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Category: Analysis Assessment

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: A weakened Iran and Hezbollah gives Lebanon an opening to chart path away from the region’s conflicts − will it be enough?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Mireille Rebeiz, Chair of Middle East Studies and Associate Professor of Francophone and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dickinson College. Adjunct Professor of Law at Penn State Dickinson Law., Dickinson College

    The national Lebanese flag hangs on a building amid a Hezbollah demonstration in the southern suburbs of Beirut on July 6, 2025. Photo by Nael Chahine / Middle East Images via AFP

    After a 12-day war launched by Israel and joined briefly by the United States, Iran has emerged weakened and vulnerable. And that has massive implications for another country in the region: Lebanon.

    Hezbollah, Tehran’s main ally in Lebanon, had already lost a lot of its fighters, arsenal and popular support during its own war with Israel in October 2024.

    Now, Iran’s government has little capacity to continue to finance, support and direct Hezbollah in Lebanon like it has done in the past. Compounding this shift away from Hezbollah’s influence, the U.S. recently laid down terms for a deal that would see the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon in return for the total disarmament of the paramilitary group – a proposal seemingly backed by the Lebanese government.

    As an expert on Lebanese history and culture, I believe that these changing regional dynamics give the Lebanese state an opening to chart a more neutral orientation and extricate itself from neighboring conflicts that have long exacerbated the divided and fragile country’s chronic problems.

    The shaping of modern Lebanon

    Ideologically, developments in Iran played a major role in shaping the circumstances in which Hezbollah, the Shiite Islamist political party and paramilitary group, was born.

    The Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 toppled the widely reviled and corrupt Western-backed monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza and led to the establishment of an Islamic republic. That revolution resonated among the young Shiite population in Lebanon, where a politically sectarian system that was intended to reflect a balanced representation of Muslims and Christians in the country had led to de facto discrimination against underrepresented groups.

    Since Lebanon’s independence from France in 1943, most of the power has been concentrated in the hands of the Maronite Christians and Sunnis, leaving Shiite regions in south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley lacking in development projects, social services and infrastructure.

    At the same time, Lebanon for decades had been irreparably changed by the politics of its powerful neighbor in Israel.

    In the course of founding its state in 1948, Israel forcibly removed over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland – what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastophe.” Many fled to Lebanon, largely in the country’s impoverished south and Bekaa Valley, which became a center of Palestinian resistance to Israel.

    In 1978, Israel invaded Lebanon to push Palestinian fighters away from its northern borders and put an end to rockets launched from south Lebanon. This fighting included the massacre of many civilians and the displacement of many Lebanese and Palestinians farther north.

    In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon again with the stated purpose of eliminating the Palestinian Liberation Organization that had moved its headquarters to the country’s south. An estimated 17,000 to 19,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians and armed personnel were killed during the conflict and the accompanying siege of Beirut.

    It was in this cauldron of regional and domestic sectarianism and state abandonment that Hezbollah formed as a paramilitary group in 1985, buoyed by Shiite mobilization following the Iranian revolution and Israel’s invasion and occupation.

    Hezbollah’s domestic spoiler status

    Over time and with the continuous support of Iran, Hezbollah become an important player in the Middle East, intervening in the Syrian civil war to support the Assad regime and supporting the Kata’ib Hezbollah, a dominant Iraqi pro-Iranian militia.

    In 2016, Secretary General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah officially recognized Iran’s role in funding their activities.

    People gather to stage a demonstration in support of Iran in front of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, on June 25, 2025.
    Photo by Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu via Getty Images

    With Tehran’s support, Hezbollah was effectively able to operate as a state within a state while using its political clout to veto the vast majority of Lebanese parliamentary decisions it opposed. Amid that backdrop, Lebanon endured three long presidential vacuums: from November 2007 to May 2008; from May 2014 to October 2016; and finally from October 2022 to January 2024.

    Lebanon also witnessed a series of political assassinations from 2005 to 2021 that targeted politicians, academics, journalists and other figures who criticized Hezbollah.

    How the equation has changed

    It would be an understatement, then, to say that Hezbollah’s and Iran’s weakened positions as a result of their respective conflicts with Israel since late 2023 create major political ramifications for Lebanon.

    The most recent vacuum at the presidential level ended amid Hezbollah’s military losses against Israel, with Lebanon electing the former army commander Joseph Aoun as president.

    Meanwhile, despite the threat of violence, the Lebanese opposition to Hezbollah, which consists of members of parliament and public figures, has increased its criticism of Hezbollah, openly denouncing its leadership and calling for Lebanon’s political neutrality.

    These dissenting voices emerged cautiously during the Syrian civil war in 2011 and have grown after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the subsequent war on Gaza.

    During the latest Israel-Iran war, the Lebanese opposition felt emboldened to reiterate its call for neutrality. Enabled by the U.S’s growing tutelage over Lebanon, some opposition figures have even called to normalize relations with Israel.

    These efforts to keep Lebanon out of the circle of violence are not negligible. In the past, they would have been attacked by Hezbollah and its supporters for what they would have considered high treason. Today, they represent new movement for how leaders are conceiving of politics domestically and diplomacy across the region.

    The critical regional context going forward

    As the political system cautiously changes, Hezbollah is facing unprecedented financial challenges and is unable to meet its fighters’ needs, including the promise to rebuild their destroyed homes. And with its own serious internal challenges, Iran now has much less ability to meaningfully support Hezbollah from abroad.

    But none of that means that Hezbollah is defeated as a political and military force, particularly as ongoing skirmishes with Israel give the group an external pretext.

    The Hezbollah-Israel war ended with a ceasefire brokered by the United States and France on Nov. 27, 2024. However, Israel has been attacking south Lebanon on an almost daily basis, including three incidents over the course of 10 days from late June to early July that have left several people dead and more than a dozen wounded.

    Amid these violations, Hezbollah continues to refuse to disarm and still casts itself as the only defender of Lebanon’s territorial integrity, again undermining the power of the Lebanese army and state.

    Lebanon’s other neighbor, Syria, will also be critical. The fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 diminished Hezbollah’s powers in the region and land access to Iraq and Iran. And the new Syrian leadership is not interested in supporting the Iranian Shiite ideology in the region but rather in empowering the Sunni community, one that was oppressed under the Assad dictatorship.

    While it’s too early to say, border tensions might translate into sectarian violence in Lebanon or even potential land loss. Yet the new Syrian government also has a different approach toward its neighbors than its predecessor. After decades of hostility, Syria seems to be opting for diplomacy with Israel rather than war. It is unclear what these negotiations will entail and how they will impact Lebanon and Hezbollah. However, there are real concerns about new borders in the region.

    The U.S. as ever will play a major role in next steps in Lebanon and the region. The U.S. has been pressing Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah, and the U.S Ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack said he was “unbelievably satisfied” by Lebanon’s response thus far. But so far, there has been no fundamental shift on that front.

    Meanwhile, despite the calls for neutrality and the U.S pressure on Lebanon, it is hard to envision a new and neutral Lebanon without some serious changes in the region. Any future course for Lebanon will still first require progress toward peace in Gaza and ensuring Iran commits not to use Hezbollah as a proxy in the future.

    Mireille Rebeiz is affiliated with American Red Cross.

    – ref. A weakened Iran and Hezbollah gives Lebanon an opening to chart path away from the region’s conflicts − will it be enough? – https://theconversation.com/a-weakened-iran-and-hezbollah-gives-lebanon-an-opening-to-chart-path-away-from-the-regions-conflicts-will-it-be-enough-260031

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives shatters the church’s century-long effort to curate its own image

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Brenton Griffin, Casual Lecturer and Tutor in History, Indigenous Studies, and Politics, Flinders University

    Hulu

    Reality TV series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives follows a number of social media influencers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who rose to prominence through social media, and particularly TikTok.

    The show is based in Utah, United States, where the church has its headquarters. But it stands in stark contrast with the stereotypical perception of Mormons – and especially Mormon women – the church has promoted for more than a century.

    Through its exploration of traditionally “taboo” topics such as sex, marital issues, mental illness and sexual abuse, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives clashes against the church’s carefully curated public image.

    Historical pariahs

    Historically, the church’s practice of polygamy placed it at odds with the mainstream sexual and familial norms of 19th century America.

    Polygamy had been practised by Mormons since at least the 1830s, and was officially announced as permissible by the church in 1852. The church now acknowledges its founder, Joseph Smith, married almost 40 women and teenage girls before his death in 1844.

    When Mormon missionaries began to proselytise throughout the world, newspapers criticised the practice, and Mormons were framed as sexual deviants and racialised “pariahs”. In other words, Mormons were presented as being racially different to the rest of white American society. This claim was even supported by doctors at the time.

    1904 Time cartoon by C.J. Rudd, captioned: ‘Mormon Elder Berry – out with his six year olds, who take after their mothers.’
    KUER/Religion of a Different Color: Mormonism and the Struggle for Whiteness’ (2017) by W. Paul Reeve.

    To Mormons, however, polygamy was a reintroduction of the correct form of marriage, and they pointed to biblical prophets to justify it.

    In 1862, the US congress passed a series of laws aimed at abolishing polygamy. This resulted in the arrest of church leaders and the confiscation of church-owned funds and properties in Utah.

    Then, in the 1870s, exposés written by former Mormons (particularly women) decried polygamy as evil, increasing hostility against Mormon leaders.

    Ann Eliza Webb Young, ex-wife of Mormon prophet Brigham Young, wrote the exposé ‘Wife No. 19, Or The Story of Life in Bondage’.
    Internet Archive Open Library

    In 1890, church leader Wilford Woodruff announced in a revelation known as the Manifesto that polygamy would cease. The Manifesto was accepted by most Mormons as the government’s harassment increased. However, breakaway groups called “fundamentalists” continued the practice.

    Today, Mormon scriptures continue to state polygamy is the correct form of marriage, and will exist in the afterlife.

    The stereotypical Mormon

    Since the ending of polygamy, the church has sought to establish itself as a moral equal to mainstream Christian norms, especially sexual norms. In 1995, it released a document titled Family: A Proclamation to the World which emphasised the view that heterosexual marriage and strict gender roles are divinely ordained.

    The 1995 official Mormon document, ‘The Family: A Proclamation to the World’.
    BYU Scholar Arcive

    As the church has grown, it has presented its members as model citizens of the nations they reside in.

    In doing so, it has promoted unique doctrines and practices, such as sexual abstinence before marriage, and a particular health code called the Word of Wisdom which bars alcohol, tea, coffee and tobacco.

    These doctrines, and existing stereotypes of Mormons, are examined in The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

    Colliding perceptions

    The 2024 release of the series caused waves in the Latter-day Saints community, with a number of Mormon-focused publications condemning it.

    Before the show was released, the church published a general statement saying media portrayals of Mormons “often rely on sensationalism and inaccuracies that do not fairly and fully reflect the lives of our Church members”. It has yet to directly comment on the show.

    Nonetheless, the representation of Mormons in The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is problematic for the church, because it transgresses its highly curated image of Mormonism.

    As the influencers put it, there is a desire to push back against stereotypes around Mormonism, and particularly Mormon women. These stereotypes have been crystallised by the church to combat perceptions of Mormons as sexually abhorrent, due to past practices of polygamy.

    The women in the show wear clothing that would not cover “temple garments”, the mandatory Latter-day Saint undergarments which seek to impose sexual modesty.

    There is also a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement that while the church prohibits stimulants such as tea, coffee and alcohol, Mormons within Utah and surrounds still consume other, somewhat surprising, substances. For instance, the use of ketamine in therapy is allowed when administered by a healthcare professional.

    The series also engages with topics considered taboo in the church, such as marital issues, mental health struggles and consensual sex. Even if these are being played up by the cast or producers, such discussions are lacking in broader Mormon circles.

    Importantly, there are admissions by some cast members, including one of the husbands, of being sexually abused as children. According to the cast members themselves, these disclosures are intended to empower viewers who may have had similar experiences.

    This is a powerful critique, because the Mormon church has come under intense scrutiny for its failure to properly respond to child sexual assault, both in the US and globally.

    The next steps

    The show is having a marked impact on perceptions of Mormonism, despite the church’s stance it doesn’t represent the beliefs and lifestyle of Mormons more broadly.

    For many viewers, it might be their introduction to the religion. This is concerning for adherents, and particularly for the church’s leadership.

    The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives reunion special aired earlier this month.
    Hulu

    There are internal tools the church could use against the show’s cast members, such as disciplinary councils or excommunication. But these would be ineffective since only about half the members consider themselves “faithful” Mormons.

    It’s interesting the church has yet to condemn the show. Perhaps maintaining an image of reluctant acceptance is more important, as in recent years the church has been criticised for overreach against its own members.

    In this case, the show would be an uncomfortable reality the church will just have to live with. Either way, the damage to the stereotypical Mormon image is done.

    The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is available to stream on Disney+.

    Brenton Griffin was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but is no longer a practising member of the church. His research is focused on the religion’s place in Australian and New Zealand popular culture, politics, and society from the 19th century to present.

    – ref. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives shatters the church’s century-long effort to curate its own image – https://theconversation.com/the-secret-lives-of-mormon-wives-shatters-the-churchs-century-long-effort-to-curate-its-own-image-260418

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: What is the Strait of Hormuz and why is it so important for global shipping?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Belinda Clarence, Law Lecturer, RMIT University

    During the recent conflict between Iran and Israel, Iran threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s major shipping routes.

    Would that be possible, and what effects would it have?

    The Strait of Hormuz is a choke point at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. It is used to transport about 20% of global daily oil consumption.

    Iran effectively controls this crucial shipping route because it is a coastal state bordering this narrow stretch of water. The strait is too narrow to avoid navigating waters claimed by Iran. This raises thorny legal questions about whether it is really possible for Iran to block the strait, and what recourse other states have if it does.

    This geographical reality is far from new, and the legal frameworks governing international maritime activity have developed over centuries. At its heart is the lex mercatoria — the “law of merchants” — a body of transnational commercial law that emerged organically from the practices of traders operating across borders.

    Within this broader framework sits the lex maritima, or customary maritime law, which has long adapted to the hazards of shipping across vast oceans.

    The lex maritima originated from the shared practices of seafarers and merchants. Its purpose? To manage the unpredictable nature of maritime trade that demands coherent and stable rules.

    One of the most enduring principles of this legal tradition is the idea of mare liberum, or “the free sea”, set out by Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius in 1609. He argued the high seas should remain open to all for peaceful navigation and trade. This conveniently legitimised the ambitions of European colonial powers, granting them unfettered access to global maritime routes at a time when control over sea-based trade promised immense economic and strategic advantage.

    The shifting boundaries of maritime law

    One of the most fundamental questions in maritime law is: where do a nation’s territorial waters end, and the high seas begin?

    After the second world war, a series of conferences culminated in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), where the customary 3 nautical miles (5.56km) of territorial waters states could claim as their own was extended. This narrow limit was rooted more in historical naval range – the so-called “cannon shot rule” – than in modern geopolitical or environmental realities.

    In 1959, Iran took the unusual step of unilaterally extending its territorial sea to 12 nautical miles, despite not being a party to UNCLOS. Two decades later, following the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the US Embassy hostage crisis, Washington grew increasingly anxious about the security of oil flows from the Persian Gulf. These concerns intensified during the Iran-Iraq War, especially as Iran began using small islands in the Strait of Hormuz to deploy military forces and threaten commercial shipping.

    UNCLOS and the new rules of the sea

    One of the key compromises of UNCLOS was an extension of territorial waters for states that ratified the treaty. In exchange, UNCLOS replaced the older concept of “innocent passage” – which allowed only surface navigation through territorial seas – with the broader notion of “transit passage”. Under this regime, vessels and aircraft from other states are granted the right to travel not only on the surface, but also under the sea and through the air above straits used for international navigation.

    While 169 states have ratified UNCLOS, both Iran and the United States remain notable holdouts. This means Iran does not enjoy the broader 12-nautical-mile limit recognised under UNCLOS, and the US cannot claim the agreement’s protections for transit passage through strategic choke points.

    While the geopolitical and legal tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz may seem far removed from the world of private commerce, the global economy continues to function thanks to a powerful legal tool: the contract. Contracts offer a predictable framework that allows trade across borders without parties needing to trust one another personally.

    The Strait of Hormuz is bordered by active, assertive states such as Iran, which means the potential for interstate conflict is relatively high. This doesn’t mean commercial contracts are irrelevant to the recent dispute in the Strait of Hormuz — far from it. But their influence is more indirect.

    What can be learned?

    Without significant political change in Tehran, it’s unlikely either Iran or the US will shift its position on adopting UNCLOS. Yet despite Iran’s repeated threats to close the strait, it has never followed through — and the US Navy continues to maintain a steady presence in the region. For now, a fragile but persistent equilibrium holds.

    Belinda Clarence 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. What is the Strait of Hormuz and why is it so important for global shipping? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-strait-of-hormuz-and-why-is-it-so-important-for-global-shipping-260920

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  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Rugby headgear can’t prevent concussion – but new materials could soften the blows over a career

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Nick Draper, Professor of Sport and Exercise Science, University of Canterbury

    The widely held view among rugby players, coaches and officials is that headgear can’t prevent concussion. If so, why wear it? It’s hot, it can block vision and hearing, and it can be uncomfortable.

    Headgear was originally designed to protect players from cuts and abrasions. But players still hope it will offer them a degree of protection against the collisions they experience in the game. Some players adopt it after previous concussions.

    We’re now seeing increasing numbers of professional players opting in. The Irish men’s team, for example, field up to five players each match sporting headgear. In Japan, it’s mandatory for juniors. And more parents in New Zealand are making their children wear it, too.

    The exact specifications for rugby match kit – boots, shorts, shoulder pads and
    headgear – are regulated through World Rugby’s Law 4 and Regulation 12. In 2019, the governing body launched a trial enabling players to wear headgear with new technical specifications in training and matches.

    The specifications have meant manufacturers can take advantage of novel “isotropic” materials that can potentially reduce the impact forces experienced by players.

    Conventional headgear is composed of soft foams that flatten when a player’s head collides with the ground or another player. As such, they can only minimally absorb those collision forces.

