foundation’s Public Right to Justice programme.

    – ref. The deteriorating justice system in England and Wales is hindering economic growth – https://theconversation.com/the-deteriorating-justice-system-in-england-and-wales-is-hindering-economic-growth-258362

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Wearable fitness trackers can make you seven times more likely to stick to your workouts – new research

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Cocks, Reader, Exercise Physiology, Liverpool John Moores University

    Wearable fitness trackers might help you better stick to your fitness goals. PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/ Shutterstock

    The hardest part of any workout regime is sticking with it. Around half of those who start an exercise programme stop within six months.

    But our recent study found that using wearables (such as a smartwatch) not only makes people more likely to start working out, they’re also seven times more likely to still be active after six months compared to those who didn’t use a smartwatch.

    Our study focused specifically on adults who had recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Physical activity is a cornerstone of type 2 diabetes management, as it helps regulate blood sugar, supports cardiovascular health and improves quality of life.

    Yet around 90% of people with type 2 diabetes fall short of weekly physical activity recommendations. Common barriers include low motivation, uncertainty about what activity is safe and a lack of tailored support.

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    Our study tested a new approach using wearable technology and remote coaching to overcome these barriers. We found that people who followed a smartwatch-supported remote coaching programme were ten times more likely to start a workout regime than those who received remote coaching alone.

    The study involved 125 adults aged between 40 and 75 from the UK and Canada who had recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. All participants worked with an exercise specialist to co-design a personalised six-month physical activity plan. The focus was on gradually increasing both moderate-to-vigorous exercise (with a target of 150 minutes per week) and daily lifestyle activity. Support was delivered remotely through phone or video calls.

    Half of the participants were randomly assigned to use wearable technology to support their personalised activity plans. The smartwatch had movement and heart rate sensors, a mobile app to track activity and personalised text messages based on their recent progress. They could also message their coach, receive real-time feedback and adjust their activity plans accordingly.

    The results were striking. Compared to the control group, those who were given a smartwatch were ten times more likely to start working out regularly, seven times more likely to still be active after six months and three times more likely to remain active one year later – even after support had ended.

    At the end of the programme, over 50% of the smartwatch group were meeting recommended activity levels. In comparison, only 17% of the control group were.

    Feedback from participants showed that the flexibility of plans, personalised messages and smartwatch data were key motivators. While some faced early challenges with the technology, most adapted quickly.

    Half of those who used a smartwatch met recommended weekly activity levels.
    Melnikov Dmitriy/ Shutterstock

    These findings support growing evidence that wearable technology can help people become – and stay – more active. While our study focused on people with type 2 diabetes, similar benefits have also been observed in the general population.

    For example, one trial found that inactive adults (aged 45-75) who were given pedometers and walking advice increased their daily step count by around 660 steps after 12 weeks compared to a control group. Those given a pedometer were also more active three years later.

    Since then, wearable technology has advanced. Modern smartwatches now capture a wider range of metrics beyond steps – such as heart rate and activity intensity. A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis, which analysed more than 160 randomised controlled trials, found that fitness trackers and similar devices were effective at increasing physical activity by an average of around 1,800 steps per day. Importantly, the most sustained improvements occurred when wearables were paired with personalised feedback or behavioural support.

    Together, these studies suggest that wearables can be powerful tools for long-term behaviour change and may help us better stick to our fitness goals.

    Wearable fitness trackers can extremely helpful – but only if you use them purposefully. Our research, along with findings from other studies, shows that wearables are most effective when they help you apply proven behaviour-change strategies.

    Here are some evidence-based tips to help you get the most out of your device:

    1. Set realistic, specific goals

    Plan exactly when and how you’ll move. Apps can help you set daily or weekly targets. Research shows that breaking down big, vague intentions – such as “get fit” – into small, concrete steps makes it easier to stay motivated and avoid feeling overwhelmed.

    2. Schedule activity and stick to it

    Use reminders or calendar prompts to build a regular routine. Consistency builds habits, and scheduled activity reduces the chance of skipping workouts due to forgetfulness or lack of planning.

    3. Track your progress

    Monitoring your activity helps you stay motivated and accountable. This feedback boosts motivation by showing that your efforts are making a difference, increasing your sense of control and accountability.

    4. Use small rewards

    Many devices include features such as badges or streaks, which reinforce progress. Celebrating small wins triggers feelings of accomplishment, which encourages you to keep going and helps build long-term habits.

    5. Share with others

    Whether it’s a friend or coach, sharing your progress can boost commitment. Knowing others are aware of your goals can increase motivation, provide encouragement, and help you overcome challenges.

    6. The tracker is a tool, not the solution

    It won’t change behaviour on its own. Its value lies in how it supports your goals and helps you build lasting habits.

    These techniques don’t just encourage short-term change – they build motivation, self-belief and routine, which are key for maintaining healthy habits over time.

    Our research shows that when wearable tech is used as part of a structured, supportive programme, it can make a real difference – especially for people managing health conditions such as type 2 diabetes. By combining wearable technology with personalised coaching and proven behaviour change techniques, you might just have a better chance of sticking with your physical activity goals.

    Matthew Cocks receives funding from the Medical Research Council.

    Katie Hesketh receives funding from Diabetes UK and NIHR.

    – ref. Wearable fitness trackers can make you seven times more likely to stick to your workouts – new research – https://theconversation.com/wearable-fitness-trackers-can-make-you-seven-times-more-likely-to-stick-to-your-workouts-new-research-256941

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Politics with Michelle Grattan: Senator Tammy Tyrrell on wild days in Tasmania

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

    Tasmanian politics has been thrown into chaos after a Labor motion of no confidence forced Premier Jeremy Rockliff to either resign or call for a new election. The premier opted for the latter, with Tasmanians to vote on July 19, only something over a year into the four-year term.

    In Tasmania, Australia’s smallest state in terms of both size and population, local issues dominate. Labor homed in on economic mismanagement.

    But there is controversy over the Macquarie Point Hobart AFL stadium (which the major parties support) as well as the state’s important salmon industry, which saw a lot of attention federally in the lead-up to the last election.

    To talk all things Tasmanian, we’re joined by Independent Tasmanian Senator Tammy Tyrrell. She was elected in 2022 under the banner of the Jacqui Lambie Network a former member of the party but left last year. We talk about the state election, as well as federal issues and the new Senate.

    Tyrrell laments Tasmanians’ being made to vote again so soon,

    I was out and about on the northwest coast of Tasmania all day yesterday and everybody was like, what the heck is going on? They don’t want to go to an election, the people of Tasmania, they want the parliament to actually be grown ups and sort it out amongst themselves.

    The budget in Tasmania is in a shambles and we’re so far in the red that we can’t see any way out of it. But really? There’s no way that the Labor [party] is going to form government unless they form a minority government and no Tasmanian will support a Labor-Greens government again in a hurry. But I really think that the Liberal government should have elevated somebody else from within to be the leader, to be the premier.

    On her former boss Jacqui Lambie whose party has now collapsed, Tyrrell says it’s because of the kind of person she is,

    [In] the federal election, Jacqui focused outside of Tasmania. She focused on expanding the network. And it didn’t work for her because she didn’t campaign enough here in Tasmania.

    It’s a shame that she’s not supporting the candidate that is still sitting with her under the network. […] I think she should have stuck by Andrew Jenner and supported him through this [Tasmanian] election because he has shown loyalty to her and he has stuck it through thick and thin. So I believe he should be able to run back under the banner.

    Jacqui is a strong person and the network had every chance to be a strong network, but Jacqui [is] not really a team player. She’s more of a single athlete because she’s so determined and strong of her opinion and it’s hard to take a group forward when you’ve got such a strong force that does not communicate sideways very well. She is a strong human being and I still believe in Jacqui but it makes it hard for her to have a team.

    On the salmon farming industry, while Tyrrell voices her support, she agrees that environmental concerns do matter,

    I support any industry that puts jobs and money into small rural and regional communities in Tasmania. I agree that they need to be as eco and as green friendly as possible and I know that the salmon industry is doing things to be clean and as green as possible. But I also believe that we need to look after the people who live and work in Tasmania.

    We can’t sacrifice an industry completely just to satisfy the people that don’t like the salmon industry. I will always support the people of Tasmania and encourage industry and business to be as eco-friendly as possible, which is why we’re encouraging as many biofuels and eco-green fuel companies as possible to come to Tasmania, and thrive here.

    On reports that the Nationals approached her to join their party. Tyrell says while she didn’t seriously consider it, she took it as a “compliment”,

    It was a big compliment though. The Nats represent rural and regional Australia beautifully, by speaking their voice and for them to see that I am representing the people of Tasmania in a good light. It was a huge compliment to be approached to join them. But I’d already been in a relationship and I’m quite happy being a single divorcee.

    It’s amazing being an independent, it means that I can say and do what my community wants me to in their voice without having to agree to broad-sweeping politics or legislative ideas that I don’t agree with fundamentally.

    Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Senator Tammy Tyrrell on wild days in Tasmania – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-senator-tammy-tyrrell-on-wild-days-in-tasmania-258802

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Grattan on Friday: the galahs are chattering about ‘productivity’, but can Labor really get it moving?

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

    Former prime minister Paul Keating famously used to say the resident galah in any pet shop was talking about micro-economic policy. These days, if you encounter a pet shop with a galah, she’ll be chattering about productivity.

    Productivity is currently the hot topic for a conversation on economic reform. Australia, like many other countries, has a serious problem with it. Our productivity hasn’t significantly increased for more than a decade (apart from a temporary spike during the pandemic).

    Now Treasurer Jim Chalmers has named productivity as his priority for Labor’s second term; assistant minister Andrew Leigh, part of the government’s economic team, has had it inserted into his title; the Productivity Commission has put out 15 potential reform areas for discussion, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a roundtable to canvass the way ahead.

    The roundtable appears to be a prime ministerial initiative. Announcing it at the National Press Club on Tuesday, Albanese made a point of saying he had asked Chalmers to convene it. Perhaps it’s a case of the prime minister emulating his forerunner Bob Hawke, with his penchant for summits, while Chalmers seeks to be a contemporary Keating, as he searches for reforms to promote.

    It would be a major achievement if people were able to remember the second-term Albanese government for paving the way for a significant lift in Australia’s productivity. It would probably also be an economic and political miracle.

    Let’s never knock a summit, but let’s not be taken in by the suggestion that the planned August meeting, involving employers, unions and the government, will mark some breakthrough moment. Business representatives are approaching it with a degree of cynicism; they saw the 2022 jobs and skills summit as preparing the ground for the new government to meet union demands.

    This summit is expected to have fewer participants than the 2022 meeting, and may be briefer. Albanese described it as “a more streamlined dialogue than the jobs and skills summit, dealing with a more targeted set of issues”. Chalmers will announce more details next week. We can expect the government will package a collection of initiatives at least for further work, and perhaps a few for early action.

    While many stakeholders give lip service to improving productivity, there are huge obstacles to actually doing so.

    There’s perennial talk about tax reform – from business and economists, rather than the government. But serious change produces winners and losers, and having “losers” has become a political no-no, especially when there is not enough money to compensate them.

    The housing crisis could be eased, with more homes built faster, if there were less onerous regulations, notably at state and local level. Governments are working around the edges of this, but attempting to seriously slash regulation immediately runs into opposition from those who, variously, argue that will harm city-scapes, the environment, safety or the like.

    Red tape hampers big projects, but interest groups concerned about fauna, flora or the climate defend extensive hurdles and appeals processes as important for other priorities.