    Isotropic materials behave differently. They can absorb impacts from multiple directions and may offer a level of protection against the effects on a player’s head of a tackle or other collision event.

    Given these changes, and in light of recent research, we may need to change the narrative around rugby headgear: while it may not prevent concussion, it might reduce the total contact “burden” experienced by players in a game and over a whole season. And this could have benefits for long-term brain health.

    Impacts across seasons and careers

    Contact in rugby – through tackles, at the breakdown, and in scrums and lineouts – leads to players experiencing a number of collisions or “head acceleration events”. This contact is most commonly head to ground, head to body or head to head.

    By having players use “smart” mouthguards with embedded micro-accelerometers and gyroscopes to capture head movements, researchers can now measure each collision and each player’s contact load in a game – and potentially over a career.

    A player’s total contact load is found by adding together the magnitude of the impacts they experience in a game. These are measured as “peak linear accelerations” or “peak rotational accelerations”.

    While past research and media attention has focused on concussion, it has become clear the total contact burden in training and matches – the total “sub-concussive knocks” through head acceleration events – may be as important, if not more so.

    One of our own research projects involved following 40 under-16 players wearing smart mouthguards for all training and matches across one season. Peak Linear accelerations are measured as a g-force (g). Activities such as such as running, jumping and shaking the head would measure under 8g, for example, whereas heading a soccer ball might measure 31g.

    The results of our study showed the players differed greatly in their cumulative exposure over a whole season, from 300g to nearly 14,000g. These differences would be amplified further over an entire rugby career.

    Some of the variation is likely due to a player’s team position, with loose forwards having a greater burden than others. But it also seems some players just enjoy the contact aspects of the game more than others.

    Rugby is an impact sport: the Ireland and England women’s teams clash in 2025.
    Getty Images

    Potential benefits of new headgear materials

    Researcher Helen Murray at the University of Auckland has highlighted the need for more research into the burden of collisions, rather than just concussions, over a rugby career. In particular, we need to know more about its effect on future brain health.

    We hope to contribute to this by following our existing cohort of players through their careers. In the meantime, our research has examined the potential of existing rugby headgear and new isotropic materials to mitigate peak accelerations in rugby collisions.

    Using the field data collected from male and female players over the past four seasons, we have designed laboratory testing protocols to compare the conventional and newer materials.

    The results suggest the new forms of headgear do have the potential to reduce the impact burden for players.

    We found 55–90% of head acceleration events do involve direct contact with the head. As such, collision-mitigation headgear could be beneficial. And our laboratory testing produced an estimated 30% reduction in peak linear accelerations with the headgear compared to without.

    The nature of concussion is complex and related to the size of an impact as well as its direction and angle. For instance, we observed the concussions experienced by the junior players occurred between 12g and 62g – well below the male threshold of 70g requiring professional players to be removed from the field for a head injury assessment.

    Currently, it seems unlikely headgear can prevent concussion. But it does appear new headgear materials could significantly reduce the total impact burden for players during their careers. And this may help safeguard their future brain health.

    Nick Draper receives funding from the Health Research Council, Cure Kids, the Neurological Foundation, Canterbury Medical Research Foundation, Pacific Radiology Group, the Maurice and Phyllis Paykel Trust, and the UC Foundation.

    – ref. Rugby headgear can’t prevent concussion – but new materials could soften the blows over a career – https://theconversation.com/rugby-headgear-cant-prevent-concussion-but-new-materials-could-soften-the-blows-over-a-career-258912

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  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Does AI actually boost productivity? The evidence is murky

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jon Whittle, Director, Data61, CSIRO

    Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock

    There’s been much talk recently – especially among politicians – about productivity. And for good reason: Australia’s labour productivity growth sits at a 60-year low.

    To address this, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has convened a productivity round table next month. This will coincide with the release of an interim report from the Productivity Commission, which is looking at five pillars of reform. One of these is the role of data and digital technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI).

    This will be music to the ears of the tech and business sectors, which have been enthusiastically promoting the productivity benefits of AI. In fact, the Business Council of Australia also said last month that AI is the single greatest opportunity in a generation to lift productivity.

    But what do we really know about how AI impacts productivity?

    What is productivity?

    Put simply, productivity is how much output (goods and services) we can produce from a given amount of inputs (such as labour and raw materials). It matters because higher productivity typically translates to a higher standard of living. Productivity growth has accounted for 80% of Australia’s income growth over the past three decades.

    Productivity can be thought of as individual, organisational or national.

    Your individual productivity is how efficiently you manage your time and resources to complete tasks. How many emails can you respond to in an hour? How many products can you check for defects in a day?

    Organisational productivity is how well an organisation achieves its goals. For example, in a research organisation, how many top-quality research papers are produced?

    National productivity is the economic efficiency of a nation, often measured as gross domestic product per hour worked. It is effectively an aggregate of the other forms. But it’s notoriously difficult to track how changes in individual or organisational productivity translate into national GDP per hour worked.

    AI and individual productivity

    The nascent research examining the relationship between AI and individual productivity shows mixed results.

    A 2025 real-world study of AI and productivity involved 776 experienced product professionals at US multinational company Procter & Gamble. The study showed that individuals randomly assigned to use AI performed as well as a team of two without. A similar study in 2023 with 750 consultants from Boston Consulting Group found tasks were 18% faster with generative AI.

    A 2023 paper reported on an early generative AI system in a Fortune 500 software company used by 5,200 customer support agents. The system showed a 14% increase in the number of issues resolved per hour. For less experienced agents, productivity increased by 35%.

    But AI doesn’t always increase individual productivity.

    A survey of 2,500 professionals found generative AI actually increased workload for 77% of workers. Some 47% said they didn’t know how to unlock productivity benefits. The study points to barriers such as the need to verify and/or correct AI outputs, the need for AI upskilling, and unreasonable expectations about what AI can do.

    A recent CSIRO study examined the daily use of Microsoft 365 Copilot by 300 employees of a government organisation. While the majority self-reported productivity benefits, a sizeable minority (30%) did not. Even those workers who reported productivity improvements expected greater productivity benefits than were delivered.

    AI and organisational productivity

    It’s difficult, if not impossible, to attribute changes in an organisation’s productivity to the introduction of AI. Businesses are sensitive to many social and organisational factors, any one of which could be the reason for a change in productivity.

    Nevertheless, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has estimated the productivity benefits of traditional AI – that is, machine learning applied for an industry-specific task – to be zero to 11% at the organisational level.

    A 2024 summary paper cites independent studies showing increases in organisational productivity from AI in Germany, Italy and Taiwan.

    In contrast, a 2022 analysis of 300,000 US firms didn’t find a significant correlation between AI adoption and productivity, but did for other technologies such as robotics and cloud computing. Likely explanations are that AI hasn’t yet had an effect on many firms, or simply that it’s too hard to disentangle the impact of AI given it’s never applied in isolation.

    AI productivity increases can also sometimes be masked by additional human labour needed to train or operate AI systems. Take Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology for shops.

    Publicly launched in 2018, it was intended to reduce labour as customer purchases would be fully automated. But it reportedly relied on hiring around 1,000 workers in India for quality control. Amazon has labelled these reports “erroneous”.

    More generally, think about the unknown number (but likely millions) of people paid to label data for AI models.

    AI and national productivity

    The picture at a national level is even murkier.

    Clearly, AI hasn’t yet impacted national productivity. It can be argued that technology developments take time to affect national productivity, as companies need to figure out how to use the technology and put the necessary infrastructure and skills in place.

    However, this is not guaranteed. For example, while there is consensus that the internet led to productivity improvements, the effects of mobile phones and social media are more contested, and their impacts are more apparent in some industries (such as entertainment) than others.

    Productivity isn’t just doing things faster

    The common narrative around AI and productivity is that AI automates mundane tasks, making us faster at doing things and giving us more time for creative pursuits. This, however, is a naive view of how work happens.

    Just because you can deal with your inbox more quickly doesn’t mean you’ll spend your afternoon on the beach. The more emails you fire off, the more you’ll receive back, and the never-ending cycle continues.

    Faster isn’t always better. Sometimes, we need to slow down to be more productive. That’s when great ideas happen.

    Imagine a world in which AI isn’t simply about speeding up tasks but proactively slows us down, to give us space to be more innovative, and more productive. That’s the real untapped opportunity with AI.

    Jon Whittle works at CSIRO which receives R&D funding from a wide range of government and industry clients.

    – ref. Does AI actually boost productivity? The evidence is murky – https://theconversation.com/does-ai-actually-boost-productivity-the-evidence-is-murky-260690

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  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Does Donald Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? We asked 5 experts

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Emma Shortis, Adjunct Senior Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has formally nominated United States President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. He says the president is “forging peace as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other”.

    Trump, who has craved the award for years, sees himself as a global peacemaker in a raft of conflicts from Israel and Iran, to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    With the conflict in Gaza still raging, we ask five experts – could Trump be rewarded with the world’s most prestigious peace prize?

    Emma Shortis is Director of International and Security Affairs at The Australia Institute, an independent think tank.

    Jasmine-Kim Westendorf has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

    Shahram Akbarzadeh receives funding from Australia Research Council.

    Ali Mamouri and Ian Parmeter 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. Does Donald Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? We asked 5 experts – https://theconversation.com/does-donald-trump-deserve-the-nobel-peace-prize-we-asked-5-experts-260801

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Trump is aiming to silence public media in the US – and if he succeeds, his supporters here will take note

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Bruce Wolpe, Non-resident Senior Fellow, United States Study Centre, University of Sydney

    The ABC dodged a bullet in the Australian election. The Albanese government supports the ABC. In the United States, however, the 2024 presidential election severely wounded public media in America.

    Fresh from his decisive victory in Congress – passage of the One Big Beautiful bill that locks in the legislation to prosecute Trump’s domestic policy agenda – Trump is demanding Congress cancel funding for public media, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR). Hardliners in the US House of Representatives have already voted to end all federal funding for public media. The Senate will vote on this issue in mid-July.

    We have tale of two vital and powerful media institutions in Australia and the US. What happens over there can affect what happens here.

    Towards the end of Australia’s election campaign, Peter Dutton, then leader of the Liberal Party, opened up on the ABC. He looped in The Guardian for good measure. And he implied other media deserved his words:

    Forget about what you have been told by the ABC, The Guardian and the other hate media.

    Dutton’s words embellished previous policies under Coalition governments, with budget cuts to the ABC of over $500 million, and several inquiries into the degree of ABC’s neutrality and objectivity in its coverage of news and current affairs.



    Read more:
    Peter Dutton calling the ABC and the Guardian ‘hate media’ rings alarm bells for democracy

    Kim Williams, chair of the ABC, said the network would “perform well” under any scrutiny from a Dutton government. Dutton himself, shortly before the election, demanded the ABC show “excellence” in order to prove to taxpayers that its almost $1.2 billion annual budget was justified.

    The Coalition’s defeat aided the ABC’s victory in its longstanding quest for financial stability and future growth. The ABC can continue to build on the commitments established by the Albanese Labor government in 2023 – even though there are choppy waters for the ABC as its new leadership makes programming and staffing decisions for the years ahead.

    With a new Coalition shadow cabinet in place, we will see as future budgets play out whether they have changed their tune on their approach to the ABC.

    We will see how both the government and the Coalition react to Kim Williams’ powerful case he recently presented for “more investment for much-needed renewal” in the ABC.

    Public media in Trump’s America

    In America today, public media are facing Trump’s wrath.

    Trump’s hatred of mainstream media is legendary. For the past decade, Trump has called the major media outlets the “enemy of the people” – the same label that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin used against those who dared to oppose him.

    In his second term, Trump is engaged in aggressive muscling of the enemies he sees in the media. The Associated Press is barred from the pool of journalists covering the president. Trump has silenced the Voice of America. The US ABC and CBS television networks have both settled lawsuits filed by Trump to seek damages for their broadcast coverage of him and the 2024 presidential campaign. The price to help avoid regulatory punishment by the government of those two networks: $US16 million (A$24.5 million) each.

    For a country that established freedom of the press under its Constitution, Trump’s attacks on news media are an ongoing assault on America’s democracy.

    Trump’s attacks on PBS and NPR show the existential threat they face.

    In 1967, Congress established and funded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to bring to life public television and radio across America. Money from CPB supports the stations. The stations contract with PBS and NPR to help produce the programming they air, from the PBS NewsHour, Frontline and Sesame Street on PBS to Morning Edition and All Things Considered on NPR – and much more.

    Trump holds the same sentiment that Dutton expressed against the ABC – that the public broadcasters are biased toward the “extreme woke Marxist left”. Trump wrote on Truth Social that:

    Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the most influential Republican leaders in the House of Representatives, was in-your-face direct on the case against public media:

    This bill’s real simple. Don’t spend money on stupid things, and don’t subsidize biased media.

    In late April, Trump ordered the firing of three of CPB’s five directors. On May 1, Trump issued an executive order that will savage public media’s existence:

    At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage […] The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS.“

    Public media has filed red-hot lawsuits against Trump and his officials for crushing the First Amendment free-speech rights of public televion and radio stations, and for cancelling funds appropriated by Congress. The court rulings in these cases will be crucial to the outcome.

    The last near-fatal threat to public broadcasting was in 1981, when President Ronald Reagan sought Congress’ approval to decimate its funding. Under Reagan conservatism, media belong in the private sector. The conservative’s political bias against public broadcasting framed the push to cancel government funding.

    But Congress rose up successfully against the Reagan cuts – led not only by Democrats but with Senate Republicans from rural states who understood how important public broadcasting was to their communities. Their budgets were trimmed, but PBS and NPR were not decapitated.

    Lessons for the ABC

    The same is true here: ABC stations in country areas are similarly held in high regard.

    The cuts to public media passed the US House by one vote on June 12.

    The Senate will vote in the coming days. We will see if some Senate Republicans who voted against Trump’s One Big Beautiful bill last week will stand up again and vote to buck Trump on this issue and protect public media in their states.

    If Trump succeeds in silencing public media in America, the Trump echo chamber in Australia will take note. Some hard conservatives in Canberra and the Murdoch media will likely leverage Congress’ approval of Trump’s order that PBS and NPR be punished for their left-wing bias and that public media should become the province of the private sector. Defunding public media in the US will sustain the sentiment that one day, under a future government here, the scythe will be wielded at the ABC.

    If the US Senate supports Trump, the fight for the ABC in Australia – not just over money, but over its role, responsibilities and standing in Australia – may not be over.

    Bruce Wolpe is a (non-resident) Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. The views expressed herein are his own. Wolpe served on the staff of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He worked on the Democratic staff in Congress on public broadcasting issues and was an executive with NPR. He is the author of two books on Trump and Australia.

    – ref. Trump is aiming to silence public media in the US – and if he succeeds, his supporters here will take note – https://theconversation.com/trump-is-aiming-to-silence-public-media-in-the-us-and-if-he-succeeds-his-supporters-here-will-take-note-260584

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Dawn service held 40 years on from Rainbow Warrior bombing

    TVNZ 1News

    The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior has sailed into Auckland to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the original Rainbow Warrior in 1985.

    Greenpeace’s vessel, which had been protesting nuclear testing in the Pacific, sank after French government agents planted explosives on its hull, killing Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.

    Today, 40 years on from the events on July 10 1985, a dawn ceremony was held in Auckland.

    Author Margaret Mills was a cook on board the ship at the time, and has written about her experience in a book entitled Anecdotage.

    Author Margaret Mills tells TVNZ Breakfast about the night of the Rainbow Warrior bombing 40 years ago. Image: TVNZ

    The 95-year-old told TVNZ Breakfast the experience on board “changed her life”.

    “I was sound asleep, and I heard this sort of bang and turned the light on, but it wouldn’t go on.

    She said when she left her cabin, a crew member told her “we’ve been bombed”.

    ‘I laughed at him’
    “I laughed at him, I said ‘we don’t get bombs in New Zealand, that’s ridiculous’.”

    She said they were taken to the police station after a “big boom when the second bomb came through”.

    “I realised immediately, I was part of a historical event,” she said.

    TVNZ reporter Corazon Miller talks to Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman (centre) and journalist David Robie after the Rainbow Warrior memorial dawn service today. Image: TVNZ

    Journalist David Robie. who travelled on the Rainbow Warrior and wrote the book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior published today, told Breakfast it was a “really shocking, shocking night”.

    “We were so overwhelmed by the grief and absolute shock of what had happened. But for me, there was no doubt it was France behind this.”

    “But we were absolutely flabbergasted that a country could do this.”

    He said it was a “very emotional moment” and was hard to believe it had been 40 years since that time.

    ‘Momentous occasion’
    “It stands out in my life as being the most momentous occasion as a journalist covering that whole event.”

    Executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa Russel Norman said the legacy of the ship was about “people who really stood up for something important”.

    “I mean, ending nuclear testing in the Pacific, imagine if they were still exploding bombs in the Pacific. We would have to live with that.

    “And those people back then they stood up and beat the French government to end nuclear testing.

    “It’s pretty inspirational.”

    He said the group were still campaigning on some key environmental issues today.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: What is the Strait of Hormuz and why is it so important for global shipping?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Belinda Clarence, Law Lecturer, RMIT University

    During the recent conflict between Iran and Israel, Iran threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s major shipping routes.

    Would that be possible, and what effects would it have?

    The Strait of Hormuz is a choke point at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. It is used to transport about 20% of global daily oil consumption.

    Iran effectively controls this crucial shipping route because it is a coastal state bordering this narrow stretch of water. The strait is too narrow to avoid navigating waters claimed by Iran. This raises thorny legal questions about whether it is really possible for Iran to block the strait, and what recourse other states have if it does.

    This geographical reality is far from new, and the legal frameworks governing international maritime activity have developed over centuries. At its heart is the lex mercatoria — the “law of merchants” — a body of transnational commercial law that emerged organically from the practices of traders operating across borders.

    Within this broader framework sits the lex maritima, or customary maritime law, which has long adapted to the hazards of shipping across vast oceans.

    The lex maritima originated from the shared practices of seafarers and merchants. Its purpose? To manage the unpredictable nature of maritime trade that demands coherent and stable rules.