    We’d be more productive if people with skills (whether immigrants or those moving between states) faced fewer complexities in getting their credentials recognised. But critics would point to the risk of underqualified people getting through.

    Regulations are both barriers and protections. Whether you see particular regulations as negative or positive will depend where you are coming from. Less regulation can enhance productivity – but in certain cases the trade-off can be less protection and/or more risk. We have, for good or ill, become a more risk-averse community.

    Employers say various industrial relations laws and regulations restrict changes that could boost productivity. A Labor government interlocked with the union movement is going to listen to its industrial base on that one. Asked on Tuesday whether his message to business groups going to the summit was, “don’t waste your breath if you’re going to raise IR” Albanese said, “People are entitled to raise whatever they want to raise. But I’m a Labor prime minister.”

    Artificial Intelligence presents great opportunities to advance productivity. But it will cost some jobs and produce dislocation. Industry Minister Tim Ayres said recently, “I will be looking in particular at how we can strengthen worker voice and agency as technology is diffused into every workplace in the Australian economy. I look forward to working with our trade union movement on all of this.” Employers’ ears pricked at the union reference.

    While the government is signalling it wants to do something meaningful on productivity, the prime minister is also highly cautious when it comes to getting ahead of what he considers to be the government’s electoral mandate. Nor is he one to gamble political capital.

    He is not like, for example, John Howard, who before the 1996 election said he would “never ever” have a GST, then brought forward an ambitious GST package that he took to the 1998 election. That package had plenty of compensation for losers but Howard, who had a big parliamentary majority, was nearly booted out of office.

    Reform is more difficult than it was in the Hawke–Keating era – though it wasn’t as easy then as is often portrayed now. The voters are less trusting of government, and less willing to accept the downsides of change.

    The voices of those wanting to say “no” to various proposed changes are greatly amplified, in a highly professionalised political milieu and ubiquitous media opportunities. In the era of the “permanent campaign”, opinion polling has become so constant that politicians are always measuring their support in the moment, making a government hyper-nervous.

    Progress on productivity is also harder these days because the easier things have been done, and because changes in our economy – especially the growth of the care economy – mean in some sectors efficiencies are not so readily available, or measurable.

    We don’t actually need more inquiries, or a roundtable, to come up with ideas for what could or should be done on productivity. There have been multiple reports and thousands of recommendations. What is required is for the government to devise a bold program, have the will and the skill to implement it, and the ability to sell it to the public. But that runs into the problem of not having sought permission from the voters – which forces the government back to incrementalism.

    Whatever the problems, it is not too fanciful to see Chalmers hanging his hat on the productivity peg in his longer-term bid to be the next Labor prime minister. We’ll see how he goes.

    Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Grattan on Friday: the galahs are chattering about ‘productivity’, but can Labor really get it moving? – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-the-galahs-are-chattering-about-productivity-but-can-labor-really-get-it-moving-257337

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Cash for sharks: the unintended consequences of paying fishermen to release sharks caught in their nets – podcast

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

    As Jaws marks its 50th anniversary this year, sharks continue to get a bad rap. Film after film portrays them as terrifying hunters, the bane of surfers and swimmers.

    But in Indonesia, sharks are the hunted. It’s the world’s largest shark-fishing nation, with more species of sharks found in Indonesian waters than in any other country. It’s estimated that one in three species of shark and their close relatives, including rays, are threatened with extinction.

    Indonesia was the ideal place for conservation scientist Hollie Booth and her colleagues at a local NGO that she founded called Kebersamaan Untuk Lautan (an Indonesian phrase meaning “togetherness for the ocean”), to test out a new idea: would paying fishermen to release any sharks and rays caught accidentally in their nets help to keep more alive?

    “ Nobody’s ever done a randomised control trial of an incentive-based marine conservation programme before,” Booth, a researcher at the University of Oxford, told The Conversation Weekly podcast, “ and it is the best way to get good evidence on what is and isn’t working.”

    Booth and her colleagues were delighted that the vessels taking part in the trial were sending back videos of fishermen releasing sharks and rays caught up in their nets.

    But when they had enough data to really analyse what had been happening, they realised that the incentive programme had some unintended consequences. “ It wasn’t all quite as positive and rosy as we’d originally hoped,” says Booth. “I felt like a fraud.”

    Listen to Hollie Booth and her colleague M. Said Ramdlan discuss their new study on The Conversation Weekly podcast.

    This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Gemma Ware with production assistance from Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood. Gemma Ware is the executive producer. Mixing and sound design by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

    Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available on Apple Podcasts.

    Hollie Booth is the founder and Chair of Kebersamaan Untuk Lautan. The program and this research was funded by Save Our Seas Foundation and the UK Darwin Initiative. M Said Ramdlan works as a project coordinator and secretary for Kebersamaan untuk Lautan and has received research funding from the Save Our Sea Foundation.

    – ref. Cash for sharks: the unintended consequences of paying fishermen to release sharks caught in their nets – podcast – https://theconversation.com/cash-for-sharks-the-unintended-consequences-of-paying-fishermen-to-release-sharks-caught-in-their-nets-podcast-258350

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: View from The Hill: Is the US playing cat and mouse ahead of expected Albanese-Trump talks?

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

    For the first time in memory, an Australian prime minister is approaching a prospective meeting with a US president with a distinct feeling of wariness.

    Of course Anthony Albanese would deny it.

    But it’s undeniable the government is relieved that Albanese’s coming trip (for which he leaves Friday) won’t feature a visit to Washington with a meeting in the Oval Office. Having seen what happened publicly to some other leaders in such encounters, Albanese has at least avoided any such risk. Instead, Albanese and President Donald Trump are expected to meet on the sidelines of the G7 in Canada.

    Think about this. Normally, an Australian prime minister heading to North America would be deeply disappointed at not receiving an invitation to Washington, especially when he had not yet met the president face to face (although Albanese and Trump have had phone calls).

    The non-Washington encounter, expected on the sidelines of the G7, is less hazardous but still highly unpredictable for Albanese.

    It could go swimmingly. But that will depend on Trump’s mood on the day and what briefings he has had. And who can make sound predictions about any of that? Australian officials find the White House difficult to deal with or read.

    Now, on the cusp of Albanese’s trip, a US review of AUKUS has become public.

    The story appeared in the Financial Times, which quoted a Pentagon spokesperson saying the departmental review was to ensure “this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the president’s ‘America First’ agenda”. The spokesperson noted US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had “made clear his intent to ensure the [defence] department is focused on the Indo-Pacific region first and foremost”.

    The review is to be led by the undersecretary of defence for policy, Elbridge Colby, who months ago flagged the US wanted Australia to be spending some 3% of GDP on defence. This was upped to 3.5% in a recent meeting between Defence Minister Richard Marles and Hegseth.

    The Australian government is playing down the AUKUS review as being more or less routine. Marles said he has known about it for some time. He told Sky, “I am comfortable about it and I think it’s a pretty natural step for an incoming government to take and we’ll have an opportunity to engage with it”.

    Nevertheless, the fact of the review and the timing of the report about it will turn the screws on Albanese over defence spending.

    The prime minister makes two points on this – that Australia takes its own decisions, and that defence spending should be set on the basis of the capability needed rather than determined by a set percentage.

    But there is a general view among experts that Australia will need to boost substantially its spending. Albanese won’t want to capitulate on the issue, but he will need some diplomatic lines. He could point out Australia has its next Strategic Defence Review in 2026. This is more an update on delivery than a fundamental review but could give an opportunity for a rethink.

    On AUKUS, Albanese will want to reinforce its mutual benefits and importance. He canvassed AUKUS in his first call with Trump, after the presidential election.

    The president may or may not be briefed on the latest attacks on the pact by two former prime ministers, triggered by the review.

    Paul Keating, an unrelenting critic of the agreement, said in a statement the AUKUS review “might very well be the moment Washington saves Australia from itself”.

    Malcolm Turnbull said in a social media post that the United Kingdom and the United States are conducting reviews of AUKUS but “Australia, which has the most at stake, has no review”.

    The Trump–Albanese conversation could be complicated by the Australian government’s imposition this week of sanctions on two hardline Israeli ministers for inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

    This action, in concert with the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway, was immediately condemned by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called for the sanctions to be withdrawn.

    All this before we even get to the issue of tariffs, and Australia offering a deal on critical minerals to try to get some concessions.

    There is a lot of scripting prepared before such meetings. Albanese will have his talking points down pat. But with Trump being an “off-script” man, it is not an occasion for which the PM can be confident ahead of time that he is fully prepared.

    But Albanese has one safeguard, in domestic political terms. If things went pear-shaped Australians – who have scant regard for Trump – could be expected to blame the president rather than the prime minister.

    Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. View from The Hill: Is the US playing cat and mouse ahead of expected Albanese-Trump talks? – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-is-the-us-playing-cat-and-mouse-ahead-of-expected-albanese-trump-talks-257336

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Global outrage over Gaza has reinforced a ‘siege mentality’ in Israel – what are the implications for peace?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eyal Mayroz, Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney

    After more than 20 months of devastating violence in Gaza, the right-wing Israeli government’s pursuit of two irreconcilable objectives — “destroying” Hamas and releasing Israeli hostages — has left the coastal strip in ruins.

    At least 54,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military, close to two million have been forcibly displaced, and many are starving. These atrocities have provoked intense moral outrage around the world and turned Israel into a pariah state.

    Meanwhile, Hamas is resolved to retain control over Gaza, even at the cost of sacrificing numerous innocent Palestinian lives for its own survival.

    Both sides have been widely accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and mainly in Israel’s case, genocide.

    While the obstacles to ending the fighting remain stubbornly difficult to overcome, a troubling pattern has become increasingly apparent.

    The very outrage that succeeded in mobilising, sustaining and swelling international opinion against Israel’s actions — a natural psychological response to systematic injustice — has also reinforced a “siege mentality” already present among many in its Jewish population.

    This siege mentality may have undermined more proactive Israeli Jewish public support for a ceasefire and “day-after” concessions.

    A toxic cocktail of emotions

    Several dominant groups have shaped the conflict’s dynamics, each driven by a distinct set of emotional responses.

    For many Israeli Jews, the massacres of October 7 have aggravated longstanding feelings of victimhood and mistrust, fears of terrorist attacks, perceptions of existential threats, intergenerational traumas stemming from the Holocaust, and importantly, the strong sense of siege mentality.

    Together, these emotions have produced a toxic blend of anger, hatred and intense desire for revenge.

    For the Palestinians, Israel’s devastation of Gaza has followed decades of oppressive occupation, endless rights violations, humiliation and dispossession. This has exacerbated feelings of hopelessness, fear and abandonment by the world.

    The wider, global pro-Palestinian camp has been driven by moral outrage over the atrocities being committed in Gaza, alongside empathy for the victims and a sense of guilt over Western governments’ complicity in the killings through the provision of arms to Israel.

    Similarly, for Israel’s supporters around the world, anger and resentment have led to feelings of persecution, and in turn, victimisation and a sense of siege.

    Many on both sides have become prisoners of this moral outrage. And this has suppressed compassion for the suffering of the “other” — those we perceive as perpetrators of injustice against the side we support.

    Complaints of bias and content omissions

    Choosing sides in a conflict translates almost inevitably into biases in how we select, process and assess new information.

    We search for content that confirms what we already believe. And we discount information that would go against our pre-existing perceptions.

    This tendency also increases our sensitivity to omissions of facts we deem important for our cause.

    Since early in the crisis, voices in the two camps have accused the mainstream media in the West of biased coverage in favour of the “other”. These feelings have added fuel to the moral outrage and sense of injustice among both sides.