    One of the most enduring principles of this legal tradition is the idea of mare liberum, or “the free sea”, set out by Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius in 1609. He argued the high seas should remain open to all for peaceful navigation and trade. This conveniently legitimised the ambitions of European colonial powers, granting them unfettered access to global maritime routes at a time when control over sea-based trade promised immense economic and strategic advantage.

    The shifting boundaries of maritime law

    One of the most fundamental questions in maritime law is: where do a nation’s territorial waters end, and the high seas begin?

    After the second world war, a series of conferences culminated in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), where the customary 3 nautical miles (5.56km) of territorial waters states could claim as their own was extended. This narrow limit was rooted more in historical naval range – the so-called “cannon shot rule” – than in modern geopolitical or environmental realities.

    In 1959, Iran took the unusual step of unilaterally extending its territorial sea to 12 nautical miles, despite not being a party to UNCLOS. Two decades later, following the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the US Embassy hostage crisis, Washington grew increasingly anxious about the security of oil flows from the Persian Gulf. These concerns intensified during the Iran-Iraq War, especially as Iran began using small islands in the Strait of Hormuz to deploy military forces and threaten commercial shipping.

    UNCLOS and the new rules of the sea

    One of the key compromises of UNCLOS was an extension of territorial waters for states that ratified the treaty. In exchange, UNCLOS replaced the older concept of “innocent passage” – which allowed only surface navigation through territorial seas – with the broader notion of “transit passage”. Under this regime, vessels and aircraft from other states are granted the right to travel not only on the surface, but also under the sea and through the air above straits used for international navigation.

    While 169 states have ratified UNCLOS, both Iran and the United States remain notable holdouts. This means Iran does not enjoy the broader 12-nautical-mile limit recognised under UNCLOS, and the US cannot claim the agreement’s protections for transit passage through strategic choke points.

    While the geopolitical and legal tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz may seem far removed from the world of private commerce, the global economy continues to function thanks to a powerful legal tool: the contract. Contracts offer a predictable framework that allows trade across borders without parties needing to trust one another personally.

    The Strait of Hormuz is bordered by active, assertive states such as Iran, which means the potential for interstate conflict is relatively high. This doesn’t mean commercial contracts are irrelevant to the recent dispute in the Strait of Hormuz — far from it. But their influence is more indirect.

    What can be learned?

    Without significant political change in Tehran, it’s unlikely either Iran or the US will shift its position on adopting UNCLOS. Yet despite Iran’s repeated threats to close the strait, it has never followed through — and the US Navy continues to maintain a steady presence in the region. For now, a fragile but persistent equilibrium holds.

    Belinda Clarence 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. What is the Strait of Hormuz and why is it so important for global shipping? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-strait-of-hormuz-and-why-is-it-so-important-for-global-shipping-260920

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Rugby headgear can’t prevent concussion – but new materials could soften the blows over a career

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Draper, Professor of Sport and Exercise Science, University of Canterbury

    The widely held view among rugby players, coaches and officials is that headgear can’t prevent concussion. If so, why wear it? It’s hot, it can block vision and hearing, and it can be uncomfortable.

    Headgear was originally designed to protect players from cuts and abrasions. But players still hope it will offer them a degree of protection against the collisions they experience in the game. Some players adopt it after previous concussions.

    We’re now seeing increasing numbers of professional players opting in. The Irish men’s team, for example, field up to five players each match sporting headgear. In Japan, it’s mandatory for juniors. And more parents in New Zealand are making their children wear it, too.

    The exact specifications for rugby match kit – boots, shorts, shoulder pads and
    headgear – are regulated through World Rugby’s Law 4 and Regulation 12. In 2019, the governing body launched a trial enabling players to wear headgear with new technical specifications in training and matches.

    The specifications have meant manufacturers can take advantage of novel “isotropic” materials that can potentially reduce the impact forces experienced by players.

    Conventional headgear is composed of soft foams that flatten when a player’s head collides with the ground or another player. As such, they can only minimally absorb those collision forces.

    Isotropic materials behave differently. They can absorb impacts from multiple directions and may offer a level of protection against the effects on a player’s head of a tackle or other collision event.

    Given these changes, and in light of recent research, we may need to change the narrative around rugby headgear: while it may not prevent concussion, it might reduce the total contact “burden” experienced by players in a game and over a whole season. And this could have benefits for long-term brain health.

    Impacts across seasons and careers

    Contact in rugby – through tackles, at the breakdown, and in scrums and lineouts – leads to players experiencing a number of collisions or “head acceleration events”. This contact is most commonly head to ground, head to body or head to head.

    By having players use “smart” mouthguards with embedded micro-accelerometers and gyroscopes to capture head movements, researchers can now measure each collision and each player’s contact load in a game – and potentially over a career.

    A player’s total contact load is found by adding together the magnitude of the impacts they experience in a game. These are measured as “peak linear accelerations” or “peak rotational accelerations”.

    While past research and media attention has focused on concussion, it has become clear the total contact burden in training and matches – the total “sub-concussive knocks” through head acceleration events – may be as important, if not more so.

    One of our own research projects involved following 40 under-16 players wearing smart mouthguards for all training and matches across one season. Peak Linear accelerations are measured as a g-force (g). Activities such as such as running, jumping and shaking the head would measure under 8g, for example, whereas heading a soccer ball might measure 31g.

    The results of our study showed the players differed greatly in their cumulative exposure over a whole season, from 300g to nearly 14,000g. These differences would be amplified further over an entire rugby career.

    Some of the variation is likely due to a player’s team position, with loose forwards having a greater burden than others. But it also seems some players just enjoy the contact aspects of the game more than others.

    Rugby is an impact sport: the Ireland and England women’s teams clash in 2025.
    Getty Images

    Potential benefits of new headgear materials

    Researcher Helen Murray at the University of Auckland has highlighted the need for more research into the burden of collisions, rather than just concussions, over a rugby career. In particular, we need to know more about its effect on future brain health.

    We hope to contribute to this by following our existing cohort of players through their careers. In the meantime, our research has examined the potential of existing rugby headgear and new isotropic materials to mitigate peak accelerations in rugby collisions.

    Using the field data collected from male and female players over the past four seasons, we have designed laboratory testing protocols to compare the conventional and newer materials.

    The results suggest the new forms of headgear do have the potential to reduce the impact burden for players.

    We found 55–90% of head acceleration events do involve direct contact with the head. As such, collision-mitigation headgear could be beneficial. And our laboratory testing produced an estimated 30% reduction in peak linear accelerations with the headgear compared to without.

    The nature of concussion is complex and related to the size of an impact as well as its direction and angle. For instance, we observed the concussions experienced by the junior players occurred between 12g and 62g – well below the male threshold of 70g requiring professional players to be removed from the field for a head injury assessment.

    Currently, it seems unlikely headgear can prevent concussion. But it does appear new headgear materials could significantly reduce the total impact burden for players during their careers. And this may help safeguard their future brain health.

    Nick Draper receives funding from the Health Research Council, Cure Kids, the Neurological Foundation, Canterbury Medical Research Foundation, Pacific Radiology Group, the Maurice and Phyllis Paykel Trust, and the UC Foundation.

    – ref. Rugby headgear can’t prevent concussion – but new materials could soften the blows over a career – https://theconversation.com/rugby-headgear-cant-prevent-concussion-but-new-materials-could-soften-the-blows-over-a-career-258912

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Israel’s relocation plan for Palestinians and fading hopes for a ceasefire

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor

    This article was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email newsletter. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

    It was revealing this week to read reports of Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with Donald Trump (his third White House visit since Trump’s inauguration in January). There was no sense that the US president upped the pressure on the Israeli prime minister to soften Israel’s conditions in order to secure a ceasefire. Instead the pair appears to have discussed the prospect of moving large numbers of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip to countries what would, as Netanyahu put it, “give Palestinians a better future”.

    If Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has his way, the future for those Palestinians who want to stay put does indeed look pretty bleak. And the 57,000 people who, according to figures collated by the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, have lost their lives since the Israeli assault on Gaza began back in October 2023, have no future at all.

    But the plan for the future of Gazan Palestinians that Katz unveiled this week will horrify many too. It involves the construction of a “humanitarian city” at Rafah, close to the Egyptian border at the very southern end of the Strip. Under the plan, people entering the city will be searched for weapons and checked for affiliation to Hamas. Once in, they will not be allowed to leave, except to depart from Gaza altogether.

    Sign up to receive our weekly World Affairs Briefing newsletter from The Conversation UK. Every Thursday we’ll bring you expert analysis of the big stories in international relations.

    This immediately prompted critics to accuse the Israeli government of ethnic cleansing. James Sweeney, an expert in human rights and international law at the University of Lancaster, believes that, if Israel were to carry out Katz’s plan, there would be strong case against political and military leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He argues that the plan amounts at the very least to the forcible transfer of civilians prohibited under the Geneva conventions and the Rome statute, which underpins the International Criminal Court (ICC).

    The snag, as Sweeney sees it, is going to be enforcing international law. While there is an ICC warrant out for the arrests of Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli prime minister was able to visit Washington without fear of being apprehended. The US doesn’t recognise the ICC and, indeed, the prosecutor that issued the warrant against Netanyahu and Gallant is now subject to US sanctions.



    Read more:
    Plans to relocate Gazans to a ‘humanitarian city’ look like a crime against humanity – international law expert

    Of course, what happens in Gaza tends to reverberate throughout the region. If hundreds of thousands of Palestinian citizens are moved out of Gaza, it’s likely to be to one of the neighbouring countries. When the idea of a Trump Riviera was first mooted earlier this year, the US president said the Palestinian population could be rehomed in Egypt or Jordan – something both those countries pushed back against with alacrity.

    And the powerful Gulf States, which Trump was keen to woo as business partners when he made a tour of the region in May, are also deeply concerned about Israel’s conduct of its military campaign in Gaza. Geopolitics aside, their populations are broadly sympathetic to the Palestinian people, so a plan to force them out of their homes is unacceptable for Gulf leaders.

    Scott Lucas, an expert in Middle East politics at University College Dublin, gives us a broader view of the region. He describes what he calls two “kaleidoscope moments” when one event has changed the entire region. The first was the Hamas attack of October 7. This brought to an abrupt end the process of normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The second was the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, which has further isolated Israel. Lucas believes for there to be any hope of regional stability and the furthering of Israeli relations with the rest of the region, the war in Gaza must end.



    Read more:
    As Netanyahu meets Trump in Washington, what hope for peace in Gaza? Expert Q&A

    Ali Mamouri, a Middle East scholar at Australia’s Deakin University doesn’t believe there’s much chance of this happening any time soon. Part of this is political: Netanyahu still depends on the far-right elements of his coalition represented by national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich. They remain steadfastly opposed to even a ceasefire and want to see Israel expel Palestinians by hook or by crook.

    Also, by prolonging the war, Netanyahu can keep delaying his corruption trial (incidentally, Donald Trump has called for the charges to be dropped altogether).

    And the idea of full statehood for Palestine remains anathema for Israel, as Netanyahu made clear this week talking with journalists after his meeting with Trump when he made clear his insistence that far from pulling Israeli troops out of Gaza, Israel would keep full control of all security matters there: “Now, people will say: ‘It’s not a complete state, it’s not a state.’ We don’t care,” he said.

    Mansour concludes: “The coming weeks will reveal whether Israel chooses the path of compromise and coexistence, or continues down a road that forecloses the possibility of lasting peace.”



    Read more:
    The US has high hopes for a new Gaza ceasefire, but Israel’s long-term aims seem far less peaceful

    Europe must step up over Ukraine

    Just as the picture remains bleak in Gaza, the prospects for peace remain very slim in Ukraine. Although given Donald Trump’s mercurial approach to foreign affairs, it’s also fair to say that anything is possible.

    This week the US president decided to recommence US arms supplies to Ukraine, having previously frozen military aid (although he insists this was done by his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and that he was “blindsided” by the move). His relationship with Putin appears to have soured – for the present at least. He said: “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all of the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

    And at the most recent Nato summit in The Hague on June 25, Trump put his signature to a declaration that Russia poses “long-term threat … to Euro-Atlantic security” and that Nato member states retain “their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine”.

    But Stefan Wolff, an expert in international security at the University of Birmingham, believes that Nato’s European members cannot bank on the US as a reliable long-term partner. There are few signs that the US is pressuring Russia to compromise on its maximalist aims, which remain unchanged since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. So Russia remains the most urgent threat to European security. And it’s a threat that Europe will need to prepare to confront, if necessary without US assistance.

    But there are signs that many European countries are preparing to do just that, Wolff writes. Increased commitments to defence spending are a strong start. As he concludes: “They will not turn Europe into a military heavyweight overnight. But they will buy time to do so.”



    Read more:
    US backs Nato’s latest pledge of support for Ukraine, but in reality seems to have abandoned its European partners

    Understandably, much of the reporting of the war in Ukraine has focused on the human tragedy unfolding in the war-torn country: the enormous casualty list on both sides, civilians killed or forced from their homes in the fighting, and the Ukrainian citizens forced to live under Russian occupation.

    But a new film, which premiered recently at the Tribeca film festival, looks at War Through the Eyes of Animals. Janine Natalya Clark, an expert in transitional justice at the University of Birmingham, has done similar. Clark interviewed a number of Ukrainian natural scientists including botanists, ornithologists, herpetologists (who study reptiles and amphibians) and a marine biologist. She asked them to make sound recordings in their area to reflect on how the war is affecting Ukraine’s flora and fauna.

    What emerged was extraordinary and reflects how the conflict has affected the natural world in both positive and negative ways. Clark believes that this information will be invaluable when it comes to rebuilding Ukraine and in securing justice and reparations for the damage done – not just to humans, but to Ukraine’s animals and the habitats in which they live.



    Read more:
    Sound recordings can give us an animal-eye view of the war in Ukraine

    In Russia, meanwhile, a controversial measure introduced by the Putin government is dividing public opinion. In some parts of the country, schoolgirls who become pregnant are being paid more than 100,000 roubles (nearly £900) for giving birth and raising their babies.

    Jannifer Mathers, a Russia expert at Aberystwyth University, looks at the rise of pronatalism in the face of declining populations and finds it’s not just an issue in Russia, but for many other countries as well, including the US.



    Read more:
    Russia is paying schoolgirls to have babies. Why is pronatalism on the rise around the world?

    World Affairs Briefing from The Conversation UK is available as a weekly email newsletter. Click here to get updates directly in your inbox.

    – ref. Israel’s relocation plan for Palestinians and fading hopes for a ceasefire – https://theconversation.com/israels-relocation-plan-for-palestinians-and-fading-hopes-for-a-ceasefire-260933

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-Evening Report: ‘Fashion helped the pride come out’: First Nations fashion as resistance, culture and connection

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Treena Clark, Chancellor’s Indigenous Research Fellow, Faculty of Design and Society, University of Technology Sydney

    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images of deceased people.

    First Nations garments have always held deep meaning. What we wear tells stories about culture, Country and community.

    From the moment of invasion, clothing and adornment were removed and used to erase our cultural presence. But resistance never stopped.

    Today, First Nations designers, artists and community members continue to reclaim garments as acts of survival, empowerment and self-determination.

    Cultural practices like cloak-making and adornment are linked to wellbeing. They restore pride, connect to ancestors and Country, and build community.

    First Nations fashion designers and artists create exquisite items that represent culture, speak back to colonisation, and contribute to healing.

    A shared experience

    Like so many others, what I wear is deeply personal. I have my dad’s old Aboriginal rugby guernsey. He wore it for years. Now I wear it. It’s a piece of him I get to carry.

    It’s a part of what links me to my research in understanding First Nations fashion and style as living expressions of who we are.

    I had the chance to yarn with 20 Aboriginal Knowledge Holders from Tarntanya (Adelaide), Naarm (Melbourne) and Warrane (Sydney) about their fashion and style choices.

    Like many of the people I spoke to in this study, we use First Nations fashion and style as a way to stay connected to culture and community and express identity and resistance.

    Fashion as connection and solidarity

    For many of the Knowledge Holders I spoke with, wearing First Nations clothing and adornment connects them to culture and community.

    It becomes a way to share who they are and stand together in a world that has tried to silence and erase them.

    The Knowledge Holders wear everything from subtle pins and badges to bold hoodies, t-shirts and merch with Aboriginal flag motifs and slogans. Some choose delicate shawls or clothing with cultural artworks.

    As one Knowledge Holder put it, it’s “a contribution, a brick in the wall” that helps the building of identity and belonging.

    For mob living off-Country in cities or overseas, wearing culture becomes an important way to stay connected.

    This sense of connection can also show up in the most ordinary places.

    Several Knowledge Holders shared how wearing an Aboriginal shirt in places like the supermarket often sparks a moment of connection. Sometimes they approach others, sometimes they’re the ones approached.

    Fashion as pride and cultural practice

    For most of the Knowledge Holders, wearing First Nations clothing affirms their Aboriginality and gives them a sense of pride.

    For some, it’s about proudly showing who they are, especially in a society where racism still exists. That pride runs through generations.

    Some talked about how they weren’t always allowed to show their First Nations identity openly, but now they can wear cultural clothing freely, all of the time.

    The Knowledge Holders wear First Nations fashions at work, in shops, when travelling overseas, at graduations and especially at cultural events or protests.

    Another Knowledge Holder shared how fashion filled a gap, giving First Nations people the words and symbols to express their culture and identity.

    This Knowledge Holder declared, “fashion helped the pride come out”.

    Others shared that even though wearing these clothes can mean dealing with racism or ignorance, they still choose to show that pride.

    Fashion as identity and protest

    For many of the Knowledge Holders, First Nations fashion and style is a way to strengthen their identity, share culture and protest.

    They talked about wearing protest clothing as a clear political statement, especially at marches, NAIDOC events or on Invasion Day.

    For many, clothing is how they show who they are, both to themselves and to others.

    One Knowledge Holder said

    if I don’t wear something Indigenous, they wouldn’t know that I was.

    Some pointed out that First Nations fashion and style can be an important sign for them, especially if they feel they “pass” as non-Indigenous or look ethnically ambiguous.

    But not all Knowledge Holders use fashion to show their identity. One told me they only wear First Nations clothing in solidarity with others, not as personal expression.

    There’s more to learn and do

    First Nations fashion and style is so much more than just clothing. It’s memory, resistance and a story we carry on our bodies.

    As one of the Knowledge Holders put it:

    we wasn’t allowed to be proud of it. Now we can wear [an Aboriginal] t-shirt whenever, all day every day.

    That says it all. But there’s still work to do. We need to keep learning and understanding about all the different layers and identities that shape these experiences.

    There is more research to be done to include more voices, like those of diverse genders and sexualities, Torres Strait Islanders and regional fashion scenes.

    And it’s not just about research. We need more policies, more exhibitions, more programs and more platforms that celebrate First Nations fashion and style.

    Treena Clark has received funding through the University of Technology Sydney Chancellor’s Indigenous Research Fellowship scheme.

    – ref. ‘Fashion helped the pride come out’: First Nations fashion as resistance, culture and connection – https://theconversation.com/fashion-helped-the-pride-come-out-first-nations-fashion-as-resistance-culture-and-connection-258816

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Trump has flagged 200% tariffs on Australian pharmaceuticals. What do we produce here, and what’s at risk?

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

    Tanya Dol/Shutterstock

    US President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on Australia’s pharmaceutical exports to the United States has raised alarm among industry and government leaders.

    There are fears that, if implemented, the tariffs could cost the Australian economy up to A$2.8 billion. That’s both in direct exports and as inputs to third countries that produce drugs also hit by tariffs.

    The proposed tariffs come amid growing pressure from pharmaceutical lobby groups in the US for Trump to use trade negotiations as a tool to make changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and raise Australian drug prices.

    In response, Treasurer Jim Chalmers stated the government would not compromise the integrity of the PBS to do a deal with the Trump administration. Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie also confirmed bipartisan support for the PBS.

    Our largest export market for pharmaceuticals

    The US is Australia’s biggest pharmaceutical export market, accounting for 38% of total Australian pharmaceutical exports and valued at $2.2 billion last year.

    About 87% of exports to the US consist of blood plasma products, mainly from manufacturing giant CSL. These are used for transfusions in a range of medical and surgical situations.

    In a submission to the US Commerce Department, which is reviewing the sector, CSL called for tariffs to be phased in over five years, and for an exemption for certain biotech equipment.

    Trump floated proposed tariffs potentially as high as 200%. But he also said these would not be imposed for “about a year, a year and a half” to allow negotiations to take place.

    If tariffs are eventually implemented, there are fears domestic manufacturing may suffer, with negative flow-on effects for Australian research and innovation in the sector.

    How does the PBS work?

    The PBS is an Australian government program aimed at providing affordable prescription medicines to Australians.

    It helps reduce the cost of essential medications, ensuring access to treatments for a wide range of medical conditions. Medicines included on the PBS are subsidised by the government, with the patient making a capped co-payment. More than 900 medicines were listed on the scheme in 2023–24, costing the government $17.7 billion.

    Decisions to list medications on the PBS are made by the health minister based on recommendations from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. The committee evaluates the clinical effectiveness, safety, cost-effectiveness (“value for money”) and estimated financial impact of new medications.

    If approved, the PBS uses this information to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies, helping to keep prices affordable.

    How does the US system compare?

    This contrasts with the US system, which operates more under free-market principles. In the US, pharmaceuticals are subsidised through private health insurance or government programs such as Medicaid. Neither directly negotiates with pharmaceutical companies.

    The fragmented nature of the US system enables pharmaceutical companies to maintain higher prices, as there is no central authority to enforce cost controls. Studies have shown that prices for pharmaceuticals in the US are, on average, 2.78 times those in 33 other countries.

    In addition, in the US pharmaceutical companies are granted extensive patent protections. These provide exclusive rights to sell their drugs for a certain period.

    This exclusivity often leads to monopolistic pricing practices, as generic competitors are barred from entering the market until the patent expires.

    In Australia, patents also exist. But the PBS mitigates their impact by negotiating prices and promoting the use of cost-effective alternatives, such as generics, once they become available.

    Industry lobbying

    US pharmaceutical industry bodies have long criticised the PBS. They claim the scheme “undervalues new innovative medicines by setting prices based on older inferior medicines and generics, and through use of low and outdated monetary thresholds per year of life gained from clinically proven treatments”.

    The slow process to list drugs on the PBS has also attracted criticism. The advisory committee meets only three times a year, with resources currently being stretched beyond capacity.

    In response to these criticisms, the Australian government commissioned a review, which was completed in 2024. It provided 50 recommendations to ensure Australians can continue to access effective, safe and affordable medicines in an equitable and timely way.

    The government has established an advisory group to work on implementing these recommendations. However, it is unclear whether proposed changes will appease the powerful US pharmaceutical industry.

    I am responsible for evaluating new health technologies for consideration of government subsidy through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS)

    – ref. Trump has flagged 200% tariffs on Australian pharmaceuticals. What do we produce here, and what’s at risk? – https://theconversation.com/trump-has-flagged-200-tariffs-on-australian-pharmaceuticals-what-do-we-produce-here-and-whats-at-risk-260909

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Trump has flagged 200% tariffs on Australian pharmaceuticals. What do we produce here, and what’s at risk?

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

    Tanya Dol/Shutterstock

    US President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on Australia’s pharmaceutical exports to the United States has raised alarm among industry and government leaders.

    There are fears that, if implemented, the tariffs could cost the Australian economy up to A$2.8 billion. That’s both in direct exports and as inputs to third countries that produce drugs also hit by tariffs.

    The proposed tariffs come amid growing pressure from pharmaceutical lobby groups in the US for Trump to use trade negotiations as a tool to make changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and raise Australian drug prices.

    In response, Treasurer Jim Chalmers stated the government would not compromise the integrity of the PBS to do a deal with the Trump administration. Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie also confirmed bipartisan support for the PBS.

    Our largest export market for pharmaceuticals

    The US is Australia’s biggest pharmaceutical export market, accounting for 38% of total Australian pharmaceutical exports and valued at $2.2 billion last year.

    About 87% of exports to the US consist of blood plasma products, mainly from manufacturing giant CSL. These are used for transfusions in a range of medical and surgical situations.

    In a submission to the US Commerce Department, which is reviewing the sector, CSL called for tariffs to be phased in over five years, and for an exemption for certain biotech equipment.

    Trump floated proposed tariffs potentially as high as 200%. But he also said these would not be imposed for “about a year, a year and a half” to allow negotiations to take place.

    If tariffs are eventually implemented, there are fears domestic manufacturing may suffer, with negative flow-on effects for Australian research and innovation in the sector.

    How does the PBS work?

    The PBS is an Australian government program aimed at providing affordable prescription medicines to Australians.

    It helps reduce the cost of essential medications, ensuring access to treatments for a wide range of medical conditions. Medicines included on the PBS are subsidised by the government, with the patient making a capped co-payment. More than 900 medicines were listed on the scheme in 2023–24, costing the government $17.7 billion.

    Decisions to list medications on the PBS are made by the health minister based on recommendations from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. The committee evaluates the clinical effectiveness, safety, cost-effectiveness (“value for money”) and estimated financial impact of new medications.

    If approved, the PBS uses this information to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies, helping to keep prices affordable.

    How does the US system compare?

    This contrasts with the US system, which operates more under free-market principles. In the US, pharmaceuticals are subsidised through private health insurance or government programs such as Medicaid. Neither directly negotiates with pharmaceutical companies.

    The fragmented nature of the US system enables pharmaceutical companies to maintain higher prices, as there is no central authority to enforce cost controls. Studies have shown that prices for pharmaceuticals in the US are, on average, 2.78 times those in 33 other countries.

    In addition, in the US pharmaceutical companies are granted extensive patent protections. These provide exclusive rights to sell their drugs for a certain period.

    This exclusivity often leads to monopolistic pricing practices, as generic competitors are barred from entering the market until the patent expires.

    In Australia, patents also exist. But the PBS mitigates their impact by negotiating prices and promoting the use of cost-effective alternatives, such as generics, once they become available.

    Industry lobbying

    US pharmaceutical industry bodies have long criticised the PBS. They claim the scheme “undervalues new innovative medicines by setting prices based on older inferior medicines and generics, and through use of low and outdated monetary thresholds per year of life gained from clinically proven treatments”.

    The slow process to list drugs on the PBS has also attracted criticism. The advisory committee meets only three times a year, with resources currently being stretched beyond capacity.

    In response to these criticisms, the Australian government commissioned a review, which was completed in 2024. It provided 50 recommendations to ensure Australians can continue to access effective, safe and affordable medicines in an equitable and timely way.

    The government has established an advisory group to work on implementing these recommendations. However, it is unclear whether proposed changes will appease the powerful US pharmaceutical industry.

    I am responsible for evaluating new health technologies for consideration of government subsidy through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS)

    – ref. Trump has flagged 200% tariffs on Australian pharmaceuticals. What do we produce here, and what’s at risk? – https://theconversation.com/trump-has-flagged-200-tariffs-on-australian-pharmaceuticals-what-do-we-produce-here-and-whats-at-risk-260909

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Albanese’s China mission – managing a complex relationship in a world of shifting alliances

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Laurenceson, Director and Professor, Australia-China Relations Institute (UTS:ACRI), University of Technology Sydney

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese leaves for China on Saturday, confident most Australians back the government’s handling of relations with our most important economic partner and the leading strategic power in Asia.

    Albanese’s domestic critics have lambasted him for meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping before United States President Donald Trump. They are also aggrieved at his refusal to label China a security threat.

    But neither criticism really stacks up.

    An Albanese-Trump meeting would have happened last month on the sidelines of a G7 gathering in Canada. It was Trump who left early, standing up more leaders than just Albanese.

    Nor is Albanese the first Australian prime minister to meet a Chinese president before an American one. His predecessor Tony Abbott caught up with Xi a few weeks after coming to office in 2013, before he had a chance to meet President Barack Obama.

    ‘Friends, not foes’

    Meanwhile, polling indicates just one in five Australians see the relationship with China first and foremost as “a threat to be confronted”. Rather, a clear two-thirds majority see it as “a complex relationship to be managed”.

    Albanese is also regarded as more competent than his opposition counterpart in handling Australia’s foreign policy generally – and better at managing the China relationship specifically.

    The prime minister’s Chinese hosts also have an incentive to ensure his visit is a successful one.

    In the past fortnight, China’s ambassador in Canberra, Xiao Qian, has penned opinion pieces in two of Australia’s biggest media outlets, insisting Australia and China are “friends, not foes” and touting the “comprehensive turnaround” in bilateral ties since Labor won government in May 2022.

    Beijing and Washington view each other as their geopolitical priority. Beijing can make it harder for Washington to enlist security allies such as Canberra in this rivalry by maintaining its own strong and constructive bilateral ties with Australia.

    And quite apart from the competition with the US, China relied on Australia last year as its fifth largest import source.

    Plenty of complaints

    None of this is to say Albanese’s visit will be easy, because Australia-China relations are rarely smooth.

    Canberra continues to have many complaints about China’s international behaviour.

    For example, Foreign Minister Penny Wong recently signed a joint statement with her counterparts in Washington, Tokyo and New Delhi expressing “serious concerns regarding dangerous and provocative actions” by China in the East and South China Seas, and the “abrupt constriction […] of key supply chains”.

    Wong has also said the government remains “appalled” by the treatment of Australians imprisoned in China, including Dr Yang Jun, who is facing espionage charges he strongly denies.

    Defence Minister Richard Marles has voiced Canberra’s alarm at Beijing’s “no limits agreement” with Moscow, and claimed China has

    engaged in the biggest conventional military build-up since the end of the second world war.

    However, this assessment is contested by independent Australian analysts.

    Beijing also has plenty of complaints. They include Canberra’s ongoing pursuit of closer military cooperation with the US and UK through the AUKUS pact.

    There is also the commitment to forcing the sale of the lease to operate the Port of Darwin that is currently held by a Chinese company.

    Reliable trading partner

    Albanese has already made clear his visit to China will have a strong economic focus.

    While grappling with security challenges, any Australian government, Labor or Coalition, must face the reality that last year, local companies sold more to China – worth A$196 billion – than our next four largest markets combined.

    China is also, by far, Australia’s biggest supplier, putting downward pressure on the cost of living.

    Research produced by Curtin University, commissioned by the Australia-China Business Council, finds trade with China increases disposable income of the average Australian household by $2,600, or 4.6% per person.

    In an ideal world, Australia would have a more diversified trading mix.

    But again, any Australian government or business must grapple with the reality that obvious major alternative markets, like the US, are not only less interested in local goods and services, but are walking away from their past trade commitments.

    Under the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement signed two decades ago, Australian exporters selling to the US faced an average tariff of just 0.1%. But nowadays Washington applies a baseline tariff of 10% on most Australian imports.

    Meanwhile, owing to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement struck in 2015, Beijing applies an average tariff of just 1.1%.

    No wonder more Australians now say China is a more reliable trading partner than the US.

    This also explains Alabese’s response when he was asked in April if he would support Trump’s trade war against China:

    It would be extraordinary if the Australian response was “thank you” and we will help to further hurt our economy

    Likewise, Trade Minister Don Farrell is adamant Australia’s interests will determine the Albanese government’s choices, not “what the Americans may or may not want”.

    We don’t want to do less business with China, we want to do more business with China.

    Deeper trade ties with Asia, including China, are not just about making a buck. Wong has stressed the national security implications of a strong economic relationship:

    [It is] an investment in our security. Stability and prosperity are mutually reinforcing.

    All of this means Albanese’s six-day visit to China is shaping up to be time well spent.

    James Laurenceson 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. Albanese’s China mission – managing a complex relationship in a world of shifting alliances – https://theconversation.com/albaneses-china-mission-managing-a-complex-relationship-in-a-world-of-shifting-alliances-260404

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Does AI actually boost productivity? The evidence is murky

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Whittle, Director, Data61, CSIRO

    Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock

    There’s been much talk recently – especially among politicians – about productivity. And for good reason: Australia’s labour productivity growth sits at a 60-year low.

    To address this, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has convened a productivity round table next month. This will coincide with the release of an interim report from the Productivity Commission, which is looking at five pillars of reform. One of these is the role of data and digital technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI).

    This will be music to the ears of the tech and business sectors, which have been enthusiastically promoting the productivity benefits of AI. In fact, the Business Council of Australia also said last month that AI is the single greatest opportunity in a generation to lift productivity.

    But what do we really know about how AI impacts productivity?

    What is productivity?

    Put simply, productivity is how much output (goods and services) we can produce from a given amount of inputs (such as labour and raw materials). It matters because higher productivity typically translates to a higher standard of living. Productivity growth has accounted for 80% of Australia’s income growth over the past three decades.

    Productivity can be thought of as individual, organisational or national.

    Your individual productivity is how efficiently you manage your time and resources to complete tasks. How many emails can you respond to in an hour? How many products can you check for defects in a day?

    Organisational productivity is how well an organisation achieves its goals. For example, in a research organisation, how many top-quality research papers are produced?

    National productivity is the economic efficiency of a nation, often measured as gross domestic product per hour worked. It is effectively an aggregate of the other forms. But it’s notoriously difficult to track how changes in individual or organisational productivity translate into national GDP per hour worked.

    AI and individual productivity

    The nascent research examining the relationship between AI and individual productivity shows mixed results.

    A 2025 real-world study of AI and productivity involved 776 experienced product professionals at US multinational company Procter & Gamble. The study showed that individuals randomly assigned to use AI performed as well as a team of two without. A similar study in 2023 with 750 consultants from Boston Consulting Group found tasks were 18% faster with generative AI.

    A 2023 paper reported on an early generative AI system in a Fortune 500 software company used by 5,200 customer support agents. The system showed a 14% increase in the number of issues resolved per hour. For less experienced agents, productivity increased by 35%.

    But AI doesn’t always increase individual productivity.

    A survey of 2,500 professionals found generative AI actually increased workload for 77% of workers. Some 47% said they didn’t know how to unlock productivity benefits. The study points to barriers such as the need to verify and/or correct AI outputs, the need for AI upskilling, and unreasonable expectations about what AI can do.

    A recent CSIRO study examined the daily use of Microsoft 365 Copilot by 300 employees of a government organisation. While the majority self-reported productivity benefits, a sizeable minority (30%) did not. Even those workers who reported productivity improvements expected greater productivity benefits than were delivered.

    AI and organisational productivity

    It’s difficult, if not impossible, to attribute changes in an organisation’s productivity to the introduction of AI. Businesses are sensitive to many social and organisational factors, any one of which could be the reason for a change in productivity.

    Nevertheless, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has estimated the productivity benefits of traditional AI – that is, machine learning applied for an industry-specific task – to be zero to 11% at the organisational level.

    A 2024 summary paper cites independent studies showing increases in organisational productivity from AI in Germany, Italy and Taiwan.

    In contrast, a 2022 analysis of 300,000 US firms didn’t find a significant correlation between AI adoption and productivity, but did for other technologies such as robotics and cloud computing. Likely explanations are that AI hasn’t yet had an effect on many firms, or simply that it’s too hard to disentangle the impact of AI given it’s never applied in isolation.

    AI productivity increases can also sometimes be masked by additional human labour needed to train or operate AI systems. Take Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology for shops.

    Publicly launched in 2018, it was intended to reduce labour as customer purchases would be fully automated. But it reportedly relied on hiring around 1,000 workers in India for quality control. Amazon has labelled these reports “erroneous”.

    More generally, think about the unknown number (but likely millions) of people paid to label data for AI models.

    AI and national productivity

    The picture at a national level is even murkier.

    Clearly, AI hasn’t yet impacted national productivity. It can be argued that technology developments take time to affect national productivity, as companies need to figure out how to use the technology and put the necessary infrastructure and skills in place.

    However, this is not guaranteed. For example, while there is consensus that the internet led to productivity improvements, the effects of mobile phones and social media are more contested, and their impacts are more apparent in some industries (such as entertainment) than others.

    Productivity isn’t just doing things faster

    The common narrative around AI and productivity is that AI automates mundane tasks, making us faster at doing things and giving us more time for creative pursuits. This, however, is a naive view of how work happens.