    Outrage in the pro-Israel camp has focused mainly on a perceived global conspiracy to absolve Hamas of any responsibility.

    In that view, Israel has been singled out as the only culpable party for the killings in Gaza. This is despite the fact Hamas unleashed the violence on October 7, used the Gazan population as human shields while hiding in tunnels, and refused to release all the Israeli hostages to end the fighting.

    On the other side, pro-Palestinian outrage has focused on “blatant” omissions by the media and Western governments of important historical facts that could provide context for the October 7 attacks.

    These included:

    On both sides, then, significant focus has been placed on omissions of facts that could support one’s own narrative or cause.

    A siege mentality in Israel

    Many Israelis continue to relive October 7 while remaining decidedly blind to the daily horrors their military inflicts on Gaza in their name. For them, the global outrage has reinforced a long-existing and potent siege mentality.

    This mindset has been fed by a reluctance to directly challenge Israeli soldiers risking their lives and other rally-around-the-flag effects. It’s also been bolstered by the desire for revenge and an intense campaign of dehumanising all Palestinians — Hamas or not.

    The so-called “ring of fire” created around Israel by Iran and its proxies —Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Houthis — has further amplified this siege mentality. Their stated objective is the destruction of Israel.

    I’ve conducted an exploratory study of Israeli media, government statements and English Jewish diaspora publications from October 2023 to May 2025, reviewing some 5,000 articles and video clips.

    In this research, I’ve identified strong, consistent uses of siege mentality language, phrases such as:

    In a detailed analysis of 65 English articles from major Israeli outlets, such as The Jerusalem Post and Times of Israel, and Jewish publications in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, I found siege mentality language in nearly nine out of ten searches.

    Importantly, nearly half of these occurrences were in response to pro-Palestinian rhetoric or advocacy: campus protests and actions targeting Israelis or Jews, university groups refusing to condemn October 7, or foreign governments’ recognition of Palestinian statehood.

    The sharp increase in attacks on Jews and Jewish installations since October 7 has also sparked global debates over rising antisemitism. Distinguishing honest critiques of Israel’s actions in Gaza from antisemitic rhetoric has become contentious, as has the use of antisemitism claims by Israeli leaders to dismiss much of this criticism.

    Moving forward

    When viewed through the prism of injustice, the strong asymmetry between Israeli and Palestinian suffering has long been apparent. But it’s grown even wider following Israel’s brutal responses to October 7.

    The culpability of Israel’s government and Hamas for the atrocities in Gaza is incontestable. However, many in the Israeli-Jewish public must also share some of the blame for refusing to stand up to – or by actively supporting – their extremist government’s policies.

    The pro-Palestine movement’s justice-driven campaigns have done much to combat international bystanding and motivate governments to act. At the same time, the unwillingness to unite behind a clearer unequivocal condemnation of Hamas’ massacres may have been a strategic mistake.

    By ignoring or minimising the targeting of civilians, the hostage-taking and the reports of sexual violence committed by Hamas, a vocal minority of advocates has weakened the movement’s otherwise strong moral authority with some of the audiences it needed to influence most. First and foremost, this is people in Israel itself.

    My research suggests that while injustice-based outrage can be effective at generating attention and engagement, it can also produce negative side effects. One adverse impact has been the polarisation of the public debate over Gaza, which, in turn, has contributed to the intensification of Israelis’ siege mentality.

    Noam Chomsky, a well-known Jewish academic and fierce critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, once noted in relation to Palestinian advocacy:

    You have to ask yourself, when you conduct some tactic, what the effect is going to be on the victims. You don’t pursue a tactic because it makes you feel good.

    The question, then, is how to harness the strong mobilising power of moral outrage for positive ends – preventing bystander apathy to atrocities – without the potential negative consequences. These include polarisation, expanded violence, feeding a siege mentality (when applicable), and making peace negotiations more difficult.

    The children in Gaza and elsewhere in the world deserve advocacy that will prioritise their welfare over the release of moral outrage — however justified.

    So, what approaches would most effectively help end the suffering?

    Most immediately, the solution rests primarily with Israel and, by extension, the Trump administration as the only international actor powerful enough to force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to halt the killings.

    Beyond that, and looking toward the future, justice-based activism should be grounded in universal moral principles, acknowledge all innocent victims, and work to create space for both societies to recognise each other’s humanity.

    I served as a counterterrorism specialist with the Israeli Defence Forces in the 1980s.

    – ref. Global outrage over Gaza has reinforced a ‘siege mentality’ in Israel – what are the implications for peace? – https://theconversation.com/global-outrage-over-gaza-has-reinforced-a-siege-mentality-in-israel-what-are-the-implications-for-peace-258561

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Not all insecure work has to be a ‘bad job’: research shows job design can make a big difference

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rose-Marie Stambe, Adjunct Research Fellow, social and economic marginalisation, The University of Queensland

    Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock

    Inflation has steadied and interest rates are finally coming down. But for many Australians, especially those in low-paid, insecure or precarious work, the cost-of-living crisis feels far from over.

    The federal government has recently focused on improving outcomes for this group in a number of ways. Labor has advocated strongly for real wage increases and taken measures to protect weekend penalty rates.

    Such wage-based policies go some way towards addressing workers’ financial struggles. But they aren’t the only way to improve workers’ lives.

    We know that in contemporary society, having a job is important for subjective wellbeing. We also know not all jobs are equal in terms of quality. Permanent, full-time employment is considered the gold standard, with insecure or precarious work the most detrimental.

    Yet not all insecure work is the same. Our recent study provides additional evidence that how a job is designed may be just as important as what kind of job it is. It also hints at the ingredients for designing better jobs.

    Good jobs, bad jobs

    Many books – from Arne Kalleberg’s Good jobs, Bad jobs to Guy Standing’s The Precariat – have explored the negative impacts job insecurity can have on individuals, their families and communities.

    “Bad jobs” are more likely to affect waged workers with low levels of education or those with a history of unemployment.

    But many different types of insecure work are bundled into what researchers call “contingent employment” – which can include labour hire, casual work and self-employment. And not all have to be “bad jobs”.

    Labour hire is one common form of ‘contingent employment’ arrangements.
    VisualArtStudio/Shutterstock

    Our research

    Using 16 years of nationally representative data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, we examined the relationship between different forms of contingent employment and job satisfaction.

    We found the link between employment type and job satisfaction (our proxy for worker wellbeing) isn’t straightforward. Some forms of contingent work are clearly worse for workers. Others, under the right conditions, can support job satisfaction and wellbeing.

    This is where it becomes important to understand the concept of “job resources” – such as high skill use, autonomy or job security – which help to reduce the cost of meeting job demands.

    Without adequate resources to support job demands, workers’ wellbeing can suffer, including through increased risk of burnout.

    It all depends on job design

    We found that job satisfaction varies significantly across different kinds of contingent roles.

    For example, self-employment is, on average, associated with higher job satisfaction. Our study suggests a number of reasons for this, including that this group enjoys greater autonomy, more flexibility and more opportunities to use a range of skills.

    In our study, self-employment was associated with high job satisfaction.
    Jacob Lund/Shutterstock

    These “job resources” appear to compensate for the lack of traditional employment benefits, such as job security.

    At the other end of the spectrum, labour hire workers (who are hired by a labour hire agency and then supplied to a host organisation to perform work under its direction), experience lower job satisfaction than permanent workers.

    While these jobs tend to be less demanding in terms of workload, they offer very few job resources. Labour hire positions are often marked by low levels of autonomy, minimal skill use and little opportunity for development.

    These conditions are closely linked with lower motivation, disengagement and long-term dissatisfaction.

    Casual differences

    Casual employment sits somewhere in the middle, and our findings reveal important gender differences.

    For men, we found casual work is associated with lower job satisfaction. For women, however, the picture is more complicated.

    Our analysis suggests women in casual jobs may experience certain unmeasured benefits, such as work-life balance, that offset some of the downsides.

    We couldn’t directly measure these benefits in our dataset. But our results align with other studies, showing how the flexibility of casual work can be useful for some women with caregiving responsibilities.

    There were gender differences in the satisfaction levels associated with casual work.
    Vitalii Vodolazskyi/Shutterstock

    Job design is the missing link

    What connects these findings is the role of job characteristics. Across the board, we found that features like skill use, autonomy, task variety and flexibility play a major role in shaping workers’ satisfaction.

    When insecure jobs include these positive characteristics, they can be satisfying. When they don’t, the downsides build on each other.

    In an ideal world, there should be a perfect trade-off between positive and negative job characteristics. For example, jobs with undesirable characteristics, such as job insecurity, would offer higher wages to attract workers or other desirable characteristics.

    In our study, that only held true for some groups, such as self-employed workers and women in casual roles. For many others, casual or labour hire jobs offer neither security nor satisfaction.

    Designing better jobs

    These findings have implications for how we think about work and wellbeing.

    For employers and policy makers the message is clear: improving job quality isn’t just about offering permanent contracts. While security matters, it’s also about how the job itself is designed.

    Even in non-permanent roles, providing workers with more autonomy, opportunities to use their skills, and flexible scheduling can significantly improve job satisfaction and retention. It’s also important for supporting gender equality in the workplace.

    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.

    – ref. Not all insecure work has to be a ‘bad job’: research shows job design can make a big difference – https://theconversation.com/not-all-insecure-work-has-to-be-a-bad-job-research-shows-job-design-can-make-a-big-difference-257642

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Cheating by car makers, tampering by owners: crucial car pollution control is being sabotaged

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robin Smit, Adjunct Professor of Transport, University of Technology Sydney

    Peter Cade/Getty

    Emission control systems in modern cars have slashed air pollutants such as particulate matter and nitrogen oxides.

    But these systems face two major challenges: carmakers cheating on pollution tests and owner tampering. Cheating means high-polluting cars can be sold when they shouldn’t be, while tampering can increase some pollutants up to 100 times.

    In our new research review, we found the impacts of cheating and tampering on emissions of pollutants are substantial across the globe. For instance, researchers in Spain found almost half the diesel trucks had been tampered with, while the Volkswagen Dieselgate cheating scandal uncovered in 2015 led to an estimated A$60 billion in health costs in the European Union. In California, researchers found one in 12 trucks had a damaged or malfunctioning diesel particulate filter – and these high-emitting trucks contributed 70% of the entire fleet’s emissions of tiny particulate matter.

    The solutions? Better detection of tampering, cheating and malfunctioning emission systems – and vigilance to get high polluting cars off the road.

    Catalytic converters and other emissions control systems have slashed air pollutant emissions from modern cars.
    Virrage Images/Shutterstock

    How did we get here?

    From the 1950s onwards, smog, air pollution and health issues from car exhausts led many regulators to require carmakers to reduce dangerous air pollutants.

    These days, modern combustion-engine cars are complex computer-controlled systems optimised to balance engine performance, durability and emission control. When working properly, new vehicles can reduce air pollutant emissions by 90% or more. However, they can increase carbon dioxide emissions by using slightly more fuel.

    But these pollutants can soar if emissions control systems malfunction – or suffer from intentional cheating or tampering.

    Cheating and tampering are not new. Cheating was first reported in the 1970s and it’s still happening. Tampering, too, dates back to the 1970s.

    Both issues worsen air quality. These excess air pollutants have substantial costs to human health, as they can trigger respiratory conditions and can cause disability and premature death.

    While the numbers of electric vehicles are rising, they’re only about 5% of the global fleet – about 60 million compared to about 1.5 billion cars powered by petrol, diesel and gas.