    Just because you can deal with your inbox more quickly doesn’t mean you’ll spend your afternoon on the beach. The more emails you fire off, the more you’ll receive back, and the never-ending cycle continues.

    Faster isn’t always better. Sometimes, we need to slow down to be more productive. That’s when great ideas happen.

    Imagine a world in which AI isn’t simply about speeding up tasks but proactively slows us down, to give us space to be more innovative, and more productive. That’s the real untapped opportunity with AI.

    Jon Whittle works at CSIRO which receives R&D funding from a wide range of government and industry clients.

    – ref. Does AI actually boost productivity? The evidence is murky – https://theconversation.com/does-ai-actually-boost-productivity-the-evidence-is-murky-260690

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Why Texas Hill Country, where a devastating flood killed more than 120 people, is one of the deadliest places in the US for flash flooding

    Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Hatim Sharif, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Texas at San Antonio

    A Kerrville, Texas, resident watches the flooded Guadalupe River on July 4, 2025. Eric Vryn/Getty Images

    Texas Hill Country is known for its landscapes, where shallow rivers wind among hills and through rugged valleys. That geography also makes it one of the deadliest places in the U.S. for flash flooding.

    In the early hours of July 4, 2025, a flash flood swept through an area of Hill Country dotted with summer camps and small towns about 70 miles northwest of San Antonio. More than 120 people died in the flooding. The majority of them were in Kerr County, including more than two dozen girls and counselors at one summer camp, Camp Mystic. Dozens of people were still unaccounted for a week later.

    The flooding began with a heavy downpour, with more than 10 inches of rain in some areas, that sent water sheeting off the hillsides and into creeks. The creeks poured into the Guadalupe River.

    A river gauge at Hunt, Texas, near Camp Mystic, showed how quickly the river flooded: Around 3 a.m. on July 4, the Guadalupe River was rising about 1 foot every 5 minutes at the gauge, National Weather Service data shows. By 4:30 a.m., it had risen more than 20 feet. As the water moved downstream, it reached Kerrville, where the river rose even faster.

    Flood expert Hatim Sharif, a hydrologist and civil engineer at the University of Texas at San Antonio, explains what makes this part of the country, known as Flash Flood Alley, so dangerous.

    What makes Hill Country so prone to flooding?

    Texas as a whole leads the nation in flood deaths, and by a wide margin. A colleague and I analyzed data from 1959 to 2019 and found 1,069 people had died in flooding in Texas over those six decades. The next highest total was in Louisiana, with 693.

    Many of those flood deaths have been in Hill County. It’s part of an area known as Flash Flood Alley, a crescent of land that curves from near Dallas down to San Antonio and then westward.

    The hills are steep, and the water moves quickly when it floods. This is a semi-arid area with soils that don’t soak up much water, so the water sheets off quickly and the shallow creeks can rise fast.

    When those creeks converge on a river, they can create a surge of water that wipes out homes and washes away cars and, unfortunately, anyone in its path.

    Hill Country has seen some devastating flash floods. In 1987, heavy rain in western Kerr County quickly flooded the Guadalupe River, triggering a flash flood similar to the one in 2025. Ten teenagers being evacuated from a camp died in the rushing water.

    San Antonio, at the eastern edge of Hill Country, was hit with a flash flood on June 12, 2025, that killed 13 people whose cars were swept away by high water from a fast-flooding creek near an interstate ramp in the early morning.

    Why does the region get such strong downpours?

    One reason Hill Country gets powerful downpours is the Balcones Escarpment.

    The escarpment is a line of cliffs and steep hills created by a geologic fault. When warm air from the Gulf rushes up the escarpment, it condenses and can dump a lot of moisture. That water flows down the hills quickly, from many different directions, filling streams and rivers below.

    As temperature rise, the warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, increasing the downpour and flood risk.

    A tour of the Guadalupe River and its flood risk.

    The same effect can contribute to flash flooding in San Antonio, where the large amount of paved land and lack of updated drainage to control runoff adds to the risk.

    What can be done to improve flash flood safety?

    First, it’s important for people to understand why flash flooding happens and just how fast the water can rise and flow. In many arid areas, dry or shallow creeks can quickly fill up with fast-moving water and become deadly. So people should be aware of the risks and pay attention to the weather.

    Improving flood forecasting, with more detailed models of the physics and water velocity at different locations, can also help.

    Probabilistic forecasting, for example, can provide a range of rainfall scenarios, enabling authorities to prepare for worst-case scenarios. A scientific framework linking rainfall forecasts to the local impacts, such as streamflow, flood depth and water velocity, could also help decision-makers implement timely evacuations or road closures.

    Education is particularly essential for drivers. One to two feet of moving water can wash away a car. People may think their trucks and SUVs can go through anything, but fast-moving water can flip a truck and carry it away.

    Officials can also do more to barricade roads when the flood risk is high to prevent people from driving into harm’s way. We found that 58% of the flood deaths in Texas over the past six decades involved vehicles. The storm on June 12 in San Antonio was an example. It was early morning, and drivers had poor visibility. The cars were hit by fast-rising floodwater from an adjacent creek.

    This article, originally published July 5, 2025, has been updated with the death toll rising.

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

    – ref. Why Texas Hill Country, where a devastating flood killed more than 120 people, is one of the deadliest places in the US for flash flooding – https://theconversation.com/why-texas-hill-country-where-a-devastating-flood-killed-more-than-120-people-is-one-of-the-deadliest-places-in-the-us-for-flash-flooding-260555

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Will my private health insurance cover my surgery? What if my claim is rejected?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yuting Zhang, Professor of Health Economics, The University of Melbourne

    shurkin_son/Shutterstock

    The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has fined Bupa A$35 million for unlawfully rejecting thousands of health insurance claims over more than five years.

    Between May 2018 and August 2023 Bupa incorrectly rejected claims from patients who had multiple medical procedures, with at least one of those procedures covered under their health insurance policy.

    Instead of paying the portion of the treatment that was covered, Bupa’s automated systems wrongly rejected the entire claim.

    Bupa admitted these errors were due to system problems and poor staff guidance, and has started to recompensate members.

    So you may be worried whether your private health insurance will cover you for the procedures you need.

    Here’s what you need to know about the different types of hospital cover. And if your claim is rejected, what to do next.

    From basic to gold

    As of March 2025, 45.3% of Australians have private health insurance for hospital cover. There are four tiers: basic, bronze, silver and gold.

    Each tier has a minimum set of “clinical categories”. These are groups of hospital treatments that must be covered.

    For example, basic hospital cover only has three mandatory inclusions: rehabilitation, hospital psychiatric services and palliative care. But this is “restricted” cover, meaning patients will often still have to pay substantial out-of-pocket costs for these services.

    Basic cover is entry-level cover, mainly for people who want to avoid the Lifetime Health Cover loading and the Medicare Levy Surcharge. These are both ways of encouraging people to take up private health insurance while young and keeping it, especially people on higher incomes.

    At the other end of the scale is gold cover, which includes unrestricted cover for all defined clinical categories, including pregnancy and birth.

    You can generally change your level of cover at any time. When you upgrade to include new services or increase benefits for existing services, you will need to serve new waiting periods for those new or increased benefits.

    A common waiting period is 12 months for pre-existing conditions (any ailment, illness or condition that you had signs or symptoms of during the six months before upgrading, even if undiagnosed), and for pregnancy and birth-related services. But there is generally only a two-month waiting period for psychiatric care, rehabilitation or palliative care, even if it’s for a pre-existing condition.

    It’s a good idea to review your policy every two years because your health needs and financial circumstances can change.

    How much do companies pay out?

    The proportion of premiums that are paid out to cover medical claims is known as the “average payout ratio”. And this has been about 84–86% over most of the past 20 years.

    This does not mean your health insurer will pay out 84–86% of your individual claim. This national average accounts for the percentage of all premiums in any one year, across all insurers, that’s paid out in claims.

    The payout ratios vary by insurer and are slightly higher for not-for-profit health insurers than for-profit insurers.

    That’s because for-profit health insurers have pressure to deliver profits to shareholders and have incentives to minimise payouts and control costs.

    If not properly managed, these incentives may result in higher out-of-pocket expenses and denied claims.

    Why has my claim been rejected?

    Common reasons for claims to be rejected include:

    • the policy excluded or restricted the clinical category

    • the waiting period was not served

    • incorrect information (for example, a doctor billed an incorrect item number)

    • what’s known as “mixed coverage” (as in the Bupa scandal), where not everything in a claim is covered, but the entire claim is declined.

    What if I think there’s an error?

    If your health insurance company refuses your claim, you can request a detailed explanation in writing.

    If you believe your claim has been incorrectly denied, you can make a formal complaint directly with the insurer. For this you need to check your policy documents, and gather supporting evidence. This may include detailed invoices, medical reports, referral letters and correct item numbers.

    If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the health fund’s internal review, or the fund doesn’t respond with the specific time-frame (for instance, 30–45 days), you can escalate your complaint.

    You can get in touch with the Commonwealth Ombudsman (phone: 1300 362 072). This provides a free, independent complaint handling service for a range of consumer issues, including health insurance.

    Bupa customers concerned about a “mixed coverage” claim can contact the company directly.

    What can governments do?

    The Bupa scandal, along with ongoing concerns about transparency and rising out-of-pocket costs, highlights the need for policy reforms to better protect consumers.

    The government should require health insurers and health-care providers to give clear estimates of all potential out-of-pocket costs for a procedure before it happens. This would avoid unexpected bills and help consumers make informed decisions about their health care.

    The government could also let the ACCC or the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority conduct regular, independent audits of insurers’ claims systems and practices.

    Yuting Zhang has received funding from the Australian Research Council (future fellowship project ID FT200100630), Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Victorian Department of Health, National Health and Medical Research Council and Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network. In the past, Professor Zhang has received funding from several US institutes including the US National Institutes of Health, Commonwealth fund, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She has not received funding from for-profit industry including the private health insurance industry.

    – ref. Will my private health insurance cover my surgery? What if my claim is rejected? – https://theconversation.com/will-my-private-health-insurance-cover-my-surgery-what-if-my-claim-is-rejected-260702

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: NZ’s new AI strategy is long on ‘economic opportunity’ but short on managing ethical and social risk

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Lensen, Senior Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

    Getty Images

    The government’s newly unveiled National AI Strategy is all about what its title says: “Investing with Confidence”. It tells businesses that Aotearoa New Zealand is open for AI use, and that our “light touch” approach won’t get in their way.

    The question now is whether the claims made for AI by Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology Shane Reti – that it will help boost productivity and enable the economy to grow by billions of dollars – can be justified.

    Generative AI – the kind powering ChatGPT, CoPilot and Google’s video generator Veo 3 – is certainly earning money. In its latest funding round in April, OpenAI was valued at US$300 billion.

    Nvidia, which makes the hardware that powers AI technology, just became the first publicly traded company to surpass a $4 trillion market valuation. It’d be great if New Zealand could get a slice of that pie.

    New Zealand doesn’t have the capacity to build new generative AI systems, however. That takes tens of thousands of NVIDIA’s chips, costing many millions of dollars that only big tech companies or large nation states can afford.

    What New Zealand can do is build new systems and services around these models, either by fine-tuning them, or using them as part of a bigger software system or service.

    The government isn’t offering any new money to help companies do this. Its AI strategy is about reducing barriers, providing regulatory guidance, building capacity and ensuring adaption happens responsibly.

    But there aren’t many barriers to begin with. The regulatory guidance contained in the strategy essentially says “we won’t regulate”. Existing laws are said to be “technology-neutral” and therefore sufficient.

    As for building capacity, the country’s tertiary sector is more under-funded than ever, with universities cutting courses and staff. Humanities research into AI ethics is also ineligible for government funding as it doesn’t contribute to economic growth.

    A relaxed regulatory regime

    The issue of responsible adoption is perhaps of most concern. The 42-page “Responsible AI Guidance for Businesses” document, released alongside the strategy, contains useful material on issues such as detecting bias, measuring model accuracy, and human oversight. But it is just that – guidance – and entirely voluntary.

    This puts New Zealand among the most relaxed nations when it comes to AI regulation, along with Japan and Singapore. At the other end is the European Union, which enacted its comprehensive AI Act in 2024, and has stood fast against lobbying to delay legislative rollout.

    The relaxed approach is interesting in light of New Zealand being ranked third-to-last out of 47 countries in a recent survey of trust in AI. In another survey from last year, 66% of New Zealanders reported being nervous about the impacts of AI.

    Some of the nervousness can be explained by AI being a new technology with well documented examples of inappropriate use, intentional or not. Deepfakes as a form of cyber bulling have become a major concern. Even the ACT Party, not generally in favour of more regulation, wants to criminalise the creation and sharing of non-consensual, sexually explicit deepfakes.

    Generative image, video and music creation is reducing the demand for creative workers – even though it is their very work that was used to train the AI models.

    But there are other, more subtle issues, too. AI systems learn from data. If that data is biased, then those systems will learn to be biased, too.

    New Zealanders are right to be anxious about the prospect of private sector companies denying them jobs, entry to supermarkets or a bank loan because of something in their pasts. Because modern deep learning models are so complex and impenetrable, it can be impossible to determine how an AI system made a decision.

    And what of the potential for AI to be used online to mislead voters and discredit the democratic process, as the New York Times has reported may have occurred already in at least 50 cases?

    Managing risk the European way

    The strategy is essentially silent on all of these issues. It also doesn’t mention Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi. Even Google’s AI summary tells me this is the nation’s founding document, laying the groundwork for Māori and the Crown to coexist.

    AI, like any data-driven system, has the potential to disproportionately disadvantage Māori if it involves systems from overseas designed (and trained) for other populations.

    Allowing these systems to be imported and deployed in Aotearoa New Zealand in sensitive applications – healthcare or justice, for example – without any regulation or oversight risks worsening inequalities even further.

    What’s the alternative? The EU offers some useful answers. It has taken the approach of categorising AI uses based on risk:

    • “Unacceptable risk” – the likes of social scoring (where individuals’ daily activities are monitored and scored for their societal benefit) and AI hacking – is outright banned.

    • High-risk systems, such as uses for employment or transportation infrastructure, require strict obligations, including risk assessments and human oversight.

    • Limited and minimal risk applications – the biggest category by far – imposes very little red tape on companies.

    This feels like a mature approach New Zealand might emulate. It wouldn’t stymie productivity much – unless companies were doing something risky. In which case, the 66% of New Zealanders who are nervous about AI might well agree it’s worth slowing down and getting it right.

    Andrew Lensen receives government funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment through contestable academic research funds. He is the co-director of LensenMcGavin AI, a consultancy specialising in the responsible uptake of AI in Aotearoa.

    – ref. NZ’s new AI strategy is long on ‘economic opportunity’ but short on managing ethical and social risk – https://theconversation.com/nzs-new-ai-strategy-is-long-on-economic-opportunity-but-short-on-managing-ethical-and-social-risk-260798

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: What is the ‘Seven Mountain Mandate’ and how is it linked to political extremism in the US?

    Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

    People pray before Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance at a town hall hosted by Lance Wallnau on Sept. 28, 2024, in Monroeville, Pa. AP Photo/Rebecca Droke

    Vance Boelter, who allegedly shot Melissa Hortman, a Democratic Minnesota state representative, and her husband, Mark Hortman, on June 14, 2025, studied at Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas. The group is a Bible school linked to the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR.

    The NAR is a loosely organized but influential charismatic Christian movement that shares similarities with Pentecostalism, especially in its belief that God actively communicates with believers through the Holy Spirit. Unlike traditional Pentecostalism, however, the organization emphasizes modern-day apostles and prophets as authoritative leaders tasked with transforming society and ushering in God’s kingdom on Earth. Prayer, prophecy and worship are defined not only as acts of devotion but as strategic tools for advancing believers’ vision of government and society.

    After the shooting, the Christ for the Nations Institute issued a statement “unequivocally” denouncing “any and all forms of violence and extremism.” It stated: “Our organization’s mission is to educate and equip students to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through compassion, love, prayer, service, worship, and value for human life.”

    But the shooting has drawn attention to the school and the larger Christian movement it belongs to. One of the most important aspects of NAR teachings today is what is called “the Seven Mountain Mandate.”

    The Seven Mountain Mandate calls on Christians to gain influence, or “take dominion,” over seven key areas of culture: religion, family, education, government, media, business and the arts.

    With over three decades of experience studying extremism, I offer a brief overview of the history and core beliefs of the Seven Mountain Mandate.

    ‘Dominion of Christians’

    The Seven Mountain concept was originally proposed in 1975 by evangelical leader Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. Now known as “Cru,” the Campus Crusade for Christ was founded as a global ministry in 1951 to promote Christian evangelism, especially on college campuses.

    United by a shared vision to influence society through Christian values, Bright partnered with Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With A Mission, a major international missionary training and outreach organization, in the 1970s.

    The Seven Mountain Mandate was popularized by theologian Francis Schaeffer, who linked it to a larger critique of secularism and liberal culture. Over time, it evolved.

    C. Peter Wagner, a former seminary professor who helped organize and name the New Apostolic Reformation, is often regarded as the theological architect of the group. He developed it into a call for dominion. In his 2008 book “Dominion! How Kingdom Action Can Change the World,” he urged Christians to take authoritative control of cultural institutions.

    For Wagner, “dominion theology” – the idea that Christians should have control over all aspects of society – was a call to spiritual warfare, so that God’s kingdom would be “manifested here on earth as it is in heaven.”

    Bill Johnson.
    Doctorg via Wikimedia Commons

    Since 1996, Bill Johnson, a senior leader of Bethel Church, and Johnny Enlow, a self-described prophet and Seven Mountain advocate, among others, have taken the original idea of the Seven Mountain Mandate and reshaped it into a more aggressive, political and spiritually militant approach. Spiritual militancy reflects an aggressive, us-vs.-them mindset that blurs the line between faith and authoritarianism, promoting dominion over society in the name of spiritual warfare.

    Their version doesn’t just aim to influence culture; it frames the effort as a spiritual battle to reclaim and reshape the nation according to their vision of God’s will.

    Lance Wallnau, another Christian evangelical preacher, televangelist, speaker and author, has promoted dominion theology since the early 2000s. During the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Wallnau, along with several prominent NAR figures, described Donald Trump as anointed by God to reclaim the “mountain” of government from demonic control.

    In their book “Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate,” Wallnau and Johnson explicitly call for Christian leadership as the only antidote to perceived moral decay and spiritual darkness.

    The beliefs

    Sometimes referred to as Seven Mountains of Influence or Seven Mountains of Culture, the seven mountains are not neutral domains but seen as battlegrounds between divine truth and demonic deception.

    Adherents believe that Christians are called to reclaim these areas through influence, leadership and even, if necessary, the use of force and to confront demonic political forces, as religion scholar Matthew Taylor demonstrates in his book “The Violent Take It By Force.”

    Diverse perspectives and interpretations surround the rhetoric and actions associated with the New Apostolic Reformation. Some analysts have pointed out how the NAR is training its followers for an active confrontation. Other commentators have said that the rhetoric calling for physical violence is anti-biblical and should be denounced.

    NAR-aligned leaders have framed electoral contests as struggles between “godly” candidates and those under the sway of “satanic” influence.

    Similarly, NAR prophet Cindy Jacobs has repeatedly emphasized the need for “spiritual warfare” in schools to combat what she characterizes as “demonic ideologies” such as sex education, LGBTQ+ inclusion or discussions of systemic racism.

    In the NAR worldview, cultural change is not merely political or social but considered a supernatural mission; opponents are not simply wrong but possibly under the sway of demonic influence. Elections become spiritual battles.

    This belief system views pluralism as weakness, compromise as betrayal, and coexistence as capitulation. Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank based in Somerville, Massachusetts, defines the Seven Mountain Mandate as “the theocratic idea that Christians are called by God to exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions.”

    The call to “take back” the culture is not metaphorical but literal, and believers are encouraged to see themselves as soldiers in a holy war to dominate society. Some critics argue that NAR’s call to “take back” culture is about literal domination, but this interpretation is contested.

    Many within the movement see the language of warfare as spiritually focused on prayer, evangelism and influencing hearts and minds. Still, the line between metaphor and mandate can blur, especially when rhetoric about “dominion” intersects with political and cultural action. That tension is part of an ongoing debate both within and outside the movement.

    Networks that spread the beliefs

    This belief system is no longer confined to the margins. It is spread widely through evangelical churches, podcasts, YouTube videos and political networks.

    It’s hard to know exactly how many churches are part of the New Apostolic Reformation, but estimates suggest that about 3 million people in the U.S. attend churches that openly follow NAR leaders.

    At the same time, the Seven Mountain Mandate doesn’t depend on centralized leadership or formal institutions. It spreads organically through social networks, social media – notably podcasts and livestreams – and revivalist meetings and workshops.

    André Gagné, a theologian and author of “American Evangelicals for Trump: Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and the End Times,” writes about the ways in which the mandate spreads by empowering local leaders and believers. Individuals are authorized – often through teachings on spiritual warfare, prophetic gifting, and apostolic leadership – to see themselves as agents of divine transformation in society, called to reclaim the “mountains,” such as government, media and education, for God’s kingdom.

    This approach, Gagné explains, allows different communities to adapt the action mandate to their unique cultural, political and social contexts. It encourages individuals to see themselves as spiritual warriors and leaders in their domains – whether in business, education, government, media or the arts.

    Small groups or even individuals can start movements or initiatives without waiting for top-down directives. The only recognized authorities are the apostles and prophets running the church or church network the believers attend.

    The framing of the Seven Mountain Mandate as a divinely inspired mission, combined with the movement’s emphasis on direct spiritual experiences and a specific interpretation of scripture, can create an environment where questioning the mandate is perceived as challenging God’s authority.

    Slippery slope

    These beliefs have increasingly fused with nationalist rhetoric and conspiracy theories.

    The ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flags symbolize the belief that people have the right to appeal directly to God’s authority when they think the government has failed.
    Paul Becker/Becker1999 via Flickr, CC BY

    A powerful example of NAR political rhetoric in action is the rise and influence of the “Appeal to Heaven” flags. For those in the New Apostolic Reformation, these flags symbolize the belief that when all earthly authority fails, people have the right to appeal directly to God’s authority to justify resistance.

    This was evident during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, when these flags were prominently displayed.

    To be clear, its leaders are not calling for violence but rather for direct political engagement and protest. For some believers, however, the calls for “spiritual warfare” may become a slippery slope into justification for violence, as in the case of the alleged Minnesota shooter.

    Understanding the Seven Mountain Mandate is essential for grasping the dynamics of contemporary efforts to align government and culture with a particular vision of Christian authority and influence.

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

    – ref. What is the ‘Seven Mountain Mandate’ and how is it linked to political extremism in the US? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-seven-mountain-mandate-and-how-is-it-linked-to-political-extremism-in-the-us-260034

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Superman wasn’t always so squeaky clean – in early comics he was a radical vigilante

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Caro, Principal Lecturer, Film and Media, University of Portsmouth

    Superman was the very first superhero. He debuted in Action Comics issue #1 which was released in June 1938. Over time, the character has been assigned multiple nicknames: “The Man of Steel”, “The Man of Tomorrow” and “The Big Blue Boy Scout”. However, in his first appearance in ravaged Depression-era America, the byline used to announce Superman’s debut was: “The Champion of the Oppressed”.

    Created by the sons of Jewish immigrants, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, Superman is an example of youthful male wish fulfilment: an all-powerful figure dressed like a circus strong man, who uses brawn to right wrongs. However, Siegel and Shuster’s initial version of the character was a more flawed character.

    Appearing in a 1933 fanzine, Siegel’s prose story The Reign of the Superman with accompanying illustrations by Shuster, featured a reckless scientist whose hubris is punished when he creates the telepathic “super man” by experimenting on a drifter plucked from the poverty lines. Echoing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the creator is dispatched by his creation.

    Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

    Siegel and Shuster had some early success selling stories to National Allied Publications, the forerunner of DC Comics. At this time, comic books were mainly collections of newspaper cartoons – the “funnies” – pasted together to create more portable anthologies. They featured the escapades of characters like Popeye and Little Orphan Annie.

    Inspired by the heroic tales of derring do of pulp fiction adventurers such as Johnston McCulley’s Zorro (1919) and Philip Wylie’s 1930 science fiction novel Gladiator, Siegel and Shuster further developed their Superman character. They transformed him into a hero and added the now familiar cape and “S” logo.

    Having no luck selling their superhero to the newspapers, they eventually sold the rights to Superman to DC Comics, where Superman achieved huge success. Within a year, there was a syndicated newspaper strip and a spin-off Superman comic book featuring the first superhero with their own exclusive title. Along with extensive merchandising, there was a 1940 radio show, followed by an animation series in 1941, with the inevitable live action serial in 1948.

    In this early example of a property crossing multiple media platforms, Superman’s apparent appeal lay with the fantastical aspects, as he battled mad scientists, criminal masterminds and giant dinosaurs.

    But in the early issues, Superman’s enemies were noticeably more earthbound and reflected the concerns of an audience reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. In an early story, War in Sante Monte, Superman confronts a corrupt Washington lobbyist, Alex Greer, who is bribing a greedy senator. It transpires that Greer represents an arms dealer who is profiteering by manipulating both sides in an overseas war.

    In a later tale, Superman Battles Death Underground, our hero challenges the owner of a dangerous mine who is cutting corners with safety precautions.

    In 1932 Siegel’s father, a tailor, died following the attempted robbery of the family shop – so it is no surprise that Superman had a low tolerance for crime and its causes. In the story Superman in the Slums, dated January 1939, the social commentary is plain. When teenager Frankie Marello is sentenced to reform school, Superman acknowledges the impact of the boy’s social environment:

    It’s these slums – your poor living conditions – if there was only some way I could remedy it!

    His solution is to raze the dilapidated buildings to the ground, forcing the authorities to replace them with modern cheap-rental apartments. In creating new construction work, here is Superman’s extreme version of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

    In the 1998 forward to Superman: The Action Comics Archives Volume 2, former DC Comics editor Paul Kupperberg comments this is a Superman “who fought (mainly) guys in suits out to screw over the little guy”. The form that the fight took is of interest, for this Superman has no time for niceties or due process, as he gleefully intimidates and bullies anyone who gets in his way.

    A man caught beating his wife is thrown into a wall and warned that there is plenty more where that came from. The corrupt lobbyist is dangled over power cables until he reveals who he is working for. Any police officers that attempt to obstruct Superman’s personal quest for justice are brushed aside with annoyance.

    Refining Superman

    Through his appearances on mainstream radio and cinema, Superman softened and became more patient. In popular culture, concerns about the depression and social injustice shifted to efforts to encourage a national consensus as the United States moved to a war footing in the early 1940s.

    Post-war, there were occasional returns to the more radical interpretations of Superman, but generally it is the clean cut, fantastical Big Blue Boy Scout perception of the character that has dominated.

    The new Superman film appears to be maintaining that image. In the trailer, actor David Corenswet’s Superman tackles various super-villains and a destructive Kaiju (a Godzilla-like skyscraper-sized monster) – although there is the suggestion that behind them all is the corrupt industrialist, Lex Luthor.

    The trailer for the latest Superman film.

    Fittingly, it is in the pages of comic books that a more progressive, militant representation of Superman has emerged. In 2024 DC rebooted its familiar superheroes with its new grittier “Absolute” universe.

    Jason Aaron and Rafa Sandoval’s Absolute Superman comic (2024) emphasises the character’s status as an isolated blue-collar immigrant from the doomed planet of Krypton. This is a youthful, less seasoned Superman who is quick to anger and less likely to pull his punches. Their interpretation is closer to Superman’s early vigilante roots, including a storyline where he liberates the workers in a Brazilian mine from the clutches of exploitative big business.

    Perhaps – in the comic books at least – the Champion of the Oppressed has finally returned.

    This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

    John Caro 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. Superman wasn’t always so squeaky clean – in early comics he was a radical vigilante – https://theconversation.com/superman-wasnt-always-so-squeaky-clean-in-early-comics-he-was-a-radical-vigilante-260721

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: The Salt Path scandal: defending a memoir’s ‘emotional truth’ is a high-risk strategy

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Robert Eaglestone, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought, Royal Holloway University of London

    Raynor Winn, author of the award-winning memoir The Salt Path, which was recently adapted into a film, has been accused of “lies, deceit and desperation”. Writing in The Observer, reporter Chloe Hadjimatheou claims that Winn left out significant facts and invented parts of the story.

    The Salt Path follows a transformative 630-mile trek along England’s South West Coast Path that Winn took with her terminally ill husband Moth after they lost their home and livelihood.

    The Observer article claims that aspects of both the story of losing their home and Winn’s husband’s illness were fabricated. In a statement on her website, Winn has defended her memoir, calling the claims “grotesquely unfair” and “highly misleading”.

    There’s a long list of memoirs which have been shown to be problematic. James Frey’s recovery memoir A Million Little Pieces (2003) was allegedly exaggerated. In 2006, he apologised for fabricating portions of the book. Worse, Binjamin Wilkomirski’s feted Holocaust survivor memoir Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood (1995) was completely fake. Wilkomirski’s real name was Bruno Dössekker and he was not a Holocaust survivor, he had simply invented his “memories” of a death camp, though he seemed to believe they were true.

    But, for readers, how much does this matter? Novelist D.H. Lawrence wrote that readers should: “Never trust the artist. Trust the tale.” As readers of The Salt Path, we fear for Raynor and Moth as they desperately try to escape drowning from a freak high tide at Portheras Cove. We are relieved when we hear that Moth’s terminal disease was “somehow, for a while, held at bay”.

    The origin of the word fiction is from the Latin fingere, which means not to lie, but to fashion or form. All memoirs – indeed, all texts, from scientific articles to history books to bestselling novels – are “formed” or “shaped”. Writing doesn’t just fall from a tree, we make it, and it reveals the world by mediating the world.

    Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

    But this idea, that writing is a “shaping”, is why this case matters. Writing, done by oneself, or by a ghostwriter (or even by AI) has conventions, not-quite-rules that underlie its creation and reception. Some of these are in the text (the enemies eventually become lovers); some are outside the text itself (you really can judge a book by its cover). But most conventions are both inside and outside at the same time.

    Works by historians have footnotes to sources, so you (and other historians) can check the claims. Each scientific article refers to many others, because each article is just one tiny piece of the whole puzzle on which a huge community of scientists are working, and the extensive references show how this piece fits (or doesn’t). Non-fiction follows conventions, while novelists can do whatever they want, of course, to challenge or obey the conventions (that’s one reason why novels are exciting).

    Memoir has a particularly important convention, revealed most clearly by the historian Stefan Maechler’s report on Wilkomirski’s fraudulent memoir. Maechler argued that Wilkomirski broke what the French critic Philippe Lejeune called the “autobiographical pact”, a contract of truth between the author and the reader.

    For Lejeune, however, this pact is not like a legal agreement. A memoir, unlike a scientific article, need only put forward the truth as it appeared to the author in that area of their life. While the information needs to be accurate to some degree, its level of verifiability is less than a legal document or work of history. Much more important for Lejeune is the harder-to-pin-down fidelity to meaning.

    After all, many meaningful things – falling in love, for example, or grief – happen mostly inside us and are hard to verify. Even more, the developing overall shape of our life as it seems to us is not really a historical fact, but our own making of meaning. For Lejeune, in a memoir, this emotional truth is more significant than the verifiable truth.

    Playing with ‘emotional truth’

    The author of The Salt Path seems to have leaned into this idea. In her first statement after The Observer’s piece she claims that her book “lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives … This is the true story of our journey”. How, after all, could one verify a “spiritual journey”?

    However, I don’t fully agree with Lejeune. Perhaps our inner and outer worlds are not as separate as he supposes. Our public actions, including sharing facts, show who we are as much as our words describing our inner journeys.

    In a memoir, the verifiable truth and the emotional truth are linked by a kind of feedback loop. As readers, we allow some degree of playing with verifiable truth: dialogue is reconstructed, not recorded; we accept some level of dramatisation; we know it’s from one person’s perspective. But we also make a judgment about these things (there’s no fixed rule, no science to this judgment).

    If there’s too much reconstruction, too much dramatisation, we begin to get suspicious about the emotional truth too: is this really how it felt for them? Was it honestly a spiritual journey? And, in turn, this makes us more suspicious of the verifiable claims. By contrast, the novelist’s pact with the reader admits they fake emotional truth, which somehow makes it not fake at all: that’s one reason why novels are complicated.

    This is why defending a memoir’s “emotional truth” is a high-risk strategy. We know from our own lives that people who are unreliable in small (verifiable) things are often unreliable in large (emotional, meaningful) ones.

    So, for readers, the facts behind The Salt Path matter less in themselves and more because each question points to a larger issue about the book’s meaning. When you call someone “fake”, you don’t really mean that “their factual claims are inaccurate”, but that they are somehow inauthentic, hollow or – it’s a teenager’s word, but still – phoney. Once the “autobiographical pact” looks broken in enough small details, the reader no longer trusts the teller or the tale.

    In a lengthy statement published on her website in which she addresses the allegations in detail, Winn said that the suggestion that Moth’s illness was fabricated was an “utterly vile, unfair, and false suggestion” and added: “I can’t allow any more doubt to be cast on the validity of those memories, or the joy they have given so many.”

    This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

    Robert Eaglestone 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. The Salt Path scandal: defending a memoir’s ‘emotional truth’ is a high-risk strategy – https://theconversation.com/the-salt-path-scandal-defending-a-memoirs-emotional-truth-is-a-high-risk-strategy-260937

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Dyspraxia: why children with developmental coordination disorder in the UK are still being failed

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Charikleia Sinani, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, School of Science, Technology and Health, York St John University

    M-Production/Shutterstock

    When a child struggles to tie their shoelaces, write legibly or stay upright during PE, it can be dismissed as clumsiness or lack of effort. But for around 5% of UK children, these challenges stem from a neurodevelopmental condition known as developmental coordination disorder (DCD), also known as dyspraxia. And new findings reveal how deeply it’s impacting their lives – at home, in school and in their future.

    Alongside colleagues, we conducted a national survey of more than 240 UK parents. The findings reveal a stark reality for families of children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD).

    Despite affecting around 5% of children – making it as common as ADHD – DCD remains underdiagnosed, misunderstood and insufficiently supported. Families reported an average wait of nearly three years for a diagnosis, with almost one in five children showing clear signs of DCD but not yet having begun the diagnostic process.

    The diagnosis, when it comes, is often welcomed: 93% of parents say it helped explain their child’s difficulties and offered clarity. But many also expressed frustration that this recognition didn’t change much in practical terms, particularly in schools. One parent summarised the prevailing sentiment: “It is helpful for us at home but not at school.”

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    Our survey showed that the movement difficulties associated with DCD can ripple through everyday life, mental health and wellbeing.

    Children with DCD face daily physical struggles with eating, dressing, cutting with scissors and handwriting. These aren’t just inconveniences. They translate into fatigue, frustration and often social exclusion. Compared to national averages, children in this survey were less active, with only 36% meeting recommended physical activity levels. Many parents worry that early disengagement from sport is cultivating lifelong habits that will undermine their children’s health.

    The emotional impact is just as severe. A staggering 90% of parents expressed concern about their child’s mental health. Anxiety, low self-esteem and feelings of isolation are common. Children with DCD are significantly more likely than their peers to show signs of emotional and peer-related difficulties.

    One parent recalled their child asking, “Why do I even try when I’m never picked?” Others shared heartbreaking worries: a child who felt “he doesn’t belong here” or another who had internalised the idea that they are “stupid” or “terrible”.

    DCD is a lifelong condition: it doesn’t go away with age, and there’s currently no “cure.” However, with the right support, many children can develop strategies to manage their difficulties and thrive. Early intervention, tailored therapies, especially occupational therapy, and appropriate classroom accommodations can make a significant difference to a child’s confidence, independence and quality of life.

    Schools are often unprepared

    Despite 81% of teachers being aware of a child’s motor difficulties, fewer than 60% had individual learning plans in place. Support was inconsistent: some children benefited from teaching assistants or adaptive tools like laptops, while others found themselves struggling alone. Physical education posed particular challenges, with 43% of parents saying their child wasn’t supported in PE lessons, often facing teachers who didn’t understand DCD at all.