    Because cars have relatively long lifespans, many fossil-fuel powered cars will still be in use in 2050, now just 25 years away. Many will be exported from rich countries to developing economies. That means effective pollutant control still matters.

    Cheating by manufacturers

    It’s well established combustion engine cars produce substantially more emissions and pollutants during real-world driving than they do in regulatory tests.

    There are many reasons for this, including natural wear and tear. But one big reason may be cheating.

    Authorities in many nations rely on testing to see if a new model is emitting at rates low enough to meet emission standards.

    Manufacturers can take advantage of the known quirks of official tests and intentionally alter how their vehicles operate during testing. To do this, they may install a “defeat device”, usually deep in the car’s engine or its computer code.

    These devices shift the car to a special low-emissions mode if testing is detected. They’re typically easy for the automaker to install and difficult to detect.

    Car makers can cheat on emission tests by installing defeat devices or other countermeasures.
    Belish/Shutterstock

    Defeat devices are mainly found in diesel cars and trucks, since diesel emissions control systems are more complicated and expensive than petrol or LPG. Adding an emission control system to meet Euro 6 standards costs about $600 for a petrol car. For diesel, the cost can be three to five times higher.

    In 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the state of California announced Volkswagen had been using a software-based defeat device to make its diesel cars appear substantially cleaner. The scandal drew worldwide attention and cost the company about $50 billion.

    For those caught, large fines and mandatory recalls have followed. But this hasn’t been enough to stop the practice.

    The way these tests are conducted usually has to be disclosed by law to ensure transparency and make results comparable and repeatable. Unfortunately, having detailed knowledge of the tests makes it easier to cheat.

    Tampering by car owners

    Tampering is largely done by owners of diesel cars and trucks. Owners can tamper with emission control systems to improve performance, rebel against laws they don’t agree with or avoid extra costs such as Adblue, a liquid needed to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions from diesel trucks.

    Tampering is usually illegal. But that hasn’t stopped the production of aftermarket tampering devices, such as software which deactivates emission control systems. It’s not necessarily illegal to sell these devices, but it is illegal to install and use them.

    In the road freight sector, the use of aftermarket tampering by vehicle owners also acts as an unfair economic advantage by undercutting responsible and law-abiding operators.

    What should be done?

    Combustion engine cars and trucks will be on the world’s roads for decades to come.

    Ensuring they run as cleanly as possible over their lifetime will require independent and in-service emissions testing. Authorities will also need to focus on enforcement.

    Creating an internationally agreed test protocol for the detection of defeat devices will also be necessary.

    Combating tampering by owners as well as malfunctioning emissions systems will require better detection efforts, either through on-road emissions testing or during a car service.

    One approach would be to add telemetry to the onboard diagnostics systems now common in modern cars. Telemetry radio transponders can report emissions problems to the owner and relevant authorities, who can then act.

    Shifting to EVs offers the most robust and cost-effective way to combat fraud and cut exhaust pollutants and carbon emissions from road transport. But this will take decades. Authorities need to ensure diesel and petrol vehicles run as cleanly as possible until they can be retired.

    Robin Smit is the founding Research Director at the Transport Energy/Emission Research (TER) consultancy.

    Alberto Ayala does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Cheating by car makers, tampering by owners: crucial car pollution control is being sabotaged – https://theconversation.com/cheating-by-car-makers-tampering-by-owners-crucial-car-pollution-control-is-being-sabotaged-255882

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: IVF is big business. But when patients become customers, what does this mean for their care?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hilary Bowman-Smart, Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Precision Health, University of South Australia

    Monash IVF CEO Michael Knaap has resigned after one of the company’s Melbourne clinics mistakenly transferred the wrong embryo to a patient. The patient wanted her partner’s embryo, but instead her own embryo was transferred.

    It is the second time this year Monash IVF has made such an announcement. In April, the company revealed a clinic in Brisbane had mixed up two different couples’ embryos.

    IVF is big business in Australia. When Monash IVF was listed on the stock exchange in 2014, it raised more than A$300 million, with financial analysts noting the potential for massive profits, as “people will pay almost anything to have a baby”.

    Total annual revenue in Australia from the IVF industry is more than $800 million. But what does the booming IVF industry mean for patients?

    Strong regulation is crucial

    In Australia, regulation of the IVF industry largely happens at the state and territory level. This leads to variation, such as restrictions on single women accessing IVF in Western Australia, which other states do not have.

    Victoria passed legislation in 2008, with a guiding principle to safeguard children born through assisted reproduction. However, until recently, Queensland largely relied on industry self-regulation.

    The Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand, the peak body for reproductive medicine, has called for a national regulatory framework to address the current “patchwork” of legislation.

    Commercialisation is not necessarily a bad thing for patients. It can lead to innovation that improves the chances of successfully having a baby.

    However, clinicians, ethicists and patients have raised concerns about the effects of commercialisation on the quality and cost of service provision in IVF.

    With the rapid growth of the sector and high-profile incidents such as those at Monash IVF, stronger and more comprehensive regulation at the national level can help ensure quality and safety for patients.

    High costs can lead to inequities in access

    Most IVF in Australia occurs in private practice, not the public system. While Medicare rebates are available, there is usually a significant out-of-pocket expense. This can range from a few hundred dollars to many thousands for each cycle. IVF can therefore be a big financial decision. Financial expense is one of the biggest barriers, which leads to inequities in access between those who can afford it and those who can’t.

    The costs stack up even more if you want non-essential “add-ons”, such as pre-implantation genetic testing, acupuncture, or embryo time-lapse imaging. A study in 2021 found 82% of women using IVF in Australia had used an add-on during their IVF treatment.

    Many IVF clinics offer these add-ons, which are promoted as improving patient experience, or the chance of a successful birth. Add-ons are offered as a point of difference on the market.

    However, the evidence for these claims is often weak or non-existent. They also come with significant costs and can potentially take advantage of people’s hopes, if they are willing to pay “whatever it takes” to have a baby.



    Read more:
    IVF add-ons: why you should be cautious of these expensive procedures if you’re trying to conceive

    Patients or customers?

    Commercial providers in the IVF industry can help provide choice, particularly as it is difficult to get IVF in the public system.

    However, when health care becomes a business, a risk is that the relationship between the patient and doctor can be affected: a patient seeking treatment becomes a “customer” buying a product.

    The therapeutic relationship should be about enhancing patients’ health and wellbeing, relieving suffering, and promoting human flourishing.

    When we talk about “choice” in medicine, we often think about ideas such as informed consent, autonomy and the best interests of the patient. However, if we think of patients as customers, “choice” may become more about being free to purchase what you want to.

    The commercialisation of the sector can also increase the risk of over-servicing, where financial incentives may shape medical decision-making.

    This doesn’t necessarily mean clinics are making deliberate decisions or misleading patients for financial benefit. However, it can mean doing more IVF cycles, even as success becomes increasingly unlikely.

    We need to ensure doctors don’t feel pressure – directly or indirectly – to provide particular treatments just because a patient is willing to pay for it.

    Medical professionals’ obligations

    Doctors and other healthcare professionals have special responsibilities and moral obligations because of their role. They serve an essential human need in society because of their particular expertise in health and wellbeing. And they often have a monopoly on the essential services they offer.

    Without patients’ trust that clinicians are being guided by medical reasons instead of financial ones, their special and privileged role to promote human flourishing can be undermined.

    This special role is not necessarily incompatible with business. However, it is essential we allow doctors to maintain their focus on patient wellbeing. This is reflected in the doctors’ code of conduct, which notes their “duty to make the care of patients their first concern”.

    What happens next?

    Much public and media discourse has framed the embryo mix-up primarily as a reputational and financial risk to Monash IVF – but it is about patients. It’s not (just) an error of corporate governance, it’s about the special trust that we as a society place in medical practice.

    IVF is expensive, and can be tough both emotionally and physically. One of the ways we can ensure trust in IVF services is by moving towards consistent and improved regulation at the national level. This might include more uniform standards and policies around who is eligible for IVF.

    IVF industry regulation is on the agenda for the federal and state health ministers tomorrow. While there is still much to be done, a review of the regulation and processes in this sector could help prevent more embryo mix-ups from happening in the future.



    Read more:
    Why do women get ‘reassurance scans’ during pregnancy? And how can you spot a dodgy provider?

    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.

    – ref. IVF is big business. But when patients become customers, what does this mean for their care? – https://theconversation.com/ivf-is-big-business-but-when-patients-become-customers-what-does-this-mean-for-their-care-258585

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: In most mammals, one gene determines sex. But 100 million years ago, platypuses and echidnas went their own way

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Linda Shearwin, Researcher, Comparative Genome Biology Laboratory, University of Adelaide

    Rob D / Shutterstock

    For decades, scientists have known that platypuses and echidnas – Australia’s unique egg-laying mammals – have another developmental quirk: they don’t use the same genetic toolkit as other mammals to develop male and female embryos.

    What’s more, just how they do it has been a mystery. Until now.

    In a recent study published in Genome Biology, our research team has found strong evidence that monotreme sex comes down to a single gene – one that’s much more like what we see in some fish and amphibians than other mammals.

    The search for the secret of monotreme sex

    The Australian platypus and echidna are monotremes, the most ancient living group of mammals. These unique creatures are famously the only mammals to lay eggs, and they also have other reptile-like features.

    Humans and many other mammal species have two sex-determining chromosomes, X and Y. An embryo with an XX pair of chromosomes will develop as female, while an XY pair leads to a male embryo.

    In many mammals, the process that makes an embryo develop as male is triggered by a gene called SRY on the male Y chromosome. However, the SRY gene in monotremes has never been found.

    About 20 years ago, it was discovered that monotremes have an entirely different system that uses multiple X and Y chromosomes. Scientists assumed the Y chromosomes must still hold a gene that determined sex, but very little was known about what it might be.

    In 2008 a full genome sequence of a platypus was published, which was a step in the right direction. However, the genome was from a female so it had no information about Y chromosomes.

    By 2021, a new and improved platypus genome and a first echidna genome included sequences of multiple Y chromosomes. A gene emerged as the frontrunner for the role of sex determination in monotremes: the anti-Muellerian hormone (or AMH), which is involved in the sexual development in many animals.

    A 100-million-year-old change

    Our new research provides the first real evidence that an adapted version of AMH found on one of the monotreme Y chromosomes (dubbed AMHY) is the sex determination gene in monotremes.

    We showed that changes in the AMH gene long ago, early in the evolution of monotremes, could explain how AMHY arose and took on a role in male sexual development.

    This event would have set the stage for the evolution of the novel sex chromosome system in the ancestor of today’s platypus and echidna, about 100 million years ago when the AMH gene on the XY chromosomes embarked on separated paths.

    We showed that although the AMHY gene has changed significantly from the original AMH gene (AMHX), it has retained its essential features. Importantly, we could show for the first time that AMHY is turned on in the right tissue and at the right time to direct development of the testes during male development, which was an important missing piece of the puzzle.

    A first for mammals

    Unlike the other mammal sex determination genes, which act directly on the DNA to switch on other genes that lead to male development, AMHY is a hormone. It does not interact with DNA, but instead acts at the surface of cells to turn genes on or off.

    There is growing evidence that AMHY also plays a role in sex determination in a number of fish and amphibian species. However, AMHY in monotremes would be the first known example of a hormone playing a sex-determining role in mammals.

    What’s next? Our ongoing research investigate in detail how AMHX and AMHY work differently in monotremes compared to other mammals.

    The work discussed in this article was carried out by researchers from the University of Adelaide, the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland, Monash University and Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

    Linda Shearwin receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    Frank Grützner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. In most mammals, one gene determines sex. But 100 million years ago, platypuses and echidnas went their own way – https://theconversation.com/in-most-mammals-one-gene-determines-sex-but-100-million-years-ago-platypuses-and-echidnas-went-their-own-way-258801

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: In most mammals, one gene determines sex. But 100 million years ago, platypuses and echidnas went their own way

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Linda Shearwin, Researcher, Comparative Genome Biology Laboratory, University of Adelaide

    Rob D / Shutterstock

    For decades, scientists have known that platypuses and echidnas – Australia’s unique egg-laying mammals – have another developmental quirk: they don’t use the same genetic toolkit as other mammals to develop male and female embryos.

    What’s more, just how they do it has been a mystery. Until now.

    In a recent study published in Genome Biology, our research team has found strong evidence that monotreme sex comes down to a single gene – one that’s much more like what we see in some fish and amphibians than other mammals.

    The search for the secret of monotreme sex

    The Australian platypus and echidna are monotremes, the most ancient living group of mammals. These unique creatures are famously the only mammals to lay eggs, and they also have other reptile-like features.

    Humans and many other mammal species have two sex-determining chromosomes, X and Y. An embryo with an XX pair of chromosomes will develop as female, while an XY pair leads to a male embryo.

    In many mammals, the process that makes an embryo develop as male is triggered by a gene called SRY on the male Y chromosome. However, the SRY gene in monotremes has never been found.

    About 20 years ago, it was discovered that monotremes have an entirely different system that uses multiple X and Y chromosomes. Scientists assumed the Y chromosomes must still hold a gene that determined sex, but very little was known about what it might be.

    In 2008 a full genome sequence of a platypus was published, which was a step in the right direction. However, the genome was from a female so it had no information about Y chromosomes.

    By 2021, a new and improved platypus genome and a first echidna genome included sequences of multiple Y chromosomes. A gene emerged as the frontrunner for the role of sex determination in monotremes: the anti-Muellerian hormone (or AMH), which is involved in the sexual development in many animals.

    A 100-million-year-old change

    Our new research provides the first real evidence that an adapted version of AMH found on one of the monotreme Y chromosomes (dubbed AMHY) is the sex determination gene in monotremes.

    We showed that changes in the AMH gene long ago, early in the evolution of monotremes, could explain how AMHY arose and took on a role in male sexual development.

    This event would have set the stage for the evolution of the novel sex chromosome system in the ancestor of today’s platypus and echidna, about 100 million years ago when the AMH gene on the XY chromosomes embarked on separated paths.

    We showed that although the AMHY gene has changed significantly from the original AMH gene (AMHX), it has retained its essential features. Importantly, we could show for the first time that AMHY is turned on in the right tissue and at the right time to direct development of the testes during male development, which was an important missing piece of the puzzle.

    A first for mammals

    Unlike the other mammal sex determination genes, which act directly on the DNA to switch on other genes that lead to male development, AMHY is a hormone. It does not interact with DNA, but instead acts at the surface of cells to turn genes on or off.

    There is growing evidence that AMHY also plays a role in sex determination in a number of fish and amphibian species. However, AMHY in monotremes would be the first known example of a hormone playing a sex-determining role in mammals.

    What’s next? Our ongoing research investigate in detail how AMHX and AMHY work differently in monotremes compared to other mammals.

    The work discussed in this article was carried out by researchers from the University of Adelaide, the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland, Monash University and Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

    Linda Shearwin receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

    Frank Grützner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. In most mammals, one gene determines sex. But 100 million years ago, platypuses and echidnas went their own way – https://theconversation.com/in-most-mammals-one-gene-determines-sex-but-100-million-years-ago-platypuses-and-echidnas-went-their-own-way-258801

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: The Jack’s Law expansion is a symbolic step – it’s not a solution to knife crime

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet Ransley, Professor, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University

    khak/Shutterstock

    Laws just passed in Queensland give police unprecedented powers to scan people with a handheld wand and potentially search them in all public places, without needing a warrant or reasonable suspicion.

    Earlier versions of “Jack’s Law” were copied in other jurisdictions, such as New South Wales, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Queensland’s expanded laws may flow on to them now, too.

    However, while the newly expanded Jack’s Law may detect more weapons, there’s no evidence it reduces violent crime. It may, in fact, do more harm than good, while putting human rights at risk.

    What is Jack’s Law?

    Jack’s Law is named after 17-year-old Jack Beasley who was stabbed to death outside a convenience store in Surfers Paradise in 2019.

    Passed in 2021, the law resulted in a time-limited trial allowing officers to “wand” people with metal detectors in some entertainment precincts.

    Since then, the trial was expanded twice to include public transport, stations, shopping centres and licensed entertainment venues.

    In a little more than two years, Queensland police conducted 116,287 scans and removed 1,126 weapons – a detection rate of about 0.9%.

    The majority of charges that followed were for minor drug offences, or breaches of knife-carrying bans.

    The trial was set to expire on October 30, 2026 after another mandatory review.

    Instead, the law has now been made permanent with the scope extended again to allow wanding in all public places.

    The changes also remove safeguards, such as the need for senior officer oversight, reporting requirements and a further review of the impact of wands on crime and on civil liberties.

    Our research into Jack’s Law

    Our review of the 12-month trial of Jack’s Law on the Gold Coast in 2021–22 is the only publicly available evidence about the impact of metal detector wanding on knife violence in Queensland.

    We found there was no reduction in violence as a result of the use of the hand-held scanners.

    There’s also potential for bias when officers using the wands are influenced by factors that aren’t related to evidence. This includes the unfair targeting of minorities. More people could also be caught up in the justice system for minor, non-violent breaches.

    What’s needed to reduce knife violence are evidence-based programs addressing underlying causes such as mental health, poverty, child maltreatment and domestic and family violence.

    Wanding has no impact on these underlying causes and diverts resources and police attention from where they’re really needed.

    Does the law reduce knife crime?

    While the intention behind Jack’s Law is to enhance public safety by deterring knife-related crimes, the evidence suggests this is unlikely to happen.

    Our study found that although the use of metal-detecting wands can lead to increased detection of weapons, there is no evidence this in turn reduces violent crimes involving knives.

    Confiscated knives are easily replaced and we found no evidence that scanning deterred people from carrying weapons.

    This is consistent with research from the UK showing “stop and search” laws had no effect on violent crime, and Victorian research showing no effect of similar stop and search laws on violent crimes.

    Concern over human rights

    The expansion of police powers under Jack’s Law raises human rights concerns.

    The ability to stop and search people without reasonable suspicion may lead to racial profiling and erode public trust in law enforcement.

    A 2022 independent inquiry into the Queensland Police Service highlighted issues of systemic racism and sexism within the force, underscoring the potential risks of granting broader discretionary powers without adequate oversight.

    Our review also found evidence of police wanding decisions being based on discriminatory stereotypes. This makes the removal of oversight and review mechanisms of particular concern.

    Additionally, searches for knives following wanding have led to a rise in minor drug charges. This funnels more young people into the criminal justice system, which increases their risk of re-offending and also places more pressure on an already overburdened criminal justice system.

    While the expansion of Jack’s Law is a visible response to public concerns about knife crime, it is essential to recognise such measures are not a silver bullet.

    Further erosion of the already tenuous trust in the police service among minority communities in Queensland, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, could lead to reduced public trust and have long-term negative impacts on public safety.

    Why a holistic approach is needed

    Addressing the root causes of knife violence requires a comprehensive approach that includes investment in support services and community programs.

    We also need to recognise around 50% of serious violent crime occurs in the context of domestic and family violence, in private settings. Wanding does nothing to help those victims.

    Understanding why people carry knives and implementing targeted prevention strategies are crucial steps toward creating a safer society.

    While Jack’s Law serves as a symbolic gesture honouring the memory of Jack Beasley, its efficacy in reducing knife crime remains unlikely and will now not be reviewed.

    Policymakers must balance the desire for immediate action with evidence-based strategies that address underlying factors contributing to violence.

    Only through a holistic approach can we hope to achieve lasting change and truly honour the lives lost to such senseless acts.

    Janet Ransley receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Paul Ramsay Foundation. The Queensland Police Service funded the research referred to in this article.

    – ref. The Jack’s Law expansion is a symbolic step – it’s not a solution to knife crime – https://theconversation.com/the-jacks-law-expansion-is-a-symbolic-step-its-not-a-solution-to-knife-crime-258804

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: How visionary Beach Boys songwriter Brian Wilson changed music – and my life

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jadey O’Regan, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney

    The Beach Boys in 1962 in Los Angeles, California. Brian Wilson is on the left. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    Brian Wilson, leader, songwriter and producer of the Beach Boys, has passed away at age 82.

    He leaves behind a legacy of beautiful, joyous, bittersweet and enduring music, crafted over a career spanning six decades.

    While this news isn’t unexpected – Wilson was diagnosed with dementia last year and entered a conservatorship after the loss of his wife, Melinda – his passing marks the end of a long and extraordinary chapter in musical history.

    A life of music

    Formed in the early 1960s in Hawthorne California, the Beach Boys were built on a foundation of family and community: brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and school friend Al Jardine.

    Growing up, the Wilson household was a turbulent place; their father, Murry Wilson, was strict and at times violent. Music was the one way in which the family could connect.

    During these early years Brian discovered the sounds that would shape his musical identity: Gershwin, doo wop groups, early rock and roll, and, a particular favourite, the vocal group the Four Freshmen, whose tight-harmony singing style Wilson studied meticulously.

    The Beach Boys in rehearsal in 1964; Brian Wilson sits at the piano .
    Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    It was an unexpected combination of influences for a pop band. Even from the Beach Boys’ earliest recordings – the surf, the cars, the girls – the stirrings of the complexity and musical adventurousness Wilson is known for is audible. Listen to the unexpected structure of The Lonely Sea (1962), the complex chords of The Warmth of the Sun (1963), or the subtle modulation in Don’t Worry Baby (1964).

    These early innovations hinted at a growing creativity that would continue to evolve over the rest of the 1960s, and beyond.

    A story of resilience

    In later years, Brian Wilson often appeared publicly as a fragile figure. But what stands out most in his story is resilience.

    His ability to produce such an expansive and diverse catalogue of work while navigating difficult family relationships, intense record label pressures, misdiagnosed and mistreated mental health conditions, addiction and much more, is extraordinary. Wilson not only survived, but continued to create music.

    Brian Wilson on the piano and Al Jardine on guitar perform in Los Angeles in 2019.
    Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

    He eventually did something few Beach Boys’ fans would have imagined – he returned to the stage.

    Wilson’s unexpected return to public performance during the Pet Sounds and SMiLE tours in the early 2000s began a revival interest in the Beach Boys, and a critical reconsideration of their musical legacy. This continues with a consistent release of books, documentaries, movies and podcasts about Wilson and the legacy of the Beach Boys’ music.

    The focus of a thesis

    I grew up near Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast in Queensland. Their early songs about an endless summer had a particular resonance to my hometown, even if, like Brian Wilson, I only admired the beach from afar.

    I chose to study the Beach Boys’ music for my PhD thesis and spent the next few years charting the course of their musical development from their early days in the garage to creating Pet Sounds just five years later.

    The Beach Boys perform onstage around 1963. Brian Wilson is on the left.
    Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    I was fascinated by how a band could create such a groundbreaking volume of work and progress so quickly from the delightful, yet wobbly Surfin’ to the complex arrangements of God Only Knows.