    The consequences are significant: 80% of parents felt that movement difficulties negatively impacted their child’s education, and the same number feared it would affect their future employment.

    Therapy helps but is hard to access. Most families had sought therapy, with occupational therapy proving transformative for some. Yet many faced long waits or had to pay out of pocket, with some families spending thousands annually. Even when therapy was available, 78% felt it wasn’t sufficient.

    And it’s not just the children who suffer – 68% of parents reported constant emotional concern, and nearly half said the condition restricted their ability to take part in normal family activities.

    What needs to change

    To improve outcomes for children with DCD, we need urgent, coordinated action across five key areas. Parents and experts involved in the report outlined clear recommendations:

    Awareness: A nationwide effort is needed to educate the public, schools and healthcare professionals about DCD as a common yet currently poorly understood condition.

    Diagnosis: GPs and frontline professionals need clear, step-by-step guidance and referral routes to help them identify early motor difficulties and connect families with the right support quickly.

    Education: All teachers should receive mandatory training in DCD and practical strategies for supporting affected pupils in the classroom.

    Mental health: Support systems must recognise the deep connection between movement challenges and emotional wellbeing, ensuring that physical and psychological needs are treated together.

    Support: Crucially, children shouldn’t have to wait for a formal diagnosis to get support. Early intervention is vital to preventing long-term harm – and must be available as soon as difficulties emerge.

    Children with DCD are bright, capable and full of potential. But as one parent warns, “If she can’t write her answers down quickly enough in exams, she won’t be able to show her knowledge.” The cost of neglect is high, not just in lost grades or missed goals, but in the wellbeing of a generation of children struggling in silence.

    Charikleia Sinani has received funding from The Waterloo Foundation.

    The Impact of Developmental Coordination Disorder in the UK study was conducted in collaboration with our colleagues Catherine Purcell, Judith Gentle, Melissa Licari, Jacqueline Williams, Mark Mierzwinski and Sam Hudson.

    Greg Wood has previously received funding from The Waterloo Foundation.

    Kate Wilmut has in the past received funding from ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council), The Leverhulme Trust and The Waterloo Foundation

    – ref. Dyspraxia: why children with developmental coordination disorder in the UK are still being failed – https://theconversation.com/dyspraxia-why-children-with-developmental-coordination-disorder-in-the-uk-are-still-being-failed-260853

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: A one minute scan of your foot could help prevent amputation – here’s how

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Christian Heiss, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, Head of Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Surrey

    YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV/Shutterstock

    Imagine having blocked arteries in your legs and not knowing it. At first, there may be no symptoms at all. Just occasional fatigue, cramping or discomfort – symptoms easy to dismiss as ageing or being out of shape.

    But as blood flow worsens, a small cut on your foot might not heal. It can turn into an ulcer. In the worst cases, it can lead to amputation. This condition is called peripheral artery disease (PAD) – and it’s far more common than many realise.

    PAD affects around one in five people over the age of 60 in the UK, and is especially prevalent in people with diabetes, high blood pressure or kidney disease.

    PAD is rarely an isolated issue: it’s usually a sign of widespread atherosclerosis, the build-up of fatty deposits that can also narrow arteries in the heart and brain.

    It also significantly increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes and other conditions linked to poor blood flow to vital organs. Research shows that a large proportion of people diagnosed with PAD will die within five to ten years, most often due to these complications.

    Early detection is key to reducing the impact of PAD, and I’ve been working with colleagues to develop a faster, simpler way to diagnose it.

    PAD testing

    Doctors can check circulation in the feet by comparing blood pressure in the toe with that in the arm. The result is known as the toe–brachial index (TBI). The trouble is that the test needs a toe-sized cuff, an optical sensor and a doctor who knows how to use the equipment.

    Many GP surgeries and foot clinics don’t have this kit. And in many people, especially those with diabetes or stiff arteries, the test doesn’t always give a clear or reliable, result.

    Our research team asked a simple question: could we turn a routine ultrasound scan into a quick, reliable way to measure blood flow in the foot?

    Most hospitals, and many community clinics, already have handheld ultrasound probes, which use Doppler sound to track how blood flows through vessels.

    This works through the Doppler effect: as blood moves, it changes the pitch of the sound waves. Healthy blood flow creates a strong, steady “swoosh”, while a narrowed or blocked artery produces a faint or disrupted sound. Doctors are trained to hear the difference and use these sound patterns to spot circulation problems, especially in conditions like PAD.

    But my research team wondered whether a computer could do more than listen: we wanted to know whether it could convert the shape of that Doppler “wave” into a number that mirrors the TBI.

    To investigate, we scanned the feet of patients already being treated for PAD – 150 feet in all. For each artery, we used Doppler ultrasound to measure how quickly blood surged with each heartbeat, a pattern known as the acceleration index. We then compared these results to the standard toe–brachial index, the traditional test that measures blood pressure in the toe.

    A one-minute scan, a nearly perfect match

    The acceleration index alone was able to predict the standard toe–brachial index with 88% accuracy. Using a simple formula, we converted that Doppler reading into an “estimated TBI” – a number that closely mirrored the conventional result. It needed no toe cuff, no optical sensor and it took under a minute to perform.

    Even more encouraging, estimated TBI rose in tandem with traditional TBI results after treatment. When patients underwent angioplasty – a procedure to reopen blocked arteries – their estimated TBI increased almost identically to the measured TBI. That means this scan doesn’t just help diagnose PAD; it could also be used to track recovery over time.

    Crucially, our approach works with equipment that’s already widely available. We repeated the experiment using a basic pocket Doppler: the kind many GPs and podiatrists have tucked in a drawer.

    While it wasn’t quite as precise as hospital-grade ultrasound, the results were still strong. With some additional software refinement, doctors could soon assess foot circulation quickly and accurately using tools they already own, without adding time to a busy clinic schedule.

    Why early detection matters

    Because early diagnosis of PAD changes everything. It can mean the difference between losing a foot, keeping your mobility and living longer with a better quality of life. It can shorten hospital stays and reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.

    But right now, too many people with PAD aren’t diagnosed until they already have chronic limb-threatening ischaemia – the most severe form of the disease. This condition occurs when blood flow to the legs or feet becomes critically low, depriving tissues of oxygen. It can cause constant foot pain (especially at night), wounds that won’t heal and, in advanced cases, tissue death (gangrene) and the risk of amputation. Without urgent treatment to restore circulation, chronic limb-threatening ischaemia can be life-threatening.

    Part of the problem is that the tools used to diagnose PAD are often slow, expensive or too complicated for routine use. That’s why a simple, cuff-free Doppler scan that provides a reliable estimate of toe–brachial index is so promising. It uses equipment that many clinics already have, takes less than a minute and delivers immediate results – offering a faster, easier way to spot poor circulation before serious damage is done.

    We’re now looking at ways to automate the measurement so that it can be used even by non-specialists. We’re testing it in various clinics with different patient groups and exploring its performance over time. But the evidence so far suggests that this could become a key part of vascular care – not just in hospitals, but in GP surgeries, diabetes clinics and anywhere else early intervention could save a limb.

    Blocked arteries don’t need to stay hidden. With the right tools, we can find them earlier, treat them faster and protect people from the devastating consequences of late diagnosis.

    Christian Heiss has received funding from Lipton Teas & Infusions, Ageless Science, iThera, the Medical Research Council, the ESRC, European Partnership on Metrology, co-financed from European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme and UK Research and Innovation. He is member of the board of the European Society of Vascular Medicine, president of the Vascular, Lipid and Metabolic Medicine Council of the Royal Society of Medicine, and chairperson-elect of the ESC WG Aorta and Peripheral Vascular Diseases.

    – ref. A one minute scan of your foot could help prevent amputation – here’s how – https://theconversation.com/a-one-minute-scan-of-your-foot-could-help-prevent-amputation-heres-how-260847

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: England’s family hubs plan aims to build on Sure Start’s success – but may struggle to overcome today’s child poverty levels

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sally Pearse, Strategic Lead for Early Years and Director of the Early Years Community Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University

    Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

    The government has announced its strategy for “giving every child the best start in life”, laying out proposals covering early years care, education and support in England.

    The strategy builds on the current local family hub model of services, which offer a range of support aimed at babies and young children. Best Start family hubs will further bring together early years and family services in a similar way to the previous Sure Start programme. The government’s commitment includes £1.5 billion in investment to implement these reforms.

    The Best Start Hubs will be a one-stop shop to support families with their child’s early development, from breastfeeding advice to speech and language support and stay and play sessions. The hubs will also support families with wider challenges such as housing and benefits, and provide courses for parents.

    The attempt to bring services together to deliver local, holistic support to families is understandable given the impact of the original Sure Start initiative, introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour government.

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    The Sure Start Local Programmes that were established from 1999 onwards had a significant positive effect on those families who had access to them. From 2010, though, when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition came into power, funding was cut and many Sure Start centres closed.

    In May 2025 the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a summary report on the short- and medium-term effects of Sure Start on children’s lives.

    They found that the impact of the Sure Start services for under-fives was remarkably long-lasting, with improvements during their teenage years in educational attainment and behaviour in school, and reductions in hospital admissions. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that these long-term benefits significantly outweigh the cost of the Sure Start programme.

    Like Sure Start, the Best Start strategy has the potential to be transformational for young children and their families.

    However, the current range of challenges faced by families and the depth of child poverty in the country will make bringing about this transformation challenging. A 2023 report from charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that there are one million children growing up destitute in the UK, without the means to stay warm, dry, clean and fed.

    The challenge of poverty

    The day after the Best Start strategy was launched, the children’s commissioner for England published a research report on children’s experience of growing up in a low-income family. Based on interviews with 128 children, the report outlines the “almost-Dickensian” levels of poverty experienced by children whose basic needs are not being met. Children described poor housing conditions, mouldy food and lack of hot water.

    The significant impact that poverty has on children’s educational attainment, health and future lives will be difficult for the benefits that the Best Start programme may provide to negate.

    I have witnessed these financial challenges and the wider range of issues families are dealing with on a daily basis in my own role as the director of the Early Years Community Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, and through my wider research with families.

    In March 2024 I was part of a team of researchers who were commissioned by the Ministry for Housing, Community and Local Government to explore how multiple insecurities, such as financial difficulties, health problems, precarious work, poor housing and lack of support networks affected people’s lives.

    Parents described the difficulties of making ends meet. They talked about having to deal with many different national and local agencies, the stress this created within their family and the toll on their health and wellbeing.

    Even working full-time did not necessarily make families more secure. In one family, the working pattern the parents had to adopt to make ends meet meant that they only had one day a fortnight to be together.

    We have to do stupid hours. I mean my partner, she works nights. I work mainly days … we’re kind of like passing ships in the night.

    The places these families turned to were local community centres run by a range of organisations. The common themes about why they accessed these centres were the warm, welcoming, non-judgemental approach taken by staff, trusting relationships with staff and the range of services and support that were offered.

    This bodes well for the Best Start strategy – if it is able to deliver the full range of services the government has outlined in a local trusted space. However, this will be a significant challenge in communities that have lacked support over recent years, are suffering the hardships of poverty and that may have lost trust in government services.

    Sally Pearse received funding from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government

    – ref. England’s family hubs plan aims to build on Sure Start’s success – but may struggle to overcome today’s child poverty levels – https://theconversation.com/englands-family-hubs-plan-aims-to-build-on-sure-starts-success-but-may-struggle-to-overcome-todays-child-poverty-levels-260630

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Superman: James Gunn’s prolonged punch-fest falls flat

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura Crossley, Senior Lecturer in Film, Bournemouth University

    The first two superhero movies of the year examined the morality of power and politics (Captain America: Brave New World) and mental health and personal accountability (Thunderbolts*) in thoughtful and often nuanced ways. It is rather depressing, then, that the third act of Superman is largely a prolonged CGI punch-fest that lacks any narrative or visual vigour to make it interesting.

    There is a lot riding on the success of the DC Universe (DCU), now under the creative stewardship of director James Gunn and producer James Safran. After the varied fortunes of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), this iteration of Superman marks a reboot of DC properties and is the introductory instalment of the first phase, or “chapter” as they are being called, with the subtitle Gods and Monsters.

    The films also marks a shift from the “Snyderverse” – the series of interconnected films made under the oversight of director Zack Snyder – which were characterised by the darkness of both their themes and their aesthetics.

    This darkness, and the attendant moral ambiguity, of the Snyderverse has been replaced by a more optimistic tone. This new Superman film is more simplistic and clear-cut, with good versus bad and a bright, comic-book design.

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    Anyone familiar with Gunn’s previous superhero offerings (The Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy; The Suicide Squad) will recognise much of the tone and the look. This is very much the Superman movie that Gunn wants to make. And therein lies part of the problem.

    As the opening film of chapter one, this effectively sets the tone for all that is to come across the DCU. But that raises the question of how Gunn’s overall approach will work with future properties that will have (or should have) very different styles, narrative themes and concerns.

    This film is deliberately not an origin story. We meet Superman (David Corenswet), bloodied and battered after having lost an off-screen fight. He’s already an established superhero in a world accustomed to them after approximately 300 years of “metahumans” – as the opening exposition dump helpfully informs us.

    Superman then returns to the icy Fortress of Solitude, complete with robot staff and adorable CGI super-dog, Krypto. We are, in effect, entering the middle of the story, with Superman’s dual identity as Clark Kent already known to his girlfriend Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan).

    The pair have a fun, palpable chemistry. In an early stand-out scene, Lois, in journalist mode, grills Clark/Superman on the finer points of superhero accountability and responsibility after he single-handedly – and without any form of legal jurisdiction – stops a war between the fictitious countries of Boravia (eastern European, evil) and Jahanipur (a south-east Asian/Middle Eastern mash-up in which the people are impoverished and entirely agency-free), just before the movie begins. Sadly, these valid and deeply relevant questions remain unexplored for the rest of the film.

    The trailer for Superman.

    Brosnahan is a spiky, intelligent and self-assured Lois Lane who is not given enough to do, partly because this “starting in the middle” approach robs her relationship with Clark/Superman of any real tension and complexity. But also because the film is so overstuffed that there is little room for any meaningful character development.

    What we do have is incoherent plotting, clunky dialogue and exposition and too many characters who are too thinly drawn.

    The gang’s back together

    Corenswet is a fine Superman, commandingly heroic and believably vulnerable when required. However, there is not much opportunity for him to explore his Clark Kent alter-ego before he is in full superhero mode, thereby denying the character time to establish the humanity that is core to Superman’s personality.

    Lex Luthor (Nicholas Holt), the quintessential Superman villain, is supposed to be brilliant but here is rendered more as an Elon Musk-like figure with hints of Trump. He’s a megalomaniac with a populist touch with motivations that are so unclear as to be nonsensical.

    We also get members of the Justice Gang, including a horribly bewigged Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern, Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi).

    Gathegi steals almost the entire movie with a charismatic, laid-back turn that is crying out for his own standalone entry. Mister Terrific gets the movie’s most fun set piece: a single-handed fight against multiple goons choreographed to an upbeat pop soundtrack that is straight out of the James Gunn playbook.

    As is the Justice Gang’s fight against an inter dimensional giant squid, which plays out as the comedic backdrop visible through a window during a pivotal scene with Lois Lane, and in which a depressed Superman takes no part. Any moments of seriousness are immediately undercut by on the nose and often cheap jokes.

    The lack of narrative focus and character development results in a story that does not give us any tangible reasons to care about these characters beyond the fact that they are already well-established cultural icons. The lack of scaffolding means that when we reach what should be the emotional turning points, there is no heft to these moments.

    The phoney war between Boravia and Jahanipur also provides problematic optics. The people of Jahanipur are an anonymous mass of peasants armed only with sticks who get a single word of dialogue shared between them (“Superman!”). They are at the mercy of their warlike neighbours in Boravia, whose evil is made evident through the grotesque physicality of their leader (Zlatko Buric).

    This plot device seems to be making a passing reference to both the war in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, without having anything of value to say about either. The situation is resolved by the arrival of the American Justice Gang (because all metahumans are exclusively based in America, apparently) and then we’re on to the next joke.

    In this Superman reboot, the humanity of the character is largely lost, something we are told about rather than see. This is ironic given that truth, justice and humanity are supposed to be the guiding principles of the Superman story.

    Laura Crossley 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. Superman: James Gunn’s prolonged punch-fest falls flat – https://theconversation.com/superman-james-gunns-prolonged-punch-fest-falls-flat-260940

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Wimbledon’s electronic line-calling system shows we still can’t replace human judgment

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Feng Li, Chair of Information Management, Associate Dean for Research & Innovation, Bayes Business School, City St George’s, University of London

    The Wimbledon tennis tournament in 2025 has brought us familiar doses of scorching sunshine and pouring rain, British hopes and despair, and the usual queues, strawberries and on-court stardust. One major difference with this year’s tournament, however, has been the notable absence of human line judges for the first time in 147 years.

    In a bid to modernise, organisers have replaced all 300 line judges with the Hawk-Eye electronic line-calling (ELC) system powered by 18 high-speed cameras and supported by around 80 on-court assistants.

    It has been sold as a leap forward but has already caused widespread controversy. In her fourth-round match against Britain’s Sonay Kartal, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova was forced to replay a point she had clearly won, because ELC had failed to register that a ball had landed out. Furious, Pavlyuchenkova told the umpire: “You took the game away from me … they stole the game from me.”

    British players Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper have also voiced concerns about the accuracy and reliability of the technology.

    We have seen this before in business, government and elite sport (think VAR in football). Promising technologies fail, not necessarily because the systems are flawed – though some are – but because the institutions around them have not kept up. The belief that technology can neatly replace human judgement is seductive. It’s also deeply flawed.

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    Systems like Hawk-Eye at Wimbledon offer measurable gains in accuracy, but accuracy is not the same as legitimacy. People don’t just want correct decisions, they also want understandable and fair ones. When human line judges made mistakes, they were visible and open to appeal. When a machine fails, with no explanation and no route for redress, it breeds confusion and frustration.

    Consider Formula 1. At the 2025 British Grand Prix in Silverstone, driver Oscar Piastri was handed a 10-second penalty by race stewards for erratic braking during a safety car restart. He called it inconsistent and harsh, and many fans agreed.

    The key difference? We knew who made the call. There was someone to question, and a process to scrutinise. With machines, however, there’s no one to challenge. You can’t argue with a black box, or hold it to account.

    Beyond performance

    Technology is usually introduced to improve performance or reduce costs, but the full story is rarely made explicit. Wimbledon’s adoption of the new system was framed as a move towards greater accuracy and consistency, but it was also likely driven by the desire to speed up matches, cut costs, and reduce reliance on human labour.

    Yet sport is not just about accuracy. It is entertainment. It thrives on emotion, tradition and theatre. For 147 years, line judges were part of Wimbledon’s identity. Their posture, uniforms, gestures, indeed even the drama of a close call, added to the spectacle. Removing them may have improved accuracy (and cut costs), but the atmosphere was also changed.

    Tradition is often dismissed as nostalgia, but in institutions like Wimbledon, tradition is part of what makes the experience legitimate and enjoyable. When it’s stripped away with only a token explanation, players and audiences can lose trust, not just in the change, but in the institution itself. It is a cultural change, which is never easy.

    One common solution is to combine human judgement with the technology especially during the transition period, but hybrids rarely work well in practice as responsibilities get blurred.

    In business, this is known as the “hybrid trap”: bolting new technologies onto old systems without rethinking or redesigning either. Instead of the best of both worlds, the result is often confusion, duplication and failure.

    Wimbledon did not seem to offer a formal challenge system or human override during matches. Although 80 former line judges were retained as on-court assistants, their role was not adjudicative. This might speed up play, but it leaves the system brittle. When something breaks, there is no immediate redress. We have seen this elsewhere.

    What this tells us about AI

    Wimbledon’s failure was a textbook case of poor tech adoption. Hawk-Eye did what it was designed to do, but the institution wasn’t ready, least of all the players, umpires and spectators.

    The same pattern is playing out with artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, from customer service bots to healthcare triage systems. These tools are being rolled out at speed, often with minimal oversight. When they hallucinate, embed bias or produce erratic results, there is rarely a clear route to appeal, and often no one to hold accountable.

    The real problem is not just technical but institutional. Most organisations aren’t ready for what they’re adopting. Instead of transforming themselves to harness new technologies, they bolt them onto legacy systems and carry on as before. Key questions go unanswered: Who decides? Who benefits? Who is accountable when things go wrong? Without clear answers, new technologies don’t solve dysfunction, they entrench it. Sometimes, they hardwire it.

    If we want technology to improve how the world works, we can’t just automate tasks, processes or jobs. We need to rethink and redesign the institutions these systems are meant to serve, using new capabilities these technologies make possible. Until then, even the best systems will continue to fall short, both quietly and occasionally spectacularly.

    Feng Li 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. Wimbledon’s electronic line-calling system shows we still can’t replace human judgment – https://theconversation.com/wimbledons-electronic-line-calling-system-shows-we-still-cant-replace-human-judgment-260845

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: The Bangladesh delta is under a dangerous level of strain, analysis reveals

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Md Sarwar Hossain, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science & Sustainability, University of Glasgow

    The Ganges delta in Bangladesh. Emre Akkoyun/Shutterstock

    Bangladesh is known as the land of rivers and flooding, despite almost all of its water originating outside the territory. The fact that 80% of rivers that flow through Bangladesh have their sources in a neighbouring country, can make access to freshwater in Bangladesh fraught. And the country’s fast-growing cities and farms – and the warming global climate – are turning up the pressure.

    In a recent analysis, my colleagues and I found that four out of the ten rivers that flow through Bangladesh have failed to meet a set of conditions known as their “safe operating space”, meaning that the flow of water in these rivers is below the minimum necessary to sustain the social-ecological systems that rely on them. These rivers included the Ganges and Old Brahmaputra, as well as Gorai and Halda.

    This puts a safe and reliable food and water supply not to mention the livelihoods of millions of fishers, farmers and other people in the region, at risk.

    Water flow on the remaining six rivers may be close to a dangerous state too, due to the construction of hydropower dams and reservoirs, as well as booming irrigated agriculture.

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    The concept of a safe operating space was devised by Stockholm University researchers in 2009 and typically assesses the Earth’s health as a whole by defining boundaries such as climate warming, water use and biodiversity loss which become dangerous to humanity once exceeded. A 2023 update to this research found that six of the nine defined planetary boundaries have been transgressed.

    Since the Bangladesh delta is one of the world’s largest and most densely populated (home to around 170 million people), we thought it prudent to apply this thinking to the rivers here. We found that food, fisheries and the world’s largest intertidal mangrove forest, a haven for rich biodiversity, are all under strain from water demand in growing cities such as Dhaka.

    The knock-on effects

    During all seasons but winter, river flows in the Bangladesh delta have fallen over the past three decades.

    No river in the Bangladesh delta is within its safe operating space.
    Kabir et al. (2024)

    Our analysis highlights the limits of existing political solutions. The ability of the Ganges river to support life and society is severely strained, despite the Ganges water sharing treaty between India and Bangladesh, which was signed in 1996.

    Rivers in Bangladesh have shaped the economy, environment and culture of South Asia since the dawn of human civilisation here. And humans are not the only species suffering. Hilsha (Tenualosa ilisha), related to the herring, is a fish popular for its flavour and delicate texture. It contributes 12% to national fish production in Bangladesh but has become extinct in the upper reaches of the Ganges due to the reduction of water flow.

    Excessive water extraction upstream, primarily through the Farakka barrage, a dam just over the border in the Indian state of West Bengal, has also raised the salinity of the Gorai river. A healthy river flow maintains a liveable balance of salt and freshwater. As river flows have been restricted, salinity has crept up, particularly in coastal regions that are also beset by sea level rise. This damages freshwater fisheries, farm yields and threatens a population of freshwater dolphins in the Ganges.

    Low river flows and increasing salinisation now threaten the destruction of the world’s largest mangrove forest, the loss of which would disrupt the regional climate of Bangladesh, India and Nepal. It would also release a lot of stored carbon to the atmosphere, accelerating climate change and the melting of snow and ice in the Himalayan mountain chain.

    Resilience to climate change

    Solving this problem is no simple task. It will require cooperation across national boundaries and international support to ensure fair treaties capable of managing the rivers sustainably, restoring their associated ecosystems and maintaining river flows within their safe operating spaces.

    The mighty Ganges is running dry in some parts of Bangladesh during the hotter months.
    Md Sarwar Hossain

    This is particularly challenging in the Bangladesh delta, which contains rivers that drain many countries, including China, India, Nepal and Pakistan. The political regimes in each country might oppose transboundary negotiations, which could nevertheless resolve conflict over water which is needed to sustain nearly 700 million people.

    There have been success stories, however. The Mekong river commission between Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam is a useful template for bilateral and multilateral treaties with India and Nepal for the Ganges, and China and Bhutan for the Jamuna river.

    Tax-based water sharing can help resolve conflicts and decide water allocation between countries in the river basin. The countries using more water would pay more tax and the revenue would be redistributed among the other countries who share rivers in the treaty. Additionally, water sharing should be based on the historical river flow disregarding existing infrastructure and projections of future changes.

    Reducing deforestation, alternating land use and restoring wetlands could enhance resilience to flooding and drought and ensure water security in the Bangladesh delta. Ultimately, to secure a safe operating space for the rivers here is to secure a safe future for society too.

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

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

    Md Sarwar Hossain 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. The Bangladesh delta is under a dangerous level of strain, analysis reveals – https://theconversation.com/the-bangladesh-delta-is-under-a-dangerous-level-of-strain-analysis-reveals-241097

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Five unusual ways to make buildings greener (literally)

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Dobraszczyk, Lecturer in Architecture, UCL

    Belgian architect Luc Schuiten’s vision of ‘the Vegetal City’. Luc Schuiten

    Buildings adorned with plants are an increasingly familiar sight in cities worldwide. These “green walls” are generally created using metal frames that support plastic plates, onto which pre-grown plants are inserted. These plants are able to survive without soil because they’re sustained by nutrient-packed rolls of felt and artificial sprinklers.

    Some are fabulously rich tapestries of luxuriant vegetation, like French botanist Patrick Blanc’s coating of part of the Athenaeum hotel in London. Here, small shrubs sprout from an almost tropical green wall, with an abundance of mosses and ferns. In summer, butterflies peruse the flowers. All this next to Piccadilly, one of the busiest streets in central London.

    Others are objects of ridicule: the sadly common outcome of poor design and a lack of maintenance (all green walls need careful planning and a great deal of care). If they’re not carefully tended, green walls will quickly turn into brown ones, with the plastic supports all too visible beneath the dying plants.

    But there are many others ways of integrating plants into buildings beyond simply trying to grow them on walls. Here are five examples that straddle the mundane and the marvellous.

    A wilted green wall in Tokyo, Japan.
    Wikimedia Images, CC BY

    Growing buildings

    German architectural practice Baubotanik (a word that means “botanic building”) has taken the radical step of creating buildings that flout the conventional idea of architecture as static and inert. After all, plants grow – they are living organisms.

    Baubotanik uses pre-grown trees to create multi-storey structures, with trees replacing the conventional steel girders of most tall buildings. Its Plane-Tree-Cube in Nagold, begun in 2012, is made of plane trees supported on a steel scaffold, with a built-in irrigation system to water the trees until they’re large enough for the steel to be removed.

    Baubotanik’s Plan-Tree-Cube is intended to grow into a usable structure.
    Baubotanik

    It’ll probably be another ten years before this structure is ready to be used, but as what? It’s hard to imagine making a home in such an unruly structure, let alone plugging in your internet or other electrical appliances.

    Building in trees

    Baubotanik takes grafting, an age-old horticultural technique, and uses it to create structural frames for buildings. Grafting joins the tissue of plants so that they can grow together (it’s most commonly used in the cultivation of fruit trees).

    As the architects themselves acknowledge, there are many interesting historical precedents, such as the Lindenbaum concentrated in a small region of rural Germany in northwestern Bavaria.

    These are accessible platforms built into large lime (linden) trees to accommodate dancers in a yearly ritual known as the Tanzlinden (“dance linden”), which originated in the middle of the 17th century and still happen in early September.

    In the surviving Lindenbaum in the small village of Peesten (one of around 12 that are still around), a stone stairwell spirals up to the wooden platform built inside the tree: dancing happens on this platform, while musicians provide accompaniment beneath.

    Lindenbaum in Peesten, Germany.
    Wikimedia Images, CC BY

    Weaving buildings

    It’s possible to take this practice of integrating buildings and trees one step further and imagine whole cities redesigned in this way. This has been the lifelong preoccupation of Belgian architect Luc Schuiten, particularly in his speculative drawings of “vegetal cities”.

    These are urban environments in which the branches of trees and the stems of climbing plants have become completely enmeshed with buildings made of steel and glass. One of his designs, called Habitarbres, imagines a house constructed within a living tree. The structure would flex as the tree grows, while hot-air pipes and other infrastructure would be embedded in the trunk. It’s an attempt to envisage how the infrastructure of our buildings – pipes, wire, cables and the like – can be accommodated in a living structure with its own vascular network.

    With Habitarbes, Schuiten proposes a house built within a living tree.
    Luc Schuiten

    It’s a speculative proposal, but perhaps not so different from a common building type normally associated with enterprising children, namely treehouses. Schuiten is merely taking a human desire – to live in a tree – and suggesting how it might be squared with our equally strong desire for comfort.

    Architecture as compost

    When plants die and decay they create the conditions for the next cycle of vegetal growth; they are sustainable in a way that the vast majority of our buildings are not. While there is a drive to recycle existing building materials (metals and plastics mostly), it’s another thing entirely to make buildings truly regenerative.

    Martin Miller and Caroline O’Donnell’s “Primitive Hut” project from 2017 created a building that does just this. They made a wooden lattice structure to support the growth of four red maple saplings. Another lattice decomposed over time, providing food for the growing trees. Eventually the whole structure was overwhelmed by the trees.

    Martin Miller and Caroline O’ Donnell’s ‘Primitive Hut’.
    OMG!

    In calling this a primitive hut, the architects questioned how western architectural thinking tends to see indigenous architecture as both an origin point and a model for more sustainable forms of construction. It asks whether the industrial technologies that dominate construction in the global north should be more informed by architects that have continued to build with natural and compostable materials for centuries.

    Letting be

    It’s worth remembering that we don’t have to design green buildings; given enough time, they will happen anyway.

    Moss on the roof of the Sandringham estate’s visitors’ centre in Norfolk, eastern England.
    Wikimedia Images, CC BY

    The sloping roof of my house, directly below the window where I’m writing this article, is gradually acquiring its own green patina of lichen and moss. The roof is old and I’ve been told it needs to be replaced soon. A cloud of spores and seeds peppers this and every single roof every day with the prospect of new life.

    Without any human intervention whatsoever, this process of vegetal succession can produce a complex ecosystem of not only plant but also animal life (from microbes to insects). That architects so rarely call such a surface “green” betrays something that’s deep-seated in ideas about green design. For it is precisely the absence of human control that allows vegetation to colonise a building; there is, in effect no design involved at all – unless, of course, we accept that plants have designs of their own.

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

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

    Paul Dobraszczyk 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. Five unusual ways to make buildings greener (literally) – https://theconversation.com/five-unusual-ways-to-make-buildings-greener-literally-259721

    MIL OSI Analysis –

  • MIL-OSI Analysis: Tackling the chaos at home might be the secret to a more successful work life

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Yasin Rofcanin, Professor of Management Strategy & Organisation, University of Bath

    Maria Svetlychnaja/Shuttersotck

    In a world of hybrid working and four-day weeks, most workers are asked to be agile, creative and strategic – not just at work but also at home. But what if the energy and focus workers invest into solving family life challenges could actually make them better at adapting and innovating in their jobs?

    Our recent study suggests that managing household life – what we call “strategic renewal at home” – doesn’t just benefit family functioning. It also boosts employees’ ability to generate ideas, reshape their roles and respond effectively to change at work.

    In short, proactively adapting and reorganising your home life could be a hidden asset for your career.

    “Strategic renewal” is a concept long associated with business transformation – think of a company reinventing its operations to respond to shifts in the market. But we argue that this same concept can apply to people managing life at home.

    Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK’s latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences.

    Imagine a working parent who streamlines their childcare routine, redistributes chores with their partner or introduces a new system for managing family meals. These efforts – far from mundane – are proactive, forward-thinking moves to adapt to a changing environment. That’s strategic renewal, just in a different setting.

    Our findings show that when people engage in this kind of domestic renewal, it creates powerful ripple effects, shaping how they think, feel and perform at work.

    The hidden power of home life

    We followed 147 dual-earning couples in the US over six weeks. Each week, employees reported how much they engaged in strategic renewal at home and at work. We also captured their experiences of “flow” at home (those rare, deeply focused and enjoyable moments).

    For instance, when someone is completely absorbed in gardening, painting a room, or even following a complex recipe – activities that are both enjoyable and require focus – time seems to fly. We also captured their confidence in handling challenges (self-efficacy), and their partner’s view of how well they were managing work–family balance.

    We uncovered several interesting points. Employees who took proactive steps to improve family routines felt more “in flow” at home.

    These moments of flow built their confidence (self-efficacy), making them feel more capable of tackling future challenges – not just at home, but at work too. That confidence translated into more strategic renewal at work. Employees were more likely to change how they approached tasks, pitch ideas or redesign their roles.

    Crucially, their partners also noticed. Employees high in self-efficacy were rated as better at balancing work and family, as well as being more effective in family life.

    In other words, strategic behaviour at home doesn’t stay there – it travels with us. What happens at the breakfast table can spill over into the boardroom.

    But not all environments are equal. The benefits of home-based strategic renewal were much stronger when the family was supportive of creativity. When people felt free to try new things, take risks and share ideas at home, the gains from their efforts were amplified.

    This could be as simple as trying out a new meal, brainstorming weekend plans together or encouraging a partner to experiment with a new hobby. These activities reflect openness, curiosity and support for creative expression in everyday life.

    The same was true at work. Employees who felt their organisations fostered a climate of creativity – valuing new ideas, experimentation and autonomy – were more likely to act on their confidence and engage in strategic behaviour.

    We found a big takeaway for workers. Cultivating open, creative climates in both domains makes all the difference. Encouraging new ideas at home or at work doesn’t just make people feel good – it helps workers to be flexible and adaptive.

    What employers can do

    There’s a crucial lesson here for organisations too. The home is not a “black box” – some kind of impenetrable space that has no bearing on work. Instead, home life can play an active and meaningful role in shaping employees’ energy, confidence and creative capacity. Home can be a source of renewal, resilience and even innovation.

    Forward-thinking companies should avoid treating home and work as separate silos. Instead, they can invest in developing self-efficacy in employees. This could be providing training, coaching and feedback that reinforces workers’ belief in their ability to handle challenges.

    They should also encourage family-supportive leadership. Managers who ask about employees’ home life, support flexible arrangements and accommodate caring responsibilities help create the space for home-based renewal to thrive.

    Celebrating employees – for things beyond their professional achievements – is important.
    La Famiglia/Shutterstock

    And they should recognise “off-the-clock” moments. Celebrating life milestones, offering childcare support or simply acknowledging the mental load of home life all signal that organisations value the full person, not just the professional.

    For decades, companies have looked inward for solutions to innovation and adaptability – to things like better tech, better processes and better metrics. But our study found leaders should instead look outward — toward employees’ lives beyond work.

    When employees reorganise their domestic life, they’re demonstrating foresight, adaptability and leadership. These are precisely the qualities workplaces are looking for in a world of constant disruption.

    When workplaces start seeing the home not just as a stressor but as a source of strength, they can open the door to smarter, more sustainable strategies for resilience, creativity and growth.

    So the next time you redesign your morning routine, don’t think of it as just surviving the chaos. You might just be sharpening your edge for the workday ahead.

    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. Tackling the chaos at home might be the secret to a more successful work life – https://theconversation.com/tackling-the-chaos-at-home-might-be-the-secret-to-a-more-successful-work-life-258487

    MIL OSI Analysis –