    To understand their music, I spent years listening to Beach Boys’ tracking sessions, take after take, to hear how their songs were so cleverly and delicately put together.

    What struck me just as powerfully as the music itself was the sound of Brian Wilson’s voice in those recordings. Listening to Wilson leading hours of tracking sessions was to hear an artist at the top of their game – decisive, confident, funny, collaborative and deeply driven to make music that would express the magic he heard in his mind, and connect with an audience.

    One of the more unexpected discoveries in my analysis of the Beach Boys’ music came from their lyrics. Using a word frequency tool to examine all 117 songs in my study, I found that the most common word was “now”.

    The Beach Boys pose for a portrait around1964. Brian Wilson stands at the back.
    Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    In many cases, it appears in a conversational sense – “Well, she got her Daddy’s car, and she cruised through the hamburger stand now” – but on a broader level, it perfectly encapsulates what Brian Wilson’s music offered so many listeners.

    He created an endless present: a world where the sun could always be shining, where you could feel young forever, and you could visit that world any time you needed to.

    Jadey O’Regan with Brian Wilson, Enmore Theatre, Sydney 2010.
    Jadey O’Regan

    In 2010, I had the remarkable experience of meeting Brian Wilson in his dressing room before his performance at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney. He was funny and kind. He sat at a small keyboard, taught me a harmony and for a moment, we sang Love and Mercy together.

    It was one of the most magical moments of my life. It is also one of Wilson’s most enduring sentiments: “love and mercy, that’s what we need tonight”.

    Farewell and thank you, Brian. Surf’s up.

    Jadey O’Regan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. How visionary Beach Boys songwriter Brian Wilson changed music – and my life – https://theconversation.com/how-visionary-beach-boys-songwriter-brian-wilson-changed-music-and-my-life-258794

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How visionary Beach Boys songwriter Brian Wilson changed music – and my life

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jadey O’Regan, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney

    The Beach Boys in 1962 in Los Angeles, California. Brian Wilson is on the left. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    Brian Wilson, leader, songwriter and producer of the Beach Boys, has passed away at age 82.

    He leaves behind a legacy of beautiful, joyous, bittersweet and enduring music, crafted over a career spanning six decades.

    While this news isn’t unexpected – Wilson was diagnosed with dementia last year and entered a conservatorship after the loss of his wife, Melinda – his passing marks the end of a long and extraordinary chapter in musical history.

    A life of music

    Formed in the early 1960s in Hawthorne California, the Beach Boys were built on a foundation of family and community: brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and school friend Al Jardine.

    Growing up, the Wilson household was a turbulent place; their father, Murry Wilson, was strict and at times violent. Music was the one way in which the family could connect.

    During these early years Brian discovered the sounds that would shape his musical identity: Gershwin, doo wop groups, early rock and roll, and, a particular favourite, the vocal group the Four Freshmen, whose tight-harmony singing style Wilson studied meticulously.

    The Beach Boys in rehearsal in 1964; Brian Wilson sits at the piano .
    Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    It was an unexpected combination of influences for a pop band. Even from the Beach Boys’ earliest recordings – the surf, the cars, the girls – the stirrings of the complexity and musical adventurousness Wilson is known for is audible. Listen to the unexpected structure of The Lonely Sea (1962), the complex chords of The Warmth of the Sun (1963), or the subtle modulation in Don’t Worry Baby (1964).

    These early innovations hinted at a growing creativity that would continue to evolve over the rest of the 1960s, and beyond.

    A story of resilience

    In later years, Brian Wilson often appeared publicly as a fragile figure. But what stands out most in his story is resilience.

    His ability to produce such an expansive and diverse catalogue of work while navigating difficult family relationships, intense record label pressures, misdiagnosed and mistreated mental health conditions, addiction and much more, is extraordinary. Wilson not only survived, but continued to create music.

    Brian Wilson on the piano and Al Jardine on guitar perform in Los Angeles in 2019.
    Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

    He eventually did something few Beach Boys’ fans would have imagined – he returned to the stage.

    Wilson’s unexpected return to public performance during the Pet Sounds and SMiLE tours in the early 2000s began a revival interest in the Beach Boys, and a critical reconsideration of their musical legacy. This continues with a consistent release of books, documentaries, movies and podcasts about Wilson and the legacy of the Beach Boys’ music.

    The focus of a thesis

    I grew up near Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast in Queensland. Their early songs about an endless summer had a particular resonance to my hometown, even if, like Brian Wilson, I only admired the beach from afar.

    I chose to study the Beach Boys’ music for my PhD thesis and spent the next few years charting the course of their musical development from their early days in the garage to creating Pet Sounds just five years later.

    The Beach Boys perform onstage around 1963. Brian Wilson is on the left.
    Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    I was fascinated by how a band could create such a groundbreaking volume of work and progress so quickly from the delightful, yet wobbly Surfin’ to the complex arrangements of God Only Knows.

    To understand their music, I spent years listening to Beach Boys’ tracking sessions, take after take, to hear how their songs were so cleverly and delicately put together.

    What struck me just as powerfully as the music itself was the sound of Brian Wilson’s voice in those recordings. Listening to Wilson leading hours of tracking sessions was to hear an artist at the top of their game – decisive, confident, funny, collaborative and deeply driven to make music that would express the magic he heard in his mind, and connect with an audience.

    One of the more unexpected discoveries in my analysis of the Beach Boys’ music came from their lyrics. Using a word frequency tool to examine all 117 songs in my study, I found that the most common word was “now”.

    The Beach Boys pose for a portrait around1964. Brian Wilson stands at the back.
    Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

    In many cases, it appears in a conversational sense – “Well, she got her Daddy’s car, and she cruised through the hamburger stand now” – but on a broader level, it perfectly encapsulates what Brian Wilson’s music offered so many listeners.

    He created an endless present: a world where the sun could always be shining, where you could feel young forever, and you could visit that world any time you needed to.

    Jadey O’Regan with Brian Wilson, Enmore Theatre, Sydney 2010.
    Jadey O’Regan

    In 2010, I had the remarkable experience of meeting Brian Wilson in his dressing room before his performance at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney. He was funny and kind. He sat at a small keyboard, taught me a harmony and for a moment, we sang Love and Mercy together.

    It was one of the most magical moments of my life. It is also one of Wilson’s most enduring sentiments: “love and mercy, that’s what we need tonight”.

    Farewell and thank you, Brian. Surf’s up.

    Jadey O’Regan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. How visionary Beach Boys songwriter Brian Wilson changed music – and my life – https://theconversation.com/how-visionary-beach-boys-songwriter-brian-wilson-changed-music-and-my-life-258794

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ‘He stopped me from talking to male colleagues’: new research shows how domestic violence so often starts with isolation and control

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth McLindon, Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne

    PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

    When it comes to domestic violence, cases involving catastrophic physical violence are the ones that most often make it into the media.

    But our new research shows there are often signs of trouble long before such tragic outcomes – before couples move in together or get married.

    We asked a large group of women about how domestic violence (also known as intimate partner violence) they’d experienced had started and escalated.

    A general pattern emerged. First came psychological abuse, then physical abuse, then sexual abuse.

    So if women, health workers and others can recognise the signs of psychological abuse early on, there’s a chance to intervene before abusive behaviour progresses.

    How does this relate to coercive control?

    The types of psychological abuse women told us about indicate they’d experienced coercive control.

    Coercive control is defined as a pattern of restrictive, manipulative and dominating behaviours used to undermine a partner’s autonomy and freedom. While it can occur in any type of relationship, it is most commonly perpetrated by men against women partners and is underpinned by inequitable gender roles and misogynistic attitudes.

    Another way of describing coercive control is a pattern of behaviours that aim to prevent a partner from being in charge of their life. For instance, this could mean controlling who a partner can see, what they can wear, or where they can go. Or it could mean questioning a partner’s sanity when they raise concerns about abusive behaviour.

    There’s been growing awareness of the impact of coercive control and domestic violence more broadly on women’s health and wellbeing. There’s also growing awareness that coercive control can escalate to catastrophic abuse against women and children, including homicide.

    So, Australian states and territories have scrambled to tackle the issue legally. Queensland recently joined New South Wales in making coercive control a standalone criminal offence.

    What we did and what we found

    We wanted to know more about the progression of domestic violence and if there were key stages to intervene to help prevent the worst harms.

    So we surveyed a nationally representative sample of 815 Australian women who had experienced domestic violence in the past five years and asked them to create a timeline of their relationship.

    Women started with the earliest warning signs that something was wrong and then added what happened around important life events, such as moving in together, having children, seeking help or leaving. Women could describe their experiences in their own words.

    When we analysed all the timelines together, we created a summary of the general sequence of abuse over time.

    First, there were attacks to a survivor’s mind, then her physical body, then her sexual self.

    How behaviours escalated, from the earliest sign something was wrong.
    Author provided

    Psychological abuse an early sign

    Psychological abuse was present in almost all relationships early in the timeline. It usually emerged before moving in together or getting married.

    The earliest indicator of abuse was being isolated from others, as one woman said:

    He stopped me from talking to male colleagues.

    Controlling a woman’s day-to-day activities happened next. One survivor told us how her money and car were used against her:

    He kept my belongings from me […] to prevent me from leaving.

    Then, as one woman said, there was other emotional abuse:

    If I said anything he didn’t like, a brick wall would be erected […] I wouldn’t be spoken to for two to three days.

    Another said:

    He called me crazy when he had done something wrong.

    On average, women told us physically abusive behaviours first appeared after a major life commitment, such as marriage or moving in together.

    In general, sexual abuse by a partner first emerged after the psychological and physical abuse started.

    For survivors who had a child during the relationship and whose partner was sexually abusive, the worst of that sexual violence generally came sometime after giving birth.

    For many survivors, a growing concern about the impact of abuse on their children occurred around the same time as leaving their relationship and trying to get help.

    What next?

    This research sets out clear opportunities for prevention and early intervention.

    We need to train health professionals to look for signs and ask about psychological abuse when their patients are contemplating life transitions. This includes raising awareness and targeted resources for staff working in pregnancy care.

    Future research should see if these patterns of abuse apply in different diverse groups of survivors.

    We also need better community education, particularly for young women, about the features of psychological abuse that occur early in relationships, before physical and sexual abuse.

    As one participant told us:

    More domestic violence campaigns should focus on emotional abuse. We focus so much on the physical, but I can feel immediately when I am hit. It takes longer to feel gaslighting, manipulation and other emotionally heavy abuse. It lingers with you. It alters the way you think and traps you far worse than the physical does.

    The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Service – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

    Elizabeth McLindon received funding from Oak Foundation for this research. She is affiliated with The Royal Women’s Hospital, Victoria, where she is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Family Violence Prevention.

    Kelsey Hegarty receives funding from Oak Foundation, Medical Research Futures Fund, and National Health and Medical Research Council.

    – ref. ‘He stopped me from talking to male colleagues’: new research shows how domestic violence so often starts with isolation and control – https://theconversation.com/he-stopped-me-from-talking-to-male-colleagues-new-research-shows-how-domestic-violence-so-often-starts-with-isolation-and-control-257457

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: What’s the potential effect of sanctions on Israeli ministers? Here’s what my research shows

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anton Moiseienko, Senior Lecturer in Law, Australian National University

    Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the UK this week announced sanctions against two members of the Israeli cabinet: National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

    This is a momentous development. The governments concerned make it clear that they consider Ben-Gvir and Smotrich to be involved in “serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”, including “a serious abuse of the right of individuals not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

    This is an allegation rarely levelled against sitting ministers of a democratic state, predictably causing the Israeli government to protest.

    While diplomatic consequences play out, what are sanctions anyway, and what do they mean for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich?

    3 direct consequences

    “Sanctions” is a broad umbrella term. Whole countries can be sanctioned, but so can be individuals.

    Sanctions on individuals are imposed by means of a government placing them on its national sanctions list, such as Australia’s Consolidated List (which now features both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich).

    Three direct consequences flow from such a sanctions designation.

    First, all of the sanctioned person’s assets in the relevant country are frozen. This means that, while in principle they remain the sanctioned person’s property, they cannot be used or sold. This places those assets in limbo, potentially for a very long time.

    Second, no person within the sanctioning state’s jurisdiction – that is, no one in its territory, nor any of its citizens or residents – is allowed to make money or other resources available for the benefit of the sanctioned person.

    So, it is an offence for anyone in Australia to send funds to anyone on the Consolidated List. Interestingly, there is no prohibition on receiving money from sanctioned persons.

    Third, sanctioned persons are subject to an entry ban.

    So, if a foreigner is sanctioned by the Australian government, their permission to enter Australia will be denied or revoked.

    Legal challenges are possible. For example, in 2010, the daughter of a Burmese general studying at Western Sydney University unsuccessfully sued the foreign minister for sanctioning her and cancelling her visa based on her family ties.

    The sanctions against Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are what’s known as “Magnitsky” sanctions.

    This refers not to the substance of sanctions, but rather the reasons for their adoption, namely alleged corruption or human rights abuse, rather than other forms of wrongdoing. The imposition of sanctions on those grounds was pioneered by two US statutes named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian whistleblower killed in a Moscow prison.

    In the case of the Israeli ministers, human rights abuses are alleged.

    Sanctions can hurt in other ways, too

    But what is the practical effect of these kinds of sanctions designations?

    After all, many people sanctioned by Australia will not have any property in the country, will never receive any money from Australia, and may never contemplate visiting.

    One might be tempted to conclude that, in those circumstances, sanctions are ineffectual. But the reality is more complicated.

    In 2023, together with the London-based International Lawyers Project, I conducted the first study of the effect (or impact) of “Magnitsky” sanctions, focussing on the first 20 individuals sanctioned for alleged corruption under the US Global Magnitsky Act 2016.

    We found there were no less than ten types of effects that sanctions might have.

    And in at least two-thirds of the case studies we looked at, sanctions had an impact.

    This may be skewed by the high-profile nature of those first 20 corruption-related designations under the 2016 act, which included former heads of states and major businesspeople. Still, sanctions can mean more than their direct impact.

    Of these categories of effects, private sector action is especially important. This involves businesses globally dropping the targeted person as a customer even when not legally required to do so.

    For example, non-Australian banks are not bound by Australian sanctions. But, once Australian sanctions are in place, they feed into major private-sector sanctions databases that are used by banks worldwide.

    Global banks may well decide that – once someone is accused of human rights abuse, corruption or other misconduct by a credible government – keeping the targeted person on the books is no longer worthwhile, not least reputationally.

    For US sanctions, this effect is turbocharged by the fact virtually all banks need to route US dollar transactions via the US financial system, and they cannot do so on behalf of a sanctioned person. Banks soon drop such customers.

    In a famous example, Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong, complained of having to keep piles of cash at home due to US sanctions precluding any Hong Kong bank from taking her on as a customer. (To be clear, the US has not imposed any sanctions on Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and has opposed their designation by Australia and others.)

    Could Ben-Gvir and Smotrich fight these sanctions?

    Australian sanctions would not have such a profound impact, but they are a reputational irritant at the very least.

    This may account for the (failed) judicial challenges brought against Australian sanctions by two Russian oligarchs, Alexander Abramov and Oleg Deripaska, as well as another billionaire’s more successful petitioning of Australia’s foreign minister to lift the sanctions against him.

    In general, contesting sanctions in court is exceedingly difficult. Few claimants succeed, in Australia or elsewhere.

    It is far more likely the sanctions against Ben-Gvir and Smotrich will result in diplomatic discussions and lobbying behind the scenes.

    Anton Moiseienko has received funding from the Open Society Foundations in connection with the research cited in this article.

    – ref. What’s the potential effect of sanctions on Israeli ministers? Here’s what my research shows – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-potential-effect-of-sanctions-on-israeli-ministers-heres-what-my-research-shows-258692

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: What will be the effect of Australia’s sanctions on Israeli ministers? Here’s what my research shows

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anton Moiseienko, Senior Lecturer in Law, Australian National University

    Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the UK this week announced sanctions against two members of the Israeli cabinet: National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

    This is a momentous development. The governments concerned make it clear that they consider Ben-Gvir and Smotrich to be involved in “serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”, including “a serious abuse of the right of individuals not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

    This is an allegation rarely levelled against sitting ministers of a democratic state, predictably causing the Israeli government to protest.

    While diplomatic consequences play out, what are sanctions anyway, and what do they mean for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich?

    3 direct consequences

    “Sanctions” is a broad umbrella term. Whole countries can be sanctioned, but so can be individuals.

    Sanctions on individuals are imposed by means of a government placing them on its national sanctions list, such as Australia’s Consolidated List (which now features both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich).

    Three direct consequences flow from such a sanctions designation.

    First, all of the sanctioned person’s assets in the relevant country are frozen. This means that, while in principle they remain the sanctioned person’s property, they cannot be used or sold. This places those assets in limbo, potentially for a very long time.

    Second, no person within the sanctioning state’s jurisdiction – that is, no one in its territory, nor any of its citizens or residents – is allowed to make money or other resources available for the benefit of the sanctioned person.

    So, it is an offence for anyone in Australia to send funds to anyone on the Consolidated List. Interestingly, there is no prohibition on receiving money from sanctioned persons.

    Third, sanctioned persons are subject to an entry ban.

    So, if a foreigner is sanctioned by the Australian government, their permission to enter Australia will be denied or revoked.

    Legal challenges are possible. For example, in 2010, the daughter of a Burmese general studying at Western Sydney University unsuccessfully sued the foreign minister for sanctioning her and cancelling her visa based on her family ties.

    The sanctions against Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are what’s known as “Magnitsky” sanctions.

    This refers not to the substance of sanctions, but rather the reasons for their adoption, namely alleged corruption or human rights abuse, rather than other forms of wrongdoing. The imposition of sanctions on those grounds was pioneered by two US statutes named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian whistleblower killed in a Moscow prison.

    In the case of the Israeli ministers, human rights abuses are alleged.

    Sanctions can hurt in other ways, too

    But what is the practical effect of these kinds of sanctions designations?

    After all, many people sanctioned by Australia will not have any property in the country, will never receive any money from Australia, and may never contemplate visiting.

    One might be tempted to conclude that, in those circumstances, sanctions are ineffectual. But the reality is more complicated.

    In 2023, together with the London-based International Lawyers Project, I conducted the first study of the effect (or impact) of “Magnitsky” sanctions, focussing on the first 20 individuals sanctioned for alleged corruption under the US Global Magnitsky Act 2016.

    We found there were no less than ten types of effects that sanctions might have.

    And in at least two-thirds of the case studies we looked at, sanctions had an impact.

    This may be skewed by the high-profile nature of those first 20 corruption-related designations under the 2016 act, which included former heads of states and major businesspeople. Still, sanctions can mean more than their direct impact.

    Of these categories of effects, private sector action is especially important. This involves businesses globally dropping the targeted person as a customer even when not legally required to do so.

    For example, non-Australian banks are not bound by Australian sanctions. But, once Australian sanctions are in place, they feed into major private-sector sanctions databases that are used by banks worldwide.

    Global banks may well decide that – once someone is accused of human rights abuse, corruption or other misconduct by a credible government – keeping the targeted person on the books is no longer worthwhile, not least reputationally.

    For US sanctions, this effect is turbocharged by the fact virtually all banks need to route US dollar transactions via the US financial system, and they cannot do so on behalf of a sanctioned person. Banks soon drop such customers.

    In a famous example, Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong, complained of having to keep piles of cash at home due to US sanctions precluding any Hong Kong bank from taking her on as a customer. (To be clear, the US has not imposed any sanctions on Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and has opposed their designation by Australia and others.)

    Could Ben-Gvir and Smotrich fight these sanctions?

    Australian sanctions would not have such a profound impact, but they are a reputational irritant at the very least.

    This may account for the (failed) judicial challenges brought against Australian sanctions by two Russian oligarchs, Alexander Abramov and Oleg Deripaska, as well as another billionaire’s more successful petitioning of Australia’s foreign minister to lift the sanctions against him.

    In general, contesting sanctions in court is exceedingly difficult. Few claimants succeed, in Australia or elsewhere.

    It is far more likely the sanctions against Ben-Gvir and Smotrich will result in diplomatic discussions and lobbying behind the scenes.

    Anton Moiseienko has received funding from the Open Society Foundations in connection with the research cited in this article.

    – ref. What will be the effect of Australia’s sanctions on Israeli ministers? Here’s what my research shows – https://theconversation.com/what-will-be-the-effect-of-australias-sanctions-on-israeli-ministers-heres-what-my-research-shows-258692

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Trump may try to strike a deal with AUKUS review, but here’s why he won’t sink it

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

    The Pentagon has announced it will review the massive AUKUS agreement between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia to ensure it’s aligned with US President Donald Trump’s “America first” agenda.

    The US undersecretary of defence for policy, Elbridge Colby, is reportedly going to oversee the review.

    The announcement has raised concern in Australia, but every government is entitled to review policies that their predecessors have made to consider whether or not there’s a particular purpose.

    The UK has launched a parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS too, so it’s not actually unreasonable for the US to do the same.

    There’s a degree of nervousness in Australia as to what the implications are because Australia understandably has the biggest stake in this.

    But we need to consider what Colby has articulated in the past. In his book, The Strategy of Denial: American Defence in the Nature of Great Power Conflict, he made the case the US could “prepare to win a war with China it cannot afford to lose – in order to deter it from happening”.

    So, with a deterrent mindset, he sees the need for the US to muscle up militarily.

    He’s spoken about the alliance with Australia in very positive terms on a couple of occasions. And he has called himself an “AUKUS agnostic”, though he has expressed deep concern about the ability of the submarine industrial base in the US to manufacture the ships quickly enough.

    And that leads to the fear the US Navy would not have enough submarines for itself if Washington is also sending them to Australia.

    As part of the deal, Australia would eventually be able to contribute to accelerating the production line. That involves Australian companies contributing to the manufacture of certain widgets and components that are needed to build the subs.

    Australia has already made a nearly A$800 million (US$500 million) down payment on expanding the US industrial capacity as part of the deal to ensure we get some subs in a reasonable time frame.

    There’s also been significant legislative and industrial reforms in the US, Australia and UK to help facilitate Australian defence-related industries unplug the bottleneck of submarine production.

    There’s no question there’s a need to speed up production. But we are already seeing significant signs of an uptick in the production rate, thanks in part to the Australian down payment. And it’s anticipated the rate will significantly increase in the next 12–18 months.

    Even still, projects like this often slide in terms of timelines.

    Why the US won’t spike the deal

    I’m reasonably optimistic that, on balance, the Trump administration will come down on the side of proceeding with the deal.

    There are a few key reasons for this:

    1) We’re several years down the track already.

    2) We have more than 100 Australian sailors already operating in the US system.

    3) Industrially, we’re on the cusp of making a significant additional contribution to the US submarine production line.

    And finally, most people don’t fully appreciate that the submarine base just outside Perth is an incredibly consequential piece of real estate for US security calculations.

    Colby has made very clear the US needs to muscle up to push back and deter China’s potential aggression in the region. In that equation, submarines are crucial, as is a substantial submarine base in the Indian Ocean.

    China is acutely mindful of what we call the “Malacca dilemma”. Overwhelmingly, China’s trade of goods and fossil fuels comes through the Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia’s island of Sumatra. The Chinese know this supply line could be disrupted in a war. And the submarines operating out of Perth contribute to this fear.

    This is a crucial deterrent effect the US and its allies have been seeking to maintain. And it has largely endured.

    Given nobody can predict the future, we all want to prevent a war over Taiwan and we all want to maintain the status quo.

    As such, the considered view has been that Australia will continue to support the US to bolster its deterrent effect to prevent such a scenario.

    Could Trump be angling for a deal?

    As part of the US review of the deal, we could see talk of a potential slowdown in the delivery rate of the submarines. The Trump administration could also put additional pressure on Australia to deliver more for the US.

    This includes the amount Australia spends on defence, a subject of considerable debate in Canberra. Taking Australia’s overall interests into account, the Albanese government may well decide increasing defence spending is an appropriate thing to do.

    There’s a delicate dance to be had here between the Trump administration, the Australian government, and in particular, their respective defence departments, about how to achieve the most effective outcome.

    It’s highly likely whatever decision the US government makes will be portrayed as the Trump administration “doing a deal”. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not a bad thing. This is what countries do.

    We talk a lot about the Trump administration’s transactional approach to international relations. But it’s actually not that different to previous US administrations with which Canberra has had to deal.

    So I’m reasonably sanguine about the AUKUS review and any possible negotiations over it. I believe the Trump administration will come to the conclusion it does not want to spike the Australia relationship.

    Australia has been on the US side since federation. Given this, the US government will likely make sure this deal goes ahead. The Trump administration may try to squeeze more concessions out of Australia as part of “the art of the deal”, but it won’t sink the pact.

    However, many people will undoubtedly say this is the moment Australia should break with AUKUS. But then what? What would Australia do instead to ensure its security in this world of heightened great power competition in which Australia’s interests are increasingly challenged?

    Walking away now would leave Australia more vulnerable than ever. I think that would be a great mistake.

    From 2015 to 2017 John Blaxland received funding from the US Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative (subsequently disbanded by the Trump administration). This was used to write a book (with Greg Raymond) entitled “The US Thai Alliance and Asian International Relations” (Routledge, 2021). John currently is a fulltime employee of the ANU.

    – ref. Trump may try to strike a deal with AUKUS review, but here’s why he won’t sink it – https://theconversation.com/trump-may-try-to-strike-a-deal-with-aukus-review-but-heres-why-he-wont-sink-it-258798

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Why are sunsets so pretty in winter? There’s a simple explanation

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chloe Wilkins, Associate Lecturer and PhD Candidate, Solar Physics, University of Newcastle

    nelo2309/Shutterstock

    If you live in the southern hemisphere and have been stopped in your tracks by a recent sunset, you may have noticed they seem more vibrant lately. The colours are brighter and bolder, and they linger longer in the sky.

    Why are sunsets “better” at some times of the year compared to others? We can use science to explain this.

    There are many ingredients for a “good” sunset, but the main three are clear skies, low humidity, and the Sun sitting low in the sky.

    In winter, sunsets sometimes look much more vivid that in summer – and yes, temperature plays a role.
    Jeremy Bishop/Unsplash

    From light to colour

    To understand why we get such vibrant sunsets in the colder months of the year, we first need to know how colours appear in the sky.

    All visible light is actually energy that travels in waves; the length of those waves determines the colour that our eyes see.

    Although sunlight might look white to us, it’s actually a mix of different wavelengths of light that make up all the visible colours – from fiery reds and oranges (longer wavelengths) to deep blues and purples (shorter wavelengths).

    The wavelength of light determines the colour we see. At shorter wavelengths, the colours are purple and blue, while at longer wavelengths they are red and orange.
    DrSciComm/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    These individual colours become visible when sunlight is “scattered”, which is precisely what happens when it passes through the invisible gas molecules in Earth’s atmosphere – mostly nitrogen and oxygen.

    When sunlight hits these molecules, it’s absorbed and shot back out (scattered) in different directions. Blue and violet light is scattered more strongly than red and orange light – this is also why the sky looks blue during the day.

    The path of the Sun

    In the middle of the day when the Sun is high in the sky, sunlight travels a more direct path through the atmosphere.

    The path of the Sun’s light through the atmosphere is longer at sunset than it is at noon.
    The Conversation

    But when the Sun is closer to the horizon, the path is less direct. This means that during sunrises and sunsets, sunlight travels through more of Earth’s atmosphere. And more atmosphere means more scattering.

    In fact, during sunsets, the blue and violet light encounters so many oxygen and nitrogen molecules that it is completely scattered away. What we’re left with is the longer wavelengths of light – the reds and oranges. In other words, more atmosphere means more fiery sunsets.

    But why are sunsets especially magnificent during winter? One reason is the Sun’s position in the sky during different times of the year.

    The Sun travels a longer and higher path in the sky in summer compared to winter. This affects the duration of sunsets.
    The Conversation, Shutterstock

    Earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours, giving us day and night. But this axis isn’t perfectly “upright” relative to the Sun – it’s tilted at an angle of about 23.5 degrees. This tilt is why we have seasons. The southern hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun around the start and end of the calendar year (southern summer), and away from the Sun around the middle of the year (southern winter).

    Because of this tilt, the Sun sits lower in the sky during winter, which is why the days are shorter. And because the Sun sits lower, it spends more time near the horizon as it rises and sets. That’s why winter sunsets often seem to last longer.

    Earth has seasons because its axis is tilted. The axis always points in the same direction as our planet orbits the Sun.
    Bureau of Meteorology

    The quality of the air

    Humidity and air quality also play a big role when it comes to vibrant winter sunsets.

    In winter, humidity is typically much lower than in the warmer summer months, meaning there’s less moisture in the air. Humid air often contains tiny water droplets, which can scatter incoming sunlight. This scattering is slightly different to how the oxygen and nitrogen molecules scatter light – here, even red and orange light can be affected.

    When humidity is high, the extra scattering by these small water droplets can cause sunsets to appear softer or more washed out.

    Even on a clear summer’s night, the sunset will appear more muted if the air humidity is high.
    Doug Bagg/Unsplash

    In drier winter air, with fewer of these water droplets in the way, sunlight can travel through the atmosphere with less interference. This means the colours can shine through more vividly, making for crisper and more vibrant sunsets.

    If you’re looking to a catch a spectacular sunset, you’ll want to wait for a nice, clear winter’s evening. Cloud cover and air pollution can block the sunlight and mute the colours we see.

    So the next time you find yourself wrapped up in a warm jumper at dusk, be sure to look up – there could be a spectacular light show playing out just above you.

    Chloe Wilkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Why are sunsets so pretty in winter? There’s a simple explanation – https://theconversation.com/why-are-sunsets-so-pretty-in-winter-theres-a-simple-explanation-258192

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why are sunsets so pretty in winter? There’s a simple explanation

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Chloe Wilkins, Associate Lecturer and PhD Candidate, Solar Physics, University of Newcastle

    nelo2309/Shutterstock

    If you live in the southern hemisphere and have been stopped in your tracks by a recent sunset, you may have noticed they seem more vibrant lately. The colours are brighter and bolder, and they linger longer in the sky.

    Why are sunsets “better” at some times of the year compared to others? We can use science to explain this.

    There are many ingredients for a “good” sunset, but the main three are clear skies, low humidity, and the Sun sitting low in the sky.

    In winter, sunsets sometimes look much more vivid that in summer – and yes, temperature plays a role.
    Jeremy Bishop/Unsplash

    From light to colour

    To understand why we get such vibrant sunsets in the colder months of the year, we first need to know how colours appear in the sky.

    All visible light is actually energy that travels in waves; the length of those waves determines the colour that our eyes see.

    Although sunlight might look white to us, it’s actually a mix of different wavelengths of light that make up all the visible colours – from fiery reds and oranges (longer wavelengths) to deep blues and purples (shorter wavelengths).

    The wavelength of light determines the colour we see. At shorter wavelengths, the colours are purple and blue, while at longer wavelengths they are red and orange.
    DrSciComm/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

    These individual colours become visible when sunlight is “scattered”, which is precisely what happens when it passes through the invisible gas molecules in Earth’s atmosphere – mostly nitrogen and oxygen.

    When sunlight hits these molecules, it’s absorbed and shot back out (scattered) in different directions. Blue and violet light is scattered more strongly than red and orange light – this is also why the sky looks blue during the day.

    The path of the Sun

    In the middle of the day when the Sun is high in the sky, sunlight travels a more direct path through the atmosphere.

    The path of the Sun’s light through the atmosphere is longer at sunset than it is at noon.
    The Conversation

    But when the Sun is closer to the horizon, the path is less direct. This means that during sunrises and sunsets, sunlight travels through more of Earth’s atmosphere. And more atmosphere means more scattering.

    In fact, during sunsets, the blue and violet light encounters so many oxygen and nitrogen molecules that it is completely scattered away. What we’re left with is the longer wavelengths of light – the reds and oranges. In other words, more atmosphere means more fiery sunsets.

    But why are sunsets especially magnificent during winter? One reason is the Sun’s position in the sky during different times of the year.

    The Sun travels a longer and higher path in the sky in summer compared to winter. This affects the duration of sunsets.
    The Conversation, Shutterstock

    Earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours, giving us day and night. But this axis isn’t perfectly “upright” relative to the Sun – it’s tilted at an angle of about 23.5 degrees. This tilt is why we have seasons. The southern hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun around the start and end of the calendar year (southern summer), and away from the Sun around the middle of the year (southern winter).

    Because of this tilt, the Sun sits lower in the sky during winter, which is why the days are shorter. And because the Sun sits lower, it spends more time near the horizon as it rises and sets. That’s why winter sunsets often seem to last longer.

    Earth has seasons because its axis is tilted. The axis always points in the same direction as our planet orbits the Sun.
    Bureau of Meteorology

    The quality of the air

    Humidity and air quality also play a big role when it comes to vibrant winter sunsets.

    In winter, humidity is typically much lower than in the warmer summer months, meaning there’s less moisture in the air. Humid air often contains tiny water droplets, which can scatter incoming sunlight. This scattering is slightly different to how the oxygen and nitrogen molecules scatter light – here, even red and orange light can be affected.

    When humidity is high, the extra scattering by these small water droplets can cause sunsets to appear softer or more washed out.

    Even on a clear summer’s night, the sunset will appear more muted if the air humidity is high.
    Doug Bagg/Unsplash

    In drier winter air, with fewer of these water droplets in the way, sunlight can travel through the atmosphere with less interference. This means the colours can shine through more vividly, making for crisper and more vibrant sunsets.

    If you’re looking to a catch a spectacular sunset, you’ll want to wait for a nice, clear winter’s evening. Cloud cover and air pollution can block the sunlight and mute the colours we see.

    So the next time you find yourself wrapped up in a warm jumper at dusk, be sure to look up – there could be a spectacular light show playing out just above you.

    Chloe Wilkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Why are sunsets so pretty in winter? There’s a simple explanation – https://theconversation.com/why-are-sunsets-so-pretty-in-winter-theres-a-simple-explanation-258192

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –